Concert Review: Every Breaking Wave

The New York Philharmonic makes CONTACT! with Japanese music.
by Paul J. Pelkonen

The torii gate at Miyajima, inspiration for Olivier Messiaen's Sept haïkaï.
Photo © 2015 from Wikimedia Commons.

Since its inception in 2009, the CONTACT! series has been the New York Philharmonic laboratory for performing modern music. Staged in more intimate venues than Avery Fisher Hall around New York, the players are liberated from the typical subscription format and the compulsion of symphony orchestras to pair the avant-garde with Beethoven, Brahms and Bruckner. On Friday evening, members of the orchestra gathered at the Grace Rainey Rogers Auditorium in the Metropolitan Museum of Art for New Music in Japan, a program celebrating the classic and cutting edge of contemporary art music in the Land of the Rising Sun.