Laurie Anderson performs at Other Voices NYC: A Celebration of Music and Literature benefit concert ... Björk continues Biophilia residency in Reykjavik ... Carolina Chocolate Drops' Dom Flemons performs solo in Chicago ... Richard Goode joins the LA Philharmonic for Mozart ... Wanda Jackson tours Switzerland ... Gidon Kremer joins the Boston Symphony Orchestra for Schumann ... Audra McDonald performs two NY benefit concerts ... Pat Metheny Trio is in Budapest, as is Steve Reich ... Stephen Sondheim talks in Costa Mesa ... Rokia Traoré performs Desdemona in Berkeley ... and more ...
Laurie Anderson performs at New York's Le Poisson Rouge tonight, the second of two sold-out concerts for Other Voices NYC: A Celebration of Music and Literature. Also performing is the Irish singer Iarla Ó Lionáird, who can be heard on composer Donnacha Dennehy's Nonesuch debut album, Grá agus Bás, released earlier this year. The night also includes performances from such artists as Martha Wainwright, Glen Hansard of The Swell Season, Doveman, Sam Amidon, Roddy Doyle, Gabriel Byrne, and others.
Proceeds from the event go to benefit Fighting Words, a creative writing center in Dublin established by Roddy Doyle and Seán Love to provide free tutoring in all forms of creative writing for students of all ages.
Laurie Anderson's new exhibition, Forty-Nine Days in the Bardo, continues at the Fabric Workshop and Museum in Philadelphia, through November 19. The exhibition uses the structure of a diary and The Tibetan Book of the Dead to explore the themes of love and death, the many levels of dreaming, and illusion. This two-floor exhibition include texts as well as drawings, sculptures, projections, and sound and are made from materials including mud, foil, iron, chalk, and ashes.
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Björk's Biophilia residency in Reykjavik continues with another sold-out performance at Harpa Concert Hall tonight. As noted yesterday in the Nonesuch Journal, the Wall Street Journal's Speakeasy blog, reviewing the show, says Björk "gave a commanding performance ... sharing the joy of a magical evening." The Onion's A.V. Club says that "the mix of concert and performance art was easily summarized: stunning." The New York Times calls the larger Biophilia project "among the most creative, innovative and important new projects in popular culture."
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Carolina Chocolate Drops member Dom Flemons performs a solo set, opening for Ollabelle at the Old Town School of Folk Music in Chicago tonight. Earlier this week, it was announced that the Carolina Chocolate Drops will be playing a double-header at the 2012 Celtic Connections festival with fellow Nonesuch artists Punch Brothers in Glasgow this January.
Flemons and his fellow Chocolate Drops will reconvene at the Old Town School of Folk Music next week when they begin a five-night run of Keep a Song in Your Soul, a show celebrating the black roots of vaudeville, with Reggio "The Hoofer" McLaughlin and pianist Reginald Robinson.
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Richard Goode joins the Los Angeles Philharmonic, led by conductor Gustavo Dudamel, for three performances at the Walt Disney Concert Hall in Los Angeles this weekend, starting with tonight's "casual Friday" concert. On the program is Mozart's Piano Concerto No. 20—which Goode once recorded for the acclaimed Nonesuch album with Orpheus Chamber Orchestra—and Strauss's Also sprach Zarathustra.
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Wanda Jackson began her European tour earlier this week, making stops in the Benelux countries along the way. This weekend she continues the tour with two stops in Switzerland: the first at Les Docks in Lausanne on Saturday night, with Hanni El Khatib supporting; the second at Xtra in Zurich on Sunday, with Johnny Trouble opening.
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Gidon Kremer continues his three-night run with the Boston Symphony Orchestra at Symphony Hall in Boston this weekend, with a matinee performance today and an evening performance on Saturday. On the program are Schumann's Violin Concerto and Strauss's Ein Heldenleben.
The New York Times, reviewing Kremer's recent performance at Lincoln Center's White Light Festival, called it a night of "transcendence."
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Audra McDonald performs at the State University of New York's Purchase College Saturday night. The concert is the capstone to a gala event benefiting the college's Performing Arts Center and Neuberger Museum of Art.
On Sunday, McDonald joins fellow Nonesuch artist David Byrne, among others, at Joe's Pub in New York City for Songs For Freedom, a night to benefit the Freedom Theatre in the Jenin Refugee Camp in the Palestinian-occupied territories. The event, hosted by Pulitzer Prize-winning playwright Tony Kushner, also includes musical appearances by Suzan-Lori Parks, Aimee Mann, and Angelique Kidjo, and a special performance by the acting company of The Freedom Theatre.
It has just been announced that Jeff Blumenkrantz, the composer of the song “I Won’t Mind,” which Audra McDonald was the first to record on her 2000 Nonesuch album, How Glory Goes, has won the 2011 Fred Ebb Award for excellence in musical theatre songwriting.
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Pat Metheny and his Trio, featuring Larry Grenadier and Bill Stewart, make their way around Europe this weekend with performances at the Budapest Congress Center in Hungary tonight and at Kampnagel in Hamburg, Germany, on Sunday night. The latter performance is part of the second-annual ÜBERJAZZ Festival.
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Steve Reich is in Budapest tonight for a concert celebrating the composer's 75th birthday. He'll be in the audience at the Bartók Béla National Concert Hall for an all-Reich program performed by Kelemen Quartet, UMZE Chamber Ensemble, and Amadinda Percussion Group. The show will feature performances of Drumming as well as the Hungarian premieres of both Triple Quartet and the Pulitzer Prize-winning piece Double Sextet.
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Stephen Sondheim joins ASCAP's Michael Kerker in conversation, to discuss his extensive and legendary musical career, at the Renée and Henry Segerstrom Concert Hall in Costa Mesa, California, on Saturday night. Along with the session will be performances of some Sondheim classics by Christine Ebersole and Brian Stokes Mitchell, who can be heard on the 2001 Nonesuch recording of Sondheim's The Frogs.
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As noted earlier this week in the Nonesuch Journal, Rokia Traoré gave the US premiere performance of Desdemona, her new collaboration with director Peter Sellars and novelist Toni Morrison, at the Zellerbach Playhouse at the University of California Berkeley earlier this week. Performances continue tonight and tomorrow. The Associated Press says: "Traoré's stage presence is magnetic."
The production heads next to New York City for two performances at the Rose Theater for Lincoln Center's White Light Festival next week.
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