John Zorn News

Wendy Eisenberg is a guitarist, banjo player, songwriter, composer, and improviser currently living in Western Massachusetts, and working primarily in Boston and New York City. She has written and performed in numerous projects, including the critically acclaimed experimental band Birthing Hips, described by NPR as “brainy, noisy punk based in sonic adventure, technical mastery, and rejection of the status quo.”

The "thoughtful and intense" (New York Times) violinist Jennifer Koh, "a prodigious builder of musical bridges" (Los Angeles Times), brings her most recent commissioning project Limitless to Saint Paul on Wednesday, January 9, 2019 at 7:30 p.m. at The Amsterdam Bar & Hall.

As part of the string quartet's 20th anniversary season, ETHEL returns to BAM with Circus: Wandering City, a multimedia musical journey into the history of the iconic Ringling Bros. and Barnum & Bailey Circus that explores and honors the complex relationship between circus troupes, their performers, and the audiences they inspired. 

As part of the string quartet's 20th anniversary season, ETHEL returns to BAM with Circus: Wandering City, a multimedia musical journey into the history of the iconic Ringling Bros. and Barnum & Bailey Circus that explores and honors the complex relationship between circus troupes, their performers, and the audiences they inspired. 

This Saturday evening, October 20th, the 'Silence Presents' concert series is proud to bring Guelph jazz lovers the award-winning, genre-bending, Toronto-based duo of musicians David Buchbinder and Dave Restivo, who will create frames for improvisation with jazz & classical repertoire and their own, uncategorizable compositions, as they spin sound out of nothingness, right into your ears.

American Composers Orchestra (ACO) will open its 2018-2019 season with a concert honoring Phenomenal Women presented by Carnegie Hall in Zankel Hall on Friday, November 2, 2018 at 7:30pm. The performance, conducted by ACO Music Director George Manahan, will feature the world premiere of Valerie Coleman's Phenomenal Women performed by the Imani Winds with ACO; as well as the world premiere of Alex Temple's Three Principles of Noir with singer Meaghan Burke, director Amber Treadway, and costumes by Storm Garner. Grammy and Grawemeyer Award-winning composer Joan Tower's Chamber Dance from 2006, which treats the orchestra as a chamber ensemble, completes the program.

American Composers Orchestra (ACO) will open its 2018-2019 season with a concert honoring Phenomenal Women presented by Carnegie Hall in Zankel Hall on Friday, November 2, 2018 at 7:30pm. The performance, conducted by ACO Music Director George Manahan, will feature the world premiere of Valerie Coleman's Phenomenal Women performed by the Imani Winds with ACO; as well as the world premiere of Alex Temple's Three Principles of Noir with singer Meaghan Burke, director Amber Treadway, and costumes by Storm Garner. Grammy and Grawemeyer Award-winning composer Joan Tower's Chamber Dance from 2006, which treats the orchestra as a chamber ensemble, completes the program.

VDSQ and Tzadik records are happy to announce the twin debut releases of Wendy Eisenberg, a peripatetic improvising guitarist. Wendy's music questions where guitar music comes from and where it is headed. Her work on both of these records evokes the genres of metal, blues, art song, jazz, noise, and the history of Brazilian guitar music, while avoiding the popular riffs that typically denote those forms. These slant references to genre and tradition are cagey and literary, challenging and emotional, and above all concerned with mood as an aesthetic practice.

Michot's Melody Makers, a trio led by its namesake Louis Michot (lead singer / fiddler with Grammy winners Lost Bayou Ramblers), will be celebrating therelease of its debut album with a month-long, Monday night residency at d.b.a. in New Orleans, immediately preceded by a Brooklyn performance. The album Blood Moon was recorded at Dockside Studios in Maurice, Louisiana this Summer, produced and engineered by Korey Richey (LCD Sound System, Lost Bayou Ramblers); featured guests include Colby Leger on accordion, Ashlee Michot on t-fer (triangle), and Bad Chad on percussion. Blood Moon is being issued on12' vinyl LP by Sinking City Records late this November. 

The Kitchen is pleased to welcome back acclaimed instrumentalist and composer Tyshawn Sorey to present three evenings of performances offering the fullest overview of his various working methods to date-including intergenerational collaborations and ritual works, as well as pieces featuring his percussion cage, modern jazz comprising highly-detailed forms that contain harmonic chromaticism and varying degrees of ensemble interplay, and a newly-formed ensemble that integrates spoken word, turntablism, and spontaneous composition.

On Saturday, September 8, 2018 at 8pm, Black Mountain College Museum + Arts Center (BMCM+AC) presents a special, free preview concert by Grammy-nominated vocalist Theo Bleckmann and jazz guitarist Ben Monder, part of BMCM+AC's celebration of its new permanent home at 120 College St. in downtown Asheville. For over 15 years, the Theo Bleckmann & Ben Monder Duo has toured the U.S., Europe, and Asia creating a unique approach to what might be called 'jazz art song,' blurring the boundaries between jazz, classical, ambient and rock.

