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Nonesuch Events for the Long Weekend of July 3–6

Here is our weekly list of just some of the many events going on across the globe this long, holiday weekend featuring Nonesuch artists:

Randy Newman continues his three-day musical celebration of the Fourth of July with the Los Angeles Philharmonic led by conductor Rob Fisher at the Hollywood Bowl tonight and tomorrow night (tickets: hollywoodbowl.com). Also making special guest appearances are two legendary Brooklyn/LA Dodgers icons: former manager Tommy Lasorda and broadcaster Vin Scully. The July 4th Fireworks Spectacular, which also celebrates the 50th anniversary of the Dodgers in L.A., began last night and made the Los Angeles Times's list of not-to-be-missed events.

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The Izumi Sinfonietta Osaka, led by Norichika Iimori, performs John Adams's Chamber Symphony tonight in its hometown Izumi Hall in Osaka, Japan, and performs the program the following night in Tokyo at Kioi Hall. Info: izumihall.co.jp.

The Carroll Symphony Orchestra out of Carrollton, Georgia, led by Terry Lowry, celebrates Independence Day with a performance of the composer's Short Ride in a Fast Machine at the Carrollton Elementary School. On Sunday, the Brevard Music Ensemble, led by J. Falletta, will perform Short Ride at Whittington-Pfohl Auditorium in  Brevard, North Carolina. On Saturday, the Neue Elbland Philharmonie will perform the piece at Freyler-Halle in Riesa, Germany.

Also in Germany, on Sunday, the piece continues to contribute to performances of choreographer John Neumeier's Parzifal: Episodes and Echo, by the Hamburg Ballet at the Staatsoper in Hamburg, in a score that also includes Adams's Tromba Lontana, Christian Zeal and Activity, The Wound-Dresser, El Dorado, and The Dharma at Big Sur. Tickets: hamburgballet.de.

For another Sunday performance in Germany, Adams's Lollapalooza will be performed by the San Francisco Symphony Youth Orchestra, led by Benjamin Shwartz in the Theater at the Festsaal in Ingolstadt. Info, auf Deutsch, at ingolstadt.up2city.de.

Back in the States, on Saturday, the Grant Park Music Festival Orchestra, led by Carlos Kalmar, will perform Adams's Slonimsky's Earbox as part of its free series of summer concerts at the Pritzker Pavilion in Chicago's Millenium Park. Bill McGlaughlin, host of Exploring Music on Chicago radio's WFMT, narrates a program of American works spanning 125 years, beginning in the post Civil War era and ending with the music of today. Tickets are not required. Info: grantparkmusicfestival.com.

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On Saturday, The Black Keys take the stage at the weekend-long Rothbury Festival in Rothbury, Michigan. For a complete list of artists and events, visit rothburyfestival.com.

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The Magnetic Fields' European tour, which got under way last week with stops in Spain, Portugal, and Scandinavia, continues this weekend with three performances in Germany: tonight at the Karlstorbahnof in Heidelberg (karlstorbanhof.de), tomorrow night for an Independence Day concert at the aptly named Freiheizhalle in Munich (freiheiz.com), and Sunday night at the Passionskirche in Berlin (akanthus.de).

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Brad Mehldau will be in Europe for Fourth of July and throughout the month as he and his Trio, with Larry Grenadier on bass and Jeff Ballard on drums, tour the continent. On Friday, the Trio will perform in Duisberg, Germany, at the Kraftzentrale in Landschaftspark Duisberg-Nord. They'll then head to Italy for the first of several dates in that country with Saturday's show at the Piazza Grande Polo Della Qualita in Marcianise. For further tour dates, click here.

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Orchestra Baobab performs a free concert tonight at 9 PM in Toronto. The band on the Harbourfront Centre's main stage as part of the city's World Routes free concert series. Info: harbourfrontcentre.com.

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Nicholas Payton performs in his hometown of New Orleans this Sunday  at the weekend-long Essence Festival. Tickets: essencemusicfestival.com.

