NY Guitar Fest 2017 schedule (raga marathon, Lee Ranaldo, EMA, Mirah, Margaret Glaspy, more)
The annual New York Guitar Festival will return in 2017 from this Thursday (5/18) through June 8. The schedule features “cross-cultural concert programming in celebration of works for guitar” at various venues for its four-week run. Here are some highlights:
All day on Friday (5/19) at Brookfield Place Winter Garden is the FREE Raga Marathon, an “immersive guitar marathon celebrating South Asian music.” It includes a rare US appearance by Indian slide guitarist Debashish Bhattacharya. It also includes guitarist Gyan Riley (Terry’s son) collaborating with sitarist Krishna Bhatt and percussionist Dan Weiss on tabla. Guitarist/sitarist Rez Abbasi makes the world premiere of a new live score to the 1929 silent film A Throw of Dice: A Romance of India. More info on the free event here.
Debashish also gives a panel discussion on Saturday (5/20).
There’s another free panel discussion on Saturday (5/20) in the Anna-Maria and Stephen Kellen Auditorium with indie musicians Mirah, EMA and Ava Mendoza. It starts at 11 AM and it’ll be moderated by Fabi Reyna, founder and editor in chief of She Shreds. That’s one of several panels Fabi is taking part in for NYGF.
On May 25, indie rock singer/songwriter Margaret Glaspy teams with jazz guitarist Julian Lage for a unique collaborative performance at The Jerome L. Greene Performance Space (tickets). Margaret Glaspy also has a free Red Hook SummerStage show on June 22.
On June 1, alternative musician Trixie Whitley teams with Tom Waits/John Zorn collaborator Marc Ribot at The Jerome L. Greene Performance Space (tickets).
Closing out this year’s NYGF is the legendary Sonic Youth guitarist Lee Ranaldo on June 8 at The Jerome L. Greene Performance Space with tourmate Steve Gunn and former Carolina Chocolate Drops member Don Flemons (tickets).
More info and full schedule for the 2017 NYGF HERE.
