The Staves take their acoustic tour to Hamden, CT, and Williamsburg. John Adams conducts Toronto Symphony Orchestra. Ambrose Akinmusire performs new piece in the Netherlands and Austria. Rhiannon Giddens and Silkroad Ensemble perform American Railroad in Ann Arbor and Nashville. Emmylou Harris is in New Orleans. Mandy Patinkin and family chat in Glen Ellyn, IL. Cécile McLorin Salvant tours Germany. Caroline Shaw, Gabriel Kahane, and Roomful of Teeth are in Denver.
The Staves—the duo of Jessica and Camilla Staveley-Taylor—have kicked off a US acoustic tour in support of their new album, All Now, which continues this weekend with a show at Space Ballroom in Hamden, Connecticut, on Saturday, and the Music Hall of Williamsburg in Brooklyn on Sunday. “One of the strongest releases of the band’s career,” Atwood Magazine says of the new album. “A product of passion and perseverance, soul-searching and self-knowing, All Now is an emboldened, cathartic release that sees The Staves basking in beautiful folk rock pastures as they take on the world ... utterly enchanting—a catchy, cohesive, and many-sided listening experience with endless returns.” The duo recently released an acoustic cover of the Beatles’ “She’s Leaving Home,” from their upcoming digital EP, Happy New Year, due November 22; you can hear it here.
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John Adams returns to Roy Thomson Hall in Toronto tonight to conduct the Toronto Symphony Orchestra in the second performance this week. The program includes the Canadian premiere of Adams’s 2023 piece Frenzy, co-commissioned by the orchestra; “This is Prophetic!” from his seminal opera Nixon in China, sung by Anna Prohaska; his arrangement of Debussy’s Le Livre de Baudelaire; and Ravel’s Alborada del Gracioso.
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Composer and trumpeter Ambrose Akinmusire is joined by vocalist Kokayi, pianist Sam Harris, drummer Justin Brown, and Mivos Quartet string quartet to perform his new work honey from a winter’s stone at De Oosterpoort in Groningen, Netherlands, on Saturday, as part of Rockit Festival, and at Festspielhaus St. Pölten in Austria on Sunday. Akinmusire was named Trumpeter of the Year in the DownBeat Critics Poll, and his Nonesuch debut album, Owl Song, featuring Bill Frisell and Herlin Riley, made the Jazz Albums of the Year list. "A quiet rush of gorgeous sound where space, tone and beauty come together in one of the most impactful albums of 2023," says DownBeat. "This is one of the most interesting recordings to come along in a very long time by one of the most interesting artists of our time."
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Rhiannon Giddens and Silkroad Ensemble, of which she is artist director, kicked off the fall leg of their American Railroad tour, featuring music from their new album of the same name, in Chicago last night. Giddens and members of the group give an early playback of the full album, out next week, in a free listening party and chat on Bandcamp today at 1pm before performing at the University of Michigan’s Hill Auditorium in Ann Arbor, tonight, and Schermerhorn Symphony Center in Nashville, on Sunday. American Railroad is the culmination of four years of research, collaboration, and music-making, having brought Silkroad artists all across the US to uncover and uplift stories of those who built the transcontinental railroad and connecting railways across North America. "The result is a tapestry of stories, traditions, and music that have shaped our multifaceted cultural identity, and that must be heard and recognized," Giddens says.
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Emmylou Harris plays the Orpheum Theatre in New Orleans tonight for Tulane University’s Tipping Point benefit, the eighth annual fundraising concert for student scholarships. Harris’s second Nonesuch album, Stumble Into Grace, was released on vinyl for the first time last year in a limited cream-colored edition for its twentieth anniversary. Newsweek declared: “Her stellar voice takes on new depth when tied to songs this personal.”
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Mandy Patinkin and his wife Kathryn Grody lead a conversation moderated by their son Gideon Grody-Patinkin at the McAninch Arts Center outside his hometown of Chicago in Glen Ellyn, Illinois, on Sunday. Patinkin will be continuing his Being Alive tour—a collection of his favorite Broadway and classic American tunes from the likes of Irving Berlin, Stephen Sondheim, Cole Porter, Harry Chapin, and more—later this month.
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Cécile McLorin Salvant and pianist Sullivan Fortner are in Germany this weekend, performing at Die Glocke in Bremen on Saturday, before being joined by the rest of her band— bassist Yasushi Nakamura and drummer Kyle Poole—at Bayer Erholungshaus in Leverkusen on Sunday. Salvant was named Female Vocalist of the Year in the DownBeat Critics Poll, and her latest album, Mélusine, made the Jazz Albums of the Year list. “The massively creative vocalist delivers a tour de force in several languages recounting the legend of Mélusine,” the magazine says.
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Caroline Shaw and Gabriel Kahane have two shows at the Newman Center for the Performing Arts in Denver this weekend. Kahane shares a double bill with the vocal ensemble Roomful of Teeth, of which Shaw is a member, tonight, then he and Shaw return for a duo set on Saturday performing their collaborative work Hexagons, co-commissioned by the Newman Center and inspired Jorge Luis Borges’s 1939 short story “The Library of Babel.”
Roomful of Teeth can be heard on Caroline Shaw’s new score to Ken Burns’ upcoming film LEONARDO da VINCI, along with Attacca Quartet, Sō Percussion, and John Patitucci. You can get it on vinyl and CD and hear it here. The film premieres on PBS November 18 and 19.
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