Brooklyn Rider and Kinan Azmeh Play a Transcendent Coda to a Popular Upper West Side Concert Series

Over the last few years, the mostly-monthly Music Mondays concert series has become an Upper West Side institution. The level of classical talent they’ve been able to lure up to the corner of 93rd and Broadway rivals the programming at Carnegie Hall or Lincoln Center. The final night of this season on May 6, with paradigm-shifting string quartet Brooklyn Rider and haunting clarinetist Kinan Azmeh, was as transcendent as any in recent memory here. And that includes two separate, equally shattering occasions where the East Coast Chamber Orchestra played their towering arrangement of Shostakovich’s harrowing anti-fascist masterpiece, the String Quartet No. 8.

As they’re likely to do , Brooklyn Rider opened the night with a New York premiere, in this case Caroline Shaw‘s Schisma. With equal parts meticulousness and unbridled joy, the quartet – violinists Johnny Gandelsman and Colin Jacobsen, violist Nicholas Cords and cellist Michael Nicolas – stood in a semicircle as they played. Maybe that configuration gave them a jolt of extra energy as they parsed the composer’s development of a series of cell-like phrases, spiced with fleetingly jaunty cadenzas and passages with an unselfconscious, neoromantic attractivness.

The world premiere of Jacobsen’s Starlighter, bolstered by Azmeh’s emphatic drive, was even more fun. The violinist explained to the sold-out crowd that it’s about photosynthesis, which came across as a genuinely miraculous, verdantly triumphant phenomenon. Its deft metamorphosis of riffs within a very traditional sonata architecture made a good pairing with Shaw’s work.

That the concert’s high point was not its centerpiece, a stunningly seamless perrformance of Beethoven’s String Quartet No. 15 speaks to the power of the entire program. Brooklyn Rider’s recorded version has a legato and a stamina that’s remarkable even in the rarified world of those who can play it on that level. But seeing it live drove home just how much of a thrill, and a challenge, it is to play. The contrasts between all the interchanging leaps and bounds and the rapt atmospherics of the adagio third movement, became all the more dramatic.

The highlight of the night was the world premiere of The Fence, the Rooftop and the Distant Sea, Azmeh’s duo piece for clarinet and cello. The composert told the crowd how he’d been inspired to write it from the rooftop of a Beirut building after fleeing his native Syria with his wife. It’s about memory, how it can fade and be reinvented, how tricky those reimagining can be – and how they haunt. Azmeh would look out over the ocean and convince himself that he could see his home turf in the far distance. As most exiles would, he clearly misses it terribly. The introduction had plaintively fluttering echoes of Messiaen’s Quartet for the End of Time;. Later passages, for both the duo and each solo instrument, followed a plaintive trajectory that dipped with a murky, almost macabre cello interlude laced with sepulchral harmonics and ended as a poignant Arabic ballad.

All five musicians closed the show with a deliroius romp through Kayhan Kalhor‘s Ascending Bird. On album, with Kalhor playing kamancheh and joined by Brooklyn Rider, it’s a bittersweet, furiously kinetic escape anthem. Here, Azmeh taking Kahor’s place, it was more stark and resonant, even as the piece’s bounding echo effects and sudden, warily intense riffage coalesced.

Music Mondays’ fall season of free concerts typically begins in late September or early October; watch this space. Brooklyn Rider’s next concert is on May 31 at the Oranjewoud Festival in the Netherlands with legendary singer Anne Sofie von Otter. Azmeh’s next show is May 19 at 2 PM at First Presbyterian Church,,201 S  21st Street at Walnut St in Philadelphia with pianist Jean Schneider.

 

The Minguet Quartet Play Beethoven and More with Vigor and Sensitivity at Lincoln Center

Thursday night, there was fundamental logic for the Minguet Quartet’s concert at Lincoln Center’s atrium space. The string quartet take their name from Pablo Minguet, an 18th century Spanish philosopher dedicated to making the arts accessible to everyone. That’s the agenda at Lincoln Center’s “playground,” as Jordana Leigh, who’d booked this show in conjunction with the ongoing Great Performers series, calls it. Its raison d’etre is transparent: give the public a marathon slate of first-class programming from literally all over the map, and create a brand new supporter base in the process. Considering that these shows routinely sell out, it seems to be working.

The quartet opened with Beethoven’s String Quartet in C-sharp minor, Op. 131. They gathered steam slowly with the stately nocturnal intro to the first movement ; its cleverly shifting voicings brought to mind Vivaldi at quarterspeed. The group – violinists Ulrich Isfort and Annette Reisinger, violist Aroa Sorin and cellist Matthias Diener – dug in harder, but with a striking consistency, as the composer’s rhythm shifted and the exchanges grew more suited to a dancefloor at some European baron’s estate.

But this is a Rubik’s Cube of a piece: there’s symmetry, but it’s always changing. A hypnotically pulsing calm set in as the violins rose further up the scale, until Diener got to puncture it, gently. Beethoven doesn’t let an initial country dance theme cut loose, but he does with a second, which the group attacked with relish. There was puckish joy in fleeting pizzicato moments, but also sotto-voce suspense as the music dipped. And a cruel instant where Beethoven suddenly has the whole quartet shift to high harmonics for a couple of bars didn’t phase them in the least.

Sharp martial motives stood out alongside twilit lustre and dancing rivulets; the innumerable false endings were absolutely conspiratorial. Whoever might think the string quartet repertoire might be stodgy hasn’t heard this group play this piece.

The group closed with a stripped-down arrangement of Mahler’s song Ich bin der Welt abhanden gekommen (I Am Lost to the World), a morosely defiant artist’s kiss-off to a cruel world.

There will also be several hours’ worth of free events to celebrate Lincoln Center’s fiftieth anniversary taking place all over campus today, May 4 starting at around quarter to eleven in the morning: a thunderous all-female troupe playing Brazilian samba reggae, and a couple of Haitian ensembles, kick off the festivities on the plaza

Amy Owens and Michael Barrett Unearth Rare Treasures from the Leonard Bernstein Archive

Like all great singers, soprano Amy Owens gets asked to cover a lot of territory. In her case, that means more than just racking up the frequent flier miles: she’s as nuanced and breathtakingly powerful with soul and cabaret music as she is in the classical realm where she’s best known. Her latest album with pianist Michael Barrett, It’s Gotta Be Bad to Be Good: Songs of Leonard Bernstein is notable for plenty of reasons. Bernstein fans are going to want it because there’s previously unreleased material on it: after all these years, you’d think that the Bernstein archive would have been completely plundered.

But actually not. Barrett worked closely with Bernstein in his later years and was able to enjoy unprecedented access to the maestro’s work, including his lesser-known repertoire as a songwriter. Unssurprisingly, this material has the same vast eclecticism, unselfconscious emotion and often great wit of the rest of Bernstein’s oeuvre. The album is just out and hasn’t hit the usual online spots yet- watch this space.

If you’re wondering how the duo could pack a grand total of 26 songs onto a single cd, everything here, other than a big showstopping coda from Candide, is either a miniature or close to it, nothing beyond the three-and-a-half minutre mark and many clocking in at less than two

There’s a misterioso slink along with a sotto-voce glimmer in Barrett’s playing in the opening title track: Owens cuts loose with a little tantalizing vocalese at the end. That calm/dramatic dichotomy recurs often here, from The Madwoman of Central Park: My New Friends, to the dips and mighty operatic peaks of that big tour de force Glitter and Be Gay, from Candide.

Of the unreleased material here, there are two takes of My Baby’s Baby, a poignant, muted nenromantic waltz. And Re La Mi shifts from arresting chromaticism to Debussy-esque lustre in just over two minutes.

Three songs from Peter Pan are infused with longing, arioso angst, and Owens walking the line between propriety and romantic ache. The two edge toward phantasmagoria in the miniature Jupiter Has Seven Moons, one of the five short pieces in the irresistibly funny suite I Hate Music. That’s where Owens gets to indulge her brassy side.

The duo tackle challenging Messienic tonalities iand tricky rhythms in Little Smary. The contrasts in Dede’s Aria, from A Quiet Place, in particular, are sharp and striking. Barrett winds up the album with six of Bernstein’s Anniversaries: short instrumentals the composer accumulated and doled out to friends on special occasions, or employed as eulogies.

At a Manhattan house concert last month staged by writer Philip Howard, Owens and Barrett not only delivered electric versions of many of the album’s highlights: they may have made history. Bernstein was always having friends over to share songs, but has there ever actually been a show devoted exclusively to Bernstein songs and solo piano instrumentals anywhere in this city, at least in the last few decades?

Owens’ next East Coast appearance is on May 18 at 8 PM, singing Beethoven’s Ninth Symphony with the Norwalk Symphony Orchestra.

Live Music Calendar for New York City and Brooklyn for May and June 2019

Daily updates – if you go out a lot, you might want to bookmark this page and check back regularly. May is when most of the free outdoor summer concerts are announced, so this blog will be working extra hard all month long to get you info to plan your summer.

If you’re leaving your hood, don’t get stuck waiting for a train that never comes, make sure you check http://www.mta.info for service changes considering how the trains are at night and on the weekend.

If you don’t recognize a venue where a particular act is playing, check the comprehensive, recently updated list of over 200 New York City music venues at New York Music Daily’s sister blog Lucid Culture.

This is not a list of every show in town – it’s a carefully handpicked selection. If this calendar seems short on praise for bands and artists, it’s because every act here is recommended if you like their particular kind of music. Many different styles to choose from.

Showtimes listed here are set times, not the time doors open – if a listing says something like “9ish,” that means it’ll probably start later than advertised. If you see a show listed without the start time, that’s because either the artist, their publicist or the venue in question sent incomplete info – those acts are usually listed last on a particular date.  Always best to check with the venue for the latest information on set times and door charges, since that information is often published here weeks in advance. Weekly events first followed by the daily calendar.

If you see a typo or an extra comma or something like that, remember that while you were out seeing that great free concert that you found out about here, somebody was up late after a long day of work editing and adding listings to this calendar ;)

Mondays at 7 PM multi-instrumentalist Dennis Lichtman’s popular western swing band Brain Cloud at Barbes followed at 9:30 PM by a variety of south-of-the-border-style bands playing cumbias, boogaloo, salsa, maybe all of the above.

Mondays at the Jazz Standard it’s all Mingus, whether with the Mingus Orchestra, Big Band or Mingus Dynasty: as jazz goes, it’s arguably the most exhilarating show of the week, every week. The first-rate players always rise to the level of the material. Sets 7:30/9:30 PM, $25 and worth it.

Also Monday and Tuesday nights Vince Giordano’s Nighthawks, a boisterous horn-driven 11-piece 1920s/early 30’s band play Iguana, 240 W. 54th St ( Broadway/8th Ave) , 3 sets from 8 to 11, surprisingly cheap $15 cover plus $15 minimum considering what you’re getting. Even before the Flying Neutrinos or the Moonlighters, multi-instrumentalist Giordano was pioneering the oldtimey sound in New York; his long-running residency at the old Cajun on lower 8th Ave. is legendary. He also gets a ton of film work (Giordano wrote the satirical number that Willie Nelson famously sang in Wag the Dog).

Mondays at the Vanguard the Vanguard Jazz Orchestra – composer Jim McNeely’s reliably good big band vehicle – plays 9/11 PM, $30 per set plus drink minimum.

Mondays at 10 PM noir guitar legend Jim Campilongo leads his trio at the big room at the Rockwood, $10

Mondays starting at around 10:45 PM Rev. Vince Anderson and his band play two sets at Union Pool. The Rev. is one of the great keyboardists around, equally thrilling on organ or electric piano, an expert at Billy Preston style funk, honkytonk, gospel and blues. He writes very funny, very politically woke, sexy original songs and is one of the most charismatic, intense live performers of our time. It’s a crazy dance party. Paula Henderson from Burnt Sugar is the usual lead soloist on baritone sax, with frequent special guests. Sizzling guitarist Binky Griptite – Sharon Jones’ lead player – is also often there.

Tuesdays at 9 PM, clever, fiery, eclectic ten-piece Balkan/hip-hop/funk brass maniacs Slavic Soul Party at Barbes (check the club calendar). Get there as soon as you can as they’re very popular. $10 cover.

Wednesdays at 9ish the Binky Griptite Orchestra (formerly Sharon Jones’ brilliant oldschool soul backing band) at Threes Brewing Outpost, 113 Franklin St (Greenpoint/Kent Aves) in Greenpoint, free

Thursdays at 8:30, the Brooklyn Raga Massive – a rotating cast of A-list Indian, jazz and rock musicians who love to jam out classic Indian themes from over the centuries to the present day – play the Jalopy, $15 adv tix at the bar at the main space. Tons of special guests followed by a wild raga jam!

Fridays and Saturdays at 5 PM adventurous indie classical string quartet Ethel plus frequent special guests playing a mix of classical and more contemporary material at the balcony bar at the Metropolitan Museum of Art, free w/museum adm

Fridays at 7:30 PM tenor saxophonist Ken Fowser leads his band at the Django. Jukebox jazz in a JD Allen vein but not as dark and more straight-ahead/groove-oriented: as postbop party music goes, nobody’s writing better than this guy right now.

Free classical concerts on Saturdays at 4 PM at Bargemusic;  usually solo piano or small chamber ensembles. If you get lucky, you’ll catch pyrotechnic violinist/music director Mark Peskanov and/or the many members of his circle. Early arrival advised.

Saturdays in May, 6 PM eclectic Satie-inspired jazz guitarist Anders Nilsson leads a series of ensembles at Barbes. Choice pick: 5/25 with the premiere of his noir-infused Outer Space Caravan. with Stephanie Griffin – viola, Michael Attias-alto sax, Ken Filiano-bass

Sundays in May, 5 PM rapturous Afro-Peruvian/classical pianist/singer Chi-Chi Glass  at Barbes

Most Sundays at 5:15 PM, a free recital on the amazing, powerful, dynamic new organ at St. Thomas Church at 5th Ave and 53rd St. featuring some of the world’s greatest organists. The space is magnificent and the music usually is too. Right now the church fathers are programming pretty much everybody who used to work here and play the mighty old Aeolian-Skinner organ that finally had to be replaced. Check the concert calendar for details. 

Sundays in June, 8 PM purist guitarist Peter Mazza – who gets the thumbs up from bop-era legend Gene Bertoncini – leads a series of groups at the Bar Next Door

Sundays at 9:30 PM paradigm-shifting Romany jazz/psychedelic rock guitar mastermind Stephane Wrembel leads his band at Barbes – check the club calendar just to make sure.

5/1-2, noon nuanced, politically savvy Portuguese fado-jazz singer Sofia Ribeiro at the World Financial Center, free

5/1, 6 PM Sharon Goldman – one of the great tunesmiths to come out of the NYC acoustic scene since the turn of the century – at the small room at the Rockwood

5/1, 7 PM the New School Studio Orchestra play Vanguard Jazz Orchestra compositions at the New School ground floor auditorium at 67 5th Ave, free

5/1, 7 PM African-American string band polymath Rhiannon Giddens plays a super-rare intimate show at the Greene Space, $25

5/1, 7:30 PM the amazing, haunting, otherworldly NY Andalus Ensemble – who play ancient Middle Eastern and North African Jewish sounds from as far back as a thousand years ago  –  at La Nacional, 239 W 14th St, $20/$16 stud/srs

5/1, 8 PM acerbic, enigmatic postrock band Marateck play their guitarist Brendon Randall-Myers’ compositions; peripatetic pianist Miki Sawada also plays his solo worksat Roulette, $18 adv tix rec

5/1, 8 PM klezmer clarinet/mandolin wizard Andy Statman at Barbes, $10

5/1-2, 8 PM drummer Tomas Fujiwara with a typically brilliant edgy lineup: Nick Dunston – bass; Mary Halvorson – guitar; Patricia Brennan – vibraphone at Happy Lucky No. 1 Gallery, $20

5/1-4, 8:30 PM arguably the foremost piano improviser alive (and a hell of a composer too), Satoko Fujii leads a series of groups at the Stone at the New School, Choice pick: opening duo night, reprising her two magical duo albums with bassist Joe Fonda

5/1, 8:30 PM Dervisi feat. guitar god Steve Antonakos play “exotic Greek gangsta blues” and Middle Eastern flavored hash smoking anthems at Troost

5/1, 9 PM Certain General guitarslinger Phil Gammage plays his dark Americana and blues at Otto’s

5/2, 730 PM, repeating 5/4 at 8 the NY Philharmonic with pianist sisters Katia and Marielle Labèque perform Bruch’s double concerto and Richard Strauss’ Ein Heldenleben, $31 tix avail

5/2, 7:30/9:30 PM tthe mighty, Middle Eastern-tinged Eyal Vilner Big Band at Minton’s, $20

5/2, 7:30 PM the Minguett String Quartet play Beethoven: String Quartet in C-sharp minor, Op. 131 at the Lincoln Center Atrium, free, early arrival advised

5/2, 8 PM New York’s most charismatic, darkly compelling lyrical songwriter/storyteller/keyboard genius Rachelle Garniez at Barbes

5/2, 8 PM brilliant blues guitarist, above-average bassist, strongly tuneful blues songwriter and badass singer Celisse Henderson at Greenwich House Music School, $15, beer/wine included

