Music

Dancers in Mark MorrisÂ’s production of “King Arthur” at New York City Opera (Richard Termine for The New York Times)

Here is a reminder that the $25 tickets program continues at NYC Opera. Check the website for schedule and details. We’re going to see Purcell’s “King Arthur” (with costumes by Isaac Mizrahi), which is frankly somewhere in between a masque and an opera. We fell in love with it after watching a DVD of a Salzburg production. Ignore the bitchy “I don’t like my opera productions to be too innovative” comments on Amazon.

James and I are headed to this on the 15th. For the art crowd, you may have heard of Ichiyanagi’s wife from 1956-63, Yoko Ono.

Ensemble Origin at Zankel Hall
March 14th and 15th, 7:30pm

Featuring the Shinnyo-En Chorus of Japan and Music by the Seminal Japanese Avant-Garde Composer Toshi Ichiyanagi, Ensemble OriginÂ’s Founder and Artistic Director

Presented with support of The Japan Foundation
and the cooperation of the Consulate General of Japan in New York
and the Institute for Medieval Japanese Studies at Columbia University.

Sponsored by Shinnyo-En

In 1998, fifty years into a storied career, the Japanese composer Toshi
Ichiyanagi undertook an ambitious project with a two-part mission: to
reconstruct ancient instruments preserved in Japan and to employ them in the
creation of a new kind of music. He and a diverse network of collaborators
would present the music‹performed on the restored Silk Road instruments‹in
concerts around the world. By 2006, with assistance from the Buddhist order
Shinnyo-en (as part of their contribution to the arts), the project had
succeeded in recreating 14 kinds of ancient musical instruments, including
examples from China and other parts of Asia, and in assembling a team of
musicians who could play those instruments, under the name Ensemble Origin.

I just listened to this excellent (July 2007 — I’m behind) podcast from Tim Baker’s Radio Clash Podcast featuring RX, the musical genius responsible for such mashups as the George Bush “Imagine/Walk on the Wildside,” “Dick is a Killer,” and “White Lines.” Click the play button below, or the podcast link above, to listen.

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You can also visit RX’s YouTube page to watch his RX2008 presidential campaign videos.

photo by Ruth Waltz for the International Herald Tribune

The IHT has a review of the premiere of Hanz Werner Henze’s new opera, “Phaedra” at the Berlin Staatsoper. In New York, the opera world thinks an opera by freakin’ Richard Danielpour is some kind of breakthrough, but Berlin gets a premiere by one of the greatest composers of the 20th Century, with designs by Olafur Eliasson no less!

They’re also doing a new production of Medeamaterial by Pascal Dusapin (based on the Heiner Müller play) directed and choreographed by Sasha Waltz! I can’t stand it!

It’s time to interest some of those hedge fund billionaires in some contemporary music methinks.

John Cage and Merce Cunningham

Today is the anniversary of the birth of one of my saints, John Cage. WNYC is playing his music all day, which you can listen to via MP3 or Windows Media stream.

[image from Music From Other Minds]

James and I are attending Don Giovanni on Saturday as part of NYC Opera’s “Opera For All” promotion: $25 tickets! I recommend getting on their mailing list for future offers, as most of it is now sold out except for a concert of hightlights from the season on Thursday the 6th. If you want to avoid the crowds in Chelsea, maybe you should attend that instead. You can text “OPERA” to 43077 for insider news and offers.

Sept. 6th: City Opera Concert Celebration 7:30 p.m; followed by an after party with the East Village Opera Company on the Promenade of the State Theater

THE CONCERT: The City Opera Celebration Concert will showcase our orchestra in an 80-minute program of highlights from the season sung by City Opera artists.

THE POST–CONCERT PARTY: As a way of kicking off the Festival and welcoming a new audience to our house, the entire audience will be invited onto the Promenade and Ring Balconies of the New York State Theater for light hors d’oeuvres and beverages following the Concert. The East Village Opera Company, a rock band that plays opera arrangements, will provide music for the party.

I just listened to this excellent mashup podcast. It’s quite political, and an appropriate soundtrack to my earlier post on American politics. Check it out.

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