Vagabon's tour with Weyes Blood heads to Colorado, Utah, and Idaho. Thomas Adès’s Paradiso gets its Italian premiere in Rome. Tyondai Braxton and Mary Halvorson are in Norway. Tigran Hamasyan's StandArt tour hits France and Spain. The Magnetic Fields kick off a US tour with shows in Denver. Brad Mehldau plays solo in Italy. Cécile McLorin Salvant tours Portugal. Jeff Parker performs at Chicago Psych Fest.
Vagabon, who released a new song, “Carpenter,” earlier this year, kicked off a three-week North American tour as special guest of Weyes Blood in the Midwest this week. The tour heads west for three shows this weekend: at Gothic Theatre in Englewood, Colorado, tonight, The Depot in Salt Lake City on Saturday, and the Knitting Factory in Boise on Sunday. The tour continues Vancouver, Seattle, Portland, San Francisco, Phoenix, Santa Fe, Austin, and Dallas, culminating at Cain's Ballroom in Tulsa on April 2.
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Composer Thomas Adès’s Paradiso, part of Dante, his three-acts work based on Dante Alighieri’s La Divina Commedia, was given its Italian premiere by Orchestra e Coro dell’Accademia Nazionale di Santa Cecilia at Santa Cecilia Hall in Rome last night. Performances continue there tonight and Saturday. The premiere recording of Dante, made by the Los Angeles Philharmonic and its Music & Artistic Director Gustavo Dudamel in concert at Disney Hall, will be released April 21 on Nonesuch Records and is available to pre-order here. “In any new shortlist of great ballet scores by Tchaikovsky, Stravinsky, Bartók, Ravel, Prokofiev, Britten, and Bernstein,” says the Los Angeles Times, “Dante must newly be included for its musical invention alone.”
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Tyondai Braxton makes his Norwegian solo concert debut with the premiere of a new solo set at Henie Onstad in Olso on Saturday. Braxton’s performance features video projections by visual artist Grace Villamil. This first studio recording of Braxton's Telekinesis—an eighty-seven-piece work for electric guitars, orchestra, choir, and electronics—featuring Metropolis Ensemble, Brooklyn Youth Chorus, and chamber choir The Crossing was released on Nonesuch in November; the Times exclaims: "It's remarkable."
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Mary Halvorson is in Norway as well, continuing her European tour with the Amaryllis Sextet—trumpeter Adam O'Farrill, trombonist Jacob Garchik, bassist Nick Dunston, drummer Tomas Fujiwara, and vibraphonist Patricia Brennan—in a concert at Sardinen USF Verftet in Bergen tonight. Nonesuch Records released Halvorson’s twin label debut albums, Amaryllis, which featured all of the performers in the Sextet, and Belladonna, with Mivos Quartet, last year. The Guardian called them “new landmarks in Halvorson’s already inimitable discography."
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Tigran Hamasyan continues his European tour with performances at Théâtre de Caen in Caen, France, tonight and Auditorio Nacional de Música in Madrid on Saturday. Hamasyan will be joined by bassist Rick Rosato and drummer Jonathan Pinson to perform music from StandArt, his new album of American standards. Hamasyan and the trio on the album—bassist Matt Brewer and drummer Justin Brown—filmed a full concert performance of songs from StandArt, in France, which you can watch here.
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The Magnetic Fields kick off a three-week US tour with two sold-out shows at Swallow Hill Music’s Daniels Hall in Denver tonight and Saturday. The tour includes songs from throughout their career, from 69 Love Songs to the autobiographical 50 Song Memoir and their most recent album, Quickies. The band heads next to Arizona, Texas, Missouri, Ohio, Pennsylvania, and New York.
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Brad Mehldau performs a solo show at Teatro Bellini in Naples, Italy on Saturday. His new live solo album, Your Mother Should Know: Brad Mehldau Plays The Beatles, was released on Nonesuch last month. Mojo gives it four stars, calling it “an inspired set that reveals new ways of hearing pop classics." Mehldau’s book, Formation: Building a Personal Canon, Part I, was released on Equinox Publishing earlier this week.
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Cécile McLorin Salvant spends this weekend in Portugal with performances at CCB in Lisbon tonight and Cine-Teatro Avenida in Castelo Branco on Saturday. Her new album, Mélusine, 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, is due next Friday.
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Jeff Parker returns to his former hometown of Chicago to perform at The Hideout tonight and Saturday as part of the annual Chicago Psych Fest. Parker, a recent Deutscher Jazzpreis nominee for International String Instruments, is joined on the lineup by Joshua Abrams, Tim Kinsella, Bill Vermette, and more.
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