5/2-5, 8/10:30 PM guitar icon Bill Frisell with the Sexmob rhythm section – Tony Scherr and Kenny Wollesen  – at the Blue Note, $20 standing room avail

5/2, 8 PM irrepressible 60s-style blue-eyed soul singer Eli “Paperboy” Reed at the Poisson Rouge, $15 adv tix rec

5/2 , 8 PM Pauline Kim Harris, Vicky Chow, Sylvie Courvoisier, and Roger Kleier play Annie Gosfield;s “real and imagined sounds for instruments and electronics:” plus Edmund Campion’s new work for triangles and electronics played by Marilyn Nonken, Manuel Laufer, Russel Greenberg and Bill Solomon at Roulette, $20 gen adm

5/2, 8 PM conversational pianist Jeffrey Siegel plays boisterous works by Scott Joplin, Gershwin, Shostakovich, Weber, Prokofiev, Stravinsky and many others at Scandinavia House, $25

5/2, 8:30 PM a haunting klezmer-inspired twinbill: tMarianna Rosett’s harrowing Auschwitz family tale The Ghost Brothers, plus KIez Dispensers violinist Amy Zakar & band at Town & Village Social Hall, 334 E 14th St.(between 1st & 2nd Ave.), $15

5/3, 1 PM Austrian organist Stefan Donner plays Austrian music of the 20th and 21st centuries including pieces by Johann Nepomuk David and Wolfgang Sauseng amongst others at St. Luke’s Lutheran Church, 308 W 46th St, free. He’s also at he Actor’s Chapel, 239 W 49th St, the same day at 6:30 playing works by Louis Vierne and Felix Mendelssohn

5/3, 4 PM violinist Monica Huggett & Byron Schenkman salute composers Leclair, Rameau, and the Age of Enlightenment at Corpus Christi Church, 529 W 121St St, $10 tix avail

5/3,7 PM purist pianist/bandleader Benjamin Appel debuts his big band Do You Love with an absolutely killer lineup at the fifth floor auditorium at the New School, Room I531, Arnhold Hall55 W 13th St , free

5/3, 7:30 PM Portuguese fado stars Camané and Ana Sofia Varela with an all-star band: André Dias (Portuguese guitar), André Ramos (classical guitar) and Rodrigo Serrão (acoustic bass guitar) at the World Financial Center, free

5/3, 7:30/9:30 PM elegantly eclectic, tuneful pianist Angelica Sanchez at the Jazz Gallery, $20

5/3. 8 PM trombonist Vera Kemper’s Blu Cha Cha group followed at 10 by horn band Quatre Vingt Neuf (French for 89, a revolutionary date in case you missed it) playing Little Rascals theme music at Barbes

5/3, 9 PM one of the year’s best lineups: creepy art-metal band Black Road, crescendoing, psychedelic doom metal band Clouds Taste Satanic, eclectic heavy psych/stoner boogie band Grandpa Jack and kinetic heavy psych band the Stone Eye at Footlight Bar, $10

5/3, 9 PM the Vivisectors – who make macabre surf rock out of old Soviet prison songs – at Otto’s

5/3-5, 9 PM Hoboken janglerock legends the Feelies, with their twin drummers and three guitars at Rough Trade, $25 gen adm

5/3, 10 PM Brooklyn’s hilarious counterpart to Spinal Tap, stoner metal parodists Mighty High at Hank’s, $10

5/3, 9 PM deliciously brass-heavy retro 60 soul band Jeremy Beck & the Heavy Duty Horns play the album release show for their new one at the Knitting Factory, $12

5/3, 10:30 catchy Booker T-esque soul jazz with the David Gibson/Jared Gold Hammond B3 organ band at the Fat Cat

5/3, midnight unpredictably fun, funny psychedelic art-rock band the Academy Blues Project  at the big room at the Rockwood

5/4, 10 AM – 2:30 PM a free block party with music, dance and more to celebrate 60 years of Lincoln Center on the plaza there, an eclectic lineup includes hypnotically explosive live bhangra dance band Red Baraat at 1 PM plus some indoor classical shows, free tix distributed at 10 AM.

5/4, 7:30 PM fado stars Hélder Moutinho and Maria Emília with an all-star band: André Dias (Portuguese guitar), André Ramos (classical guitar) and Rodrigo Serrão (acoustic bass guitar) at the World Financial Center, free

5/4, 7:30 PM pianist Richard Goode plays works by Mozart, Beethoven, Janacek, Chopin and others at Irving Auditorium, Irving Pl/17th St., $16

5/4, 7:30/9:30 PM trombonist Kalia Vandever plays solo, trio and quartet works to celebrate the releae of her debut atlbum at the Jazz Gallery, $20

5/4. 8 PM trumpeter Ben Holmes’ broodingly Middle Eastern/klezmer-tinged Naked Lore trio  followed at 10 by epic ranchera/bolero brass crew Banda de los Muertos at Barbes at Barbes

5/4, 8 PM ghostly avant-garde trumpeter Jaimie Branch presents new works with her drum-trumpet duo Anteloper and quartet Fly or Die at Roulette $18 adv tix req

5/4, 8 PM surrealist avant garde free jazz collective thingNY present the premieres of Skylighght by Erin Rogers & Gelsey Bell, a duet for voice and saxophone “that explores that larger space as well as the space within their instruments, and You Must Read a Lot of Jung by Dave Ruder, a slow-moving melodic sextet that seem to keep turning over the same questions,” plus Stevie May’s Softboarding multimedia project at Artefix, 38-02 61st St, Woodside, Queens (7 train to 61st St), $10

5/4, 8 PM sharply literary, ten-piece country/carnivalesque/acoustic rock powerhouse M Shanghai String Band at the Jalopy, $!0

5/4, 8ish feral female-fronted psychedelic cumbia/tropicalia/dub allstars Combo Chimbita  play the album release show for their new one at Elsewhere, $17

5/4 Unsteady Freddie‘s monthly surf rock extravaganza at Otto’s begins at 9 with the eclectic, had-hitting Aquatudes, at 10 the spooky organ-fueled Renegade Lounge, the Dick Dale-ish Killers from Space at 11 and around midnight : NY horror surf legends the Coffin Daggers

5/4, 9 PM lyrical third-stream pianist Vadim Neselovskyi with a fantastic string quintet playing compositions and improvisations at the Cell Theatre, $15

5/4, 9ish eclectic, acerbic Americana/klezmer violinist Lily Henley leads her band at the Owl

5/4, 9 PM eclectic, tuneful, seriously woke Americana guitarist/accordionist/songwriter Ali Dineen at Pete’s

5/4, 9 PM baritone crooner Sean Kershaw‘s Serpentones play “hi octane Brooklyn honkytonk”atat Bar Chord

5/4, 10 PM the latest edition of 90s alt-country favorites Son Volt at the Music Hall of Williamsburg, $25

5/5, 2:30 PM pianist Marilyn Nonken plays works by Scott Joplin and Charles Ives at St. Bartholomew’s Cathedral, $25/$15 stud/srs

5/5, 3 PM violinist Joshua Bell. pianist Jeremy Denk and cellist Steven Isserlis play piano trios by Mendelssohn, Shostakovich, Ravel, and Rachmaninoff’s harrowing Trio Elegiaque at NJPAC in Newark, $30 tix avail

5/5, 3 PM St. George’s Choral Society sing Milhaud’s rarely staged Sacred Service with Paolo Bordignon on the organ at Church of the Incarnation, 209 Madison Ave at 35th St, $30

5/5. 3 PM the epic Chinese Music Ensemble NY play lush tradiional themes at Merkin Concert Hall, $25

5/5, 4 PM acoustic folk vet Bev Grant and her songwriter colleagues, janglerocke Steve Mayone, Americana rock siren and ex-Red Molly multi-instrumentalist  Carolann Solebello & Lindsey Wilson at the Old Stone House in Park Slope, $10

5/5, 4 PM intense, fearlessly relevant Middle Eastern clarinetist Kinan Azmeh with pianist Jean Schneider, piano play a classical program TBA at the Dreck Center at the Brooklyn Public Library, free, no under-sixes.

5/5, 5 PM the Brooklyn chapter of the American Guild of Organists show off their chops: Aaron Comins, Stephen Danziger, Phillip Lamb, Nick Martellacci, Maria Rayzvasser, Thomas Hobson Williams, John A. Wolfe, and Ellen Wright play what is sure to be an eclectic program at the San Damiano Mission,, 85 N 15th St, Williamsburg, free, closest train is actually the G (which is running) to Nassau St.

5/5, 5 PM rapturous Afro-Peruvian/classical pianist/singer Chi-Chi Glass followed at 9:30 by Romany jazz/psychedelic rock guitar mastermind Stephane Wrembel at Barbes

5/5, 5:30 PM clarinetist Jeff Perlman,with brilliant klezmer accordionist Shoko Nagai at Bar Thalia next to Symphony Space

5/5, 6 PM colorful, cinematic big band sounds: Migiwa Miyajima & her Miggy Augmented Orchestra at Birdland, $30

5/5. 7 PM Guinean band Kakande and the amazing, phantasmagorical klezmer band Lemon Bucket Orkestra at Flushing Town Hall, $16

5/5, 8 PM jamming out the lows: tuba player Jesse Dulman, baritone sax maven Dave Sewelson and multi-instrumentailst Leonid Galaganov at Downtown Music Gallery

5/5, 8:30 ish ferocious psychedelic guitarist Debra Devi, jangly Laurel Canyon psych-folk songwriter Rebecca Turner and fiery, populist Pete Cedenedella – frontman of vintage Springsteenian rockers the Tru Mongrel Hearts – at the Treehouse at 2A

5/5, 9 PM slashing guitarist Steve Antonakos plays slide guitar blues with his band at Bar Chord

5/6, 7:30 PM intense, fearlessly relevant Middle Eastern clarinetist Kinan Azmeh with perennially adventurous string quartet Brooklyn Rider play works by Azmeh, Kayhan Kahor, Beethoven, premieres by Caroline Shaw and Colin Jacobsen at Music Mondays, Advent Church, northwest corner of 93rd and Broadway, free

5/6, 8 PM the Korea Fantasy Orchestra back a series of singers celebrating Korean independence at Stern Auditorium at Carnegie Hall, free tix avail at the box ofc

5/6, 8:30 PM the best 80s British songwriter not named Elvis Costello: the perennially relevant, cynical Graham Parker at City Winery $25 standing room avail

5/6, 9:30 PM the eclectic, electrifying Los Mochuelos play classic Colombian vallenato and cumbia at Barbes

5/6, 10:30 PM O Kwarterto play string quartet arrangements of samba, forro, choro and other Brazilian folk styles at Pete’s

5/7, 5:30 PM drinks at 5:30, show at 6 Big Dog Little Dog – Jessie Montgomery, violin; Eleonore Oppenheim, bass – improvise duets at the Miller Theatre, free

5/7, 7 PM American Contemporary Music Ensemble perform Nordic noir compositions by Ejnar Kanding and My Beautiful Decay 1973 (alias Carsten Bo Eriksen) at the Poisson Rouge, $15 adv tix rec

5/7-8, 7:30/9:30 PM vocal jazz supergroup Duchess -Amy Cervini, Hilary Gardner and Melissa Sthrisianou- at the Jazz Standard, $30

5/7-12, 8:30/10:30 PM drummer Antonio Sanchez leads an unorthodox, enticing quartet with Chris Potter and Donny McCaslin on saxes and Scott Colley on bass at the Vanguard

5/7-11, 10:30 PM tuneful postbop pianist Matthew Shipp leads a series of ensembles at the Stone, $20 Choice pick: 5/11 leading a trio wih vMichael Bisio (bass) Newman Taylor Baker (drums

5/7, 8 PM the Hypercube quartet (sax, electric guitar, piano, perc) play he US premiere of Eric Wubbels’ Voided Cross + works by Erin Rogers, Nick Deyoe at the DiMenna Center, $10

5/8, 7 PM woodwind ensemble Quintet of the Americas play “an evening of new music, including Mexican composer Arturo Marquez’s Danza de mediodia, Brazilian-American composer Ricardo Romaneiro’s minimalist piece Ventos, Xinyan Li’s Mo Suo’s Burial Ceremony, Valerie Coleman’s Tzigane and Owl City’s Fireflies (!?!). at the National Opera Center, 330 Seventh Ave, 7th Fl, $20/$10 stud

5/8, 8 PM indie powerpop maven and once-and-future Silos bandleader Walter Salas-Humara at an unlikely venue, Barbes

5/8, 8 PM Lizzi Bougatsos & Sadie Laksa’s assaultive dub industrial I.U.D. project followed by the NYC debut of Japanese noise quartet SAICOBAB at issue Project Room, $15

5/8, 9 PM 20s hot jazz revivalists Cait and the Critters at Radegast Hall

5/9, 7 PM soaringly explosive jazz composer/torch singer Nicole Zuraitis at 55 Bar

5/9, 7:30 PM the Danish Clarinet Trio play works by Brahms, Gade, Nieslen and Clara Schumann at Scandinavia House, $15

5/9, 7:30/930 PM alto saxophonist Caroline Davis leads an unorthodox tuneful trio with Matt Mitchell on piano and Dan Weiss on drums at the Jazz Gallery, $15

5/9, 7:30 PM pansori singer Lee Narae reinvents the classic Korean epic Byeongangseo-ga from the point of view of its anti-heroine at the Lincoln Center Atrium, free, early arrival advised

5/9-10.,8 PM allstar violinist and drummer Jenny Scheinman & Allison Miller’s Parlour Game trio with formidable pianist Carmen Staaf  at Barbes, $10, followed at 10 by the unlikely awesome the Burnt Ends – Kyle Wilson – tenor sax, Kenny Warren – trumpet, Charlotte Greve – alto sax, Chris Parker – guitar, Danny Fox – piano, Noah Garabedian – bass, Sean Mullins – drums.- play horn arrangements of classic honkytonk tunes.

5/9, 8 PM the Oratorio Society of NY perform Verdi’s Requiem at Stern Auditorium at Carnegie Hall, $25 tix avail

5/9-12, 730/930 PM trumpet powerhouse Jeremy Pelt l leads a septet at the Jazz Standard, $30

5/9, 9ish oldtimey Appalachian duo Allison de Groot & Tatiana Hargreaves at the Owl

5/9, 9:30 PM Brandi & the Alexanders play oldschool-style soul ballads followed by eclectic, pensive, purposeful original acoustic Americana songwriter Ruby Landen at Pine Box Rock Shop

5/9, 11 PM explosive, creepy, colorful psychedelic rembetiko metal band Greek Judas at Niagara, corner of 7th and Ave A, upstairs

5/10, 6 PM crystalline-voiced, noir-tinged third-stream jazz chanteuse Tessa Souter at 55 Bar

5/10, 6ish darkly torchy southwestern gothic/Europolitan songwriter/guitarist Miwa Gemini followed by dark blues/folk noir/oldschool soul songwriter Kelley Swindall at the American Folk Art Museum. Gemini is also at Branded Saloon on 5/22 at 8.

5/10, 7:30 PM the Verona Quintet play a classical program tba at the Cell Theatre, $20

5/10, 7:30/9:30 PM vibraphonist Nikara Warren leads a septet playing her Black Wall Street suite, examining the massacre of black residents of Norman Oklahoma in 1921 at the Jazz Gallery, $20

5/10, 8 PM nuanced, fearlessly populist Malagasy chanteuse Razia Said at Club Bonafide, $20

5/10, 8ish horn-fueled 90s ska-punk nostalgia with Mephiskapheles at the Kingsland, $10

5/10, 8 PM the New York Virtuoso Singers perform Three Masses by Renaissance Composer William Byrd at St. Michael’s Episcopal Church, 225 W. 99th St., enter on Amsterdam Ave. between 99th and 100th, $25/$20 stud/srs

5/10, 8 PM, repeating on 5/11 at 3 and 8 PM Periapsis Music & Dance presents four collaborations, including three world premieres, by resident choreographers Erin Dillon and Hannah Weber, and guest choreographers Norbert De La Cruz III and Annalee Traylor, backed by a live score by composers Jonathan Howard Katz, Hilary Purrington and Harry Stafylakis, at the LIU Kumble Theatre, corner of Dekalb and Flatbush, downtown Brooklyn, $15 tickets with code ORACLE19

5/10, 9 PM colorful vintage Springsteenian highway rockers the Felice Bros. at the Bell House, $20

5/10, 9 PM pianist Orion Weiss plays Ravel’s Tombeau de Couperin, Shostakovich’s  Piano Sonata No. 2 and three of the Brahms Choral Preludes at the 92nd St. Y, $25

5/10 10 PM Nashville gothic crooner Sean Kershaw and band followed by brilliant Americana rock guitarist Tom Clark & the High Action Boys at Hank’s, $10

5/11, 7 PM electric microtonal improvisation with the Take Off Collective – Marko Djordjevic: drums; Ole Mathisen: saxophone; Matthew Garrison: bass at Shapeshifter Lab, $10

5/11, 7:30 PM Quatuor Daniel play Shostakovich’s haunting String Quartet No. 6 plus quartets by Beethoven and Weinberg at Irving Auditorium, Irving Pl/17th St., $16

5/11, 8 PM purposefully atmospheric  indie classical guitarist Gyan Riley followed by  Super Yamba playing their bracingly psychedelic Afrobeat jams at Barbes

5/11, 7:30 PM hauntingly innovative cellist Erik Friedlanderr solo followed by flutist Michel Gentile’s Works trio with Daniel Kelly – piano and Rob Garcia – drums at Brooklyn Conservatory of Music, $15

5/11, 8 PM the circus rock band that started the whole thing – World Inferno – at the Music Hall of Williamsburg, $20 gen adm

5/11, 8 PM jangly Merseybeat garage rockers Ghost King, soul/funksters Native Sun and retro psych road warriors Night Beats at the Knitting Factory, $15

5/11, 8 PM instrument inventor/electronic composer Daniel Fishkin plays a “concert that may or may not include solar sound, pre-synthesizer electronic music, craft in America, radical lutherie and wood attached or unattached to the ground,”  at Flushing Town Hall, free, rsvp req, reception to follow

5/11, 9ish jangly, catchy sad-sack acoustic songwriter Field Medic at Alphaville

5/11, 8:30 PM hilarious, savagely cynical, fearlessly political C&W parody band the Great American Country Drifters at Pine Box Rock Shop

5/11, 10 PM sizzling electric bluegrass and C&W with Demolition String Band at Skinny Dennis

5/11, 10 PM swirly fuzz/dreampop band Mantismass, epic, cinematic postrock/metal instrumentalists Lighteater and the thundering, Mastodon-inspired Somnuri at Footlight Bar, $10

5/12, 11 AM NY original klezmer icons Metropolitan Klezmer at City Winery, $28

5/12, 3 PM first-wave punk rock chronicler Vivien Goldman reads from her new book Revenge of the She-Punks  at McNally Jackson, 52 Prince St, 5/24 at 7 she’s at Rough Trade reading and performing a couple of her songs with pioneering Afro-punk bass player Felice  Rosser of Faith

5/12, 4 PM the Sometime Boys’ riveting, powerful, theatrical frontwoman Sarah Mucho with pianist Elliott Roth at Freddy’s

5/12, 4 PM the Daedalus Quartet play a program TBA at the Dreck Center at the Brooklyn Public Library, free, no under-sixes.