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Punch Brothers play one more show Stateside, at the Britt Pavillion in Jacksonville, Oregon, Saturday night (brittfest.org), before heading to the UK and Ireland for a two-week tour later this month. For complete tour info, click here.

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Steve Reich's Sextet (1984) will be part of the Cheltenham Music Festival, which kicks off on July 4 and runs through July 19, when Three Strange Angels performs the piece at Town Hall in Cheltenham on Sunday. Tickets: cheltenhamfestivals.com.

Nonesuch Events This Weekend

Here is our weekly list of just some of the many events going on across the globe this weekend featuring Nonesuch artists:

John Adams's opera Nixon in China receives its final two performances this weekend, tonight and Sunday, at the Ellie Caulkins Opera House in Denver, Colorado, with Opera Colorado led by Marin Alsop. The production is directed by James Robinson and features choreography by Seán Curran. Tickets: operacolorado.com.

Also tonight, the latest concert in Nonesuch staffer Ronen Givony's Wordless Music series includes a performance of Adams's Shaker Loops by the group A Sunny Day in Glasgow and the American Contemporary Music Ensemble, along with Ingram Marshall's Entrada. The concert will be held at the Whitney Museum on Manhattan's Upper East Side and is free. Info: wordlessmusic.org.

The piece will receive a second free New York performance this weekend: the Brooklyn Philharmonic, led by Michael Christie, will conclude a free, outdoor concert at the South Street Seaport Saturray night with selections from the piece accompanied by choreographed fireworks. Info: brooklynphilharmonic.org.

Also on Saturday, at the opposite end of the Earth, Short Ride in a Fast Machine will be included in a program by the Japan Philharmonic Orchestra at Yokohama Minato Mrai Hall in Kanagawa, Japan, with an encore presentation of the program at Suntory Hall in Tokyo on Sunday. Info: japanphil.or.jp.

Adams's Christian Zeal and Activity, which appears on the same album as Short Ride, The Chairman Dances, will be performed by the Malmö Symphony Orchestra, led by Lawrence Renes, in Malmö, Sweden.

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Louis Andriessen's opera La Commedia, based on Dante's work by the same name, received its world premiere last night at the Koninklijk Theater Carré in Amsterdam as part of the Holland Festival 2008. Performances continue from Saturday through Wednesday the 18th. The production features soprano Claron McFadden as Beatrice, with Christina Zavalloni singing the music associate with Dante and Jeroen Willems with Lucifer; Synergy Vocals performas a chorus octet. Tickets: dno.nl.

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T Bone Burnett continues leading the band in the Raising Sands tour with Robert Plant and Alison Krauss with three stops this weekend: tonight at the Merriweather Post Pavillion in Columbia, Maryland (merriweathermusic.com); tomorrow night at the Asheville Civic Center in Asheville, North Carolina (ashevillenc.gov); and Sunday at the Bonnaroo Music Festival (bonnaroo.com)in Manchester, Tennessee, where Orchestra Baobab will also be performing.

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As mentioned earlier today, Philip Glass's music provides the score to the film Life: A Journey Through Time, featuring the nature photography of Frans Lanting, on Sunday for Day Two of the Detroit Symphony's 8 Days in June festival. Tickets: 8daysinjune.com.

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Emmylou Harris performs at the Morton Arboretum in Lisle, Illinois, outside of Chicago, tomorrow night, kicking off the center's Twilight Concert music series. The Chicago Sun-Times's Dave Hoekstra calls the "music legend ... a logical choice to kick off the green series," given her involvement with the Natural Resources Defense Council's efforts to promote renewable energy and halt mountaintop coal mining removal. Tickets: mortonarb.org.

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Orchestra Baobab continues its month long tour of the States with music from their recent release, Made in Dakar, tonight at the Aladdin Theater in Portland, Oregon (aladdin-theater.com), then heads east for the Bonnaroo Music Festival (bonnaroo.com) on Sunday.

