Ars Nova Workshop can be relied on to bring new music to Philadelphia audiences. Steve Lehman’s Sélébéyone, presented on March 24 at the Painted Bride Art Center, was no exception. A composer and alto-saxophonist, Lehman has received a 2015 Guggenheim Fellowship and a 2014 Doris Duke Artist Award, and has worked with major national and international artists like Vijay Iyer, Jason Moran, and Meshell Ndegeocello. For this performance, Lehman brought together an innovative combination of jazz, hip-hop, rap, and electronica whose disparate parts worked together surprisingly well.
Read MoreI knew Jimmy. He was brilliant, charming, passionate, humane, intellectually and emotionally complex, fun and funny, and utterly fascinating and exciting to be with. I knew him the last few years of his life, late 1980s. He was traveling throughout the United States to see old friends and haunts. It was his last lap, his stomach cancer was incurable. He also wanted to take measure of his country–if life had changed for the better for African-Americans in a decade.
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Read MoreAny fantasy you can think of has multiple dimensions to it; this is especially true in Vijay Iyer’s Bridgetower Phantasy, which premiered in Philadelphia performed by violinist Jennifer Koh and pianist Shai Wosner as part of the Philadelphia Chamber Music Society’s recital season. The March 21 concert at the Kimmel Center’s Perelman Theater featuring the new Iyer work was bookended by two Beethoven violin sonatas, including the Kreutzer sonata. Iyer’s piece is titled after the African violinist to whom Beethoven dedicated his Kreutzer sonata, suggesting that Iyer sees this work as a response and a companion piece to Beethoven’s sonata. These historical and musical resonances made for a compelling program that brought together old and new.
Read MoreMatthew Rose shares thoughts about performance art, upon reading Marina Abramović’s memoir, “Walk Through Walls.” He reflects on the history of the art form, looking at Marcel Duchamp’s Rrose Selavy, Yves Klein’s “Leap into the Void,” and in the 1970s, Chris Burden’s “Shoot.” Abramović’s endurance performances focus on provocation and trust and, he says, over time they betoken the artist’s persistence as a performer in the public realm.
Read MoreCongratulations are in order for many in this week’s News Post. RACSO turns 2; AAMP turns 40. Plus, Eli LaBan is nominated for College Television Emmy, the Philadelphia Museum of Art opens its doors to show its new proposed Modern and Contemporary plans, and other great news.
Read MoreMichael Lieberman and Roberta talk with members of the arts community and report on what arts leaders are doing (or not doing) to respond to the Trump administration’s threats to the arts and to our citizens in general. In their conclusion they ask for the leaders to stand up and do more.
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