5/12,, 7 PM PM guitarist Loïc Da Silva leads the Fado-Manouche Trio playing Portuguese/French Romanhy mashups followed at 9:30 by paradigm-shifting Romany jazz/psychedelic rock guitar mastermind Stephane Wrembel at Barbes

5/12, 7 PM NYC’s own rippling, hypnotic, epic Balinese gamelan, Gamelan Dharma Swara  at the Fat Cat

5/12, 7 PM a good triplebill at Coney Island Baby: catchy, fun guy/girl indie soul band Sunshine Nights,  wickedly jangly surf/twang/country instrumentalists the Bakersfield Breakers and guitar goddess Barbara Endes’ exhilarating psychedelic janglerock band Girls on Grass  $8

5/12, 7 PM singer Arta Jēkabsone leads a lush octet making string jazz out of ancient Latvian themes at the fifth-floor New School auditorium at 55 W 13th St., free

5/12, 7:30 PM wildfire Macedonian trumpet virtuoso Džambo Agušev and his equally ferocious, brassy orchestra at Hungarian House, 213 E 82nd St (1/2 Aves), $20

5/12, 7:30 PM New York’s most charismatic, darkly compelling lyrical songwriter/storyteller/keyboard genius Rachelle Garniez at Pangea, $25

5/12, 8 PM Karla Bonoff – NYC’s answer to Linda Ronstadt back in the 70s and 80s – at City Winery, $25 standing room avail

5/12, 9 PM bass goddess/soul singer Felice Rosser’s ageless reggae-rock-groove band Faith at the Treehouse at 2A

5/13, 7 PM funny female-fronted powerpop/indie band Bad Bad Hats at the Mercury, $12

5/13, 8 PM smartly lyrical, eclectically tuneful 70s British style pub/punk rockers Binky Phillips & the Planets at Arlene’s, free

5/13, 8 PM Tigue Percussion play an eco-disaster themed program of 2 NYC premieres of works by Paula Matthusen and Elori Kramer with a recent batch of Tigue’s original music at Roulette, $18 adv tix req

5/13, 10:30 PM Cameron Mizell – the best pastoral jazz guitarist not named Bill Frisell – at Pete’s

5/14, drinks at 5:30, show at 6 So Percussion’s Jason Treuting leads a quintet playing his new works at the Miller Theatre, free

5/14, 7 PM eclectic, hard-hitting, lyrical composer/tenor saxophonist Stan Killian at 55 Bar

5/14, 7:30 PM Estonian folk singer/multi-instrumentalist Mari Kalkun plays a rare program of ancient tunes at Scandinavia House, free, early arrival advised

5/14, 7:30 PM Scott Ballantyne, cello and Hiroko Sasaki, piano play the 3 Beethoven cello sonatas at Merkin Concert Hall, $25

5/14, 7:30/9:30 PM the haunting, smokily atmospheric Michael Leonhart Orchestra with Nels Cline on guitar at the Jazz Standard, $30

5/14, 8 PM epically shapeshifting Middle Eastern/Greek jamband Atlas Maior at Sisters Brooklyn, $10

5/14. 8 PM intrepid bassist Shayna Dulberger plays duo sets with keyboardist Chris Welcome, then a dancer, then leads a sax-bass-drums trio at Roulette, $18 adv tix rec

5/14, 8 ish the world’s loudest quasi-reggae band, Dub Trio at St. Vitus, $15

5/14, 8/10:30 PM saxophonist Ben Wendel leads his Seasons quintet with Aaron Parks on piano at the Vangurad

5/14, 9 PM wickedly torchy noir songwriter Julia Haltigan at 11th St Bar

5/14, 9 PM awful segue, decent twinbill: kinetic dreampoppers the Mattson 2 and noir-tinged retro soul songwriter Nick Waterhouse at the Music Hall of Williamsburg, $20 adv ti rec

5/14, 10 PM powerhouse singer Shara Nova’s kinetic chamber-rock dance band My Brightest Diamond at Rough Trade, $22 adv tix rec

5/14, 10 PM intense, lyrical, politically fearless tenor saxophonist Roxy Coss leads her quintet at Birdland, $20 seats avail

5/15, 7 PM enigmatic, sharply literary jazz songwriter and singer/bandleader Allegra Levy at Birdland, $20 seats avail

5/15, 8 PM fiery oldschool soul and hard funk with Bruce Mack & the Nubian Messengers at Shapeshifter Lab, $10

5/15, 8 PM psychedelic powerpop guitar god Pete Galub followed by surf rockers Crazy Pills and then quirky, jangly psych-pop band Rancho Cowabunga at Footlight Bar, $10

5/15, 8 PM allstar Americana jammers the Honky-Tonk Heroes,, featuring Springsteen pianist Charlie Giordano, Gene Yellin, Trip Henderson, Tim Kiah and some surprise guests (including a fantastic mandolin and clarinet player, hmm) at Barbes

5/15, 9 PM veteran Irish crooner Pierce Turner – who at his best comes across as a mashup of the Pogues and the Moody Blues – in a very rare intimate pub show at 11th St. Bar, get there early

5/16, 7 PM darkly colorful, perennially interesting bassist Linda May Han Oh leads a quartet bolstered by a string quartet playing the album release show for her new one at National Sawdust, $25 adv tix rec

5/16, 7:30 PM high-voltage alto saxophonist Tia Fuller and her band at the Harlem Stage Gatehouse, 150 Convent Ave (at 135th St, free rsvp req  

5/16, 7:30 PM repeating on 5/18 at 8  the NJ Symphony Orchestra play Beethoven’s Leonore Overture plus works by Bach, Weber, and Mackey at NJPAC in Newark, $20 ti avail

5/16, 7:30 PM  the Israeli Chamber Projectt play works by Karl Goldmark, Aaron Copland, Bernard Herrmann. Shulamit Ran and other Jewish composers at Weill Hall at Canegie Hall, $30 tix avail

5/16, 7l30/9:30 PM singer Arta Jēkabsone leads a lush octet making string jazz out of ancient Latvian themes at the Jazz Gallery, $15

5/16. 7;30 PM quirk-pop cult fave Nellie McKay hosts a subversive multimedia night with comedy by Nancy Giles, Roz Chast and Patricia Marx, author Meghan Daum, badass harp virtuoso Bridget Kibbey,  bassist Jay Leonhart leading the 1-Train Band, and other acts at Merkin Concert Hall, $25 tix avail

5/16, 7:30 PM  Anthony Arnove – Howard Zinn’s collaborator for the Voices of a People’s History of the United States anthology emcees a night of Zinn-inspired readings and music tba at the Lincoln Center Atrium, free, early arrival advised

5/16, 8 PM Bubble  leader Dave Foster’s retro jazz song project the Gershwin Bros. at Barbes

5/16, 8 PM exceptionally adventurous indie classical group Ensemble Mise-En play works by Danish composer Pelle Gudmundsen-Holmgreen at Scandinavia House, $15

5/16, 9:30 PM fiery, dark art-rock/avant garde violinist Natalia Steinbach does double duty, playing the album release show for her new WaterLynx album, then teams up with her bandmates in the supergroup Feeding Goats with Michael Hafftka on guitar, Yonat Hafftka on theremin, Cameron Mizell on guitar at Pine Box Rock Shop

5/16-17, 10 PM Steve Wynn’s legendary, ageless, searing guitar duel band the Dream Syndicate at the Mercury (a place they’ve never played before), $25. 80s guitarslinger cult hero Stephen McCarthy (ex-True West) opens both shows at around 8

5/16, 9 PM punchy, sardonic postpunk band Big Bliss at Alphaville, $12

5/16, 9:30 PM newgrass and classcial with violinist Tessa Lark and bassist Michael Thurber at Joe’s Pub, $25

5/17-18, 7/9 PM a rare solo performance by Jamaican jazz piano icon Monty Alexander at Birdland, $30 seats avail

5/17-18, 8 PM perennnially edgy, darkly tuneful, fearlessly noisy guitarist Mary Halvorson with Gabriel Seymour (bass); Henry Mermer (drums) at Happy Lucky No. 1 Gallery, $20

5/17, 8 PM crazy segue, but two good bands: sax-and-organ grooves with Craig Handy & 2nd Line Smith and baroque specialists the Beijing Guitar Duo at Flushing Town Hall, $12

5/17, 8:30 PM sepulchral, otherworldly Cairo singer/multi-instrumentalist Nadah El Shazly – who puts an eerie improvisational spin on classical Arabic song –  followed by a series of short films about “neighborhood celebrities, the rebels of Chinese trap music, animated bungee dives, and conga lines on the high seas,” then party amid the tombstones in Green-Wood Cemetery, $16 

5/17, 10 PM increasingly electric, psychedeic cumbia band Cumbiagra at Barbes

5/17, 10 PM rustic Colombian sounds with the Cumbia River Band  at the small room at the Rockwood

5/17, 7 PM newschool jazz singer Gretchen Parlato leads her quartet at the big room at the Rockwood

5/18, 4 PM  the ageless godfather of boogaloo, Joe Bataan at El Museo del Barrio, free

5/18, 5 PM the Make Some Noise festival in Riverside Park just north of 91st St with Bacchantae, Barnard College’s all-female a cappella group, ferociously dynamic, tuneful, female-fronted power trio Castle Black, the Educadorian-flavred Luz Pinos Band and eventually genre-smashing avant-jazz saxophonist/singer Stephanie Chou and her band at the crabapple grove in Riverside Park, enter at 91st or 95th St. and follow the noise

5/18, 7 PM indie classical ensemble ensemble Contemporaneous and berimbau sextet Projeto Arcomusical at Littlefield $10

5/18, 7:30 PM pipa-driven Chinese traditional pastorales with Zhou Yi and Ban Ban Chinese Music Society at Flushing Town Hall, $16

5/18, 8 PM  intense, lyrical jazz bassist/composer Pedro Giraudo leading his Tango Quartet at Barbes

5/18-19 9 PM ageless third-wave ska/soul band the Slackers at the Kingsland, $20. 5/18 punk-popsters the Hempsteadys and Big Tuens open at 7; 5/19 it’s ska band Westbound Train and Love & Wra; 5/19 the opening acts are roots reggae group the Far East and goth band Deep Cuts

5/18, 8 PM the reliably entertaining, adventurous Chelsea Symphony wind up their socially aware season with Courtney Bryan — Sanctum; Dvořák — Violin Concerto in A Minor, op. 53 featuring soloist Bryn Digney; Shostakovich — Symphony No. 5 in D Minor at the DiMenna Center, $20 sug don. The program repeats 5/19 at 2 PM, switching out the Dvorak for Eric Ewazen’s Rhapsody for Bass Trombone and String Orchestra; with bass trombone soloist Owen Caprell

5/18, 8 PM riveting Japanese shamisen player/singer/improviser Emi Makabe at Branded Saloon

5/18, 9 PM trumpet icon Frank London and percussion maven Deep Singh’s Bagels & Bhangra, and klezmer reedman Paul Shapiro’s Ribs & Brisket Revue at City Winery, $15

5/18. 10 PM energetic fifth-wave garage rockers the Lord Calverts at Hank’s, $10

5/18. 10 PM fuzztone-fueled retro 60s psychedelic rockers the Mystery Lights at the Music Hall of Williamsburg, $15 adv tix rec

5/18, 10 PM first-rate purist honkytonk crooner/bandleader Cliff Westfall and his killer band at Skinny Dennis

5/19, starting at around noon the annual Hoboken Arts & Music Festival, acts TBA starting at Washington St and 7th St. ; feral psychedelic guitarslinger Debra Devi is the highlight at 2. A former New York pierrot repreises his popular 80s faux latin lounge lizard act at around 6.

5/19, 2 PM slashing, careening, irrepressible former Friggs guitarslinger Palmyra Delran and band followed by sardonically relevant guitar-fueled female-fronted Americana punks Spanking Charlene at Mulligan’s Pub, 159 1st St. close to the Path train in Hoboken

5/19, 7 PM the Fair Trade Trio play the world premiere of Alon Nechushtan‘s Fractured Fairy Tales along with Beethoven’s String Trio, Op. 9, No. 1. and join forces with pianist Taisiya Pushkar for Schumann’s Piano Quartet at the Dimenna Center, $25/$15 stud/srs

5/19, 7:30 PM Miriam Phyro reinterprets Edith Piaf at Birdland, $20 seats avail

5/19, 9ish NYC Americana vet Samoa Wilson, newschool boleros with Yva Las Vegas and quirky, smartly lyrical avant cello-rock band the Icebergs  at Starr Bar

5/19, 8 PM one of the world’s most brilliant and individualistic slide guitarists:  Debashish Bhattacharya, who’s equally thrilling with Indian ragas and Hawaiian nightscapes, at Drom, $20 adv tix rec

5/20, 8 PM hauntingly cinematic pianist/composer Kelly Moran plays two sets, accompanied by videos at Roulette, $18 adv tix req

5/21-22, 8/10:30 PM the new generation’s most eclectic jazz harpist, Brandee Younger leads her band with Ravi Coltrane on alto at the Blue Note, $15 standing room avail

5/20, 9:30 PM ex-Chicha Libre keyboard sorcerer Josh Camp’s wryly psychedelic cumbia/tropicalia/dub band Locobeach at Barbes

5/21, 7 PM purposeful, uneasy, ferociously smart guitarist Sean Moran’s Sun Tiger trio with cellist Hank Roberts and drummer Vinnie Sperrazza followed by fiery, eclectic ten-piece Balkan/hip-hop/funk brass maniacs Slavic Soul Party at 9 PM at Barbes

5/21, 8 PM Travis Laplante & erennially interesting piano/percussion ensemble Yarn/Wire play their ecologically-themed, hypnotic suite Inner Garden at Roulette, $18 adv tix req

5/21, 9 PM fiery political rock en Espanol/ska punk band Outernational at Coney Island Baby, $8

5/22, 7 PM klezmer jazz band Hevreh Ensemble play the album release show for their new one at Drom, $10 adv tix rec. Followed at 9 ($10 separate adv tix admission) by the album release show by Cuban-style charanga La Banda Ramirez

5/22, 7:30 PM crescendoing, psychedelic doom metal band Clouds Taste Satanic, followed by doomy postrockers Seasick Gladiator and then Stoogoid stoner boogie band Sun Voyager at Arlene’s, $10

5/22-23 and 5/28, 7:30 PM repeating on 5/25 at 8 the NY Philharmonic play Shostakovich’s Chamber Symphony and Beethoven’s Symphony No. 3, Eroica, $34 tix avail

5/22, 8 PM irrepressible multi-instrumentalist Joanna Sternberg wearing her front-porch folk guitarist hat at Barbes

5/22, 8 PM brilliantly eclectic vibraphonist Joel Ross leads a quartet, then a massive octet at Roulette, $18 adv tix rec

5/22-23, 8/10 PM eclectic soul-jazz alto saxophonist Lakecia Benjamin and her eclectic oldschool soul/jazz/psychedelic funk band at Ginny’s Supper Club, $20

5/22-25, 8:30/11 PM funky jazz organ icon Dr. Lonnie Smith with the Jazz Orchestra of the Concertgebouw at Birdland, $30 seats avail

5/22, 9 PM cinematic rock band Fuck You Tammy play amazingly spot-on recreations of themes and songs from Twin Peaks and David Lynch films at LIC Bar