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Sam Phillips closes out her tour of free Borders stores performances and signings of her new CD Don't Do Anything tomorrow evening, 7 PM, in San Francico at the city's Union Square store. Her next scheduled performance is on June 26 at the newly opened Largo at the Coronet Theater in Los Angeles. Tickets: largo-la.com.

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Steve Reich's 1985 work for clarinets New York Counterpoint will be performed by the Ensemble für Neue Musik Basel tonight at the Musikakademie Großer Saal in Basel, Switzerland (ensemble.ch).

His Sextet serves as the score to choreographer Douglas Lee's Leviathan, which receives its final performance of the season tonight at the Stuttgart Ballet (staatstheater.stuttgart.de).

Nonesuch Events This Weekend

Here is our weekly list of just some of the many events going on across the globe this weekend featuring Nonesuch artists:

As was reported earlier today, John Adams's Son of Chamber Symphony will be performed by Alarm Will Sound as part of the free, 12-hour Bang on a Can Marathon in New York City's Winter Garden.

As was also reported earlier today, Wonders Are Many, the film documenting the creation of Adams's opera Doctor Atomic, makes its theatrical debut today, playing in theaters in New York City and Los Angeles. Read the Journal entry here.

Choreographer John Neumeier's Parzifal: Episodes and Echo, featuring Adams's Short Ride in a Fast Machine, Tromba Lontana, Christian Zeal and Activity, The Wound-Dresser, El Dorado, and The Dharma at Big Sur, and has been performed all this month by the Hamburg Ballet at the Staatsoper in Hamburg, continues this weekend with a performance on Saturday. Tickets: hamburgballet.de.

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David Byrne's site-specific sound installation, Playing the Building, opens tomorrow afternoon in New York's Battery Maritime Building. For the summer-long event, Byrne has turned the entire building into a working instrument that visitors can play. Admission is free, with an opening reception tomorrow evening at 6 PM. Information: creativetime.org. You can also read more about it and watch a short video of the installation in action at nytimes.com.

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Richard Goode's public role as Associate Artist in the Southbank Centre's 2007/08 artist-in-residence series concludes on Saturday in a two-piano performance with pianist Jonathan Biss at Queen Elizabeth Hall. The program includes Schubert's Allegro in A minor for piano duet, "Lebenssturme"; Schumann's Six Etudes en forme de canon, arranged by Debussy for two pianos; Beethoven's Grosse Fuge, arranged for piano duet; Stravinsky's Agon, arranged for two pianos; and Debussy's En blanc et noir for two pianos. Tickets: southbankcentre.co.uk.

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k.d. lang continues the Watershed tour north of the 49th parallel this weekend with a stop at Toronto's Massey Hall tomorrow night at 8 PM. Tickets: masseyhall.com.

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Punch Brothers' Chris Thile joins the Prairie Home Companion crew Saturday night, broadcasting live from the Pan American Center at New Mexico State University in Las Cruces. Chris last appeared on the show in early April during its stop in New York City. The show airs at 3 PM PT/6 PM ET; check here for local listings, or visit prairiehome.publicradio.org.

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Steve Reich's Daniel Variations will be performed by SIGNAL, conducted by Brad Lubman, in the aforementioned Bang on a Can Marathon Saturday, sometime after midnight.

Also this weekend, the composer's Three Movements will be performed twice, tonight and tomorrow night, by the Stuttgarter Philharmoniker, led by Michael Gohl, at the Theaterhaus in Stuttgart, Germany. Info: stuttgart.de/philharmoniker. And in Brisbane, Australia, Ba Da Boom Percussion performs Reich's Drumming in a free concert at the Turbine Platform of the Brisbane Powerhouse Arts center, tomorrow at 4 PM. Info: brisbanepowerhouse.org.
 

