Kazoos, socks, and almglocken packed; flight cancelled.

Guess I’ll wait this one out.

File under: Things Bartok Said In 1940 That No Longer Apply:

I guess the premier of the Sonata for 2 Pianos and Percussion didn’t go so well? If only he had Dan Druckman, Jim Baker, Steve Gosling, and Steve Beck back then. This Monday, the foursome play new works for 2 pianos and 2 percussion by Charles Wuorinen, Michael Jarrell, and Rolf Wallin at Merkin Hall. I’m so bummed I can’t go but I figure that if everyone live-texts it to me from the concert I can live vicariously and still revel in the awesomeness. Seriously, this is one not to be missed.

More on the NYNME site.

Dirty Projectors at the Allen Room with Alarm Will Sound 2/19/10. (NYTimes)

David Longstreth’s beautiful 2005 album “The Getty Address” has been arranged for Alarm Will Sound by Matt Marks, and last night at the Allen Room of Jazz at Lincoln Center we did the first show of two recreating the album live with his band the Dirty Projectors. The second show is Friday night at Disney Hall in Los Angeles. The other half of that concert is an awesome program of Ligeti, Wagner, and Ravel with the Los Angeles Philharmonic featuring Alarm Will Sound’s pianist John Orfe. The whole process of putting this project together has been really fun, and Luke and I are seizing the opportunity to get creative with percussion sounds; we microtonalize a marimba and xylophone with wall putty and close-mic gaff tape, among other more traditional percussion parts, in service of a faithful reproduction of the original album. There is also this letter from David Longstreth to Don Henley, which I’m not even going to try to understand, but which I think is awesome.

The LA Phil did a similar pairing last year of a Stravinski, Britten, Boccherini first half with a Grizzly Bear second half and it’s no surprise to hear that it was a huge success; here in NY we’ve enjoyed the similarly awesome Wordless Music series, and the concept is simple: instead of whining about aging audiences and predicting the death of classical music, start curating programs for younger different people. Grizzly Bear fans are probably going to be totally into that Britten, and Dirty Projectors fans are probably going to be fascinated by that Ligeti. They just might not know it exists yet. I mentioned this last spring when Wordless paired the Japanese band MONO with Arvo Pärt and the result was two evenings of complete rapture for everyone involved. Sure, you can still sneak that Rihm onto a subscription program of Mozart and have your subscribers grumble and leave at intermission if you like. But these days the chamber music world is finding a better model for drawing in young different audiences and it is great to see orchestras start using it as well.

Speaking of MONO, they are coming back to NY in May, and also releasing a CD/DVD and 3xLP/DVD limited edition recording of their two night set from last year. Haruka and I played percussion for those shows with the Wordless Orchestra and are psyched to see how it all turned out. More info on the film, titled Holy Ground: NYC Live with the Wordless Music Orchestra, at Brooklyn Vegan. It comes out April 27.

Alarm is also camped out in NY this week for a program of Caleb Burhans’ music at Le Poisson Rouge Tuesday night. The late show will be Burhans’ band itsnotyouitsme and Son Lux.

Finally, I’m looking forward to playing the music of Icelandic composer Daníel Bjarnason at Le Poisson Rouge upon returning from LA. Bjarnason has an album out on Bedroom Community, which Nico posted on earlier today; this composer is incredibly talented across different types of instrumentation and is just as comfortable with electronic sounds as he is with the orchestra. And while I’m so focused on pairings I should point out that, in getting familiar with the album, I suddenly remembered Christopher Rouse’s Gorgon, and have been alternating the two all day. What do you say New York Phil, how about a Bjarnason/Rouse show? I’d go. My studio will lend you our giant ratchet.