THENEWYORKER, MARCH 9, 2020 15
d.j., for his 2004 mix CD “Suck My Deck”—
when his propensity for tingeing his sets with
rock guitars clicked with the era’s Zeitgeist.
These days, such eclecticism is the norm, but
Smagghe’s taste for propulsive riffs and his
dramatic use of filtering effects still make
his appearances a reliably good time.—Mi-
chaelangelo Matos (March 5.)
Dry Cleaning
Saint Vitus
The glamorously intelligent post-punk that
was incubated in English art colleges forty
years ago is reconstituted with panache in
Dry Cleaning: it’s almost shocking to hear
lyrics referencing not Margaret Thatcher but
Meghan Markle. This young London quartet
is effortlessly magnetic and impossibly Brit-
ish, with an ace card in Florence Shaw—a
vocalist who rarely deigns to sing but, rather,
presents her lyrics as if engaged in an ap-
athetic phone conversation. After making
its American début at Saint Vitus, the band
plays Union Pool the following night.—Jay
Ruttenberg (March 6.)
Boss Baritones
Smalls
Frank Basile and Gary Smulyan share a mu-
tual affection for the baritone—a leviathan
of the saxophone family—and for the work
of the late Pepper Adams, the booting bari-
tone-meister of classic hard bop. Co-chairing
a quintet that includes the pianist Ehud Ash-
erie, these two rugged stylists will engulf the
room in swinging subterranean tones.—S.F.
(March 6-7.)
Maurice Fulton
Le Bain at the Standard
There’s always something a little wobbly
going on in the music that Maurice Fulton
is involved with. The New York native is
nominally a house producer and d.j.—often
working with dance vocalists such as Kathy
Diamond and Róisín Murphy—but his true
lineage is in the disco of cult artists like
Patrick Adams, who specialized in tracks
that chugged along with a bent suavity. Nat-
urally, the latter are the kinds of oldies that
Fulton spins, alongside plenty of his own
material.—M.M. (March 7.)
Bonnie (Prince) Billy
Town Hall
Jonathan Richman and Will Oldham are
separated by generation, stage temperament,
and style of song. Yet when Oldham, a.k.a.
Bonnie (Prince) Billy, explained to an in-
terviewer that he shared “more things with
[Richman] than most people in music,” it
made immediate sense: these charismatic
singers both have a flamboyant obstinacy
that no doubt frustrates their loved ones
but lends their work a cool air of purity.
This double bill closes with Oldham’s ab-
struse Americana and opens with Richman,
whose knock-’em-dead stage show has been
rock’s open secret for half acentury.—J.R.
(March 9.)
Dashboard Confessional
Webster Hall
Dashboard Confessional’s début, “The Swiss
Army Romance,” was largely just a man, Chris
Carrabba, and his guitar laying bare his feelings
in songs that were equally wounded and raw.
Twenty years—and a few inspired generations
of emo music—have passed since the album’s
release, but returning to it now still feels re-
velatory; melancholy is never exactly comfort-
able, and that kind of shamelessexpression
doesn’t get any easier with age. To mark its two
decades of existence, the band hits the road to
play the songs that helped so many fans to see
themselves.—B.Y. (March 10-11.)1
CLASSICAL MUSICAx, Kavakos, and Ma
Carnegie Hall
This season, a steady stream of classical artists
pour through Carnegie Hall’s gilded gates to
pay their respects to Beethoven on the occasion
of his two-hundred-and-fiftieth birthday. The
pianist Emanuel Ax, the violinist Leonidas
Kavakos, and the cellist Yo-Yo Ma combine their
considerable star power for three concerts of the
composer’s cello and violin sonatas and piano
trios. Also playing: The Orchestra of St. Luke’s
gets in on the celebration with a wide-ranging
consideration of Beethoven’s output (March 5
at 8), including the Mass in C Major, with the
soloists Karina Gauvin, Kelley O’Connor, An-
drew Haji, and Matthew Brook.—Oussama Zahr
(March 4 and March 6 at 8 and March 8 at 2.)yMusic
Rockwood Music Hall
