David Krakauer will kick off the 2012 Pittsburgh Jewish Music Festival.

The 2012 Pittsburgh Jewish Music Festival starts on Sunday with the inimitable David Krakauer performing Osvaldo Golijov’s Ayre — a work that intermingles music of three cultures (Christian, Arab and Jewish) as they co-existed in the late 15th-century. You can see the entire PJMF schedule here and also check out Andy Druckenbrod’s preview in the P-G.

And if you haven’t seen it yet, Pittsburgh New Music Ensemble has released their 2012 calendar, so pop over to pnme.org and see what’s kraken! (Yeah, I went there…)

Another interesting twist to the summer is the move by Opera Theater of Pittsburgh to a summer festival format. Of particular interest to new music lovers is Night Caps — a series of mini-music dramas with each one taking place in a different room of the same hotel. The libretto for the whole series is by Robert Handel and the music has been composed by Daron Aric Hagen,  Gilda Lyons,  Roger Zahab, Eric Moe, Dwayne Fulton, and Alberto Garcia Demestres.

More on all this good stuff soon.

This is coming up on Friday so I’m just putting on the front page right…now! If  you’ve heard some of the recent performances of JacobTV by Lindsey Goodman or IonSound Project, you know that he  incorporates pop culture influences into his work in very sophisticated ways, and you probably want to hear more. Well, here’s your chance! The Warhol’s Off the Wall series will present JacobTV’s reality opera, The News, at the Byham this Friday as part of the Distinctively Dutch Festival. According to the Warhol,

This non fiction video opera is a topical form of Gesammtkunstwerk, based on original footage from the international media, including “revealing” one-liners from the likes of Barack Obama, Sarah Palin, Silvio Berlusconi, Fox News, TV evangelists and more.

Really, what more could you want? How about Chris McGlumphy’s excellent recent interview with JacobTV?

The News by JacobTV
Friday, April 27, 9 p.m.
The Byham Theater
Tickets 

New York City-based experimental percussionist
CHRIS CORSANO

http://cor-sano.com/

with special guests
CAPA Antithesis (high school New Music ensemble)
and Satyr/Elfheim (solo guitar improv…releasing new CD)

Corsano’s CV:
Bjork’s touring drummer (appeared on her 2007 album ‘Volta’). Member of psych-drone trio Rangda (Drag City Records) with Ben Chasny (of Six Organs) & Richard Bishop (of Sun City Girls). Avant-jazz duos with saxophonist Paul Flaherty and Bill Nace (as Vampire Belt). Recordings and collaborations with Nels Cline (of Wilco), Sonic Youth’s Thurston Moore (as Northampton Wools), Kim Gordon and Jim O’Rourke, UK saxophonist Evan Parker, outsider legend Jandek, and Italian bassist Massimo Pupillo, etc.

Here are some videos Corsano posted last week to help spread the word about his solo tour:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CfPTBGLkbzM

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=J_bNsmvCSaU

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rTCqc3Cnaz4

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2dIpdqH22kY

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Lm6oC-w7s04

NYC percussionist Chris Corsano returns once again to Garfield Artworks for a solo performance.

“I started to notice more emerging ensembles, collectives and musicians who are classically trained and playing a broader range of music around Pittsburgh. Our idea started as a new classical music festival. All of the artists are inspired by, or have a connection to, classical music in some shape, form or fashion,” says Solomon, who has been with the Theater since 2008. “This is an experiment. We try ideas out new ideas at the Kelly Strayhorn to see how artists and audiences feel about them. We have a rich theme in terms of musicians, artists and students being trained here. We want to explore this scene, as well as the artists’ careers and the audiences’ responses.”

Are you ready?

We end up talking a lot about old Igor (Petroushka, Rite of Spring), but somehow manage to never mention his name! Oh, and the winds and the chimes also had a lot to say.

In fact, I’m excited to announce the Hear/Now festival on April 13 and 14. It’s coproduced by the Kelly Strayhorn Theater and Alia Musica.—I’m really honored to have helped curate a pretty cool line-up for this first time.