5/22, 9 PM 80s Irish punk-pop/powerpop legends the Undertones at the Poisson Rouge, $26 adv tix rec. Maybe they’re getting their Middle Aged Kicks right about now

5/22 midnight boisterously funny oldschool 60s C&W and brooding southwestern gothic with the Jack Grace Band at the Ear Inn

5/23-26, 7:30/930 PM terse, purposeful rising star postbop saxophonist Melissa Aldana  leads a quartet at the Jazz Standard, $30

5/23, 7:30 PM the Manhattan Chamber Players perform works by Chausson and Franck at the Baruch College Auditorium, $21

5/23. 7:30 PM pianist Todd Crow plays works by Mendelssohn , Schumann, Debussy, Bartok and Dutilleux at Zankel Hall at Carnegie Hall, $25 tix avail

5/23, 7:30 PM salsa dura flutist Karen Joseph leads her own band, MamboCha at the Lincoln Center Atrium, free, early arrival advised

5/23, 8 PM playful avant garde vocal icon Meredith Mon (performing on voice and keyboard) offers one of her more rare, intimate concerts in her premiere at the Jewish Museum, with members of her Vocal Ensemble, Katie Geissinger (voice) and Allison Sniffin (voice, violin and keyboard).  $20. Check out the Leonard Cohen exhibit while you’re there

5/23, 8 PM the original creepy cello rockers, Rasputina at Baby’s All Right, $20

5/23, 10 PM “the Slippery Fish pay tribute to the Mexican pedal steel master Tõno Quirazco, who in the 1960’s combined the new sound of ska music out of Jamaica with country twang to invent a twist on the Caribbean sound. With Ari Folman-Cohen – bass and John Echelay – pedal steel,” at Barbes

5/23, 11 PM hilarious, ageless hair metal parody band Satanicide at the Mercury $10

5/24, 8 PM deviously theatrical oldschool C&W/rockabilly parodists Susquehanna Industrial Tool & Die Co at Otto’s

5/24, 8 PM  amazing, psychedelic instrumentalists Sandcatchers – who blend cinematic, pastoral Americana and Middle Eastern themes – followed at 10 by the world’s creepiest, slinkiest, most psychedelic crime jazz/film noir band, Big Lazy at Barbes

5/24, 8 PM elegant folk noir songwriter Jean Rohe at the Owl

5/24,, 8 PM adventurous choir Khorikos sing Josquin des Prez’s under-recorded motet cycle “Vultum Tuum Deprecabuntur,” plus material from their lavish triple album Joy and Grief and Rest at the DiMenna Center, $20

5/24, 8 PM crystalline-voiced, vivid, Tom Waits-influenced acoustic storyteller Lara Ewen and darkly torchy southwestern gothic/Europolitan songwriter/guitarist Miwa Gemini at the Way Station

5/24, 8 PM dynamic avant-garde harp luminary Zeena Parkins plays solo, duo and trio pieces at Happy Lucky No. 1 Gallery, $20

5/24, 8 PM Shilpa Ray – who lately has been doing a decent Patti Smith impression – followed by amazingly fun, noirish, psychedelic surf/cinematic  trio Hearing Things at Cmon Everybody, $10

5/24, 8:30 PM psychedelic Brazilian band Os Clavelitos at Espresso 77. 5/31 at midnight they’re at the small room at the Rockwood

5/24, 8:15 PM the irrepressible, cinematic, comedic Broken Reed Saxophone Quartet play leader Charley Girard’s Obamalogues t Shapeshifter Lab, $10

5/24, 9 PM the Dirty Waltz Band- a seven-piece group playing more than a dozen instruments in 3/4 time from Balkan, Irish, jazz, blues and American folk traditions – at the Jalopy, $10

5/25, 4 PM a Joseph Jarman memorial concert at Roulette, lineup TBA, probably plenty of AACM talent, free w/rsvp

5/25, 4 PM oldschool bomba and plena sounds with Tito Matos and La Maquina Insular at Poe Park in the Bronx

5/25, 7 PM excoriatingly lyrical, fearlessly anti-fascist klezmer/art-rock band Daniel Kahn & the Painted Bird at Joe’s Pub, $20

5/25, 7 PM eclectic, pensive, purposeful original acoustic Americana songwriter Ruby Landen at Arlene’s, $10

5/25, 9:30 dark, Crampsy garage-punk band the So So Glos at the Mercury, $16 adv ti rec

5/26, 5 PM pianist Andrea Lam performs Bach, Schumann and Stravinsky at the Lounge at Hudson View Gardens, 128 Pinehurst Ave @ W 183rd St, A train or #1 train (to 181st St) or the M4 bus (to 183rd St), $15/$12 stud/srs

5/26, 7:30/9:30 PM starry, mesmerizing, pointillistically sweeping space-jazz band Bryan & the Aardvarks at the Jazz Gallery, $15s

5/26, 8 PM Peruvian psychedelic cumbia legends Los Mirlos – whose version of the national anthem or cumbia, Sonido Amazonico, remains the best-known – make their American debut at Brooklyn Bazaar, outrageously expensive, $35, but this might be your only chance to see the on this continent

5/26, 8:30 PM blowtorch singer Hannah Fairchild’s explosive, lyrically brilliant noir punk power trio Hannah vs. the Many and colorful, Bowie-esque female-fronted glamrockers the Manimals at the Merrcury, $10

5/26, 10 PM noir-inspired alto saxophonist/composer Nick Hempton leads his combo at Smalls

5/27, 6 PM the Brooklyn Songwriters Exchange – a diverse bunch playing everything from folk noir to Costelloesque, literatry rock to Indian ragas and oldschool soul – at Pete’s

5/27, 7 PM the NY Philharmonic play Bruckner’s big, blustery Symphony No. 8 at the Cathedral of St. John the Divine, free, you should get in line by 4 at the latest if you’re going.

5/27, 10ish  feral singer Carolina Oliveros’ mighty 13-piece Afro-Colombian trance/dance choir Bulla en el Barrio at Barbes

5/28, 6 PM kinetic Cuban jazz pianist Elio Villafranca leads an octet playing his new suite about Cuban freedom fighter Florentina Zulueta battling slave traders and conquistadors, at Barretto Point Park (a former slave burial ground) in the Bronx, free

5/28 7:30 PM tenor saxophonist Alexa Tarantino plays the album release show for her new one with pianist Christian Sands, bassist Joe Martin, and drummer Ulysses Owens, Jr. at Dizzy’s Club, expensive $35, but she’s really something

5/28, 8 PM edgy, purposeful, improvisational tenor saxophonist María Grand leads two duos – one wiht a dancer – and a quartet at Roulette, $18 qdv ix rec

5/28-6/2, 8/10:30 PM drummer Mark Guiliana leads a killer quatet with Jason Rigby on tenor and Shai Maestro on piano at the Vanguard

5/28-6/1, 8 PM cleverly lyrical, darkly klezmer-tinged pianist Uri Caine leads a series of ensembles at the Stone, $20. Choice pick: 5/31 leading a tango band with strings and accordion!

5/28, 10:30 PM charismatic, adventurous postbop/avant garde trombonist/crooner Frank Lacy‘s Tromboniverse at Smalls

5/29, 6 PM Colombian-style cumbia with LaMar at Bryant Park

5/29-31, 7/9 PM classy, cinematic NZ jazz pianist Alan Broadbent leads a trio at Birdland, $20 seats avail

5/29, 7:30 PM mystical belltones: pianist Anthony McDonald plays a rare all-Mompou program at Scholes St. Studio

5/29. 8 PM pyrotechnic clarinetist Ismail Lumanovski’s ferociously kinetic NY Gypsy All-Stars w/allstar oudist Ara Dinkjian at Drom, $15 adv tix rec

5/29, 8 PM legendary Bob Marley bassist Family Man Barrett’s version of the Wailers at the Poisson Rouge, $25 adv tix rec

5/30, 730/930 PM bassist Shawn Lovato leads a quintet with Oscar Noriega -alto saxophone; Brad Shepik -guitar’ Santiago Leibson -piano; Chris Carroll -drums at the Jazz Gallery, $15

5/30. 7:30/9 PM noir-tinged pianist Frank Kimbrough with Jay Anderson on bass & Jeff Hirshfield on drums at Mezzrow, $20

5/30, 7:30 PM, repeating 6/1 at 8 the NY Philharmonic play Corigliano’s Symphony No. 1 plus Mozart’s Piano Concerto No. 24, $34 tix aail

5/30, 7:30 PM powerhouse retro 60s soul singer Meah Pace and her killer band at the Lincoln Center Atrium, free, early arrival advised

5/30, 7:30 riveting, charismatic, intuitive pianist Karine Poghosyan plays fiery works by De Falla, Liszt and Kachturian at Zankel Hall at Carnegie Hell, $20 seats avail

5/30, 8 PM scruffy indie gutter blues duo Eleanor followed by  edgy lefty latin soul guitarist Damian Quinones acoustic at Freddy’s

5/30 830 PM ferocious, twin guitar-fueled, Radio Birdman-esque psychedelic punks the Electric Mess and  punk/rockabilly band the Screaming Rebel Angels  at Coney Island Baby, $10

5/30, 8:30 PM original klezmer songwriter Josh Waletzky & band with the charismatic Ilya Shneyveys on vocals at Town & Village Social Hall, 334 E 14th St.(between 1st & 2nd Ave.), $15

5/30-6/2, 8/10:30 PM perennially edgy, tuneful alto saxophonist Kenny Garrett at the Blue Note, $20 standing room avail

5/30, 10 PM catchy, politically fearless soulstress Alice Lee – Nina Simone meets Fiona Apple, equally psychedelic and torchy – at Pete’s

5/30, 10 PM drummer Arthur Vint & Associates reinvent classic Morricone spaghetti western soundtracks at Barbes

5/31, 7 PM an eclectic slate of guitarists – pensive, thoughtful Caribbean/Canadian banjoist/songwriter Kaia Kater, hypnotic soundscaper Rafiq Bhatia and ferociously powerful, politically fearless southern gothic banjo player Amythyst Kiah.– salute 20s blues pioneer Memphis Minnie at the Greene Space, $25

5/31, 7:30 PM cutting-edge string jazz with drmmer Kendrick Scott‘s Oracle and the Attacca Quartet at Aaron Davis Hal, free, rsvp req 

5/31, reception at 7:30, show at 8:30, mystical courtly themes and edgy improvisation with Korean piri flutist Gamin with Minkyung Park (haegeum fiddle);Sangmi Kang (gayageum zither) at the Center for Remembering & Sharing, 123 4th Ave FL 2 (between 12th & 13th str $25 adv tix rec

5/31, 7:30/9:30 PM a rare duo show with pianist Matt Mitchell and drummer Ches Smith at the Jazz Gallery, $15

5/31, 8 PM the New Amsterdam Symphony Orchestra play Schubert’s Rosamunde suite, Rachmaninoff’s Symphonic Dances and Haydn’s Trumpet Concerto at Symphony Space, $25/$15 stud/srs

5/31, 8 PM probably the best twinbill ever to play Silvana: careeningly explosive ten-piece Balkan brass crew Veveritse followed by unpredictably fun, funny psychedelic art-rock band the Academy Blues Project 

5/31-6/1, 8 PM wryly psychedelic cinematic Italophile instrumentalists/parodists Tredici Bacci at Happy Lucky No. 1 Gallery, $20

5/31, 9 PM cinematic, kaleidoscopic jazz composer/singer Annie Chen leads her quintet at the old Nublu

5/31, 9:30 PM oldschool 60s Muscle Shoals style soul duo Dwight & Nicole at Bower Electric, $10 dv tix rec

6/1, 1/3 PM up-and-coming chamber group Ensemble Connect play Ives’ Symphony No. 3 plus other works on Governors Island, free

6/1, 5 PM ecketic, fiery jazz improv guitarist Ryan Ferreira followed at 6 by atmospheric, cinematic drummer/composer Tim Kuhl and band, at 8 by purist front-porch folk banjo player/singer Stephanie Jenkins and eventually at 11 by creepy 80s goth/folk noir group Ghost Harbor at Pete’s

6/1, 7:30ish oldschool 60s style soul crooner/guitarist Durand Jones & the Indications followed by Americana soulstress Emily King at Central Park Summerstage. To get in, you may have to stand through a set by a putrid opening act that starts about a half hour earlier

6/1, 10 PM sharply literary, ten-piece country/carnivalesque/acoustic rock powerhouse M Shanghai String Band at the Jalopy, $!0

6/2 2 PM the Scandia String Quartet with flutist Lisa Hansen play works by Friedrich Kuhlau, Lard-Erik Larsson, Jean Sibelius, Edward Grieg, and Frank Foerster on the Billings Lawn  on th4 downhill slope on the Hudson side of Ft. Tryon Park,

6/2, 830 PM skittish, oldschool 70s style powerpop band the Penultimate followed at 10;30 by quirky, smartly lyrical avant cello-rock band the Icebergs  at Pete’s

6/4 drinks at 5:30, show at 6 the Bent Duo -David Friend, piano; Bill Solomon, percussion – play works by Hannah Lash, Sarah Hennies and Mayke Nas at the Miller Theatre, free

6/4, 8 PM 70s disco nostalgia with Patti LaBelle at Prospect Park Bandshell – this will be a mobscene, try watching from behind the back fence if you’re going

6/4, 10 PM the Belle Curves – who have an achingly gorgeous new janglerock single out – at Coney Island Baby, $10

6/6, 6:30 PM postbop drum vet Winard Harper leads hisvtypicaly excellet  band at Marcus Garvey Park

6//6, 7:30 PM, repeating 6/7-8 at 8 the NY Philharmonic play David Lang’s new opera Prisoner of the State – inspired by Beethoven’s Fidelio, it chronicles the rise and fall of a tyrant, what a coincidence in 2019! $34 tix avail

6/7, 5:30 PM rousing spiritual/soul singer Vienna Carroll at the American Folk Art Museum

6/7, 6:30 PM brilliant drummer/percussionist Willie Martinez leads his salsa jazz Quartet at Sunset Park Recreation Center in Sunset Park, 43rd Street at 7th Ave

6/7-8, 7 PM the annual steel guitar Unconvention at the Jalopy, $25. Friday nghts lineup begins with pedal steel and cello duets from Bob Hoffnar and Christopher Hoffman – wow – followed at 8 by the: Dime Store Romeos featuring Raphael McGregor at 9 Dave Easley, at 10 Atlanta sacred steel band: Kashiah Hunter and the Sacred Sounds. Saturday nght’s lineup starts at 7 with latin steel sounds from John Eichleay, at 8 Hazmat Modine’s fierce Michaela Gomez, at 9 Anupam Shobhakar playing Indian sarod and at 10 pm Murnel Babineaux on Cajun steel guitar

6/7, 8ish long-running, wickedly jangly, tuneful Americana rockers the Sloe Guns at Shrine

6/7, 10 PM the Barcelona Gipsy Balkan Orchestra at the Cutting Room,, $30 adv tix rec

6/7, 11 PM Athan Hilaki and his band play classic Greek rebetiko rock and pop hits at Drom $15 standing room avail

6/8, 1 PMchanteuse/uke player Dahlia Dumont’s Blue Dahlia playing edgy, smartly lyrically-fueled, jazz-infused tunes in English and French with classic chanson and Caribbean influences at Ruppert Park, Second Ave. bet. E. 90 St. and E. 91 St.

6/9, 2 PM the Scandia Brass Quintet on the Billings Lawn  on the downhill slope on the Hudson side of Ft. Tryon Park,

6/9, 3-11 PM an allday free Wall to Wall John Coltrane marathon at Symphony Space,, lineup tba includes Lakecia Benjamin, the Brooklyn Raga Massive and others

6/9 3 PM roots and dancehall reeggae with British Dependency, Mr. Kool, and Paul Brown.at St. Albans Park in Queens

6/9,  7 PM spine-tingling, darkly mystical art-rock/avant-garde/chamber pop songwriter Carol Lipnik – pretty much everybody’s choice for best singer in all of NYC –  at Pangea

6/9, 7 PM Bobtown – NYC’s most allusingly lurid folk noir harmony band – play the album release show for their slightly less creepy new one at the big room at the Rockwood

6/9, 8:30 PM quirky, whirling, string-driven chamber pop/art-rock band Gadadu at Pete’s

6/10, 6 PM the Brooklyn Songwriters Exchange – a diverse bunch playing everything from folk noir to Costelloesque, literatry rock to Indian ragas and oldschool soul – at Pete’s

6/11, drinks at 5:30, show at 6 Ensemble Échappé play works by Selim Göncü, Katherine Balch, Nina C. Young and others at the Miller Theatre, free

6/11, 8 PM the NY Philharmonic play Rachmaninoff’s Symphony No. 2 plus other stuff at Van Cortlandt Park in the Bronx. The program repeats on 6/12 in Central Park, 6/13 in Cunningham Park, at 193rd Street, near 81st Avenue or Union Turnpike in Queens, 6/14 in Prospect Park. The orchestra’s brass and percussion also play a free concert on 6/16 at 4 at the St. George Theatre in Staten Island

6/12, 7 PM a cantorial music showdown with Azi Schwartz, Yanky Lemmer and Netanel Hershtik backed by an all-star band led by trumpet legend Frank London at Central Park Summerstage

6/13, half past noon polymath latin jazz pianist Arturo O’Farrill leads a small group at St. Marks Park, 2nd Ave/10th St

6/13, 7:30 PM  fiery, psychedelically bluesy oldschool soul/roadhouse jamband Lizzie & the Makers and folk noir duo the Tall Pines playing the album release show for their new one at Coney Island Baby, $12

6/13, 10 PM a rare reunion gig by pioneering salsacore/Puerto Rican punk band Ricanstruction at Shrine

6/14, 5:30 PM a fearsome lineup of acoustic and Americana talent celebrate irrepressible impresario and songwriter Lara Ewen‘s bday at the American Folk Art Museum

6/14, 6 PM purist postbop jazz guitarist Ed Cherry and band at J Hood Wright Park W. 173 St. bet. Haven Ave. and Ft. Washington Ave. uptown

6/14, 8 PM Lost Dog New Music Ensemble play the the world premiere of new orchestrations of Leonard Bernstein’s haunting Dybbuk and his much more carefree early suite Fancy Free.at the DiMenna Center, 420

6/14, 8:30 PM surf rock night at Freddy’s: Brooklyn cover trio the Band of Others and  the majestic, darkly cinematic TarantinosNYC.

