Natalie Merchant performs two sold-out shows at Lincoln Center's Alice Tully Hall in NYC backed by The Knights orchestra. John Adams conducts The Death of Klinghoffer in Amsterdam, broadcast on NPO Klassiek. Laurie Anderson launches European tour at Primavera Sound in Barcelona. Julia Bullock joins Kansas City Symphony for Mahler and more. Yussef Dayes tours mid-Atlantic. Hurray for the Riff Raff performs at Natural History Museum in LA. Cécile McLorin Salvant is in Utrecht. Molly Tuttle & Golden Highway open for Dierks Bentley in Michigan and Ohio, then head to Kentucky.
Natalie Merchant is joined by the New York–based orchestra The Knights to perform music from her new album, Keep Your Courage, and more in two sold-out shows at Lincoln Center’s Alice Tully Hall in New York City, tonight and Saturday. This weekend’s concerts are the start a six-city run of symphony orchestra concerts that continue in St. Louis, Newark, Providence, DC, and Chautauqua in the weeks ahead.
Keep Your Courage, Merchant’s ninth solo studio album, has received widespread critical acclaim, with the Associated Press saying it “has some of Merchant’s best songwriting, with melodies that veer from Gaelic to Middle Eastern, delving into horn-driven soul, melancholy ballads, pure pop and defiant sisterhood anthems.” “Keep Your Courage is her first of all-new material in nine years,” says Mojo in its four-star review. “It’s also her most beautiful in decades.”
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John Adams conducts the Radio Philharmonic Orchestra and Netherlands Radio Choir in a performance of his 1990 opera The Death of Klinghoffer at Het Koninklijk Concertgebouw in Amsterdam Saturday afternoon. The performance is being broadcast live on NPO Klassiek and can be heard at nporadio4.nl. The first recording of the opera, which, says the New York Times, “transmutes contemporary history into operatic poetry,” was performed by Orchestra of the Opéra de Lyon led by Kent Nagano and the London Opera Chorus and was released on Nonesuch in 1991. It is included in the 2022 forty-disc box set Collected Works.
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Laurie Anderson performs at Parc del Fòrum in Barcelona, Spain, on Saturday, as part of Primavera Sound. It’s the start of her seven-city Let X=X European tour, named after the track on her debut album, Big Science. She and the band Sex Mob play shows in Ljubljana, Ravenna, Amsterdam, Madrid, London, and Berlin.
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Soprano Julia Bullock is in Missouri this weekend, joining the Kansas City Symphony, conducted by Michael Stern, at Kauffman Center for the Performing Arts’ Helzberg Hall tonight, Saturday, and Sunday afternoon. The program includes Frederick Delius’ The Walk to the Paradise Garden, Jessie Montgomery’s Five Freedom Songs, and Mahler’s Fourth Symphony.
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Yussef Dayes headlines shows at The Queen in Wilmington, Delaware, tonight, and The Howard in Washington, DC, on Saturday, and plays a set at The Mann in Fairmount Park in Philadelphia on Sunday, as part of Roots Picnic. Dayes’ debut solo studio album, Black Classical Music, is due September 8 on Nonesuch Records in the US. He released a new track from the album, “Rust,” featuring guitarist Tom Misch, earlier in the week; you can hear it here.
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Hurray for the Riff Raff (aka Alynda Segarra) plays the Nature Gardens Stage at the Natural History Museum of Los Angeles Country tonight, as part of the museum’s First Fridays season. The event, which is free for museum members, allows attendees to explore the museum after hours with live music, DJs, topical discussions, signature cocktails, pop-up experiences, special NHM collections displays, and more. Today’s theme: superheroes.
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Cécile McLorin Salvant continues a nine-city European run in the Netherlands this weekend, bringing music from her new album, Mélusine, and more to TivoliVredenburg for a quintet performance in Utrecht on Sunday. Mélusine follows Salvant’s 2022 Nonesuch debut, Ghost Song, which recently won her the Deutscher Jazzpreis in Germany for International Vocal Album. “Anyone who thinks they already know the full extent of Cécile McLorin Salvant's artistry should listen to Mélusine without further delay,” exclaims Jazzwise. “It's a remarkable recording in several respects. Beautifully recorded, Salvant continues to confound and delight at every turn.”
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Molly Tuttle & Golden Highway are special guests of Dierks Bentley at Pine Knob Music Theatre in Clarkston, Michigan, tonight, and Blossom Music Center in Cuyahoga Falls, Ohio, on Saturday. Tuttle and the band play a set at The Infield at Red Mile in Lexington, Kentucky, on Sunday for the Railbird Music Festival. Their new album, City of Gold, due July 21 on Nonesuch, follows their acclaimed 2022 label debut, Crooked Tree, which won the Grammy Award for Best Bluegrass Album. They released a new track from the upcoming album, “Next Rodeo,” earlier this week and a video filmed in the studio, which you can watch here.
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