Music
Call it Punk Rockhausen: Excepter
By Taylor DafoeThe band was several minutes into their set before I realized they had started. At first I thought it was the beer—I was a couple of drinks in at that point, as it was well after 1:00 a.m. on a weeknight. But that wasn’t it.
Highly Selective Listings
Brooklyn Rail Highly Selective Music Events
A thoughtful, discerning, and carefully compiled list of the most notable, promising and unique musical events for the month of June in New York City.
Steve Lehman Makes History
By George GrellaSteve Lehman is not the first jazz musician with a Ph.D. in composition—that distinction probably belongs to Mel Powell—nor is he the first to make jazz with the formal and structural tools of the Western classical tradition.
MATA YOUTH, 2014 EDITION
By George GrellaMATA Festival 2014 was the biggest yet, a week of events centered around six straight days of concerts at the Kitchen (April 14th – 21st). The Rail brings you exclusive coverage of all the concerts.
MATA April 16, 2014
Uusinta
By Jeff Tompkins
The 2014 MATA Festival of New Music shot out of the gate with a performance at the Kitchen by Uusinta, a sometimes 12-member new music ensemble from Finland making its American debut.
MATA April 17, 2014
That Which Remains
By Stephanie Del Rosso
The playwright Kirk Lynn once said in an interview that he wanted to abolish all experts in art. He loathes the energy we waste carping about our dislikes.
MATA April 18, 2014
Lives in Miniature
By George Grella
This is my fifth year attending a MATA Festival concert, and though the organization’s steady expansion is welcome—six nights of concerts in 2014, and around 1,000 scores submitted—one key element that has been prevalent across the years continues to be puzzling: the overall conservatism of young composers.
MATA April 19, 2014
Oscar Bianchi’s Matra
By Christopher Nelson
The Saturday night slot at the MATA 2014 Festival featured the American debut of Oscar Bianchi’s challenging cantata Matra (2006 – 7).
MATA April 20, 2014
Neue Vocalsolisten American Premieres
By Marshall Yarbrough
Neue Vocalsolisten’s Easter matinée performance featured eight works presented in the U.S. for the first time.
MATA April 21, 2014
Of Circles and Motions of the Others
By Susan Scheid
An always interesting, often mesmerizing, study in contrasts, the 2014 MATA Festival’s closing concert subverted expectations from the start. In Tai Chi (2013), Chinese composer Ke Xu sought to peer inside the body, limning escalating tension and propulsive release in successive waves of sound.
Outtakes
By Steve DalachinskyThe moody scientist with the eye patch over his left eye walks toward the bureau and turns on the stereo. It consists of two very modern-looking components. My guess is a tuner and receiver. What sounds like Vivaldi or Bach suddenly wafts through the room. The year is 1954.