Nonesuch Events This Weekend

Here is our weekly list of just some of the many events going on across the globe this weekend featuring Nonesuch artists:

John Adams's Short Ride in a Fast Machine receives two very different performances this weekend: first, tonight, at the Frauenthal Center, Muskegan, Michigan, by the West Shore Symphony Orchestra, led by Scott Speck. On Saturday night, the piece will be one of many Adams works included in the Hamburg Ballet's performance of choreographer John Neumeier's Parzifal: Episodes and Echo (pictured at right) at the Staatsoper in Hamburg. Also included are Tromba Lontana, Christian Zeal and Activity, The Wound-Dresser, El Dorado, and The Dharma at Big Sur. Tickets: hamburgballet.de.

The Black Gondola, the composer's orchestration of Liszt's La Lugubre Gondola, will receive two performances this weekend by the Royal Concertgebouw Orchestra under Trevor Pinnock, first at the Concertgebouw in Amsterdam tonight, and then at de Vereeniging in Nijmegen, Netherlands, tomorrow. Tickets: concertgebouw.nl.

Also receiving two performances is Road Movies, which violinist Midori and pianist Charles Abramovic will play Saturday at Zeche Zollverein, in Essen, Germany, and on Sunday at Zehntscheuer in Rottenburg.
Also on Sunday, Adams's Chamber Symphony will be performed by the Tokyo Sinfonietta, led by Yasuaki Itakura, at Cité de la musique in Paris.

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Laurie Anderson brings her Homeland tour to the sparkling KKL Luzern Concert Hall in Switzerland tonight (tickets: kkl-luzern.ch) and then to Modena, Italy, for a performance at the Teatro Communale on Sunday.

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The European leg of the Raising Sand tour continues with T Bone Burnett joining Robert Plant and Alison Krauss in a sold-out concert at Philipshalle in Dusseldorf, Germany, Saturday night, and the Forest National Arena in Brussels on Sunday. Tonight, BBC Two will air the group's performance on Later ... with Jools Holland. You can watch a video preview of their set, the song "Killing the Blues," at bbc.co.uk/later. Also on Later tonight: Emmylou Harris, with a song from her forthcoming Nonesuch release, All I Intended to Be.

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Kronos Quartet has begun its tour of Europe, heading to Leon, Spain, tonight, for a performance that includes John Adams's Fellow Traveler, written for Kronos in celebration of Peter Sellars's 50th birthday. The Quartet will then bring the piece to Bucharest, Romania, on Sunday for a performance at Sala Radio that also includes Steve Reich's Triple Quartet, which the group premiered in 1999 and recorded for Nonesuch in 2001.

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The Blues Alley in Washington, DC, hosts Nicholas Payton tonight for the second night in a row; there will be an 8 PM and a 10 PM set. Tickets: bluesalley.com.

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Dawn Upshaw celebrates Mother's Day at Carnegie Hall's Zankel Hall on Sunday with Saint Paul Chamber Orchestra in a program including the New York premiere of She Was Here, composer Osvaldo Golijov's arrangement of Schubert Lieder. (Tickets: carnegiehall.org.) Dawn spoke on WNYC's Soundcheck with host John Schaefer earlier this week on being dubbed "The Composers Muse," as she will be honored at a Meet the Composer benefit later this month.

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The next stop on Laura Veirs's solo tour, with opener Liam Finn, is Denver, Colorado, tonight for a show at the Walnut Room presented by Radio 1190. (Tickets: thewalnutroom.com.) On Sunday, they'll head to Omaha, Nebraska, for a set at the Slowdown's Front Room. (Tickets: theslowdown.com.)

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Wilco heads to the Southwest, with openers Retribution Gospel Choir (featuring Alan Sparhawk of Low), for a concert tonight at the University of New Mexico's Pope Joy Hall in Albuquerque (tickets: unmtickets.com), before heading to Austin, Texas, for two sold-out nights at Stubbs BBQ, beginning Sunday.

SF Chronicle: Adams Piece "Lived Up to the Buzz" in Mark Morris Dance with "Dazzlingly Sophisticated Musicality"

The San Francisco Ballet celebrates its 75th anniversary season in 2008, and the final programs are anything but a look backwards. The season comes to a close with the forward-looking New Works Festival, which began on Tuesday of this week with the first of three programs to run through May 6.

