1. Lukas Ligeti’s Benefit of Clergy
Date: Wednesday, Decemember 14 , 2011
Time: 8pm
Venue: Café Orwell (247 Varet St., in Bushwick, Brooklyn by the Morgan Ave. L-Train stop)
Ticket: free
Genre: nu Jazz/improv
Lukas Ligeti (Vienna, Austria) is a composer and percussionist. His work incorporates elements of jazz, contemporary classical, and various world musics. For this show he invited Hannis Brown (voice, electronics, etc.), Hypercolor: Eyal Maoz (guitar) and James Ilgenfritz (bass). He is playing on the drums.
2. The Irondale Center presents Issue Project Room “Vidas Perfectas”
Date: Thursday through Saturday, Decemember 15th through 17th , 2011
Time: 8pm
Venue: The Issue Project Room at The Irondale Center (85 South Oxford Street, Brooklyn, NY 11217, 718-488-9233)
Ticket: $25
Genre: a comic opera
Robert Ashley’s Vidas Perfectas, a new Spanish-language production of the ground-breaking television opera Perfect Lives (1983), will premiere at Irondale Theater in Brooklyn, directed by Alex Waterman. With the blessing of Ashley, Waterman is directing an entirely new version of Perfect Lives for the 21st century, from a Spanish translation by Javier Sainz de Robles. The cast and crew includes downtown musician and author Ned Sublette, Elio Villafranca as “Buddy, the World’s Greatest Piano Player,” Peter Gordon as the producer and sound designer, and Sarah Crowner, set designer. Vidas Perfectas will represent all seven of the opera’s episodes as a full stage and television production.
Vidas Perfectas from ISSUE Project Room on Vimeo.
Alex Waterman says, “Robert Ashley changed the game completely. There is no other composer living today that has been able to create an entirely new kind of opera. Others have innovated, played with, polished up, improved upon or just added to the form as it has existed for the last few hundred years. Ashley brings us a totally new form of opera that makes sung speech sound like talk, synthetic orchestration sound like unconscious thought, and the performance feel like a dream that we can’t wake from. Ashley didn’t just reinvent opera. He has re-imagined the American musical landscape.”
A brief synopsis of Vidas Perfectas
Raoul de Noget (no-zhay’) and his friend Buddy, “The World’s Greatest Piano Player,” have come to a small town close to the border between Mexico and Los Estados Unidos, to entertain at ‘La Vidas Perfectas Lounge.’ Raoul, a Cuban, grew up north of the Border, and Buddy (also Cuban) grew up on the other side of the border. As one of the characters in the opera describes Buddy after they become known in town, “There’s no doubt that the Mexican is in it. The doubt is if he’s Mexican.”
Raoul and Buddy fall in with two locals, ‘D’ (the ‘Captain of the Football Team’) and his sister, Isolde. They conspire to commit the ‘perfect crime,’ a metaphor for something philosophical: to remove a large amount of money from The Bank for one day (and one day only) and let the whole world know that it is missing — crime if they are caught, art if they are not. A couple of innocents, Ed and Gwyn, head for the border with ‘D’ and his friend Dwayne (‘who has trouble being understood’), to elope and get married. They are, without knowing it, carrying the money (from the Bank) in the trunk of the car. According to the plan, the missing money will be discovered to be back in the Bank the next day.
Among the colorful characters that journey through the opera’s seven episodes are a loving pair of unnamed old people from the Home for Old People, the Sheriff and his wife (Will and Ida), who finally unravel the mystery of the crime, and Isolde who watches the celebration of the changing of the light at sundown — amid a picnic of her neighbors — and who knows that the perfect crime has been successful.
3. INTERPRETATIONS: Wadada Leo Smith’s 70th Birthday Celebration
Date: Thursday & Friday, December 15 & 16, 2011
Time: 8:30pm
Venue: The Roulette (509 Atlantic Ave, Brooklyn, NY 11217, 917-267-0363)
Ticket: $15
Genre: Jazz/contemporary
A Two-day celebration for innovative composer and trumpeter Wadada Leo Smith in honor of his 70th Birthday. December 15th features Leo Smith’s Golden Quartet (with Angelica Sanchez, piano, John Lindberg, bass and Pheeroan AkLaff, drums), Mbira (with Min Xiao Fen, pipa, and Pheeroan AkLaff, drums) and his String Quartet plus Thomas Buckner, voice, and Smith on trumpet. December 16th features Leo Smith’s Golden Quintet (adding Susie Ibarra on drums), Silver Orchestra, & Organic.