6/14, 9 PM dark intense lyrical southwestern gothic/paisley underground rockers Shanghai Love Motel at Connolly’s, 121 W 45th St., $10

6/15, 5 PM retro swing with the Harlem Renaissance Orchestra  at Marcus Garvey Park

6/15, 7 PM drummer Jack DeJohnette leads a Coltrane tribute trio with Ravi Coltrane on alto and Matt Garrison on bass at Central Park Summerstage

6/15, 7 PM Orquesta Afinke play oldschool salsa dura at Gorman Playground 30 Ave., 25 Ave. bet. 84 St. and 85 St. in Queens

6/16, 2 PM the Scandia String Orchestra  perform  Nordic works by Frank Foerster, Niels W. Gade, Johan Helmich Roman, and Svend S. Schultz. on the Billings Lawn  on the downhill slope on the Hudson side of Ft. Tryon Park,

6/16, 3 PM ish the largescale improvisational ensemble who started it all, the Sun Ra Arkestra outdoors at Union Pool, free

6/16, 5 PM cellist Angela Lee, with pianist Evelyne Luest play works by Beethoven, Prokofiev and Janáček at the Lounge at Hudson View Gardens, 128 Pinehurst Ave @ W 183rd St, A train or #1 train (to 181st St) or the M4 bus (to 183rd St), $15/$12 stud/sr

6/18, 7 PM popular, eclectic, edgy orchestra the Knights play works by Mendelssohn, Britten and Lisa Bielawa at the Naumburg Bandshell in Central Park

6/19, 10:30 PM cscampering, irrepressibly fun girlpunk/psychedelic band Sharkmuffin at Coney Island Baby, $10

6/20, noon ageless soul-jazz pioneer and Blaxpolitation film soundtrack icon Roy Ayers at Metrotech Park in downtown Brooklyn

6/20, 7:30 PM bluesy funk followed by gullah-influenced soul: organist  Cory Henry & the Funk Apostles and Tank & the Bangas at Prospect Park Bandshell

6/20, 8 PM 90s hip-hop nostalgia with Pharaoh Monche at Von King Park, 670 Lafayette Ave in Bed-Stuy

6/20, 9 PM scruffy punkish jamband Jeff the Brotherhood at Industry City Courtyard, 238 36th St, Sunset Park, $15 adv tix avail at the Bell House

6/21, 6 PM a rare uptown appearance by Brooklyn folk noir icon Liz Tormes at the American Folk Art Musem

6/21, 7:30 PM psychedelic blues singer/bandleader Aida Victoria followed by desert rock/southwestern gothic legends Calexico fronted by that Iron & Wine dude at Prospect Park Bandshell

6/21, 8 PM careeningly explosive ten-piece Balkan brass crew Veveritse at Shrine

6/21, 8 PM pianist Huizi Zhang and composer-pianist Gu Wei play an evening of contemporary music for toy and “real” piano featuring pieces by Phyllis Chen, Jun An Chew, Daniel Despins, Chris Parrello, Yuting Tan, and Gu Wei. at the DiMenna Center, $20

6/22, 10 AM the annual free Punk Island allday concert on Governors Island, dozens of bands from all styles of punk. Houston folk-punk faves Days N Daze on the bill with dozens of others. Keep in mind that security to get on the ferry is FEROCIOUS, no alcohol alllowed, you will be searched.

6/22, 8:30 PM hilarious, smartly political faux-French retro 60s psych-pop band les Sans Culottes and sardonically relevant guitar-fueled female-fronted Americana punks Spanking Charlene  at Coney Island Baby, $10

6/22, 8:30 PM psychedelic Chicago postrock/downtempo legends Tortoise at Prospect Park Bandshell

6/23, 3 PM ish  electroacoustic film composer/performer Haley Fohr aka Circuit des Yeux at Union Pool, free

6/23, 10 PM edgy lefty latin soul guitarist Damian Quinones acoustic at Freddy’s

6/25, 7:30 PM Vince Giordano’s Nighthawks, the boisterous horn-driven 11-piece 1920s/early 30’s band that pretty much singlehandedly springboarded the oldtimey swing revival in NYC, at Damrosch Park out back of Lincoln Center, free to get into the park, $18 in advance for the dancefloor

6/25, 9:30 PM Russian quirk-rock, ska punk and freak-folk with Vezhlivy Otkaz – Russian for “polite refusal” –  “one of the most original and erratic rock bands in Russia” at Drom, $15 adv tix rec

6/25, 10 PM serpentine, cinematic, epic art-rock band Book of Harmony at Shrine

6/26, 7:30 PM latin jazz drum maven Dafnis Prieto‘s Si o Si Quartet and Cuban piano legend Chucho Valdés at Prospect Park Bandshell

6/26, 8 PM this era’s most fearlessly relevant, hard-hitting tenor saxophonist, JD Allen unveils his brand-new trio and plays the album release show for his latest one, Barracoon at Bar Bayeaux, 1066 Nostrand Ave in Prospect Lefferts Gardens, free, 2 to Sterling St. omfg

6/27, half past noon playfully eclectic trombonist Art Baron and band at St. Marks Park, 2nd Ave/10th St

6/27, 7 PM golden-age hip-hop vets Smif & Wessun and Black Moon at Betsy Head Park in Brooklyn

6/27, 7:30 PM Jamaican dancehall night with conscious singer Jah9 and her rootsy band followed by Protoje at Prospect Park Bandshell

6/28, 5:30 PM one of New York’ most acerbic, distinctive voices in front-porch folk,  Jo Williamson,  star Pakistani crooner Ali Aslam, and richly lyrical noir soul band Sweet Soubrette at the American Folk Art Museum

6/28, 7:30 PM Dos Santos Anti-Beat Orquesta play their fiery Afrobeat jams followed by singer/accordionis Celso Piña – the psychedelic Mexican “Rebelde del Acordion” – at Prospect Park Bandshell

6/29, 7ish psychedelic, minimalist Cameroonian crooner/guitarist Blick Bassy at Central Park Summerstage

6/29, 7:30 PM well-loved, riff-rocking Boston fourth-wave garage rockers Muck & the Mires at Coney Island Baby, $10

6/29, 7:30 PM rustic Cuban country music band Los Hacheros play ancient island grooves at Damrosch Park out back of Lincoln Center, free to get into the park, $18 in advance for the dancefloor

6/30, half past noon amazing, mostly-female, kinetic klezmer/cumbia/cinematic jamband Isle of Klezbos at St. Marks Park, 2nd Ave/10th St

6/30, 3 PM ish  irrepressible storyteller/psychedelic guitarist/new wave cult hero Wreckless Eric at Union Pool, free

6/30, 3 PM the Queens Symphony Orchestra play a program TBA at  the bandshell in Forest Park on Woodhaven Boulevard

7/3, 7;30 PM the Sisterhood of Swing Seven with Catherine Russell  on vocals plus Camille Thurman,saxophone; Emily Asher, trombone;Endea Owens,bass; Shirazette Tinnin, drums; Champian Fulton,piano; and Molly Ryan guitar celebrate the legacy of the legendary all-female 30s swing band at Damrosch Park out back of Lincoln Center, free to get into the park, $18 in advance for the dancefloor

7/4, 7:30 PM El Rey del Bajo, Bobby Valentín leads his Orchestra playing 70s Fania classics at Damrosch Park out back of Lincoln Center, free to get into the park, $18 in advance for the dancefloor

7/5, 7 PM the Casym Steel Orchestra and soca hall of famer Mighty Sparrow – see if he cancels again this time – at Springfield Park in Queens

7/5, 7:30 PM trumpeter Joe Battaglia &The New York Big Band play 30s/40s swing at Damrosch Park out back of Lincoln Center, free to get into the park, $18 in advance for the dancefloor

7/5, 8:30ish conscious hip-hop artist Leikeli47 followed by Chicago hardcore mc Mick Jenkins – who had the sense to nick a Gil Scott-Heron song for the title of his latest album – at Prospect Park Bandshell

7/6, 7 PM epic, woke, Middle Eastern rap night with Narcy, wild Palestinian hip-hop/dancehall reggae/habibi pop band 47soul and Oddissee at Prospect Park Bandshell

7/7, 3 PM ish the ageless godfather of boogaloo, Joe Bataan at Union Pool, free

7/7, 3 PM Christina Conroy plays the Irish harp at Jefferson Market Garden in the west village. She’s also here at 10 AM (in the morning) on 7/21

7/9, 7:30 PM a rare NYC appearance by Brazilian jungle song chanteuse Elba Ramalho ,“The Queen of Forró,” at Damrosch Park out back of Lincoln Center, free to get into the park, $18 in advance for the dancefloor

7/10, 7 PM the Venice Baroque Orchestra make a rare outdoor NYC appearance playing works by Handel, Vivaldi and others at the Naumburg Bandshell in Central Park

7/10, 7:30 PM the mighty, Middle Eastern-tinged Eyal Vilner Big Band with special guest Brianna Thomas burning down the house on vocals at Damrosch Park out back of Lincoln Center, free to get into the park, $18 in advance for the dancefloor

7/11 7:30 PM Argentine pianist Analía Goldberg’s tango Sextet at Damrosch Park out back of Lincoln Center, free to get into the park, $18 in advance for the dancefloor

7/11, 8 PM female-fronted Colombian rock en Espanol vets Aterciopelados at Queensbridge Park

7/12, 7:30 PM Maria Muldaur  – yeah, her, Midnight at the Oasis – sings the songs of Blue Lu Barker and more at Damrosch Park out back of Lincoln Center, free to get into the park, $18 in advance for the dancefloor

7/12, 8 PM veteran Argentine folksinger Leon Gieco at Queensbridge Park

7/13, 7:30 PM retro swing with the Harlem Renaissance Orchestra playing their 15th annual tribute to Illinois Jacquet at Damrosch Park out back of Lincoln Center, free to get into the park, $18 in advance for the dancefloor

7/18, noon the thunderous hip-hop influenced Brooklyn United Drumline and seriously woke psychedelic soul with Fantastic Negrito at Metrotech Park in downtown Brooklyn

7/18, half past noon the self-explanatory, reliably adrenalizing, surprisingly dynamic Gypsy Jazz Caravan at St. Marks Park, 2nd Ave/10th

7/18, 7 PM A Far Cry play works by Muffat, Caroline Shaw, Beecher and Tschaikovsky at Temple Emanu-El, Fifth Avenue at 65th Stl free, rsvp req

7/18, 7:30 PM Americana rockers Darlingside and acoustic Americana supergroup I’m with Her – Sara Watkins, Sarah Jarosz and Aoife O’Donovan – at Prospect Park Bandshell

7/20, 5 PM psychedelic cumbia/reggaeton bandleader Ana Tijoux at Corporal Thompson Park in Staten Island

7/20, 9 PM Alloy Orchestra play a live score to the 1925 German silent film Varieté. at Prospect Park Bandshell

7/25, noon ecsatic Mardi Gras funk band Cha Wa at Metrotech Park in downtown Brooklyn

7/25, half past noon accordion genius Shoko Nagai ’s haunting, increasingly loud and psychedelic Tokala Silk Road/klezmer mashup project at St. Marks Park, 2nd Ave/10th St

6/25, 7 PM eclectic, politically fearless tropical rock band La Santa Cecilia at Damrosch Park

7/26, 7 PM magically spiky tropical psychedelic band Inti & the Moon on the water at 125th Street and Marginal Street at the West Harlem Piers

7/26, 7 PM individualistic Belgian cello rocker/improviser Helen Gillet followed by Wilco’s Jeff Tweedy at Damrosch Park

7/26, 7 PM salsa romantica with Los Hermanos Moreno and crooner Lalo Rodriguez at Soundview Park in the Bronx

7/27,7 PM in reverse order at Damrosch Park: ubiquitous pan-latin psychedelic guitar god Adrian Quesada leads a Texas soul band with vocalists Jonny Benavidez, Eric Burton, Kam Franklin, Johnny Hernandez, Ruben Ramos, and Paul Schaldal James Brown contemporaries Lee Fields & the Expressions and darkly psychedelic soul band the Black Pumas

7/28, 3 PM ish  pyrotechnic clarinetist and Dave Tarras protege Michael Winograd & the Honorable Mentshn, and psychedelic Incan folk band Inkarayku on the plaza at Lincoln Center

7/28, 7 PM in reverse order at Damrosch Park: salsa dura bands Las Caras Lindas de Mi Gente Negra featuring Moncho Rivera, Cita Rodriguez (daughter of the great El Conde) & Su Banda, and allstar percussionist Carlitos Padron & Su Banda

7/30. 7 PM the Orchestra of St. Luke’s play works by anna Clyne, Florence Pryce, Samuel Barber and otehs at Temple Emanu-El, Fifth Avenue at 65th Stl free rsvp req

7/31, 7 PM salsa romantica with Edgar Joel and Ray de la Paz at Crotona Park

7/31, 7:30 PM jazz drummer Terri Lyne Carrington leads a bewilderingly eclectic all-star all-female band including Rhiannon Giddens, Xiomara Laugart, Ledisi, Amina Claudine Myers, Cleo Reed, Valerie Simpson, Charenée Wade, and Lizz Wright of at Damrosch Park

7/31, 8 PM a theatrical Afrobeat tribute with FELA! The Concert at the Coney Island Amphitheatre, free, it’s a pretty small place run by corporate idiots and you’lll need to get there early to get in

8/1, noon eclectic Texas acoustic blues guitarist Ruthie Foster at Metrotech Park in downtown Brooklyn http://www.ruthiefoster.com/

8/2, 7ish hypnotically percussive Afro-Honduran sounds with the Garifuna Jazz Ensemble at Crotona Park

8/3, 6 PM legendry hip-hop dj Funk Flex celebrates his bday and EPMD celebrate the 30th anniversary of their 1989 classic Unfinished Business at Crotona Park

8/3, 7ish PM politically fearess Taiwanese guy/girl piano pop duo Tizzy Bac at Central Park Summerstage

8/4, 4ish hypnotically pointillistic microtonal African guitar/drums jams with 75 Dollar Bill at Union Pool, free

8/4, 7:30 PM rappers of south Asian heritage: G. Sidhu, Rianjali, Taizu, Rolex, Robin Dey, SA Grooves, Project Convergence, IMGE Dance at Damrosch Park

8/6, 7 PM the Orpheus Chamber Orchestra play works by Rodrigo, Piazzolla, Gabriela Lena Franh and others at Temple Emanu-El, Fifth Avenue at 65th St, free, rsvp req

8/7, 7:30 PM amazing, atmospheric Hindustani singer/multi-instrumentalist  Arooj Aftab opens for a flameco dance performance at Darnrosch Park

8/8, noon surprisingly vital first-wave Jamaican roots reggae band Third World at Metrotech Park in downtown Brooklyn

8/9, 7:30 PM a Marvim Gaye tribute with guitarist Felicia Collins, Toshi Reagon, Siedah Garrett, Kecia Lewis, and others at Prospect Park Bandshell

8/10, 6 PM reggae acts from across the years, in reverse order at Central Park Summerstage: dancehall king Elephant Man, ex-Black Uhuru singer Junior Reid, Estelle and newschool conscious roots band Raging Fyah at Central Park

8/10, 7:30 PM psychedelic cumbia night with the slinky female-fronted Delsonido and Bomba Estéreo at Prospect Park Bandshell

8/11, 3 PM ish funk-punk-postpunkers the B Boys play the album release show for their new one at Union Pool, free 

8/17, 8ish conscious hip-hop legend Talib Kweli at Marcus Garvey Park

8/18, 6 PM oldschool salsa with Jose “El Canario” Alberto La Sonora Ponceña at the Coney Island Amphitheatre, free, it’s a pretty small place run by corporate idiots and youlll need to get there early to get in

8/18, 6 PM what’s left of multiple incarnations of Bob Marley’s band the Wailers featuring Julian Junior Marvin/ at Marcus Garvey Park

8/23, 7 PM in reverse order at Marcus Garvey Park: Brianna Thomas, Vuyo Sotashe, the JBs’ Fred Wesley, Winard Harper & Jeli Posse at Marcus Garvey Park

8/24, 3 PM in reverse order; Ravi Coltrane, Quiana Lynel, Reclamation with Camille Thurman, Nikara Warren and Brandee Younger at Marcus Garvey Park

8/25, 3 PM in reverse order at Tompkins Square Park: Carl Allen’s Art Blakey Tribute, the George Coleman Trio,  Fred Hersch and Lakecia Benjamin at Tompkins Square Park

8/25, 8ish popular 90s salsa chanteuse La India at Central Park Summerstage

A Visceral, Marathon Performance by the Orchestra of St. Luke’s at Carnegie Hall

There was electricity in the air Thursday night at Carnegie Hall, where a sold-out crowd witnessed conductor Pablo Heras-Casaldo leading the Orchestra of St. Luke’s through a marathon performance of two symphonies, a famous piano concerto and a clever mini-suite that should be more popular than it is.

