1. Jenny Scheinman’s Mischief & Mayhem w/ Nels Cline, Jim Black and Todd Sickafoose
Date: Monday, February 20, 2012
Time: 7:30pm
Venue: Le Poisson Rouge (158 Bleecker Street, New York, NY 10012, ph: 212- 505-3474)
Ticket: $18
Genre: Jazz/experimental
Jenny Scheinman, violin / Nels Cline, guitar / Trevor Dunn, bass / Jim Black, drums
The luminous aspects of the violinist’s songbook take a backseat when she leads this wonderfully frenzied outfit. Nels Cline’s cyclone guitar work is often up front, but the music’s architecture demands full participation from all, so drummer Jim Black’s pummels and bassist Todd Sickafoose’s tub-thumping are crucial. Neat trick: even Scheinman’s most menacing squalls have a bit of romance to them. – Jim Macnie for the Village Voice
2. Amir ElSafar: TWO RIVERS ENSEMBLE
Date: Tuesday, February 21, 2012
Time: 7:30 & 9:30 pm
Venue: JAZZ STANDARD (116 East 27th Street, New York, NY 10016-8942, 212-576-2232)
Ticket: $20
Genre: Jazz/Iraqi Jazz
- Amir ElSaffar – trumpet, santur
- Ole Mathisen – tenor and soprano saxophone
- Tareq Abboushi – buzuq
- Zafer Tawil – oud, percussion
- Carlo DeRosa – bass
- Tyshawn Sorey – drums
The Iraqi-American musician Amir ElSaffar is at the forefront of that group of creative thinkers – including pianist Vijay Iyer and saxophonist Rudresh Mahanthappa – who are incorporating the traditional musical styles of their cultural backgrounds with modern sensibilities. Whether playing trumpet in a jazz context, or singing and playing the 70-string santur in an Iraqi setting, ElSaffar brings a depth of emotion and authenticity to his music that has intrigued fellow musicians and enchanted audiences around the world. His latest recording, Inana(Pi Recordings), “avoids the sensationalistic and touristic in favor of the sincere and investigatory, searching for a common or at least consonant elements of the vocabularies of jazz and classical Arabic music.” (John Corbett, DownBeat, four and a half stars)
3. Philip Glass Tune-In Music Festival
Date: February 23 – 26, 2012
Time: check website
Venue: Park Avenue Armory (643 Park Avenue, NY, NY 10065, 212-616-393)
Ticket: check website
Genre: various
Highlights Include:
A World Premiere by Hal Wilner, Bill Frisell and Ralph Steadman
Glass’s Music in Twelve Parts
An Evening of Music and Poetry with Patti Smith and Philip Glass
and Glass’s Another Look At Harmony
Comprised of five separate programs over the span of four days, the Tune-In Music Festival will feature Glass’s own music, including his definitive work Music in Twelve Parts, as well as music, poetry, and art created and performed by his muses, collaborators, and protégées.
KADDISH on Thursday, February 23, 2012 at 7:30pm – One of the greatest works to emerge from the Beat Generation was Allen Ginsberg’s Kaddish, a sprawling, propulsive poem about the poet’s estrangement from Judaism. The 2012 Tune-In Music Festival will begin with a world premiere, commissioned by the Park Avenue Armory from jazz guitarist Bill Frisell, to be performed by the composer and an eight-piece ensemble accompanying a reading of Kaddish by Ginsberg collaboratorHal Willner and artist Ralph Steadman, who will create the visual design and staging to accompany the piece. (Runs 75 minutes with no intermission)
PHILIP GLASS AND PATTI SMITH: THE POET SPEAKS on Friday, February 24, 2012 at 7:30pm – Longtime Glass collaborator Patti Smith and her band join Glass for the second concert, “The Poet Speaks,” performing music and readings celebrating their favorite poets, including Ginsberg and William Blake, which will be the first New York performance for the pair. (Runs approx. 90 Minutes with no intermission)
MUSIC IN 12 PARTS on Saturday, February 25, 2012 at 5:00pm – For the third concert, The Philip Glass Ensemble will offer a rare performance of the entire Music in Twelve Parts, Glass’s epic minimalist composition which he considers his “breakthrough” work. (Runs a total of 5 hours including two short intermissions and one hour long dinner break)
AFTERNOON CONCERT on Sunday, February 26, 2012 at 2:00pm – The final day of the Festival will begin with compilation of unique artists that Philip Glass has assembled and represent the forward momentum of contemporary music. (Runs a total of 2 hours 15 minutes with one Intermission)
ANOTHER LOOK AT HARMONY – PART IV on Sunday, February 26, 2012 at 7:30pm – The Festival concludes with Glass’s Another Look at Harmony, a choral work Glass started in 1975 for organ and 100 voices, performed by the Brooklyn Youth Chorus, the Collegiate Chorale, and organist Michael Riesman, music director and keyboardist of The Philip Glass Ensemble. (Runs 62 minutes with no intermission)
About Philip Glass
For more than five decades, Glass continues to be at the forefront of contemporary music and art. In the early 1960s, Glass spent two years of intensive study in Paris with Nadia Boulanger and while there earned money by transcribing Ravi Shankar’s Indian music into Western notation. By 1974, Glass had a number of innovative projects, creating a large collection of new music for The Philip Glass Ensemble and for the Mabou Mines Theater Company. This period culminated in Music in Twelve Parts and the landmark opera Einstein on the Beach for which he collaborated with Robert Wilson. Since Einstein, Glass has expanded his repertoire to include music for opera, dance, theater, chamber ensemble, orchestra, and film. His scores have received Academy Award nominations (Kundun, The Hours, Notes on a Scandal) and a Golden Globe (The Truman Show). Symphony No. 7 and Symphony No. 8—Glass’ latest symphonies—along with Waiting for the Barbarians, an opera based on the book by J.M. Coetzee, premiered in 2005. Several new works have been unveiled recently, including Book of Longing, a collaboration with Leonard Cohen (2007, Luminato, Toronto Festival of Arts and Creativity) and Appomattox (2007, San Francisco Opera), an opera about the end of the Civil War. The English National Opera performed Glass’ Satyagraha in London in conjunction with New York’s Metropolitan Opera who performed the piece in New York in April 2008. His most recent opera Kepler premiered in Linz in September 2009. Glass continues to tour solo and with The Philip Glass Ensemble.