A heterodox sextet with an unorthodox ap-
proach, yMusic was bending rules and blazing
trails long before its recent high-profile ventures
with the likes of Paul Simon, Bruce Hornsby,
and Ben Folds. “Ecstatic Science,” the group’s
newly released fourth album, comprises ele-
gant, individualistic works by Missy Mazzoli,
Caroline Shaw, Gabriella Smith, and Paul Wi-
ancko, each piece benefitting from the band’s
road-seasoned polish and cohesion.—Steve Smith
(March 5 at 7.)New York Philharmonic
David Geffen Hall
The stylish conductor Louis Langrée, the music
director of the Mostly Mozart Festival and the
Cincinnati Symphony Orchestra, makes his New
York Philharmonic début with a ravishing mix
of works. The mezzo-soprano Isabel Leonard
is featured in Ravel’s luscious “Shéhérazade,”
which is nestled among Debussy’s “Prélude à
l’Après-Midi d’un Faune” and “Nocturnes” and
Scriabin’s “Le Poème de l’Extase.”—S.S. (March
5 and 10 at 7:30 and March 7 at 8.)Dai Fujikura
Miller Theatre
The Japanese composer Dai Fujikura is a Pierre
Boulez acolyte whose music has little in com-mon with that of his late mentor, apart from
a shared penchant for imaginative architec-
ture and voluptuous timbres. For this richly
warranted “Composer Portrait” program, the
International Contemporary Ensemble offers
works spanning fifteen years of association with
Fujikura, from “abandoned time,” a toothy early
encounter created in 2004, to “Gliding Wings,”
a world première co-commissioned by Miller
Theatre.—S.S. (March 5 at 8.)Diderot String Quartet
Church of the Intercession
In the Met’s current run of Handel’s “Agrippina,”
Harry Bicket conducts the orchestra in a lavish
performance from his seat at the harpsichord.
For a more intimate look at the esteemed mae-
stro’s keyboard work, “The Crypt Sessions” taps
him on his night off for a concert with the Dide-
rot String Quartet in the forty-nine-seat chapel
of the Church of the Intercession. Their pro-
gram of honest-to-goodness Baroque rarities in-
cludes buoyant pieces by Dario Castello, Johann
Philipp Krieger, Francesco Durante, and Georg
Muffat, plus a reconstruction of Bach’s Suite
in A Minor, BWV 1067.—O.Z. (March 6 at 7.)“Der Fliegende Holländer”
Metropolitan Opera House
The director and filmmaker François Girard
returns to the Met for a new production of Wag-
ner’s “Der Fliegende Holländer,” seven years
after making his company début with a revela-
tory staging of the composer’s “Parsifal.” The
two operas are Wagner’s first and last entries in
the canon, with “Holländer” hinting at the com-
mand of instrumental color and mythmaking
that finds its apotheosis in “Parsifal.” The pow-
erful bass-baritone Evgeny Nikitin steps in for
Bryn Terfel, who was forced to drop out owing to
injury, as the Flying Dutchman, and Anja Kampe
makes her Met début as Senta; Valery Gergiev
conducts.—O.Z. (March 6 and March 10 at 8.)Talea Ensemble
92nd Street Y
The Talea Ensemble performs the U.S. première
of Toshio Hosokawa’s “Futari Shizuka,” a cham-
ber opera based on a Noh play about a spirit that
enters a woman’s body. It uses Western- and
Noh-style singing to differentiate between the
two characters, and it appears on a double bill
with another chamber opera about possession:
George Benjamin’s “Into the Little Hill,” a
striking, minimalist setting of the Pied Piper
legend in which two singers assume all the roles.
James Baker conducts the cast and ensemble in
a semi-staged concert.—O.Z. (March 7 at 8.)Chamber Music Society
Alice Tully Hall
Robert Schumann’s Piano Quintet in E-Flat
Major, a groundbreaking work in 1842, is
granted headline status for this Chamber Music
Society program. But the real draw here is “IF,”
a new piece for soprano and ensemble by the
eminent composer John Harbison, co-commis-
sioned by the Society. Joélle Harvey lends her
voice to its New York première, and to music by
Schubert and Chausson.—S.S. (March 8 at 5.)