Remember: Daylight Savings Time ... Carolina Chocolate Drops bring "playful bent" to NYC's Bowery Ballroom ... Vinicio Capossela concludes US tour in California ... Perspectives: Kronos Quartet continues at Carnegie Hall ... The Low Anthem headline ... The Magnetic Fields play third sold-out set at NYC's Town Hall ... Brad Mehldau goes solo in France ... Pat Metheny's Orchestrion tour of Europe continues ... Nicholas Payton is in residence at Village Vanguard ... Chris Thile plays his Mandolin Concerto with Winston-Salem ... Jeff Tweedy performs solo benefit shows at Chicago's Vic Theatre ... Dawn Upshaw, Emanuel Ax perform Chopin, Schumann at Barbican Hall ... and more ...
Just a quick reminder for those of you observing Daylight Savings Time: don't forget to turn your clocks ahead one hour Saturday night so you don't miss any of Sunday's performances!
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The Carolina Chocolate Drops close out the first leg of their current US tour this weekend with a sold-out set at the Stone Mountain Arts Center in Brownfield, Maine, on Saturday, and a gig at Bowery Ballroom in New York City Sunday night.
"The trio has a playful bent," writes the New York Times's Amanda Petrusich, "but their more traditional cuts are just as spirited." Wired magazine says: "In today’s world of autotunes, beat machines, lip-syncing, and flashier-is-better-than-sounding-great artists, the CCDs are definitely refreshing. Who said all of the young people are lost?"
Up next, the Drops will be perform in an ASCAP showcase at SXSW in Austin next week, followed by a five-day stint back in their homestate of North Carolina for the Black Banjo Gathering, held at Appalachian State University in Boone. The band met at the event back in 2005. The tour continues into April and May.
The Carolina Chocolate Drops' recent appearance on NPR's Fresh Air is featured in the latest Culturetopia podcast, NPR's weekly round-up of the very best of its arts and cultural stories, at npr.org. The Arkansas Democrat-Gazette gives the band's Nonesuch debut, Genuine Negro Jig, an A-. "From fiddle-on-fire stompers to heartbreaking laments, the Carolina Chocolate Drops," says review Ellis Winder, "are timely and timeless."
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Vinicio Capossela concludes his weeklong tour of North America with two concerts in California this weekend: tonight at Bimbo's 365 Club in San Francisco and Saturday at El Rey Theatre in Los Angeles. Capossela's latest album, The Story-Faced Man, is now available digitally from the Nonesuch Store.
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Kronos Quartet continues its four-concert run in Carnegie Hall's Zankel Hall through the weekend, following last night's all-Terry Riley program. Tonight's concert is titled Playing with Toys & Technology, tomorrow it's Tundra Songs, and Sunday, the Perspectives: Kronos Quartet concerts concluded with Music Without Borders, featuring music from the group's latest Nonesuch release, Floodplain, among other works.
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The Low Anthem's headlining tour of United States began last night with two shows in Washington, DC. The shows continue all weekend with openers Lissie and Annie and the Beekeepers: tonight at Philadelphia's First Unitarian Church; Saturday at Cat's Cradle in Carrboro, North Carolina; and Sunday at Smith's Olde Bar in Atlanta.
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The Magnetic Fields conclude the US leg of the tour behind their recent Nonesuch release, Realism, with the last of three sold-out concerts at New York's Town Hall tonight. The European tour begins next week in the UK.
The New York Times sums up Wednesday's show at Town Hall as "entertaining with a folksy palette of despondency." Reviewer Nate Chinen describes Stephin Merritt's clever songwriting style as "the oldfangled alchemy of wit, craft and subtext that tends to get coded as drollness" and the new album as "liltingly pastoral" with "a folksy palette that has been closely adapted for the tour."
The Worcester Telegram-Gazette gives the album three stars. Reviewer Craig S. Semon says, "If you like you pop music with smarts and your doses of reality harsh, then the Magnetic Fields’ latest, Realism is the record for you." He calls the album "another tour de force (or farce) for Magnetic Fields singer-songwriter Stephin Merritt, who supplies plenty of pop smarts (as in intelligence, as well as those that hurt) on the cruel ironies of life." Read the review at telegram.com.
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Brad Mehldau, whose latest Nonesuch release, Highway Rider, is due out next week, is in Europe performing a number of solo sets, including two this weekend in France: tonight at Marseille's Théâtre de la Criée and Saturday at Le Prisme in Saint Quentin en Yvelines.
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Pat Metheny's Orchestrion tour continues to make its way through Europe, stopping at the Volkshaus in Zurich, Switzerland, tonight, and at the Burgerhaus in Stuttgart, Germany, on Saturday.
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Nicholas Payton's weeklong residency at the Village Vanguard in New York City runs through Sunday with multiple performances each weekend night. The New York Times's Nate Chinen says that Payton's 2008 Nonesuch album Into the Blue "neatly synthesizes his dual allegiance to hard bop and slinky groove.
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Chris Thile takes a few days from his tour with Punch Brothers to perform his Mandolin Concerto with the Winston-Salem Symphony at the Steven Center in Winston-Salem, North Carolina. Performances take place Saturday, Sunday, and Tuesday. Also on the program, titled The Miraculus Mandolin: An Evening with Chris Thile, are Bach's Brandenburg Concerto No. 2 in F Major and Tchaikovsky's Serenade for Strings in C Major.
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While Wilco gears up for its mostly sold-out US tour this spring, Jeff Tweedy performs two special solo sets at Chicago's Vic Theatre tonight and Saturday. Proceeds from the concerts to go to benefit Chicago youth scholarships.
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Dawn Upshaw joins pianist Emanuel Ax for a performance of works by Chopin and Schumann at London's Barbican Hall tonight. The pair brings the program to Carnegie Hall's Stern Auditorium in New York next week.
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