Dr. John launches his three-week residency at BAM with a Louis Armstrong tribute, then heads home to New Orleans for a free show in the NCAA Big Dance Concert Series Sunday; The Black Keys play Saturday ... Alarm Will Sound performs John Adams's Son of Chamber Symphony in Michigan ... Björk headlines Lollapalooza Chile ... Carolina Chocolate Drops launch West Coast tour in Portland and Seattle ... Shawn Colvin plays outside DC ... Jeremy Denk joins San Francisco Symphony for American Mavericks at Carnegie Hall ... Dawn Upshaw gives a recital in San Francisco ... and more ...
Dr. John launched his three-week residency at the Brooklyn Academy of Music (BAM), titled Dr. John: Insides Out, last night with a tribute to Louis Armstrong at the BAM Howard Gilman Opera House. The Armstrong concerts continue through Saturday night. Joining Dr. John for the all-star celebration are Kermit Ruffins, Rickie Lee Jones, Arturo Sandoval, Blind Boys of Alabama. Next weekend is the centerpiece of the residency, a three-night run of concerts featuring the premiere of music from Dr. John's new album, Locked Down, for which he'll be joined by the album's producer, Dan Auerbach of The Black Keys, and a handpicked band. Dr. John: Insides Out concludes April 12–15 with Funky But It’s Nu Awlins, a funk-infused night of New Orleans music, featuring key players from the Crescent City. For tickets, head to bam.org now.
Following the BAM concerts this weekend, Dr. John heads back home to New Orleans to perform at the NCAA Big Dance Concert Series on Sunday. The free concerts celebrate the NCAA Men’s Final Four and will take place in Woldenberg Park all weekend, with Dr. John set to take the stage Sunday at 4:30 PM—and that's no April Fool's.
For folks unable to make it to New Orleans, Dr. John can be heard on BBC Radio 2's Bob Harris for an interview and three-song session Sunday. Tune in online at bbc.co.uk.
Auerbach will join band mate Patrick Carney as The Black Keys headline the NCAA Big Dance concerts Saturday afternoon with a free concert in Woldenberg Park starting at 3:15 PM with a viewing party of all the Final Four action to follow. Tune in to NPR's World Cafe today to hear an encore broadcast of the band's latest appearance on the show, recorded in the run-up to the release of their new album, El Camino.
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Alarm Will Sound performs John Adams's Son of Chamber Symphony at two concerts Michigan this weekend, at Oakland University’s Varner Recital Hall in Rochester tonight and at Western Michigan University’s Dalton Center Recital Hall in Kalamazoo on Saturday. The program also includes works by Orfe, Wuorinen, Cage, and Aphex Twin.
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Björk headlines the Lollapalooza Chile festival at Parque O’Higgins in Santiago, closing down the main stage Saturday night.
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Carolina Chocolate Drops resume their North American tour on the West Coast this weekend. They perform at the Crystal Ballroom in Portland, Oregon, tonight, and at Showbox at the Market in Seattle on Saturday.
"Eclecticism is one of the charms of this Grammy-winning black North Carolina string band," writes Seattle Times jazz critic Paul de Barros in a preview of Saturday's show. "The other is how lightly it wears its considerable scholarship. Though it specializes in African-American folklore, the group doesn't lecture the crowd so much as give a respectful nod to its sources, then launch into a foot-stomping good time.
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Shawn Colvin has two shows in the Mid-Atlantic this weekend, performing at The Birchmere in Alexandria, Virginia, tonight, and a sold-out show at Rams Head On Stage in Annapolis, Maryland, on Saturday.
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Jeremy Denk joins Michael Tilson Thomas and members of the San Francisco Symphony in Carnegie Hall’s Zankel Hall tonight for the culminating concert of the month-long American Mavericks festival. On the program are Steve Reich’s Music for Pieces of Wood and the New York premieres of Meredith Monk’s Realm Variations and Morton Subotnick’s Jacob’s Room: Monodrama. Jeremy Denk's Nonesuch Records debut, Ligeti/Beethoven, is due out May 15 and is now available to pre-order in the Nonesuch Store.
The American Mavericks festival at Carnegie Hall also included the New York premiere of John Adams's Absolute Jest on Monday by Tilson Thomas and the San Francisco Symphony. The New York Times music critic Anthony Tommasini, in his review of the concert, calls it "Adams through and through. The brilliant St. Lawrence String Quartet dispatched the bustling solo parts, and the audience erupted in bravos."
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Dawn Upshaw gives a recital accompanied by pianist Stephen Prutsman at the Herbst Theatre in San Francisco on Sunday. The program includes works by Purcell, Schubert, Debussy, Weill, Osvaldo Golijov, and others. The Winnipeg Free Press, reviewing Upshaw’s performance of Golijov works with the Winnipeg Symphony Orchestra last week, reports: “The audience of 808 leapt to their feet after both pieces with cheers of bravo, demanding several curtain calls from a wonderfully gifted artist.”
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