I don’t even know where to start mentioning the highlights and keeping the list short without leaving out some of the coolest stuff! Performers include eighth blackbird’s Tim Munro, DJ Spooky, Attack Theater’s Dave Eggar, PNME’s Conor Hanik, Pittsburgh’s own Eric Moe and Michael Johnsen… there are numbers by Alia Musica, ELCO, OvreArts, and Freya Quartet, multimedia acts by Chris McGlumphy, Alisha Wormsley, and a party at the Shadow Lounge with Ben Opie and DJ Soy Sos.

And the music that is being played! We’ll get to hear Varèse (Alia Musica is playing Octandre), Cage (in Tim Munro’s own solo-flute version of the Aria for solo voice), Feldman and Worinen played by PNME’s Conor Hanik, a Philip Glass quartet performed by Freya Quartet… I get to premiere a piece by George Tsontakis with Alia Musica too

Not to mention the plenty of music by Pittsburgh composers: Mathew Rosenblum’s wonderful Circadian Rhythms, piano music by him and Eric Moe (performed by Eric himself), John Newkom’s string quartet, a premiere by John Arrigo-Nelson, the music of Luke Mayernik…

For details and discount tickets visit the Kelly Strayhorn website. The event is also announced on Facebook, so make sure to like the organizations involved!

The Consortium presents an evening with free-jazz giants
MATTHEW SHIPP TRIO
Matthew Shipp – piano; Michael Bisio – bass; Whit Dickey – percussion

http://www.matthewshipp.com/

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Matthew_Shipp

Tickets on sale now at Sound Cat (née Paul’s CDs), Dave’s Music Mine,
Caliban Books, The Exchange Squirrel Hill, The Exchange Downtown,
and Garfield Artworks.

With his unique and recognizable style, pianist Matthew Shipp has worked and recorded vigorously from the late ’80s onward, creating music in which free jazz and modern classical intertwine. He first became well known in the early ’90s as the pianist in the David S. Ware Quartet, and soon began leading his own dates — most often including Ware bandmate and leading bassist William Parker — and recording a number of duets with a variety of musicians, from the legendary Roscoe Mitchell to violinist Mat Maneri, the latter another musician who began making a name for himself in the 1990s. Through his range of live and recorded performances and unswerving individual development, Shipp has come to be regarded as a prolific and respected voice in creative music into the new millennium.

“There is a moment fairly early on in pianist Matthew Shipp’s Elastic Aspects, when the solo piano that has been hypnotizing for several minutes ends and is replaced by a rather angry and anxious sounding bass, bowed fervently by trio mate Michael Bisio. It is startling, and is soon replaced by the feathery light drumming of Whit Dickey, with Shipp pecking intermittently. Bisio then rejoins his partners, sounding nimble and agile, pizzicato now, and the three roll along happily for a moment before dispersing to scream on their own, laugh on their own, and transform themselves before coming together again. What the members of this trio do remarkably well is play on their own in such a way as to be a strong unit.

Elastic Aspects is a fitting title for this suite for trio, a wonderfully flexible work which stretches and regains its form time and time again. The spotlight is shared between the three voices, going back and forth, mixing and matching, gaining momentum and retreating. Bisio’s bowing is elastic in its own right, and is a departure point at several moments—or perhaps a landing spot—but it is absolutely captivating. “Stage 10″ shows off how subtle jazz can be, how effortless three players can swing while remaining outside the traditional jazz lexicon and vocabulary. This is modern music, or at least not tied to familiar structures and changes. It is also truly moving music, full of emotion, passion, spirituality, and tenderness.

Shipp has emerged as a truly original voice in modern jazz, with a readily identifiable touch, a gift for composing and improvising, and a growing discography which is starting to reflect the tremendous talent that those who have been seeing him live for years have been anxiously awaiting. Elastic Aspects continues this trend, serving as a gorgeous suite of music performed by a trio of supremely gifted individuals.” – All About Jazz