There’s always a curmudgeon somewhere. “They’re playing the Prokofiev first?” an older guy in the orchestra section scowled to his date, a pretty young brunette in a tight black sweater. “That’s anticlimactic.”

“That’s daring,” she deadpanned. Both turned out to be right.

From the quasi-Haydn of the exchanges in the opening movement of Prokofiev’s Symphony No. 1, it sparkled with distinct voicings, jaunty accents and sotto-voce humor. It’s not Bohemian Rhapsody, but parts of it are close: the composer clearly had a great time toying with short, punchy, late 18th century-style Germanic phrasing. The pseudo-Mozart of the third movement was the most irrestistibly funny part, yet tellingly, Heras-Casaldo and the ensemble glimmered most memorably in the saturnine second movement. That’s where Prokofiev leaves no doubt as to who wrote it – and that bittersweetness will prevail at least for the time being. The coda seemed a little fast; then again, it’s hard to argue with how much fun the group were having, running red lights all the way.

Pianist Hélène Grimaud earned several standing ovations for a breathtakingly visceral take of Ravel’s Piano Concerto in G. From its gleeful opening glissandos, through plenty of the ravishing bolero and flamenco-tinged phrasing that the composer loved so much, to the sharply polished, steely interweave of the third movement, she matched meticulous precision to mighty joie de vivre.

It was going to be hard to top that. By now, it was all the more impressive how seamlessly the orchestra had negotiated a rugged road, constantly shifting gears between the early classical period, Russian Romanticism, the early modern, and foreshadowing flickers of flamenco jazz. There would be even more new terrain in Stravinsky’s Suite No. 1 for Small Orchestra, a whistle-stop tour of tarantella, flamenco and finally Russian folk influences fleshed out with an arrangement that’s carnivalesque if not completely phantasmagorical.

They closed with an old warhorse, Haydn’s Symphony No. 103 in E Flat, from 1795. Once again, Heras-Casaldo and the group seemed to be having a ball with the endless volleys of call-and-response from both individual voices and segments of the orchestra. In the same vein as their rendition of the Prokofiev, this turned out to be more boisterous and beery than – as the curmudgeon groused to his companion – simply banquet music for the landed gentry of Napoleonic Europe.

The Orchestra of St. Luke’s next show is April 25 at 8 PM at New York City Center, joining soprano Victoria Clark in a performance of Kurt Weill’s Lady in the Dark; $30 tix are available.

Lisa Bielawa Makes a Memorable Conducting Debut at the New School

To what degree is it a blessing, or a curse, for a conductor to make her debut with three world premieres? On one hand, it could be an overwhelming challenge. Until another orchestra plays those works, yours is the definitive version, for better or worse. On the other, it’s a chance to really shine,. Wednesday night at the New School, Lisa Bielawa did exactly that, leading the Mannes String Orchestra through lively debuts of arrangements of a couple of her own powerfully relevant pieces plus similarly striking contemporary works by Jon Gibson, David T. Little and a joyously swinging, dynamic finale with Philip Glass‘ Symphony No. 3.

Of course, Bielawa is best known as a composer, and a singer. She related how she’d been blown away by that symphony, shortly after joining the Philip Glass Ensemble as a vocalist, more or less straight out of Yale, 24 years ago. So she had the inside track for what was obviously a dream gig, seizing that moment with the same kind of muscular meticulousness that defines so much of her work.

So much of Glass’ music has a rapturously unfolding beauty that orchestras tend to play up the lustre factor, gliding through all those mesmerizing, shapeshifting phrases. This performance was much more bright and emphatic, in about as high definition as an ensemble can play it. Individual voices were strikingly distinct, notably violinists Yeji Pyun and Ann-Frances Rokosa, among the group’s nineteen members.
They danced through the playful, baroque-tinged humor in the first movement, tackled some daunting extended technique, notably glissandos and microtonal haze in the second, and accentuated the frequently shifting contrast between celestial sweep and trouble lurking just around the corner as the counterpoint grew more complex and intertwining.

The opening numbers were just as fascinating to wattch unfold. The ensemble arrived in threes for the opening work, Jon Gibson’s elegantly crescendoing Chorales for Relative Calm, with phrasing and more than one riff that sent a shout-out to Glass. Bielawa seemed at ease in her new role in front of the orchestra with that one, and really worked up a sweat with a pulsing, turbulent take of her own piece, The Trojan Women, pulling individual voices and clusters out of the increasing storm with Nielsen-esque color and aplomb.
The string orchestra arrangement of David T. Little’s 1986 – another world premiere – was even more of a challenge as the music leapfrogged between centuries and idioms, imgued with plenty of sarcasm and allusions to other works, and Bielawa and the ensemble held up to the challenge. 1986 was a pretty horrible year for just about everybody other than the Mets, and this piece doesn’t seem to include them.

Soprano Rowen Sabala emerged from the wings to sing two excerpts from Bielawa’s dystopic sci-fi opera Vireo and dispayed steely intensity as well as breathtaking range and a rare ability to enunciate, lyrically, something a lot of bigtime voices can’t do. Playing the role of a teenage visionary who exists simultaneously in three different centuries, she channeled both cynical contentment at being locked away at Alcatraz, away from her tormentors, along with surreal, hallucinatory angst.

Big up to the New School for getting to the guy who’s arguably the greatest American composer of the late 20th and early 21st century and setting up the Philip Glass Institute. Bielawa being their inaugural Composer-in-Residence, there will likely be more like this happening in the weeks to come.

Alex Weiser Resurrects a Brilliantly Obscure Tradition of Jewish Art-Song

If you had the good fortune to work at an archive as vast as the YIVO Institute, as composer Alex Weiser does, wouldn’t you explore it? Weiser went deep, and here’s an example of what he found:

Wheel me down to the shore
Where the lighthouse was abandoned
And the moon tolls in the rafters

Let me hear the wind paging through the trees
And see the stars flaming out, one by one
Like the forgotten faces of the dead

I was never able to pray
But let me inscribe my name
In the book of waves

And then stare into the dome
Of a sky that never ends
And see my voice sail into the night

Edward Hirsch wrote that poem; Weiser set it to music, along with eight other texts, on his new album And All the Days Were Purple (streaming at Bandcamp). Tuesday night at YIVO’s comfortable ground-floor auditorium,  an allstar sextet of 21st century music specialists – singer Eliza Bagg, pianist Daniel Schlossberg, violinist Hannah Levinson, violist Maya Bennardo, cellist Hannah Collins and vibraphonist Michael Compitello – played an allusively harrowing take of what Weiser made out of that Hirsch text, along with four other tersely lustrous compositions. That particular number was assembled around a plaintive bell motif; the other works on the bill shared that crystalline focus.

The premise of Weiser’s album looks back to a largely forgotten moment in Russia in 1908 where a collective of Jewish composers decided to make art-song out of folk tunes. Much as composers have been pillaging folk repertoire for melodies and ideas for hundreds of years, it’s refreshing to see that Weiser has resurrected the concept…and a revelation to see what he managed to dig up for texts.

In addition to a swirling, cleverly echoey, suspensefully horizontal instrumental interlude, the group worked starry, hypnotic variations on an ascending theme in Longing, a barely disguised erotic poem by Rachel Korn. My Joy, with text by Anna Margolin – born in 1887, eleven years before Korn – was much more bitter than sweet, a lament for an unfulfilled life. And the simply titled Poetry, a setting of a deviously innuendo-fueled Abraham Sutzkever poem, was rather stern and still – it’s the closest thing to an art-rock ballad as the album has.

For the concert, Weiser also created new arrangements of a handful of songs from the St. Petersburg Society for Jewish Folk Music, with a similar stylistic sweep. A lullaby credited to Lazare Saminsky – who would go on to become music director at New York’s Temple Emmanu-El – and a rueful emigre’s lament by Alexander Veprik were allusively assembled around the kind of gorgeous chromatics and biting minor keys most of us tend to associate with Jewish themes. But a 1923 message to the diaspora by Joel Engel, another member of that circle, and a Saminsky setting of the Song of Songs, were more comfortably atmospheric. And the group took Weiser’s chart for a 1921 Moses Milner lullaby to unexpected heights on the wings of the strings. After the show, the audience filtered out for a mostly purple-colored food to celebrate the album’s release: honey-ginger cake from Russ and Daughters, who knew?

In addition to his work as a composer, Weiser is in charge of public programs at YIVO. The next musical performance is May 1 at 7 PM, with pianist Ted Rosenthal‘s jazz opera Dear Erich, inspired by his grandmother Herta’s letters from Nazi-occupied Germany to her son, who’d escaped to the US after Kristallnacht but was unable to get his parents out. Advance tickets are $15 and highly recommended. 

Radical, Riveting Reinventions of Old Classics by New Talent: Xavier Foley and Kelly Lin at the Morgan Library

Anyone who might think that the Morgan Library wouldn’t necessarily be home to the most thrilling, cutting-edge music around wasn’t there earlier today for bassist Xavier Foley and pianist Kelly Lin’s exhilarating, genuinely radical performance. The two took all kinds of chances in a daring series of reinventions, in addition to a fascinating mini-suite by the bassist himself – and most of them worked.

To call the show hubristic doesn’t do justice to the pair’s achievement: in some classical circles, it’s still hubris to play Bach on the piano instead of the harpsichord or the organ. And beyond late Beethoven, classical music that makes strenuous demands of the bass tends to be rare. Foley seems fixated on making his axe as important a solo instrument, as, say, the violin, and it’s about time somebody did.

The two opened with Foley’s reinvention of Mozart’s Violin Sonata in E Minor. Transposing the violin part to a range comparable to a cello’s enhanced the almost Russian moodiness in the opening Allegro; one doesn’t usually speak of a bassist as having exceptionally nuanced vibrato, but Foley does, and used it masterfully. Lin, playing background that doesn’t give an artist much opportunity to display much personality, made the most of it with a steady, similarly nuanced attack, seamlessly playing Mozart’s ornamentation as glittering sixteenth notes.

Foley’s vast range, utilizing every bit of the bass’s actually vast sonic capability, came into jaunty focus throughout a playful take of Schubert’s Arpeggione Sonata, D 821. From the sly, faux-Romany dance they opened with, through often deviously fugal counterpoint, it made a very smart pairing with the Mozart. A lot of the exchanges between instruments are very funny, the duo playing their cards close to the vest for the most part…and then Foley accidentally took an extra repeat! Lin knew in a split-second what had happened and stayed perfectly in sync as the two wound it out, with an emphatic burst of a bass chord to cap it off.

Excerpts from Foley’s own Star Sonata, which he wrote in 2016 at age 22, made for even more agile interplay between piano and bass, from sudden, minimalist syncopation, through a jazz-tinged, solo series of bass cascades and climbs that seemed completely improvised, to rapidfire, baroque-tinged bowed phrases from the wispiest highs to pitchblende lows.

The two closed with Gliere’s Intermezzo and Tarantella, a miniature that brought all the previous idioms full circle with some breathtaking phantasmagoria. The crowd went wild. This was it for this spring’s Young Concert Artists series at the Morgan, although the museum has plenty of chamber music continuing into the summer.

Live Music Calendar for New York City and Brooklyn for April and May 2019

Daily updates – if you go out a lot, you might want to bookmark this page and check back regularly. If you’re leaving your hood, make sure you check http://www.mta.info for service changes considering how the trains are at night and on the weekend.

If you don’t recognize a venue where a particular act is playing, check the comprehensive, recently updated list of over 200 New York City music venues at New York Music Daily’s sister blog Lucid Culture.

This is not a list of every show in town – it’s a carefully handpicked selection. If this calendar seems short on praise for bands and artists, it’s because every act here is recommended if you like their particular kind of music. Many different styles to choose from.

Showtimes listed here are set times, not the time doors open – if a listing says something like “9ish,” that means it’ll probably start later than advertised. If you see a show listed without the start time, that’s because either the artist, their publicist or the venue in question sent incomplete info – those acts are usually listed last on a particular date.  Always best to check with the venue for the latest information on set times and door charges, since that information is often published here weeks in advance. Weekly events first followed by the daily calendar.

If you see a typo or an extra comma or something like that, remember that while you were out seeing that great free concert that you found out about here, somebody was up late after a long day of work editing and adding listings to this calendar ;)

On select Wednesdays and Sundays, an intimate, growing piano music salon on the Upper West Side featuring iconoclastically insightful, lyrical pianist Nancy Garniez – a cult favorite with an extraordinarily fluid, singing, legato style – exploring the delicious minutiae of works from across the centuries, beverages and lively conversation included!  email for details/address

Mondays at 7 PM multi-instrumentalist Dennis Lichtman’s popular western swing band Brain Cloud at Barbes followed at 9:30 PM by a variety of south-of-the-border-style bands playing cumbias, boogaloo, salsa, maybe all of the above.

Mondays at the Jazz Standard it’s all Mingus, whether with the Mingus Orchestra, Big Band or Mingus Dynasty: as jazz goes, it’s arguably the most exhilarating show of the week, every week. The first-rate players always rise to the level of the material. Sets 7:30/9:30 PM, $25 and worth it.

Also Monday and Tuesday nights Vince Giordano’s Nighthawks, a boisterous horn-driven 11-piece 1920s/early 30’s band play Iguana, 240 W. 54th St ( Broadway/8th Ave) , 3 sets from 8 to 11, surprisingly cheap $15 cover plus $15 minimum considering what you’re getting. Even before the Flying Neutrinos or the Moonlighters, multi-instrumentalist Giordano was pioneering the oldtimey sound in New York; his long-running residency at the old Cajun on lower 8th Ave. is legendary. He also gets a ton of film work (Giordano wrote the satirical number that Willie Nelson famously sang in Wag the Dog).

Mondays at the Vanguard the Vanguard Jazz Orchestra – composer Jim McNeely’s reliably good big band vehicle – plays 9/11 PM, $30 per set plus drink minimum.

Mondays at 10 PM noir guitar legend Jim Campilongo leads his trio at the big room at the Rockwood, $10

Mondays starting at around 10:45 PM Rev. Vince Anderson and his band play two sets at Union Pool. The Rev. is one of the great keyboardists around, equally thrilling on organ or electric piano, an expert at Billy Preston style funk, honkytonk, gospel and blues. He writes very funny, very politically astute, sexy original songs and is one of the most charismatic, intense live performers of our time. It’s a crazy dance party. Paula Henderson from Burnt Sugar is the usual lead soloist on baritone sax, with frequent special guests. Sizzling guitarist Binky Griptite – Sharon Jones’ lead player – is also often there.

Tuesdays at 9 PM, clever, fiery, eclectic ten-piece Balkan/hip-hop/funk brass maniacs Slavic Soul Party at Barbes (check the club calendar). Get there as soon as you can as they’re very popular. $10 cover.

Wednesdays at 9ish the Binky Griptite Orchestra (formerly Sharon Jones’ brilliant oldschool soul backing band) at Threes Brewing Outpost, 113 Franklin St (Greenpoint/Kent Aves) in Greenpoint, free

Three Wednesdays in April: 4/10, 4/17, 4/24 at 8 PM mesmerizing, dynamic, psychedelic Malian duskcore band Songhoy Blues at Baby’s All Right, $15

Three Wednesdays in April: 4/10/ 4/17 and 4/24. 9 PM lush, dynamic female-fronted art-rockers Arc Iris at C’mon Everybody, $10

Thursdays at 8:30, the Brooklyn Raga Massive – a rotating cast of A-list Indian, jazz and rock musicians who love to jam out classic Indian themes from over the centuries to the present day – play the Jalopy, $15 adv tix at the bar at the main space. Tons of special guests followed by a wild raga jam!

Fridays and Saturdays at 5 PM adventurous indie classical string quartet Ethel plus frequent special guests playing a mix of classical and more contemporary material at the balcony bar at the Metropolitan Museum of Art, free w/museum adm

Fridays at 7:30 PM tenor saxophonist Ken Fowser leads his band at the Django. Jukebox jazz in a JD Allen vein but not as dark and more straight-ahead/groove-oriented: as postbop party music goes, nobody’s writing better than this guy right now.

Free classical concerts on Saturdays at 4 PM at Bargemusic;  usually solo piano or small chamber ensembles. If you get lucky, you’ll catch pyrotechnic violinist/music director Mark Peskanov and/or the many members of his circle. Early arrival advised.

