Lianne La Havas unveils new music at Afropunk Fest in Brooklyn ... John Adams's I Was Looking at the Ceiling and Then I Saw the Sky gets LA premiere ... Louis Andriessen’s De Materie is performed in Germany ... Gidon Kremer, Kremerata Baltica play three nights at Switzerland's Sion Music Festival ... k.d. lang performs surrounded by the Rockies in Colorado for the Wake Up Festival ... Nickel Creek tours Texas ... Conor Oberst concludes his European tour in Portugal ... and more ...
British singer-songwriter Lianne La Havas celebrates her 25th birthday with a performance at Commodore Barry Park in the Fort Greene neighborhood of Brooklyn, New York, on Saturday, as part of the tenth-annual Afropunk Fest. She appears on the Green Stage at 7PM to showcase some of the new material she’s been working on for her next album.
La Havas released her debut album Is Your Love Big Enough? on Nonesuch Records in 2012. NPR Music, which placed the record on its year-end best-of list, wrote, “Like a lost gem from the fusion-frantic early-‘70s soul era, this epic exploration of one young woman’s creative process sweeps you up with its girl-group handclaps and African guitar line, as the young British singer lays her Nina Simone-loving heart on the line.”
For details on entry to this weekend’s two-day festival, visit afropunkfest.com.
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John Adams’s 1995 “songplay” I Was Looking at the Ceiling and Then I Saw the Sky receives its long-overdue Los Angeles premiere in a Long Beach Opera performance outdoors at LA's Ford Amphitheatre on Saturday. The piece, with a libretto by the late poet June Jordan, uses the 1994 Northridge, California, earthquake as a starting point to explore race, gender, and immigration issues among young Angelenos. This concert staging, presented by the LA County Arts Commission 20 years after the earthquake, is conducted by Artistic Director Andreas Mitisek and stars Cedric Berry, Bernard Holcomb, Zeffin Quinn Hollis, Andrew Nguyen, Lindsay Patterson, Zipporah Peddle and Holly Sedillos.
Nonesuch Records released the debut recording of Ceiling/Sky in 1998, featuring Audra McDonald, among others.
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Louis Andriessen’s 1988 piece De Materie concludes its run at Kraftzentrale in Duisburg, Germany, this weekend, with performances tonight, Saturday, and Sunday afternoon, as part of the Ruhrtriennale Festival. Directed and produced by Festival Artistic Director Heiner Goebbels, the staged production, which received its German premiere last week, is performed by the Ensemble Modern Orchestra and features singers Evgeniya Sotnikova and Robin Tritschler.
“This the liveliest recording of a contemporary opera I’ve ever heard,” writes The Arts Desk’s Graham Rickson of Andriessen’s La Commedia, released this summer on Nonesuch Records. “Andriessen's trademark propulsive minimalism is there in places, but this score is dazzlingly eclectic.”
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Gidon Kremer and his Kremerata Baltica chamber orchestra have a three-night run at Théâtre de Valère in Sion, Switzerland, tonight, Saturday, and Sunday, as part of the 50th anniversary Sion Music Festival. Tonight’s program—entitled “Seasons”—comprises Leonid Desyatnikov’s The Russian Seasons, which can be heard on the musicians’ 2003 Nonesuch album of the same name, and Philip Glass’s The American Four Seasons accompanied by video projections; Saturday sees an “Animal Harmonics” concert for children; and Sunday features music inspired by Flamenco singing and dancing by Spanish composers Turina and de Falla.
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Singer-songwriter k.d. lang performs surrounded by the Rocky Mountains in Estes Park, Colorado, tonight, as part of the Wake Up Festival, a five-day gathering of spiritual leaders, authors, yogis, and more presented by Sounds True. She will engage in an interview with Sounds True founder, Tami Simon, before the concert, and participate in a special presentation of Tools for Peace, the national educational non-profit of which lang is a board member.
Tools for Peace developed the program “Stop, Breathe & Think,” a mindfulness and compassion building in-school curriculum, and in January, lang helped launch an accompanying app for iPad and iPhone, a free tool to guide people of all ages and backgrounds through meditations. Version 2.0 was released late last month and is available at the iTunes App Store.
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Brad Mehldau, who celebrates a birthday on Saturday, is the subject of a special edition of Geoffrey Smith's Jazz show on BBC Radio 3 late Saturday night. Tune in then or listen again via bbc.co.uk for a week after the broadcast.
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Nickel Creek brings the second leg of its US summer tour to Texas this weekend, with a performance at the Majestic Theatre in Dallas tonight and two sets at ACL Live at the Moody Theatre in Austin: a sold-out set on Saturday and a Sunday night show. Special guest Sarah Jarosz offers opening sets along the way. The tour, which features the music of Nickel Creek’s new album, A Dotted Line, and more, continues through the end of the month with performances out West in Arizona, New Mexico, and Colorado.
The band returns to the Moody Theatre on Monday to tape a new episode of Austin City Limits for future broadcast on PBS, marking the trio’s third appearance on the show, which celebrates its 40th anniversary this year. ACL will stream the performance live via YouTube.
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Conor Oberst concludes his European tour with a set at Praia do Tabuão in Paredes de Coura, Portugal, tonight, performing on the main Vodafone Stage of the Paredes de Coura Festival.
Oberst heads back across the Atlantic to kick off the second leg of his US tour in Salt Lake City on September 14. The fall tour, which continues to celebrate the release of Oberst’s Nonesuch debut album, Upside Down Mountain, will feature supporting sets by special guest Jonathan Wilson.
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Steve Reich's Electric Counterpoint, performed by Jonny Greenwood on the forthcoming Nonesuch release Radio Rewrite, will receive its radio premiere on BBC Radio 3's Saturday Classics program guest hosted this weekend by Mary Anne Hobbs of BBC 6 Music.
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