Steve Reich premieres new piece with LA Phil; Three Tales performed in Long Beach … Devendra Banhart plays Long Beach too … David Byrne brings American Utopia to Manchester, Amsterdam … Jeremy Denk joins Helsinki Philharmonic … Emmylou Harris speaks at Country Music Hall of Fame … Gabriel Kahane takes Book of Travelers to Texas … Kronos Quartet is in Oslo … Lake Street Dive plays Columbus, Ithaca … Mountain Man takes Magic Ship to Omaha, Denver … Conor Oberst helps Get Out the Vote in Omaha … Mandy Patinkin performs Diaries in Honolulu … Rostam joins musical guest Maggie Rogers on Saturday Night Live ...
Composer Steve Reich’s new piece Music for Ensemble and Orchestra receives its world premiere performances by the Los Angeles Philharmonic, conducted by Susanna Mälkki, at Walt Disney Concert Hall last night, tonight, Saturday, and Sunday afternoon. The program also includes Mahler’s Symphony No. 5.
“Steve Reich played a big part in setting off the Minimalism revolution in music that toppled the 12-tone authorities from power over classical composition. He also helped bring elements of tonality and groove back into the mainstream,” writes the Los Angeles Times’ Richard Ginell in an interview with the composer. “And at 82, he continues to astonish his fans with new music.” You can read what Reich had to say here.
Further south, the Long Beach Opera, led by Andreas Mitisek, performs Three Tales, the digital documentary opera by Reich and video artist Beryl Korot, at the Ernest Borgnine Theatre in Long Beach on Saturday and Sunday. The New Yorker calls Three Tales “a major work, a sneaky sort of tragic masterpiece, whose sounds and images haunt the mind for days.” Nonesuch released the first recording, performed by the Steve Reich Ensemble and Synergy Vocals, in 2003.
As noted elsewhere in the Nonesuch Journal, the first recording of Steve Reich’s Different Trains / Electric Counterpoint returns to vinyl today for the first time in more than twenty-five years.
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Also in Long Beach, Devendra Banhart plays a set at Queen Mary Park on Saturday, as part of Tropicália Festival. He heads to the Netherlands next week as a co-curator of and performer at Le Guess Who? festival.
Banhart’s latest album, Ape in Pink Marble, released on Nonesuch in 2016, is “excellent,” says Uncut, which praises the singer-songwriter as an “accomplished shaper of moods and atmosphere.”
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David Byrne concludes his American Utopia UK arena run at Manchester Arena tonight. He and the band play a sold-out show at AFAS Live in Amsterdam on Sunday and conclude the European leg of the tour at Zénith in Paris on Monday. They close out a year of performances with concerts in Hong Kong, New Zealand, and Australia this month.
“Byrne’s American Utopia tour may be one of the most remarkable, joyous, inventive live experiences ever,” exclaims the Brighton Argus in its five-star review of this week’s Brighton Centre show. “A triumphant mix of theatre, ballet and music that’s constantly surprising. A thrilling, beautifully choreographed 100 minutes.”
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Jeremy Denk joins the Helsinki Philharmonic Orchestra, led by Domingo Hindoyan, for Beethoven’s Piano Concerto No. 1 at Helsinki Music Centre in Finland tonight. The program also includes Edward Elgar’s Symphony No. 1.
As noted yesterday in the Nonesuch Journal, Denk's new album, c.1300–c.2000, due in February, is available to pre-order now with an instant download of Binchois's Triste Plaisir.
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Emmylou Harris takes part in a public conversation about her life and work at the Country Music Hall of Fame and Museum’s CMA Theater in Nashville on Saturday afternoon. The interview, part of the museum’s new exhibition, Emmylou Harris: Songbird’s Flight, streams live at countrymusichalloffame.org. On Sunday morning, the museum screens Emmylou Harris and the Hot Band’s 1978 PBS Soundstage performance.
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Gabriel Kahane brings music from his new album, Book of Travelers, to Texas this weekend, with concerts at Cactus Café in Austin tonight and The Cliburn in Fort Worth on Saturday.
Rolling Stone calls Book of Travelers “a stunning portrait of a singular moment in America.” “Extraordinary,” exclaims the San Francisco Chronicle, “vivid and wholly original.”
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Kronos Quartet, joined by Iranian vocal duo Mahsa & Marjan Vahdat, brings Music for Change: The Banned Countries to Cosmopolite Scene in Oslo, Norway, tonight. The program, recently given its world premiere at Stanford, highlights the rich diversity of artistic voices from Muslim majority countries and, in protest against the travel bans issued by the Trump administration in 2017, features music from the original seven, largely Muslim-majority countries on the list—Iran, Iraq, Libya, Somalia, Sudan, Syria, and Yemen.
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Lake Street Dive takes its North American Free Yourself Up tour to Newport Music Hall in Columbus, Ohio, tonight, followed by a sold-out show at State Theatre in Ithaca, New York, on Saturday. The band plays two nights at New York City’s Beacon Theatre on Monday and Tuesday.
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Mountain Man performs music from its recently released Nonesuch debut album, Magic Ship, at the Waiting Room in Omaha tonight and Bluebird Theater in Denver on Saturday.
“It feels like a really honest form of connection, and it's a special, wild thing that we all happened to meet each other at the same time and discover this thing,” Alexandra Sauser-Monnig tells The Bluegrass Situation in a new interview with the trio. “Magic is part of the definition.”
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Conor Oberst plays a hometown show at B.Bar in Omaha on Sunday, as part of local congressional candidate Kara Eastman’s Get Out the Vote kickoff event.
Oberst was a recent guest on the LSQ podcast with host Jenny Eliscu, in a special two-part interview. You can listen to both episodes here.
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Mandy Patinkin brings his Diaries 2018 tour to the Hawaii Theatre Centre in Honolulu on Saturday. Accompanied by pianist Adam Ben David, he performs music from Diary: January 27, 2018 and Diary: April/May 2018, the first two in a series of musical installments with pianist/producer Thomas Bartlett released on Nonesuch earlier this year.
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Rostam performs on Saturday Night Live on NBC as special guest of Maggie Rogers, the show's musical guest this week. Jonah Hill is the host.
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