4. Lukas Ligeti
Date: Friday, December 16 , 2011
Time: 8pm
Venue: Outpost Artist Resources (1665 Norman St., Ridgewood (technically in Queens – by the Halsey L-train stop)
Ticket: $10
Genre: electronics
Lukas Ligeti (born in Vienna, Austria) is a composer and percussionist. His work incorporates elements of jazz, contemporary classical, and various world musics. Tonight is Lukas Ligeti solo on electronics. Shared evening with Nate Wooley, plus a video screening; curated by Jonah Rosenberg.
5. Welcome to the DRONESPHERE: Didge Project album Release Party
Date: Friday, December 16, 2011
Time: 8pm
Venue: City Life Wellness (75 Frost St., Brooklyn, NY)
Ticket: $15
Genre: In the DRONESPHERE anything can happen…
Didge Project presents The “As One” album release party
Didge Project, a didgeridoo awareness organization, was founded by AJ BLOCK and Tyler Sussman who left California in the summer of 2008 to challenge themselves and see the world outside of their hometown. Both were originally jazz musicians but when they encountered the didgeridoo somewhere on their trip, AJ and Tyler were transformed by the sounds of this ancient Australian instrument. They found out that the didgeridoo with its emphasis on breath and circular breathing was not just an instrument to play with but also a way of life, a path to self-knowing and self-healing. Short after arriving in NY they founded Didge Project as the head organization of many didgeridoo related projects. It has since evolved into a larger community and movement….
Welcome to the DRONESPHERE
Rhythm and drone unite with retina-stimulating visuals and edible delights to create the DRONESPHERE, a sensory experience like no other. In celebration of the release of our new album, Didge Project will fill the DRONESPHERE with spontaneous live music throughout the night. Featuring high-vibe vegetarian food, kombucha, DJ Srikalogy and other special musical guests, Welcome to the DRONESPHERE is not to be missed. Prepare for the unknown.
Featuring:
Didge Project (www.didgeproject.com)
House of Waters (www.houseofwaters.com)
DJ SriKalogy (www.srikalogy.com)
Tripp Tabla and Kevin Mbira of Kaleidhaphonic (www.kaleidhaphonic.com)
Brooke Gillespie // KA (http://kawaken.bandcamp.com/)
Adam (www.adamcollett.com)
Xango Shola (www.xangoshola.com)
didgeridoo healing with Alokananda (http://www.alokananda.com/)
Performances by members of the New York didgeridoo community
6. Hazmat Modine
Date: Saturday, December 17, 2011
Time: 7pm
Venue: TERRA BLUES (149 Bleecker Street, NYC, Ph: 212-777-7776)
Ticket: t.b.a.
Genre: American roots
One of New York’s most original bands, Hazmat Modine delivers a rustic, deliriously Dionysian blend of whorehouse Blues, Reggae, Klezmer, Country and Gypsy-tinged music. The band features the dueling harmonicas of front-man Wade Schuman and his sparring partner Randy Weinstein, funky tuba powerhouse Joseph Daley, guitarists Michael Gomez and Pete Smith, trumpeter Pam Fleming and drummer Rich Huntley.
7. Serious Heart Attack and Friends at Don Pedro!
Date: Sunday, December 18, 2011
Time: 8:00
Venue:Don Pedro (90 Manhattan Ave, Brooklyn, NY 11206)
Ticket: donation
Genre: all kinds of music styles
Come out to this one, Sunday, Dec. 18, Pre-X-Mas Mayhem….. Starts with world jazz noise, then gets wilder……
8:00 SoSaLa Nu-World Trash jazz
9:00 Parakeets – drum and bass mayhem
10:00 Serious Heart Attack – friendly neighborhood lost soul punk noise
11:00 Boogerstorm – mad mystery duo……..
