Philip Glass at Bang on a Can in June (more by Andrew Frisicano)

Philip Glass and Laurie Anderson are headlining the NYC Film-Makers Co-op Benefit at Santos Party House on November 16. Other artists performing include David Barton's band Liquid Blonde, Little Annie, Transgendered Jesus, the Love Butchers, and possibly more to be announced. Tickets for the show are on sale now.

Meanwhile, the New York Philharmonic and Philip Glass Ensemble are performing Glass's music for the 1982 film Koyaanisqatsi: A Life Out Of Balance TONIGHT (11/2) and Thursday (11/3) at Avery Fisher Hall. This will mark the first time that the New York Philharmonic have ever performed Philip Glass's music. Tickets for both shows are still available but are almost sold out so act quickly. A trailer video is below.

In other news, Beck (who recently worked with Stephen Malkmus and Thurston Moore) is working on a Philip Glass tribute remix album with producerHector Castillo. The album will feature contributions from Beck, Bjork, Lou Reed, Memory Tapes, Tyondai Braxton (ex-Battles), Amon Tobin, Roger Waters, Cornelius, and potentially more to be announced. No release date has been announced yet.

Speaking of Lou Reed, you can still stream the album he made with Metallica, "Lulu", over at loureedmetallica.com (if you dare!).

NY Philharmonic video below...

Continue reading "Laurie Anderson playing benefit w/ Philip Glass (whose work is being performed & remixed elsewhere too)"

"For more than 30 years, the orchestra has performed free concerts in the parks in July. The shows draw thousands to sit on blankets and enjoy snacks and wine while listening to the classics under the stars.

Only in New York. But not this year.

Because the Philharmonic will not be offering Sousa in Central Park, Prokofiev in Prospect Park or Ravel in Cunningham Park. Vacation scheduling does not permit it, a spokesman declared.

The voice of the Philharmonic said orchestra members need time off in July because they will be performing in three special programs in September, including a Central Park outing with operatic tenor Andrea Bocelli." [NY Daily News]

No Philharmonic in July, but there will be Black Eyed Peas, Taylor Swift, Carole King, Natasha Bedingfield, LL Cool J, Whoopi Goldberg and others in a big free benefit concert in Central Park tonight (6/9). Approximately 60,000 people are expected to show up today starting at 3:30pm. Stay home and laugh at them via the Livestream.

by Andrew Frisicano

New York Philharmonic will be hosting three raucus performances of "Kraft," a piece by their composer-in-residence Magnus Lindberg, on October 7th, 8th and 12th at Avery Fisher Hall. Also on the bill for those nights will be music by Debussy and Sibelius.

As the musicians banged and tapped against all manner of junk, it became clear that these noises are actually small motives of organized sound that will spring to life on stage in a couple of weeks. And not just any stage: the mountains of scrap metal will get their New York premiere at Avery Fisher Hall.

Composed in Berlin at a time when aggressive, post-punk bands like Einstürzende Neubauten would fill the stage with equipment rife with smoke and industrial might, Kraft became for Lindberg an attempt to channel that brutality and experimentation into the confines of a post-Sibelius classical world. Part installation, part theater, part surround-sound immersion, the performance envelops its audience with mobile percussion sections stationed around the hall, encroaching on and surrounding the audience, while a huge gong is suspended above the stage. The complex sounds of contemporary, urban life have never been so powerfully rendered. [WQXR]

Tickets for all three are on sale.

Speaking of Einstürzende Neubauten, they have some special shows coming up too.

For more Lindberg soon, Julliard ensemble Axiom will play his piece "Joy" along with Stravinsky's Symphonies of Wind Instruments and Iannis Xenakis' Okho at Peter Jay Sharp Theater on Monday, October 11th. Tickets are free (while they remain) at the box office at Julliard. Axiom also has a performance of Steve Reich's Music for 18 Musicians coming up in December. More info on that is below.

Lindberg recently scavenged through Edkin's Auto Salvage on Staten Island for pieces of scrap metal to be used in the piece. A video of that trip and another clip are below...

Continue reading "'Kraft' opening - postpunk sounds performed with junk"

by Andrew Frisicano, photos by Stephanie Berger

NYP rehearsing Nico's "Detailed Instructions" (via)

Members of New York Philharmonic and conductor/NYP music director Alan Gilbert premiered new works by Nico Muhly, Matthias Pintscher and Sean Shepherd at Symphony Space last Friday (4/16). The show was the second edition of NYP's CONTACT! series, which comissions new music from young composers and debuted in December. Online radio station Q2 will be broadcasting the performance, which included live interviews conducted by WNYC's John Schaefer, on Thursday, April 22nd at 7 pm and Saturday, April 24th at 4pm.

With a darker hued string section led by the violas, [Nico Muhly] work Detailed Instructions takes on a sound world that stood apart from the other pieces on the program. Muhly is post-minimal in orientation. And while a couple of the composers in the audience who sat near me groused at intermission that his work is 'indebted to Philip Glass,' what they didn't seem to hear was Muhly's playful departures from mainstream minimalism.