Most Sundays at 5:15 PM, a free recital on the amazing, powerful, dynamic new organ at St. Thomas Church at 5th Ave and 53rd St. featuring some of the world’s greatest organists. The space is magnificent and the music usually is too. Right now the church fathers are programming pretty much everybody who used to work here and play the mighty old Aeolian-Skinner organ that finally had to be replaced. Check the concert calendar for details. 

Sundays at 9:30 PM paradigm-shifting Romany jazz/psychedelic rock guitar mastermind Stephane Wrembel leads his band at Barbes – check the club calendar just to make sure.

Not a music event but dystopically interesting: Wednesday, Saturday and Monday until April 6, 7:30 PM”J.U.S.T Toys team and look deeper at Marius von Mayenburg’s themes: trust, safety, love, logic versus emotion, dream versus reality, and immortality versus murder. Re-envisioned by director Yuri Kordonsky, the protagonist is trapped in a nightmarish world full of bloodthirsty strangers – both human and canine. In this town, the desire to love becomes a desire to possess. Featuring Julia Ubrankovics and Tunde Skrovan, with visuals by Julia Standovar,.” at the Irondale Center, $30

4/1, 7:30 PM the New Juilliard Ensemble play global works by Ross Griffey, Zygmun Krauze, Juka Tiensuu and Sato Matsui at Alice Tully Hall, free tix req at the box ofc

 4/1-2, 7:30/9:30 PM no April fool – this era’s most intensely powerful tenor saxophonist/composer, JD Allen leads a quartet with Liberty Ellman on guitar at the Jazz Standard, $30

4/1, 7:30 PM lyrical latin jazz pianist Manuel Valera with bassist Hans Glawischnig & drummer Clarence Penn at Mezzrow, $20

4/1, 7:30 PM pianist Michiko Saiki plays works by Tobias Schick, Francesco Filidei, Arthur Kampela, Sivan Eldar, Eiko Tsukamoto, Niccolo Castiglioni, and Zachary Seely at Spectrum, $15

4/1-2, 8 PM intriguing string noises: Erica Dicker – violin; Joanna Mattrey – viola; Nick Dunston – bass at Happy Lucky No. 1 Gallery, $20

4/1, 9 PM violinist Sana Nagano’s Astorturf Noise, saxophonist Noah Becker’s Retumbra trio and trumpeter Bobby Spellman’s Shanty Gang twisting old sea chanteys into jazz tunes at Pine Box Rock Shop. He’s leading his Revenge of the Cool nonet at Scholes St. Studios on April 13 at 8 

4/1, 8 PM Wet Ink Ensemble celebrate 20 years of indie classical inkiness with works by Eric Wubbels, Kate Soper, Julien Malaussena, Alex Mincek, Sam Pluta and others at Roulette, $18 adv tix rec

4/1, 9:30ish Los Mochuelos play classic Colombian vallenato and oldschool cumbia at Barbes

4/2, drinks at 5:30, show at 6 Rebecca Fischer plays solo violin works by Paola Prestini, Lisa Bielawa, Gabriela Lena Frank, Suzanne Farrin, Missy Mazzoli and other women composers at the Miller Theatre, free

4/2, 7 PM RighteousGIRLS (Gina Izzo, flute & Erika Dohi, piano) play the world premiere of Legion (for 8 flutes and 8 pianos) by Alex Burtzos plus less epic works Andy Akiho, Ambrose Akinmusire, Paula Matthusen, and Mike Perdue at1 Rivington St. upstairs, $15/$10 stud/srs

4/2, 7:30 PM the Baroque Aria Ensemble perform an all-Bach program at Greenfield Hall at Manhattan School of Music, free

 4/2-4, 8 PM hauntingly jangly noir Americana/surf/punkgrass band the Sadies at Union Pool. Wickedly catchy Americana/paisley underground rockers Girls on Grass open the 4/2 show at 8; closing night the Sadies play 2 sets starting at 8. Their set starts at 9 on 4/3.

4/2-7 8/10:30 PM one of this era’s most rewardingly melodic saxophonist/composers, Joshua Redman leads his trio at the Blue Note, $30 seats avail

4/2-6, 8/10:30 PM Benny Green – one of the most tuneful postbop pianists around – leads his trio at Birdland, $30 seats avail

4/2-6, 8:30 PM a week of Paola Prestini 21st century classical works at the Stone at the New School, $20. Choice pick: solo andduo pieces played by Francesca de Pasquale (violin) Ian Rosenbaum (percussion, vines, marimba) Jonah Sirota (viola) Jeffrey Zeigler (cello) on 4/3

4/3, 1 PM the Juilliard Trombone Choir at the Greene Space, free, rsvp req 

4/3, 4:30 PM the irrepressible, cinematic, comedic Broken Reed Saxophone Quartet with special guest  drummer Todd Isler, pianist Wade Ridenhour and singer/narrator Daphné Mia Essiet at St. Ann’s School in Brooklyn Heights, 129 Pierrepont St, (performance space is on Clinton Street across from the school.), free

4/3, 7 PM haunting, otherworldly Georgian folk and choral music with the Iberi Choir at Joe’s Pub, $20. Followed at 9 (separate $20 adm) by Australian cabaret star Ali McGregor doing an all-Yma Sumac program.

4/3 7:30/9:30 PM the lushly epic, playfully cinematic Erica Seguine/Shannon Baker Jazz Orchestra with Meg Okura on violin and Carmen Staaf on piano at the Jaxx Gallery, $15

4/3,  8 PM psychedelic klezmer/bluegrass mandolin and clarinet legend Andy Statman at Barbes, $10

4/3, 8 PM the Iranian Female Composers Association in collaboration with the wild Hypercube Ensemble put on a program TBA at Roulette, $18 adv tix rec

 4/3, 8 PM Teiku feat. John Lindberg jam out rustic Ukrainian passover songs at Spectrum, $15

 4/3, 8:30 PM Dervisi feat. guitar god Steve Antonakos play “exotic Greek gangsta blues,” 1920s-30s underground freedom fighter songs and hash-smoking anthems at Troost

4/3, 10 PM sardonic, oldschool outlaw country/Nashville gothic songwriter Hayes Carll at Bowery Ballroom, $22 adv tix rec

4/4, 7 PM poignant, nuanced jazz singer Amy Cervini leads her quartet followed eventually at 10 by deviously lyrical keyboardist Henry Hey and band at 55 Bar

4/4, 7:30 PM, repeating 4/5 at 8 PM and 4/6 at 2 and 8 PM the NY Philharmonic play works by Beethoven, Bernstein, Stucky ,Wagner and very young composers at Avery Fisher Hall, $5. That’s five bucks. 

4/4, 7:30 PM rustic Americana songwriter Leyla McCalla – who shifts between oldtimey string band music, blues and Haitian sounds – at the Lincoln Center Atrium, free, early arrival advised

4/4, 7:30 PM baritone Jesse Blumberg & Simon Martyn-Ellis perform Schubert’s Die schöne Müllerin at the Kosciuszko Foundation, 15 E 65th St., $10 tix avail

4/4, 8 PM New York’s most charismatic, darkly compelling lyrical songwriter/storyteller/keyboard genius Rachelle Garniez at Barbes

 4/4, 8 PM cleverly eclectic New Orleans-flavored pianist/crooner Nat Osborn followed by singer Dida Pelled – who specializes in the work of obscure/awesome songwriters like Connie Converse and Molly Drake – at the Owl

4/4, 8 PM cinematic noir soul instrumentalists the Ghost Funk Orchestra followed by Dave “Smoota” Smith’s hilarious boudoir soul spoof project The Perfect Man at Brooklyn Bazaar, $12

4/4, 8:30 PM a crazy Yiddish song party: forshpil w/Sasha Lurje and Ilya Shneyveys! and the allstar German Goldenshteyn Memorial Orchestra led by Alex Kontorovich w/Frank London, Dan Blacksberg, Patrick Farrell, Aaron Alexander and special appearance by Naum Goldenshteyn & Pete Rushefsky at Town & Village Social Hall, 334 E 14th St.(between 1st & 2nd Ave.), $15

4/4, 8:30 PM  the world’s creepiest, slinkiest, most psychedelic crime jazz/film noir band, Big Lazy at Bar Lunatico

4/4, 9 PM pianist Ricardo Gallo leads a killer quartet with Satoshi Takeishi: percussion, Vasko Dukovsky: clarinets, Sam Kulik: trombone at Arete Gallery, $15

4/4, 9 PM majestic, slinky cumbia orchestra the Gregorio Uribe Big Band  at Drom, $20 adv tix rec

4/4, 10 the great unsung NYC hero of darkly purposeful, noir-tinged jazz guitar, Saul Rubin at the Fat Cat. He’s at Smalls on 4/7 at 10 and back at the Fat Cat on 4/9 at 7

4/5, 5:30 PM eclectic, tuneful accordionist/songwriter Ali Dineen and similarly dark, carnivalesque oldtimey songwriter Feral Foster at the American Folk Art Museum. They’re at the Owl at 8 on 4/13.

4/5, 7 PM a great Balkan triplebill: Serbian vocal group Rosa; at 8:15 guitarist Marko Djordjevic & Sveti with Justin Salisbury – piano and Evan Marien – bass and at 9:30 Balkan brass band Sarma at Shapeshifter Lab, $15

4/5, 7PM in reverse order at Spectrum: Richard Inkyu Kim (viola) and Caitlin Cawley (percussion, etc.); brooding cello slowcore songs with Meaner Pencil aka Lenna M. Pierce; Leonor Falcón (violin), $15

4/5, 7 PM hilariously acerbic, perennially relevant purist rock/Americana songwriter Amy Rigby at El Cortez, $tba

4/5 the Brooklyn Folk Festival at St. Ann’s Church in downtown Brooklyn kicks off on the main stage at 7:30 with Sardinian vocal quartet Tenores de Aterúe, at 8 Jake Xerxes Fussell doing North Carolina folk & blues at 9 La Cumbiamba NY playing oldschool Colombian cumbia jams, at 10 Georgia acoustic bluesman Jontavious Willis and at 10:30 dark, carnivalesque oldtimey songwriter Feral Foster & eclectic, tuneful folk noir accordionist/songwriter Ali Dineen. The side stage starts at 8 with haunting folk choir the Ukrainian Village Voices and then at 8:45 a trio of Louisiana bands: New Orleans R&B group Jackson & the Janks (with Sam Doores of the Deslondes), at 10 the Big Dixie Swingers playing western swing and at 10:30 cajun legends the Revelers, $25 

4/5 7:30 PM purposeful, melodic pianist Kenny Werner with bassist Scott Colley at Mezzrow, $25

4/5, 7:30 PM hip-hop artist Dylan Golden performs along with a screening of his new filmHalf Dead. “Touching upon racial divisions, police brutality, and corruption in the government, Half Dead was filmed in Golden’s Brooklyn neighborhood, Flatbush, a community that has been affected tremendously by racism, poverty, and violence,” no joke, at the Lincoln Center Atrium, free, early arrival advised

4/5, 8 PM soaring, epic all-female mariachi/tropicalia orchestra Mariachi Flor de Toloache at Flushing Town Hall, $16

4/5, 8 PM the NJ Symphony Orchestra  with sarod duo Ayaan Ali Bangash and Amaan Ali Bangash plus the great Amjad Ali Khan play Khan’s Sarod Concerto plus Rimsky-Korsakov’s Scheherezade at NJPAC in Newark, $20 tix avail. The program repeats on 4/8 at 3.

4/5, 8 PM pianist Sung-Soo Cho plays works by Bach, Shostakovich, Bartok, Kodaly and others at the DiMenna Center, $10

4/5-6, 8 PMthe Budapest Festival Orchestra conducted by Iván Fischer play an all-Bartok program at Stern Auditorium at Carnegie Hall, $30 tix avail 10% off with code CHC29802. The 4/5 program includes the ballet score to The Miraculous Mandarin and the Concerto for Orchestra, while the second features Hungarian folksong arrangements and the one-act opera Bluebeard’s Castle. 

4/5, 9 PM brooding instrumentalists Mehahan Street Band followed by psychedelic Afrobeat groove group Budos Band playing the album release show for their new one at Bowery Ballroom, $20 adv tix rec. They’re at the Music Hall of Williamsburg the following night, 4/6 for the same deal, general admission

4/5, 9 PM pianist Juho Pohjonen plays works by Rameau, Esa-Pekka Salonen and Scriabin at the 92nd St. Y, $25

 4/5, 10 PM awesomely slinky, psychedelic Israeli Ethiopiques groove instrumentalists Anbessa Orchestra at Barbes

4/5, 11 PM scampering, noisily psychedelic, irrepressibly fun girlpunks Sharkmuffin at Alphaville, $10

4/6, 11 AM a daylong Scottish bagpipe band extravaganza at Bryant Park with Shot of Scotch; Atlantic Watch Pipes & Drums; Kirkwall City Pipe Band; the Highland Divas;; Bonnie Brae Drums; Shamrock and Thistle and more

4/6 the adult portion of day 2 of this year’s Brooklyn Folk Festival is split up into daytime and evening shows. During the day, Brotherhood of the Jug Band Blues – who do an awesome, slyly funny evocation of the Memphis Jug Band play at 1 followed at 1:30 with Kentucky Americana by Nate Polly, the Mammals at 2:30, rising star banjoist Little Nora Brown at 3:30, at 4 Arkansas string band the Ozark Highballers, at 4:30 ragtime group the Lovestruck Balladeers and at 6 ferociously powerful, politically fearless southern gothic banjo player Amythyst Kiah. On the side stage at 2:30 there’s a square dance led by by the City Stompers, at 4 Mara Kaye sings oldtime jazz and blues followed at 5 by Barry Clyde and then at 6 bluegrass band the Hayrollers. There are also workshops throughout the day for musicians and at 7 the premiere of the documentary film American Epic, about the dawn of folk recording in the US. at St. Ann’s Church in downtown Brooklyn, $25

4/6, 4 PM oldschool-style high plains C&W singer Hope Debates & North 40 at Skinny Dennis

4/6, 6 PM atmospheric, cinematic drummer/composer Tim Kuhl – sort of a more straightforwardly trippy version of John Hollenbeck – at Pete’s

4/6, 6 PM velvety noir jazz singer (and Tickled Pinks member) Stephanie Layton’s impressively eclectic torch/swing jazz band Eden Lane at the Onderdonk House, 1820 Flushing Ave in Ridgewood, $5 sug don, closest train is the L to Jefferson

4/6 drinks and kettle corn at 6:30 PM, show at 7 PMinnovative piano duo HereNowHear play aworld premiere by Loren Loiacono and George Crumb’s epic masterwork Celestial Mechanics (Makrokosmos Book IV) plus works by Steven Stucky, Emily Cooley, Walter Zimmerman, Luciano Berio at the DiMenna Center, $20

4/6, 7 PM the evening portion of of day 2 of this year’s Brooklyn Folk Festival begins with east Kentucky string band the Local Honeys, at 8 oldtimey folk vets Frank Fairfield & Meredith Axelrod, at 8:40 brilliant, historically spot-on oldtime blues guitar/banjo/piano genius Jerron Blind Boy Paxton, at 9:30 Georgia sacred steel band Kashiah Hunter & Friends, at 10:20 multi-instrumentalist Dennis Lichtman’s popular western swing band Brain Cloud, at 11 New Orleans group the Big Dixie Swingers. The side stage starts cooking at 7 with oldtimey band the Wild Goats, at 8 Frankie Sunswept and the Sunwrays, at 9 the dub-ispired Ska-lopy Brass – the Jalopy Theatre’s own ska band – and at 10 the Four o’clock Flowers – R&B and Soul

4/6, 7:30 PM a tribute to jazz and latin flute legend Dave Valentin, featuring a quintet led by his musical director, pianist Bill O’Connell, with flutist Andrea Brachfeld in the Valentin role, followed by the debut of O’Connell’s new nonet A.C.E. (Afro-Caribbean Ensemble) at the Hostos Community College auditorium, 450 Grand Concourse in the Bronx, $20//$5 stud

4/6, 7:30 PM lush, sultry tropical jazz with chanteuse Belen Cusi and her combo at Groove, $5 

4/6-7, 8 PM haunting, charismatic oldtimey-style banjo player and corrosively political songwriter Curtis Eller and band play a live score to the Bipeds Dance Company’s phantasmagorical performance “54 Strange Words” at Triskelion Arts,106 Calyer St in Greenpoint, $18 adv tix rec

4/6, 8 PM brilliantly lyrical dark oldtimey songwriter/multi-instrumentalist Pete Lanctot at 68 Jay St Bar

4/6, 8 PM pianist Lucian Ban and violist Mat Maneri play their creepy Transylvanian jazz followed at 10 by epic ranchera/bolero brass crew Banda de los Muertos at Barbes

4/6, 8 PM not the most intuitive segue but should be a great time: hard-hitting, brass-fueled newschool latin soul/boogaloo dance band Spanglish Fly and then trumpet icon Frank London’s Mini-Klezmer AllStars, at Flushing Town Hall, $16

4/6, 8 PM Deepal Chodhari on santoor with Suryaksha Deshpande on tabla at the Chhandayan Center For Indian Music, $20

4/6, 8 PM oldschool folksinger Steve Suffet sings a possible mix of “railroad songs, trucker songs, miner songs, union songs, old-time country music, ballads, blues, ragtime, Gospel songs, bluegrass, topical-political songs, Woody Guthrie songs” followed by Ann Price, who also mines that catalog at the People’s Voice Cafe, sugg don, $20, “more if you choose; less if you can’t; no one turned away”

4/6, 8 PM subtle jazz singer Kristina Koller and band at the Cell Theatre, $15

4/6, 8 PM lyrical Cuban pianist Alfredo Rodriguez and his  trio at the Miller Theatre, $20 tix avail

4/6, 8:30 PM a great setup for a potent up-and-coming player: Chet Doxas on saxophone with Matt Pavolka on bass and Billy Mintz on drums at the Bar Next Door, $12. Doxas is also solo at Downtown Music Gallery the following night, 4/7 at 6.

