8 THENEWYORKER,MARCH2, 2020
ILLUSTRATION BY CATHRYN VIRGINIA
“Ecstatic Music”—established as a festi-
val, in 2011, by New Amsterdam, a bold
upstart record label and concert presenter,
and the Kaufman Music Center, a main-
stream institution hungry for fresh and
offbeat ideas—has quickly cemented its
reputation as a hotbed for visionary ar-
tistic hybridity. Curated by the composer
Judd Greenstein, the event has now ex-
panded to a season-long series, its regular
presence a happy reminder of the explo-
sive possibilities of collaboration. The
latest offering, coming to Merkin Hall
on Feb. 29, is a perfect illustration: Missy
Mazzoli, whose career path extends from
D.I.Y. touring to the Metropolitan
Opera, joins Kelly Moran, a deft com-
poser and pianist whose recent work with
the electronic-music act Oneohtrix Point
Never brought her kinetic sounds to a
whole new constituency.—Steve Smith
NEWMUSIC
1
CLASSICALMUSIC
Bearthoven
Le Poisson Rouge
Bearthoven—a new-music chamber ensem-
ble comprising the pianist Karl Larson, the
bassist Pat Swoboda, and the percussionist
Matthew Evans—looks pretty much exactly
like a conventional jazz trio, and the thrill-
ing empathy in its sound amounts to swing
by another name. The group’s annual “New
Works” concert vividly demonstrates the ver-
satility and the range of its players in custom-
tailored pieces. This year’s event introduces
commissions by Michael Gordon and Shelley
Washington and includes an opening set by
Popebama, a slippery duo made up of the
saxophonist Erin Rogers and the percussionist
Dennis Sullivan.—Steve Smith (Feb. 27 at 7:30.)
Ann Hallenberg
Zankel Hall
Sweden has given us some of the world’s great-
est opera singers: Jenny Lind, Birgit Nilsson,
Anne Sofie von Otter, and Ingvar Wixell, among
others. Here, the Swedish mezzo-soprano Ann
Hallenberg, joined by the Venice Baroque Or-
chestra, pays tribute to Lind, arguably the most
famous singer of the nineteenth century, with a
collection of suitably dramatic and heartrending
arias from masters of Baroque opera—Vivaldi,
Handel, Torri, and Riccardo Broschi (otherwise
known as Farinelli’s brother) are all in the queue.
Also playing: The pianist Yuja Wang brings her
remarkable musicianship and unmatched flair
to Carnegie’s main stage for a recital of pieces
by Brahms, Chopin, and Scriabin, interspersed
with rarer delicacies from Galuppi and Mompou
(Feb. 28).—Hélène Werner (Feb. 27 at 7:30.)
Nicole Mitchell
Jewish Museum
An improvising flutist, vocalist, composer, and
bandleader far too protean to be constrained
by rigid notions of genre, Nicole Mitchell
comes to the Jewish Museum under the aus-
pices of a series, produced by Bang on a Can,
that is focussed on musical expressions of
personal identity. Matape, Mitchell’s trio with
Chad Taylor on drums and Val Jeanty on per-
cussion and electronics, pursues a trajectory
that extends from primal tones and rhythms to
futuristic permutations.—S.S. (Feb. 27 at 7:30.)New York Philharmonic
David Geffen Hall
Franz Welser-Möst, the musical director of
the storied Cleveland Orchestra since 2002,
returns to the New York Philharmonic with
a pair of works that are stylistically disparate
yet similarly picturesque and evocative. Up
first, in its U.S. première, is an orchestral
suite from “Babylon,” a stormy 2004 opera by
Jörg Widmann. Richard Strauss’s “Symphonia
Domestica” follows, exalting mundane details
of everyday life to heroic proportions.—S.S.
(Feb. 27 at 7:30, Feb. 28 at 2, and Feb. 29 at 8.)“Intimate Apparel”
Mitzi E. Newhouse
Ricky Ian Gordon’s operas return again and
again to American subject matter. He drifted
on the open plains in “The Grapes of Wrath,”
ran with the Texas wind in “A Coffin in Egypt,”
and conjured the literary expatriate Ger-
trude Stein holding court in Parisian salons
in “27.” Now, in his latest work, Gordon sets
early-twentieth-century Manhattan to music
with his adaptation of Lynn Nottage’s play“Intimate Apparel.” Kearstin Piper Brown
takes the role of Esther—for which Viola Davis
won a Drama Desk Award, in 2004, during the
play’s Off Broadway run—an African-Ameri-
can seamstress with a gift for constructing tan-
talizing undergarments. (Chabrelle Williams
plays Esther in the Wednesday and Saturday
matinées.) Bartlett Sher directs, and Steven
Osgood conducts.—Oussama Zahr (Feb. 27-
and March 3 at 8 and March 1 at 3.)Ali Stroker
Appel Room
Last year, Ali Stroker won a Tony for singing
the house down with her clean, propulsive belt
in Daniel Fish’s provocative revival of “Okla-
homa!” In doing so, she made history as the
first actor in a wheelchair to win Broadway’s
highest honor; now she makes her début in
Lincoln Center’s “American Songbook” series
with a solo concert backed by a four-person
band.—O.Z. (Feb. 28 at 8:30.)“Agrippina”
Metropolitan Opera House
Handel’s “Agrippina” is an unlikely comic
satire of political corruption in ancient
Rome, and David McVicar’s staging updates
it, rather effortlessly, to the present day. For
the opera’s Met première, Joyce DiDonato
sings the title role of the conniving empress,
who elevates her son Nero to the throne,
with loads of personal allure and Handelian
flair, making her a force to be reckoned with.
The opera coalesces around her performance
as a power-grabbing First Lady, as it should,
with Kate Lindsey (a live-wire Nerone),
Brenda Rae (an appealing Poppea), Iestyn
Davies (a dignified Ottone), and Matthew
Rose (a bumbling Claudio) filling out the
cast; Harry Bicket leads the orchestra with
a sumptuous touch.—O.Z. (Feb. 29 at 1 and
March 3 at 7:30.)Cristina Spinei
National Sawdust
Cristina Spinei wanted to be a ballerina. In-
stead, she became a pianist and a composer
and has devoted her burgeoning career to the
exploration of physical movement through
music; her first album, “Music for Dance,”
grew out of a collaboration with choreog-
raphers. To mark the release of her second
album, Spinei presents a program of instru-
mental music at National Sawdust. In solo
piano pieces and intimate chamber works,
including “Superstitions,” a 2017 commission
from the Nashville Ballet, she demonstrates
her self-proclaimed “minimalish” style and her
innovative uses of the rhythms and patterns of
dance. Performing with Spinei are colleagues
from Nashville, where she’s currently based,
and the cellist Emily Brausa.—H.W. (Feb.
29 at 7.)Daniil Trifonov
Alice Tully Hall
Daniil Trifonov, an elegant weaver of piano
melodies, takes on the almost mathematical
precision of Bach’s counterpoint with a recital