Instead of Glass' symmetrical use of ostinati, Muhly's repeating figures dart in and out of the 'expected phrase lengths,' creating delightful surprises and heady syncopations. In the more reposeful central section, he channeled an appealing lyricism from his recent pop-based excursions into a spacious orchestral mold. The third section gave the NYPO musicians a chance to up the bpm quotient, in a breakneck paced, dazzling finale. Make no mistake, Muhly is no mere retro-minimalist; quite the contrary, he's a compelling new voice on the scene. [File Under?]

As mentioned before, Nico Muhly's arrangements can be found on the new records by Jonsi and Sam Amidon.

The Symphony Space show was followed by a performance at Metropolitan Museum of Art the day after, which was the last Contact! show of the NY Phil "season" (which runs through July). The series picks up again with three new commissions next December. Pictures from Friday's show are below...

Continue reading "NY Phil's recent CONTACT! show streaming online & in pics"

DOWNLOAD: New York Philharmonic - Lei Liang's Verge (MP3)

words by Andrew Frisicano, photos by Chris Lee

composer Lei Liang speaks with conductor Magnus Lindberg...

The New York Philharmic's Contact! new music series kicked off its first installment on Thursday, December 17th at Symphony Space with four pieces written for the occasion by four very different composers (and repeated two days later at the Metropolitan Museum of Art). Conductor and NYP composer-in-residence Magnus Lindberg guided the audience in with a brief onstage conversation with each piece's composer. The personal and distinct voices that came out helped immensely in absorbing their sometimes abstract work. Arlene Sierra noted the Darwinian inspiration for her Game of Attrition, which politely pits similarly voiced instrument against one another (imagine a busy garden full of competing life). Lei Liang labeled the sources for his piece - his new son (literally, picking notes from his name, Albert) and the sounds of his Chinese roots - but those gave little warning for what came next. The piece's otherworldly, almost-electronic introduction expanded into an awesome burst of melody and abrasion. A clip of the piece, Verge, is above. NYTimes described is as such...

The opening, an atmospheric haze of sounds laced with soft bow scrapes and cosmic high harmonics, seems not very pitch-oriented. Soon, however, melodic fragments and thick, piercing chords emerge, along with a plaintive theme meant to evoke Mongolian chant.

At one point the music breaks into a grimly urgent episode, as the instruments dispatch perpetual-motion riffs. "Verge" ends in spiritual calm, though the sustained chords are still pierced with ethereal scratching sounds.

French composer Marc-André Dalbavie struck up a friendly chat with Lindberg as they reminisced about old times. And last up, Arthur Kampela absolutely bound off the stage with excitement and ideas about his piece, based on the fantastical Brazilian novel Macunaíma (from his summary, well worth checking out). It was more physically experimental than the others, with orchestra members entering and exiting through the aisles and hiding offstage for a portion of performance (to hold what sounded like a party behind a black curtain). The music resembled his verbal retelling - intriguing and quixotic - leaving a strong impression.

Hear it for yourself: The performance is bring broadcast on WQXR's Q2, the classical station's classical online stream, Tuesday, December 22 at 7pm (now) and Sunday, December 27 at 2pm. You'll have to wait until April for the next event of the series, which focuses on three composers - Nico Muhly, Matthias Pintscher and Sean Sheperd.

More pictures and a video clip from the show are below...

Continue reading "the New York Philharmonic Contact! series - first show pics, video, & broadcasts online tonight & Sunday "

Central Park - July 14, 2009 (Noel Y C)

One down, five free shows to go.

by Andrew Frisicano

"Great Lawn, 15 minutes before the concert" (jamescastle)

This July, the New York Philharmonic will play free outdoor concerts in all five NYC boroughs. Two shows are set for Manhattan, while Brooklyn, Queens, Staten Island and the Bronx each gets one... which is one more than Long Island's East Islip. The NY Phil has been performing annual free shows in the town for more than 30 years, but had to cancel its appearance at this year's concert, "cit[ing] the current economic downturn and a resultant loss of sponsors." The Long Island Philharmonic has announced it will take the group's place at the July 18th event.

At least the New York Phiharmonic is doing better than the Brooklyn Philharmonic. The 50+ year old group (vs. the NYP's 150+ years) was less well-equipped to deal with funding losses and recently canceled the remainder of its 2009 season. That's in addition to being sued by a composer who claims the orchestra "'butchered' [his] piece to avoid paying musicians overtime."

Recent Brooklyn Phil shows, that didn't get cancelled, include one with Grizzly Bear and Final Fantasy, and another with Clogs and Bell Orchestre.

The NY Philharmonic also has an upcoming free Memorial Day show. That concert will take place at Cathedral Church of St. John the Divine on Monday, May 25th.

Last year, the NYP ran a photo contest -- the above snapshot was last year's winner in the "Overall Favorite Shot" category.

All free outdoor dates below...

Continue reading "New York Philharmonic's 2009 free summer schedule + cancellations, lawsuits & other orchestra news"