Terry Riley, the father of minimalism and 'guru of American music' (The New York Times), will share the stage with LCD Soundsystem's analogue 'synth wizard' (NPR) Gavin Rayna Russom for a world premiere collaboration at National Sawdust - the music incubator and venue in Williamsburg, Brooklyn. The duo's performance on September 15, 2018 emphasizes National Sawdust's commitment to creating a fertile artistic environment for revered artists to foster the next generation's emerging talents while opening their diverse, wide-ranging fourth season. The Opening Weekend lineup also includes a celebration of Riley's work directed by composer-conductor and National Sawdust Artist-in-Residence Julian Wachner and featuring The Choir of Trinity Wall Street and NOVUS NY, and Devon Welsh kicking off the series of concerts curated by the Brooklyn-based AdHoc.

The Eli and Edythe Broad Stage in Santa Monica presents three concerts with violist Richard Yongjae O'Neill, its artist in residence.  O'Neill will lead three programs - on Saturday September 8, he performs Schubert and Beethoven in a program title Homage with the Ehnes Quartet; on Sunday, March 3 he performs a program of British composers -- Britten, Bowen, Bridge, Carter and Clarke with pianist Steven Lin; and he closes with a program called L.A. Masters with works by Stravinsky, Schoenberg and Brahms with Jennifer Frautschi (violin), Jesse Mills (violin), Fred Sherry (cello), and Orion Weiss (piano).

REDCAT, CalArts' downtown center for contemporary arts, announces adventurous international and LA performances featured in the ambitious new Fall 2018 season at REDCAT, including stunning stagecraft and object theater from Rotterdam, the world premiere of a new dance and video work by LA company David Rousseve/Reality, a slyly funny and poignant collaboration by German/British collective Gob Squad with six LA performers, a hilarious political musical-theater project by art collective My Barbarian, and the return of Christiane Jatahy with a Brazilian take on Chekhov's Three Sisters, which uses genius film techniques.

Juilliard announces its roster of recitals and chamber music concerts for the 2018-19 season. The Daniel Saidenberg Faculty Recital Series features annual appearances by the Juilliard String Quartet (Monday, November 19 and Monday, March 25, at 7:30pm, in Alice Tully Hall) and the American Brass Quintet (Monday, September 24, at 7:30pm, in Paul Hall), as well as recitals by violinist Laurie Smukler and pianist Robert McDonald (Monday, February 4, at 7:30pm, in Morse Hall), violist Samuel Rhodes and friends (Tuesday, March 19, at 7:30PM, in Paul Hall), and a chamber music concert with faculty members, violinist Catherine Cho, violist Hsin-Yun Huang, cellist Natasha Brofsky, and pianist Robert McDonald (Thursday, February 14, at 7:30pm, in Paul Hall).

Peak Performances kicks off its 2018-19 season with the world premiere of Hatuey: Memory of Fire, a rousing Afro-Cuban-Yiddish opera performed in English, Yiddish and Spanish, with music by Frank London, libretto by Elise Thoron, direction by Mary Birnbaum, and choreography by Maija Garcia.

Rite of Summer Music Festival continues its eighth stellar season with DITHER performing two free shows today, July 7th at 1pm and 3pm. The program will feature works by Eve Beglarian, Josh Lopes, Lisa Renee Coons, Gyan Riley, James Moore, and Taylor Levine. Taking place at Colonels Row on Governors Island, Rite of Summer presents free outdoor concerts through August curated by Co-Artistic Directors Pam Goldberg and Blair McMillen. In a locale The New York Times has called a "Playground for the Arts," the aim of the Festival is simple: to present the highest quality live performances, and to bring free contemporary classical music to as many people as possible in a relaxed, fun, outdoor setting.

Rite of Summer Music Festival continues its eighth stellar season with DITHER performing two free shows on Saturday, July 7th at 1pm and 3pm. The program will feature works by Eve Beglarian, Josh Lopes, Lisa Renée Coons, Gyan Riley, James Moore, and Taylor Levine. Taking place at Colonels Row on Governors Island, Rite of Summer presents free outdoor concerts through August curated by Co-Artistic Directors Pam Goldberg and Blair McMillen. In a locale The New York Times has called a “Playground for the Arts,” the aim of the Festival is simple: to present the highest quality live performances, and to bring free contemporary classical music to as many people as possible in a relaxed, fun, outdoor setting.

Rite of Summer Music Festival continues its eighth stellar season with DITHER performing two free shows on Saturday, July 7th at 1pm and 3pm. The program will feature works by Eve Beglarian, Josh Lopes, Lisa Renee Coons, Gyan Riley, James Moore, and Taylor Levine. Taking place at Colonels Row on Governors Island, Rite of Summer presents free outdoor concerts through August curated by Co-Artistic Directors Pam Goldberg and Blair McMillen. In a locale The New York Times has called a "Playground for the Arts," the aim of the Festival is simple: to present the highest quality live performances, and to bring free contemporary classical music to as many people as possible in a relaxed, fun, outdoor setting.

String quartet ETHEL, known for its enlivened playing and consistently groundbreaking redefinition of concert music, announces their landmark 20th anniversary season. Described as “an adventurous quartet with a rock band's zest” by The New York Times and deemed “a genre unto itself” by the Village Voice, ETHEL continues to set the standard for contemporary concert music. Celebrations begin with a June 20th benefit gala hosted by New Sound's John Schaefer, honoring ETHEL as well as fellow new music champions: Bang on a Can founders Michael Gordon, David Lang, and Julia Wolfe. ETHEL's 2018-19 season offers the New York premiere of Circus: Wandering City at the 2018 BAM Next Wave Festival, along with continued touring of the group's signature works: The River and Documerica. (Please scroll below for more details and complete 2018-19 schedule of events.)