Kronos Quartet closes season close to home at Art in the Redwoods and Rancho Nicasio ... John Adams conducts A Flowering Tree at Lincoln Center's Mostly Mozart ... Shawn Colvin headlines Oakland's Art & Soul Fest ... Bill Frisell goes solo at Oslo ... Richard Goode performs Beethoven at Marlboro Music closer ... Low Anthem plays VA and PA ... Brad Mehldau comes home to NY's Smoke ... Joshua Redman Trio plays Scandinavian fests ... Wilco does too ... and more ...
Kronos Quartet closes out its 2008–09 season with two shows just north of its home base of San Francisco this weekend. The Gualala Arts Center in Gualala, California, hosts the 48th annual Art in the Redwoods festival, where Kronos performed at the opening "Top Hat" dinner last night and will perform a full program Saturday night, featuring pieces from its most recent Nonesuch release, Floodplain, as well as works by Bryce Dessner, Sigur Rós, Thomas Newman, and Café Tacuba, plus the world premiere of Terry Riley's The Welcoming Baptism of Sweet Daisy Grace.
On Sunday, the season ends where it began last summer, with an afternoon barbecue at Rancho Nicasio in Nicasio, California. Kronos's David Harrington tells the Marin Independent Journal that the relaxed, rustic environment of an afternoon BBQ at the ranch is hardly an inhospitable place to play or incompatible with group's artistic efforts. Quite the contrary. "The place is part of nature in a really nice way, so the colors are vivid and beautiful," says Harrington. "As a matter of fact, it's that sense of family combined with the natural beauty of the setting that has inspired the program that we'll play that day." On the program are additional pieces from Floodplain, Clint Mansell's Requiem for a Dream Suite, and the West Coast premiere of Missy Mazzoli's Harp and Altar, unveiled earlier this month at Brooklyn's Prospect Park. Read more about the event at marinij.com.
While some concerts in the 2009–10 season have already been scheduled, look for an announcement of the complete concert schedule in the coming weeks.
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John Adams's latest opera, A Flowering Tree, described by The New Yorker as "one of the most lush and beautiful of his works," received its New York premiere as part of Lincoln Center's Mostly Mozart festival last night with the composer, the festival's artist-in-residence, conducting. Performances, held at Lincoln Center's Rose Theater, continue tonight and Sunday.
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Shawn Colvin's new Live album, released on Nonesuch earlier this summer, is among the Christian Science Monitor staff's recommendations this week. The Monitor describes Colvin as a frequently mentioned inspiration to singer-songwriters, "a class act as songwriter and performer, best experienced live," and says the new album "functions as the perfect introduction if you don't know her, and a long-awaited greatest-hits collection if you're already a fan." Those in the Bay Area can catch her live when she headlines the first day of the Art & Soul Festival in downtown Oakland, California, on Saturday.
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Bill Frisell gives a rare solo concert on the final day of the Oslo Jazz Festival at Oslo's Kulturkirken Jakob on Saturday. This concert replaces a planned duo performance with Charlie Haden and Kenny Barron. Tune in to NPR's All Things Considered this Sunday, August 16, to hear Bill Frisell discuss his new Nonesuch album, Disfarmer. You'll be able to listen online and watch a slide show of works by Mike Disfarmer, the photographer who inspired the record, at npr.org.
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Marlboro Music, the famed summer intensive music program for talented young professional musicians of which Richard Goode is co-artistic director with Mitsuko Uchida, comes to a close this weekend with a final concert performance on Sunday afternoon. The highlight is sure to be the traditional season closer, a performance of Beethoven’s “Choral” Fantasy, featuring Goode, with students from the program as the orchestra and a gathering of singers and non-singers alike providing the choral part.
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The Low Anthem, which has just announced a continuation of its tour through the fall, continues the current string of dates this weekend. The group headlines at the Downstairs Lounge of The Canal Club in Richmond, Virginia, tonight; joins with Langhorne Slim at Ottobar in Baltimore, Maryland, on Saturday; and plays the Philadelphia Folk Festival at Old Pool Farm in Schwenksville, Pennsylvania, Sunday.
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Brad Mehldau joins bassist Peter Washington and drummer Joe Farnsworth for six sets over two nights at Smoke in New York City, with saxophonist Eric Alexander joining for tonight's shows. The New York Times's Nate Chinen sees it as something of a throwback for Mehldau, who performed at the club that had previously occupied Smoke's space when he was a student in the city. Chinen says Mehldau "plays a literate derivation of hard bop with a couple of other veterans of that scene."
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Joshua Redman's Double Trio recently offered "hefty helpings of envelope-stretching contemporary jazz" (Boston Herald) to the crowd at the 55th Newport Jazz Festival. This weekend, Redman and his Trio, featuring Matt Penman on bass and Greg Hutchinson on drums, make the Scandinavian festival rounds. They perform at the Nasjonal Jazzscene Victoria in Oslo, Norway, for the closing weekend of the Oslo Jazz Festival tonight, and at the Helsinki Festival's Huvila Festival Tent on Saturday. It's their last scheduled date in Europe, with the next scheduled performance in Indianapolis next month.
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Wilco began its European festival tour last night at the Oya Festival in Oslo, Norway. There's more in Scandinavia this weekend as the band plays the Way Out West festival at Slottsskogen in Göteborg, Sweden.
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