John Zorn News

In celebration of his 80th birthday year, esteemed American composer Philip Glass has been appointed to hold the Richard and Barbara Debs Composer's Chair at Carnegie Hall for the 2017-2018 season.

Tom Gold Dance presents its sixth annual New York City season, Tuesday, March 14 and Wednesday, March 15 at the Gerald W. Lynch Theater at John Jay College with three works from Tom Gold Dance Founder and Director Tom Gold, including the Company premieres of Gold's Oasis and Served.

The distinguished American Brass Quintet releases their new recording, Perspectives, today on Summit Records.

Led by CSO Music Director Rossen Milanov and featuring guest clarinetist David Krakauer, this intriguing, genre-bending program celebrates the origins and influences of klezmer music, the lively and soulful dance tunes played by Jewish folk musicians as they traveled throughout eastern Europe during the nineteenth and early twentieth centuries. Program selections range from folk-flavored classical pieces by Liszt and Johann Strauss to recent works with similarly mixed roots.

Composer Robert Sirota is curating a new season-long series at National Sawdust (80 N 6th St). Titled Bridging the Gap, the series features concerts of chamber, choral, and solo works which Sirota has crafted to explore the student/teacher, mentor/mentee relationships between generations of composers.

The Wallis Annenberg Center for the Performing Arts will again be the place for classical music on Los Angeles' Westside when Winter @ The Wallis returns for a second season of exhilarating performances. This year, Winter @ The Wallis adds a series of world-class jazz programming to its roster of classical music offerings beginning with the Brubeck Brothers Quartet on January 20 and ending with jazz legend Eddie Palmieri and his Latin Jazz Septet on March 30.

Tom Gold Dance presents its sixth annual New York City season, Tuesday, March 14 and Wednesday, March 15 at the Gerald W. Lynch Theater at John Jay College.

ETHEL, the musically omnivorous string quartet The New York Times has described as "indefatigable and eclectic" and The Village Voice called "a genre unto itself," announces its upcoming winter/spring 2017 season, building on the group's artistry and collaborative vision.

Led by CSO Music Director Rossen Milanov and featuring guest clarinetist David Krakauer, this intriguing, genre-bending program celebrates the origins and influences of klezmer music, the lively and soulful dance tunes played by Jewish folk musicians as they traveled throughout eastern Europe during the nineteenth and early twentieth centuries. Program selections range from folk-flavored classical pieces by Liszt and Johann Strauss to recent works with similarly mixed roots.

One of America's most esteemed composers, Philip Glass, celebrates his 80th birthday this January, a milestone that will be marked by a year of notable performances and events encompassing every facet of his career—opera, chamber music, orchestra music, dance, theatre works and more. Highlights follow, with additional events and honors to be announced throughout the season.

Sunday, December 18 and Monday, December 19, 2016 at 7:00 pm, Works & Process at the Guggenheim presents the annual Holiday Concert featuring New York composers and a World Premiere Commission by Grawemeyer Award-winning Composer Sebastian Currier.  Celebrate the season with the joyous sounds of holiday music in the museum's iconic rotunda. George Steel conducts the Vox Vocal Ensemble in what has become a revered annual tradition.

Composer Robert Sirota is curating a new season-long series at National Sawdust (80 N 6th St). Titled Bridging the Gap, the series will feature concerts of chamber, choral, and solo works which Sirota has crafted to explore the student/teacher, mentor/mentee relationships between generations of composers. Each concert will be preceded by a discussion with composer mentors, mentees, and performers, led by a distinguished thought leader. The concerts themselves will include performances of works by both younger composers and the teachers who have influenced their development.

The Works & Process Rotunda Projects Initiative Gala at the Guggenheim Museum raised more than $450,000 in commissioning funds for the Works & Process Rotunda Projects program. The announced initiative will expand the Guggenheim's Works & Process program's commissioned performances into the museum's iconic rotunda. BroadwayWorld has photos from the event below!

Just in time for Halloween, the Chicago Philharmonic's 2016-17 season dedicated to love continues October 30 with Haunted Hearts, conjuring up bittersweet past loves, nightmarish scenes, and the bug that got away. C.P.E. Bach's Symphony No. 5, a devilishly difficult showpiece, sets the tone with its careening runs and shocking use of harmony.

A small, boutique Brooklyn-based label puts out cassettes that showcase the stunning diversity of that borough and city's music scene, eventually settling on two releases that radically re-work the ouvres of two of rock music's most beloved (and overplayed?) war horses into refreshingly creative statements. So goes the story of the eighth and ninth releases from Very Special Recordings: “Super Hi-Fi Plays Nirvana” and “Beninghove's Hangmen Play Led Zeppelin.” The pair of releases will, like everything available so far from the fledgling label started by Super Hi-Fi bassist and founder Ezra Gale, be released on cassette-and-download only on December 2.

Miller Theatre at Columbia University School of the Arts opens the 2016-17 Jazz series with the Vijay Iyer Trio, featuring Vijay Iyer, piano, Stephan Crump, bass, and Tyshawn Sorey, drums, on Today, October 22, 2016, 8:00 p.m. at Miller Theatre (2960 Broadway at 116th Street).

?Great Music at St. Bart's, the concert series produced by the Mid-Manhattan Performing Arts Foundation (MMPAF), for the past six years has presented music in St. Bartholomew's Church, a parish of the Episcopal Diocese of New York located in the heart of midtown Manhattan. 

As prolific as he is provocative, John Zorn returns to Composer Portraits with five new works, all slated to receive their world premiere performances. A dream team of new music superstars comes together to give voice to Zorn's newest creations, affirming once more the depth and breadth of his musical palette, which draws on punk, jazz, klezmer, classical, and other genres-spanning continents and centuries.

On Sunday, October 23, 2016 at 9pm, Works & Process at the Guggenheim presents Commedia dell'arte and a moderated discussion with American composer and musical pioneer, John Zorn.

As a student, Lei Liang attended class mere blocks from the Tiananmen Square protests; ever since, he has viewed art as a way to counteract violence and find freedom. His compositions pay homage to his Chinese culture while drawing on Western counterpoints. This Portrait, featuring several of Liang's West Coast colleagues, explores opposing forces, bringing together light and dark, paradise and inferno.