John Adams leads the LA Phil, Julia Bullock, and others in performances of his opera Girls of the Golden West at Walt Disney Concert Hall in LA. Kronos Quartet performs at Carnegie Hall’s Zankel Hall and in Saratoga Springs. Brad Mehldau's quintet is at Village Vanguard in NYC through Sunday. Mandy Patinkin is at Strathmore in Bethesda. Cécile McLorin Salvant is in California, at the Mondavi Center in Davis and Bing Concert Hall in Stanford. The Black Keys DJ in NYC.
John Adams leads the Los Angeles Philharmonic, soloists including Julia Bullock, and the Los Angeles Master Chorale in performances of his 2017 opera Girls of the Golden West at Walt Disney Concert Hall in Los Angeles tonight and tonight and again Sunday afternoon. Adams released a video last which in which he discusses how great operas throughout history confront deep issues of our human existence, and how contemporary operas explore themes of humanity, intolerance, and power through the lens of recent history; you can watch it here.
Halfway across the world, the Finnish Radio Symphony Orchestra led by David Robertson and pianist Orli Shaham perform Adams’ Must the Devil Have All the Good Tunes? at Musiikkitalo in Helsinki, Finland; the BBC Symphony Orchestra performs “Panic” from Adams’ Doctor Atomic Symphony as part of a family concert Our Precious Planet at Barbican Hall in London Saturday; BallettCompagnie Oldenburg premieres a new ballet, Expressive Slide, by Regina van Berkel set to Adams’s The Dharma at Big Sur at the Staatstheater in Oldenburg, Germany, also Saturday. You can hear these pieces in the forty-disc box set John Adams Collected Works released last year on Nonesuch here.
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Kronos Quartet is in New York for a return to Carnegie Hall’s Zankel Hall tonight. On the program are works by Angélique Kidjo, Peni Candra Rini, Aftab Darvishi, Soo Yeon Lyuh, Mazz Swift, Eiko Otake, Mary Kouyoumdjian, Vân-Ánh Võ, and Nicole Lizée. Kronos then heads upstates to perform at Universal Preservation Hall in Saratoga Springs on Sunday. That program includes selections from the Zankel program plus works Aleksandra Vrebalov, Bob Dylan, Abel Meeropol, and Terry Riley.
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Brad Mehldau continues his weeklong residency at the Village Vanguard in New York City with performances tonight, Saturday, and Sunday. Joining Mehldau for the week’s shows are Dayna Stephens on saxophone, Josh Evans on trumpet, Christian McBride on bass, and Joe Farnsworth on drums.
"Brad Mehldau is arguably the greatest working jazz pianist," writes the New Yorker's Andrew Marantz. They wander among Mehldau's old West Village haunts to discuss his upcoming album, Your Mother Should Know: Brad Mehldau Plays The Beatles, and his new memoir in the latest issue's Talk of the Town, ahead of his Vanguard residency. You can read it here.
Mehldau recently released videos of him performing The Beatles’ “Your Mother Should Know” and “I Am the Walrus” at the Village Vanguard, both songs from his upcoming album. The live solo album, due February 10, features interpretations of nine songs by John Lennon and Paul McCartney and one by George Harrison. The album, recorded in September 2020 at Philharmonie de Paris, ends with a David Bowie classic that draws a connection between The Beatles and pop songwriters who followed.
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Mandy Patinkin continues his Being Alive tour of the US East Coast with a performance at The Music Center at Strathmore in Bethesda, Maryland, on Saturday. The concert is a collection of many of Patinkin’s favorite Broadway and classic American tunes, from Irving Berlin and Cole Porter to Stephen Sondheim and Harry Chapin.
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Cécile McLorin Salvant is in California this week, performing at the Mondavi Center’s Jackson Hall in Davis tonight and Bing Concert Hall in Stanford on Saturday.
It was announced yesterday that Cécile McLorin Salvant’s new album, Mélusine, will be released March 24 on Nonesuch. Mélusine features a mix of five originals and interpretations of nine songs, dating as far back as the 12th century, mostly sung in French along with Occitan, English, and Haitian Kreyòl, that tell the folk tale of Mélusine, a woman who turns into a half-snake each Saturday after a childhood curse by her mother. The track “D’un feu secret,” Michel Lambert’s 1660 air de cour, was released yesterday, along with an animated video by Amanda Bonaiuto that may be seen here.
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Back in New York City, The Black Keys’ Dan Auerbach and Patrick Carney spin some vinyl in DJ sets at The Sultan Room on Saturday night as part of the release party for the new album from The Arcs.
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