Steve Reich’s 80th birthday is celebrated with a free marathon event at NYC's Symphony Space … Laurie Anderson plays NYC … Timo Andres is in London … The Bad Plus Joshua Redman reunite in Reno … Jeremy Denk performs in upstate NY … Rhiannon Giddens launches US tour out West … Richard Goode gives a recital at Duke … Tigran Hamasyan is in Estonia … Yo-Yo Ma, Chris Thile, Edgar Meyer play Bach in California, where The Magnetic Fields tour too … Caetano Veloso, Teresa Cristina are in Spain … and more …
Composer Steve Reich’s 80th birthday, which took place in October, is being celebrated around the world throughout the concert season, including the Wall to Wall Steve Reich marathon event at Symphony Space in New York City on Sunday. The special, free event, which begins at 3 PM and runs into the night, includes a conversation with Reich and fellow composer Stephen Sondheim; a performance of Clapping Music with Reich himself and Alarm Will Sound; and performances of Radio Rewrite by Alarm Will Sound and Piano Counterpoint by Vicky Chow, both of which are featured on Reich’s latest Nonesuch release, Radio Rewrite, which NME called “deeply affecting … a great showcase of a compelling mind.” Also on Saturday’s all-Reich program are performances of The Desert Music, Different Trains, Electric Counterpoint, City Life, Double Sextet, selections from The Cave, and WTC 9/11.
“Celebrations of this crucial contemporary composer’s eightieth birthday have been a highlight throughout the season,” says the New Yorker, “but none has been more elaborate or extensive than this latest entry in Symphony Space’s long-standing free-marathon tradition.”
"When he began, Reich was an outsider," NPR says. "Now his work is embraced by temples of high culture around the world."
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Laurie Anderson helps celebrate the 10th anniversary of the Highline Ballroom in New York City with a performance on Saturday. Anderson recently spoke with the New York Times for a feature titled “Laurie Anderson’s Glorious, Chaotic New York,” in which she shares some thoughts on the city, the past, the present, and her late husband, Lou Reed, who helped inaugurate the Highline Ballroom with an opening night performance this week in 2007. You can read the article here.
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Timo Andres heads to the Barbican Centre in London this weekend, performing in The Barbican Classical Weekender: Sound Unbound 2017 marathon. He joins fellow pianist David Kaplan for a two-piano performance of Stravinsky’s The Rite of Spring at Milton Court Concert Hall on Saturday. On Sunday, Andres joins trumpeter Alison Balsom, clarinetist Jay Farrall, and the Britten Sinfonia, conducted by Clark Rundell, in performing Gershwin’s Rhapsody in Blue and Miles Davis’s Sketches of Spain at Barbican Hall.
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The Bad Plus Joshua Redman reunites for a one-night-only performance at the University of Nevada in Reno tonight. The debut album from the eponymous quartet, released on Nonesuch in 2015, was called "a knockout" by the New York Times and "a roaring and beautiful summit meeting" by NPR. The Kansas City Star, reviewing a performance in that city last year, wrote that it was “wildly exuberant improvised music that might have permanently altered [the audience’s] perception of jazz,” as well as a “convincing manifesto” on the genre’s “infinite possibilities.”
Redman hits the road next month with the Jorge Rossy Vibes Quintet, lending his saxophone for a string of dates in Spain, Germany, and Switzerland.
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Devendra Banhart gives a DJ set at the Super Tight 2 Year Anniversary event at the Cinefamily in Los Angeles on Saturday, with all proceeds to benefit the ACLU.
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Pianist Jeremy Denk brings his Medieval to Modern program—six centuries of Western music, from the Medieval and Renaissance eras through Bach, Beethoven, and Brahms to Stockhausen and Philip Glass—to Union College in Schenectady, New York, on Sunday afternoon. The Telegraph calls the program “exhilarating.”
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Rhiannon Giddens begins an extensive US tour, featuring music from her new album, Freedom Highway, with a set at the Stagecoach Festival in Indio, California, tonight, followed by two shows in Arizona: at Rialto Theatre in Tucson on Saturday and MIM Music Theater in Phoenix on Sunday.
Giddens released Freedom Highway earlier this year to critical acclaim. The Guardian calls it a “powerful and timely set,” while Pitchfork exclaims: "Rhiannon Giddens emerges as a peerless and powerful voice in roots music.”
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Pianist Richard Goode gives a solo recital at Baldwin Auditorium at Duke University, in Durham, North Carolina, tonight. He performs Bach’s Partita in E Minor and Beethoven’s Piano Sonatas Nos. 28, 30, and 31.
The Los Angeles Times calls the pianist’s approach to Bach “a small miracle of sensitivity, expression and nuance,” while the New York Times describes his Beethoven performances as “remarkable” and “surprisingly intimate,” praising his playing both for its “organic naturalness” and “unerringly lyric sensibility.”
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Tigran Hamasyan continues his world tour, featuring music from his new album, An Ancient Observer, with a performance at Vaba Lava in Tallinn, Estonia, on Saturday as part of the JazzKaar Festival.
DownBeat says the new album is “simply breathtaking." Rhythms praises Hamasyan for his “remarkably evocative sense of melody” and “easy verve, subtlety, inventiveness and fluidity that ensures there’s always a surprise in the next track.” London Jazz News writes of a recent show there: “It’s a rare work of art that can transport you four thousand years back in time and show you the present … [Hamasyan’s] synthesis of styles and forms is breathtaking.”
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Cellist Yo-Yo Ma, mandolinist Chris Thile, and bassist Edgar Meyer continue their nine-city US tour, in support of their new album, Bach Trios, in California this weekend: playing a sold-out show at Bing Concert Hall in Stanford on Saturday, followed by a performance at Hearst Greek Theatre in Berkeley on Sunday. The tour concludes next week with performances in Santa Barbara and Los Angeles.
Bach Trios, released earlier this month, comprises works by J.S. Bach originally written for keyboard instruments, plus one sonata for viola da gamba. The Observer gives the album four stars, finding the trio in “perfect harmony.” The Times of London calls it "irresistible." The trio was on NPR's Here and Now this week to discuss and perform from the album; you can listen to the interview and watch the performance here.
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The Magnetic Fields bring the 50 Song Memoir concert tour to California this weekend as well. The group performed the first program (songs 1–25) at Royce Hall at UCLA in Los Angeles yesterday, and completes the set with songs 26–50 there tonight. The stage extravaganza, directed by José Zayas, heads to Fox Theatre in Oakland on Sunday and Monday.
Stephin Merritt, who wrote one song for every year of his life for the project, recently spoke to the Los Angeles Review of Books about the literary influences on his music; you can read the interview here.
Pitchfork calls 50 Song Memoir "an immersive, incisive listen ... It suggests that our deepest wisdom can be located in our most personal thoughts." The Wall Street Journal calls it "a highly entertaining summary of pop culture of the past half-century … 50 Song Memoir is a treat." You can watch several music videos for the album, originally created for the tour, here.
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Caetano Veloso and Brazilian samba singer Teresa Cristina continue their month-long tour of Europe in Spain this weekend: performing at Palau de la Música Catalana in Barcelona tonight and Palacio da Ópera in La Coruña on Sunday. The Times of London gave their tour-opening show at the Barbican last weekend four stars, writing that Veloso’s performance “glowed in the dark,” while praising Cristina as “vivacious and witty.”
Veloso and fellow legendary Brazilian musician Gilberto Gil’s live double album, Dois Amigos, Um Século de Música: Multishow Live, was released on Nonesuch last year, as was Cristina’s live album and DVD, Canta Cartola.
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