Program A includes works by choreographers Paul Taylor, Christopher Wheeldon, and Yuri Possokhov, the last featuring the late Indian film composer Rahul Dev Burman's "Aaj Ki Raat" (Tonight's the Night) that Osvaldo Golijov arranged for Kronos Quartet's Caravan . The San Francisco Chronicle's dance correspondent Rachel Howard calls it the "improbable triumph of the evening," with Possokhov pulling a number disparate pieces together "with theatrical flair."

Program B debuted on Wednesday, with works by Stanton Welch, Julia Adam, James Kudelka, and Mark Morris. The last, titled Joyride, features John Adams's Son of a Chamber Symphony, co-commissioned by Morris and Alarm Will Sound, which gave the piece its premiere performance last fall. For this week's opening, the composer conducted, and, says the Chronicle's Rachel Howard, "it lived up to the buzz."
About Morris's piece, Howard writes:

if you appreciate a ballet that offers dazzlingly sophisticated musicality, that takes classical attention to form and channels it into a modern ethos---if you cherish a ballet sure to show you something new every time you see it---then you could hardly do better than Mark Morris' Joyride.

Summing up the evening's program as a whole, Howard finds that it "fulfilled the festival's larger potential: revealing the many faces of ballet today."

To read the full Chronicle review of Program A, click here, and of Program B, click here.

The festival's third program, Program C, premiered last night and includes Jorma Elo's Double Evil, set to Philip Glass's Concerto Fantasy for Two Timpanists and Orchestra and Vladimir Martynov's Come In!, the latter which Gidon Kremer and the Kremerata Baltica recorded on the album Silencio in 2000.

For complete program and schedule information, visit sfballet.org.

Kronos Quartet's "Early Music" in Boston Premiere of Paul Taylor Dance Piece

In a set of performances at Boston's Schubert Theatre last week, the Paul Taylor Dance Company delivered a "sharp, vibrant program," according to the Boston Globe, of two Taylor classics and two pieces receiving their Boston premieres, including Lines of Loss, set to Kronos Quartet's recording of Early Music (Lachryma Antiqua). Writes Thea Singer in her Globe review of the event, Lines of Loss could be seen as the 77-year-old choreographer's reflection on the passage of time, and so the music, fittingly, "weaves through the movement like a scratchy memory." With such a stirring piece, for Singer, the dance's "ending comes almost too soon."

For her complete review, visit boston.com.

ABT Unveils Dance Based on Philip Glass's "Portrait of Chuck Close"

On Saturday, October 27, at New York City Center, American Ballet Theatre will give the world premiere of C. to C. (Close to Chuck), created by Finnish choreographer Jorma Elo. The new piece was inspired by Philip Glass's A Musical Portrait of Chuck Close, which the composer wrote for pianist Bruce Levingston in 2005. As the New York Sun reports, Glass, so often a subject of portraits by Close, met the painter in the 1960s when they were both a part of a fledgling artistic movement "hell-bent," in Close's words, "to purge our work of every other artist—to try to find something personal and idiosyncratic, not tradition-bound." Close goes on to lavish high praise on Glass, calling him "the most inventive and innovative composer of my adult life." For the painter, the addition of Elo's choreography reminds him of those earlier collaborative days: "To get a good choreographer and composer and visual artist together," he tells the Sun, "it's like old home week!"

For information on tickets to C. to C. (Close to Chuck), running through November 4, visit abt.org.

To read the complete New York Sun article on the creation of the piece, go to nysun.com.

Steve Reich's "18 Musicians" in 2007 Fall for Dance Festival

The closing night of New York City Center's 2007 Fall for Dance festival, on October 6, featured the Elisa Monte Dance company's signature work, Treading (1979), set to Steve Reich's Music for 18 Musicians. This was the fourth annual festival, which kicks off City Center's season with low-priced tickets to see some of the world's greatest dance companies.