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.

New York Philharmonic Pays Tribute to Tsunami Victims

Hi folks. Paul here.

For the last week, I have been watching the horrifying events happening in Japan.

Earthquake.
Tsunami.
Nuclear disaster.

I would like to ask all of our readers, (you know who you are) to please visit LivingSocial.com. There, a $5 donation to the American Red Cross relief fund for Japan will be matched by a $10 donation from LivingSocial. Donate more, and they'll match it.

It's the very least you can do.

In related news, New York Philharmonic music director Alan Gilbert took the podium last night at Avery Fisher Hall to conduct a special performance of Toro Takemitsu's Requiem for Strings before the scheduled Hungarian Echoes program.

Here's the performance:



Hungarian Echoes continues tonight with a performance of Béla Bartók's opera Bluebeard's Castle, conducted by Esa-Pekka Salonen. Review to follow this weekend.

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