Singer and synth player Caroline Teagle’s latest creation as Imperial Topaz, with Zachary Zierden on more synths, might just be her sultriest song to date. You can catch the duo’s live debut at The Stone in New York City on Sunday, February 3, and, if you act fast, you can snag a copy of their new split cassette with Motion Sickness of Time Travel on brother Franklin Teagle’s label, Tranquility Tapes (for which Carolyn provides all the snazzy cover art).
Tōru Takemitsu – Archipelago S. (1994)
Members of the Tokyo Metropolitan Symphony Orchestra/Yuzo Toyama
If you’re in New York City on Monday, December 10, you can hear Juilliard’s outstanding new-music group Axiom play this live at Alice Tully Hall, free of charge and paired with John Adams’s Grand Pianola Music.
Violinist Hilary Hahn is full of surprises, and this one is as special as it is unexpected: Silfra, a beautiful, improvisatory new joint project created with Hauschka (German pianist-composer Volker Bertelmann) and produced by Valgeir Sigurðsson (partner to Björk, Nico Muhly and more), comes out May 22 on Deutsche Grammophon. To celebrate, Hahn and Hauschka will play together at City Winery on June 20, part of a five-date tour that includes stops in Los Angeles, Seattle, Washington, D.C. and Boston.
Ende Tymes Festival 2012, an annual celebration of experimental noise scheduled for May 17-20 at Secret Project Robot and Outpost Artist Resources, has launched a Kickstarter campaign to help defray costs: most importantly, artist fees and travel. This year’s lineup includes luminaries like Phill Niblock, Telecult Powers, Grasshopper, Mike Shiflet, Andrew Coltrane and Husere Grav. Go, look.
Yarn/Wire, a groundbreaking two-piano/two-percussion quartet active in the New York area since 2005, will be launching a new artist residency at the Issue Project Room next Thursday, March 22, with a concert featuring commissioned pieces by International Contemporary Ensemble percussionist Nathan Davis and noise-sculptor Pete Swanson, formerly of Yellow Swans.
From the git-go I’ve had a hard time imagining what Swanson intends to do with an all-acoustic ensemble. The answer, it turns out, is “nothing” – he’ll be enfolding the group in tape and live processing. Still, the scratch track Swanson has posted to Soundcloud makes for some fascinating listening; I love when the tuned toms (or Roto-toms?) come in just after the six-minute mark.
If you follow Yarn/Wire on Twitter, you already know that Davis is cooking up something special for this concert, too. It’s free, and you can make reservations here.
This just in: Ende Tymes 2012 has just been announced for May 17–20 at Secret Project Robot in Bushwick and Outpost Artist Resources in Ridgewood. A rock-solid lineup includes Telecult Powers, Grasshopper, Phill Niblock, Zaimph, Mike Shiflet, Maria Chavez, Lussuria, Andrew Coltrane, Husere Grav and more, more, more. Watch the official website for more information.
JUST RELEASED: Lincoln Center announces its 2012-2013 Great Performers season, featuring Gustavo Dudamel and the Los Angeles Philharmonic, Valery Gergiev and the London Symphony Orchestra and Esa-Pekka Salonen with the Philharmonia Orchestra of London, among many other spectacular performances. (And don’t forget to read what The New York Times had to say when it broke the story yesterday.)
Coming to Housing Works in June: opera at the bookstore. Special nerd opera based on a book! From Morningside Opera. Stay tuned, but start getting excited.
Congratulations to Angela Meade, who today was named the winner of the Metropolitan Opera’s seventh annual Beverly Sills Artist Award for young singers — a $50,000 prize for career development. Read about her, hear her and watch her on her website, then catch her live in Verdi’s Ernani at the Met, opening this Thursday, February 2. (The HD broadcast will take place on February 25.)
The Seattle Symphony Orchestra has just announced its 2012–13 season, which is chock full of amazing things like Messiaen’s Turangalîla Symphony; Britten’s War Requiem; premieres from John Luther Adams, Dai Fujikura, Ken Hesketh and Arlene Sierra; an after-hours contemporary chamber-music series; and one especially intriguing gem… a new piece by Alexandra Gardner inspired by the music of Yes, created in collaboration with drummer Alan White. Check out the interactive season brochure here.