 4/6, 8:30 PM Waits-inspired Americana/blues band Fellaheen followed by elegant, sharply lyrical parlor pop stylist Heather Eatman and the Heavy Hearts at Freddy’s, $10

 4/6, 9 PM Debo Band’s 5 string electro-acoustic violin player Kaethe Hostetter and eclectic, globally-inspired violinist Dina Maccabee at the Owl

4/6 Unsteady Freddie‘s monthly surf rock extravaganza at Otto’s begins at 10 PM with the loudly soulful Bali Lamas (who wrote the immortal Tiki Torture), at 11 the majestic, darkly cinematic  TarantinosNYC. 1at midnight eclectic Maryland shore instrumentalists the Flying Faders and at 1 AM the edgy, more lo-fi Jagaloons

4/6, 10:30 PM hilarious, smartly political faux-French retro 60s psych-pop band les Sans Culottes at the Knitting Factory, $10

4/6, 11 PM awful segue, but could be fun: hard funk band Starship Mantis followed by punk band Gallons of Pork – whose big hit is Weed Police -at the small room at the Rockwood 

4/7, half past noon Scottish bands in Bryant Park: Whisky Kiss, Mike Ogotree, the University of the Highlands & Islands Atlantic Trio

4/7, 2 PMIstván Várdai (cello) and Roman Rabinovich (piano) play works by Schubert, Beethoven, and Rachmaninov at the Town Hall, $17

4/7 the Sunday portion of this year’s Brooklyn Folk Festivalis divided up into daytime and evening shows. The Afternoon starts around 3 with 60s jugband legend Jim Kweskin, at 3:30 Kentucky fiddler John Harrod, at 4 19th century style string band the Down Hill Strugglers, at 5 Baby Gramps, and at 5:45pm Ian Felice (of the Felice Brothers). The side stage has some workshops and demos and at 4:30 the Jalopy Chorus led by Eva Salina and then a couple of student performances, at St. Ann’s Church in downtown Brooklyn, $25.

4/7, 3 PM the Greenwich Village Orchestra play Debussy – Nocturnes; Chris Brubeck – Prague Concerto; Richard Strauss – Suite from Der Rosenkavalier at All Saints Church, 230 E 60th St (2/3rd Aves), $20

4/7, 3 PM Brendan Speltz, violin; Benjamin Larsen, cello; Daniel Epstein, piano play works by Haydn, Marchettini and Tschaikovsky at Concerts on the Slope, St. John’s Episcopal Church, 139 St. John’s Place downhill from 7th Ave, sugg don

4/7, 4 PM acerbic indie classical duo String Noise at Spectrum, $15

4/7, 4 PM the electrifying microtonal Spektral Quartet at the Dreck Center at the Brooklyn Public Library, free, no under-sixes.

4/7, 5 PM haunting, otherworldly Georgian folk and choral music with the Iberi Choir at Our Savior’s Atonement, 178 Bennett Ave at 189th St, 1 block west of Broadway, free, 1 to 191st St.

4/7, 5 PM the Kandinsky Trio perform a lyrical early Beethoven piano trio and then will be joined by clarinetist Jose Garcia Taborda and narrator Patricia Raun for Messiaen’s Quartet for the End of Time at the Lounge at Hudson View Gardens, 128 Pinehurst Ave @ W 183rd St, A train or #1 train (to 181st St) or the M4 bus (to 183rd St), $15/$12 stud/srs

4/7, 5:30 PM diverse, smartly playful viola virtuoso/film composer Ljova with accordionist Simone Baron and magical Balksan/klezmer singer Inna Barmash at Bar Thalia next to Symphony Space

4/7, 7 PM the evening portion of this year’s Brooklyn Folk Festival starts with the allstar bluegrass trio Bruce Molsky, Tony Trischka, and Michael Daves, at 8 paradigm-shifting Americana songstress Anna RG (of Anna & Elizabeth), at 8:30 Kentucky singer Joan Shelley and at 9 Malian kora player Yacouba Sissoko. The side stage has hard country singer Jesse Lenat at 7 followed by oldtimey duo Tin + Bone, $25

4/7, 7:30 PM  classy, cinematic NZ jazz pianist Alan Broadbent with Don Falzone & Billy Mintz at Mezzrow, $20

4/7, 8 PM perennially tuneful, pensively lyrical Americana janglerocker Mike Ferrio of Tandy and Good Luck Mountain at 11th St. Bar

4/7, 8 PM the Columbia University Orchestra play music of Mozart, Dvorak and Prokofiev. at Symphony Space, free. They’re also here on 4/23, same time

4/7 9 PM psychedelic latin rockers Battle of Santiago – the missing link between Willie Colon and Pink Floyd – at the old Nublu, $10

4/8, 6 PM cellist Clare Monfort tackles solo works by Janacek, Fazil Say, and the symphonic, epic Sonata for Solo Cello by Kodaly at Elebash Hall at CUNY, free

4/8, 7 PM Iraqi maqam music icon Hamid Al-Saadi with trumpeter Amir ElSaffar’s hypnotic, incisive classical Iraqi music ensemble Safaafir  at PIoneer Works, $10 adv tix rec

4/8, 7 PM legendarily eclectic surf band Tiki Brothers at Arlene’s, free

4/8, 7:30 PM brilliant Israeli bassist and oudist Omer Avital leads a piano trio at Smalls

4/8, 8 PM a “sort of Brooklyn Folk Fest decompressor party” – New Orleans R&B band Jackson & the Janks and round robin Roger Miller covers! at 169 Spencer St. at Willoughby, Bed-Stuy, G or C  to Myrtle-Willoughby, sug don

4/8, 8 PM cult favorite gutter blues/jangle-psych duo Mr. Airplane Man at Alphaville, $10

4/8, 8:30 PM one of the most terse, tuneful drummer/composers out there, Bobby Previte with Jamie Saft and Nels Cline at the old Nublu, $20

4/8, 9 PM rustic, acerbic front-porch folk singer Jo Williamson at LIC Bar

4/8, 10ish the NYC Gaita Club – a Bulla en el Barrio spinoff – play rustically pounding Afro-Colombian trance-dance music at Barbes

4/9, half past noon Italian organistGabriele Pezone plays a program TBA at Central Synaogue, 54th/Lex, free

4/9, 7 PM a first-class indie classical ensemble fronted by singer Eliza Bagg with Daniel Schlosberg, Maya Bennardo, Hannah Levinson, Hannah Collins, and Mike Compitello perform the album release show for Alex Weiser’s new album All the Days Were Purple – putting a new spin on ancient Jewish musical traditions – at the Yivo Institute, 15 W 16th St., free, reception to follow

4/9, 7 PM devious avant-klezmer vocal duo Luisa Muhr and Wendy Eisenberg followed by eclectic indie classical piano trio Bearthoven at Pioneer Works, $15. 

 4/9, 7 PM eclectic, hard-hitting, lyrical composer/tenor saxophonist Stan Killian at 55 Bar

 4/9, 7PMsarod virtuosos Amaan Ali Bangash and Ayaan Ali Bangashat Joe’s Pub, $20

4/9, 7:30 PM a series of chamber ensembles play works by a global cast of composers including Mendelssohn, De Falla, Gerardo Guevara, Wang Jianzhong and others at Miller Hall at Manhattan School of Music, free

4/9, 8 PM pianist  Gabriel Zucker premieres his folk-influenced England Suite alongside string quartet SEVEN)SUNSat Roulette, $18 adv tix rec

4/9, 8 PM an avant garde dynasty: the ageless Terry Riley with his guitarist son Gyan Riley at the Poisson Rouge, $20 adv tix rec

4/9-13, 8:30/10 PM drummer Steve Wilson leads a quartet with Orrin Evans on piano at the Vanguard, $35

4/9, 8:30 PM a very rare US appearance by octogenarian Sardinian launeddas (ancient reed bagpipe) virtuoso Luigi Lai playing “some of the most primal and ritualistic music in the European tradition” at the Stone at the New School, $20

4/9-13, 8:30/11 PM the wild James Carter Organ Trio at Birdland, $30 seats avail

4/9, 9 PM sharply lyrical janglerock/Americana/soul songwriter Matt Keating and guitarist Steve Mayone’s catchy project the Bastards of Fine Arts at 11th St. Bar

4/9, 9 PM brilliant Texas bluesman Viktor Longo – a double threat on piano and organ – at Berlin, free w/rsvp

 4/9. 10:30 PM charismatic, adventurous postbop/avant garde trombonist/crooner Frank Lacy‘s Tromboniverse at Smalls. They’re back on 4/23

4/10, 7 PM pianist Julia Den Boer plays a world premiere by Claudia Jane Scroccaro plus works by Giacinto Scelsi. Giulia Lorusso and Luigi Nono at the Italian Academy, Columbia University, 1161 Amsterdam Ave(just south of 118th St, free

4/10, 7:30 PM the Mannes Orchestra plays a preview performance of Carl Davis’s kindertransport-themed Last Train to Tomorrow followed by Beethoven’s Symphony No. 8 at the big New School first-floor auditorium at 63 5th Ave, free

4/10, 8 PM hypnotic piano based postrockers Matt McBane & Build at Arete Gallery, $15

4/10, 8 PM the String Orchestra of Brooklyn play works by JG Thirlwell ,John King and Lisa Renée Coons at Roulette, $18 adv tix rec

4/10, 8:30 PM deviously hilarious, charismatic oldtimey New Orleans swing songwriter Carsie Blanton at the Poisson Rouge, $15 adv tix rec

4/10-13, 8:30 PM ambitious, tuneful trumpeter Jonathan Finlayson leads a series of groups at the Stone at the New School, $20. Choice pick: 4/12 with Immanuel Wilkins (alto sax) David Bryant (piano) Nick Dunston (bass) Eric Mcpherson (drums)

4/10, 9 PM the Belle Curves – who have an achingly gorgeous new janglerock single out – at LIC Bar

4/10, 9 PM poignant, eclectic, lyrical jazz bassist/composer Pedro Giraudo’s Tango Quartet  at Bar Lunatico

4/10, 10 PM lush, trippy female-fronted art-rockers Arc Iris at C’Mon Everybody, $10

4/11, 7 PM pianist Jihye Chang plays works by Ligeti, Unsuk Chin,Abrahamsen and others at Arete Gallery, $15

4/11, 7 PM pianist Lisa Moore plays imagistic works by Beethoven, Martin Bresnick, Leoš Janáček, Missy Mazzoli, Frederic Rzewski, and Robert Schumann at1 Rivington St. upstairs, $15/$10 stud/srs

4/11, 7:30PM intricate, otherworldly Danish art-folk trio Dreamers Circus – with violin, accordion and cittern – at Merkin Concert Hall, $25 tix avail

4/11, 7:30 PM woodwind quintet Arctic 5, with Emma Wahlström (French horn), Anna Swedén (flute), Lina Nilsson (bassoon), Ellen Ivansson (clarinet) and Alejandro Briceño (oboe), promise a “lively performance” of works by Johan Helmich Roman, Carl Nielsen, Per-Erik Moraeus, Carl Michael Bellman, Katarina Leyman, Birger Sjöberg, and Ted Gärdestad, and other composers at Scandinavia House, $15/$10 stud/srs

4/11, 8 PM Hungarian Romany violin powerhouse Zoltan Maga and his band at Stern Auditorium at Carnegie Hall, $30 seats avail, 50% off with promo code HUN31082

4/11, 8 PM Brooklyn Iranian expat janglerock band Habibi and Y La Bamba – imagine an 80s dreampop band like Lush playing psychedelic cumbias – at Bric Arts, $15 adv tix rec 

4/11. 8 PM the NY Scandia Symphony play works byCarl Nielsen and Bernhard Crusell at Symphony Space, $25-$20 stud/srs

4/11, 8 PM fiery trumpeter Wayne Tucker leads his quintet at the Owl

4/11, 8 PM the 21st annual MATA Festival “opens with a triptych of intimate works that use dis- and re-embodied voices to reflect how our choices define us. Cellist John Popham joins the Bennardo-Larson Duo to animate haunting works by Julie Herndon (You Can Only) and Matt Evans (Still Life 1a+1b) framing Dutch composer Thomas Bensdorp’s revealing personal drama Family Plot for video and automated music boxes. This cathartic evening demonstrates that even in the face of absence, individual voices maintain their power,” at the Kitchen, $25

4/11, 8:30 PM klezmer reedman Paul Shapiro’s aptly named “Midnight Minyan at Town & Village Social Hall, 334 E 14th St.(between 1st & 2nd Ave.), $15

4/11, 9 PM brilliantly lyrical dark oldtimey songwriter/multi-instrumentalist Pete Lanctot at Pete’s. No, he doesn’t own the place

4/11, 9:30 PM sardonically catchy powerpop/janglerockers the Hell Yeah Babies at Coney Island Baby, $8s

4/11, 10 PM Lynchian Americana harmony jangle-country band the Cactus Blossoms at Bowery Ballroom, $2o adv tix rec

4/11, 11 PM wryly psychedelic cinematic Italophile instrumentalists/parodists Tredici Bacci at Baby’s All Right, $12

4/12, 6:30 PM creepy noir chamber pop/murder ballad duo Charming Disaster at the American Folk Art Museum

4/12, 6:30 PM improvisers and snarky bands in reverse order: feral saxophonist Bonnie Kane, icy guitar loopers Cosmic Monster, the atmospheric Federico Balducci, cynical parodists Bad Fantasy, and the mysterious Drug Machines at Muchmore’s, free

4/12, 7 PM unusually adventurous indie classical ensembles Hotel Elefant and Andplay play works by Sky Macklay and Anthony Vine at Arete Gallery, sug don

4/12, 7 PM Greek chanteuse Lena Kitsopoulou sings dark rebetika songs celebrating underground resistance in the 20s and 30s, and smoking hash, at Joe’s Pub, $20

4/12, 7 PM cult fave 90s powerpop trio the Figgs celebrate the 25th anniversary of their Mercury Lounge debut there with two sets, $12 adv tix rec

4/12, 7 PM the Brooklyn Raga Massive – a rotating cast of A-list Indian, jazz and rock musicians who love to jam out classic Indian themes – join forces with up-and-coming new music ensemble Face the Music to play pieces by Ravi Shankar and Philip Glass plus originals at the Rubin Museum of Art, $25

4/12, 7:30 PM Manhattan School of Music’s contemporary ensemble, Tactus plays works by works by Crumb, Musgrave, Romitelli, Bresnick, Fujikura, Missy Mazzoli and Nils Vigeland at Greenfield Hall at MSM, free

4/12-13, 7:30 PM Ralph Bowen – a rare combination of power and compositional finesse – on the tenor sax with his quartet at Smalls

4/12 8 PM playfully lyrical, fearlessly political superduo Kill Henry Sugar – guitar/banjo mastermind Erik Della Penna and drummer Dean Sharenow – followed by live dub band Combo Lulo playing the album release show for their new one at Barbes

4/12, 8 PM catchy, intricate guitarist Alicyn Yaffee – who bridges the gap between postbop jazz, pensive parlor pop and art-rock – leads a killer quartet with Arco Sandoval on piano at Shapeshifter Lab, $10. 4/23 at 8:30 she’s at the Bar Next Door.

4/12, 8 PM a rare NYC performance of hypnotic, epically crescendoing Indian veena music by virtuoso Jayanthi Kumaresh at Roulette, $30 adv tix rec

4/12, 8 PM classic MATA Festival eclecticism: vocalists Lucy Fitz Gibbon and Charlotte Mundy join in “an eclectic program that examines the complexity of communication in today’s world. Composers, filmmakers and performers from Iceland to Turkey to Brazil come together to explore the ways in which intent can be misunderstood, systems can fail, and how human communication can seem impossible. With performances by composer-performers Ali Can Puskulcu and Daniel Corral, and the American premiere of Maja Hannisdal and Tone Kittelsen’s short film The Nordic Escape with music by Krístin Thora Haroldsdottír. It tackles the challenges of communication head-on to understand how we may truly connect in the social media age,” [good luck with that], at the Kitchen, $25

4/12-13 8 PM drummer Dan Weiss leads a catchy, riffy trio with Jacob Sacks on piano and Eivind Opsvik on bass at Happy Lucky No, 1 Gallery $20

4/12, 8 PM oldtimey danceable sounds with Megan Downes & the City Stompers and the Lonesome Ace String Band at the Jalopy, $10

4/12, 9 PM fiery gutbucket organ music with the Juke Joint Jelis with Brianna Thomas on vocals and Greg Lewis on B3 at Bar Lunatico

4/12, 9 PM soaring, theatrical art-rock pianist/songwriter Crystal Bright at the Way Station 

4/12, 10 PM serpentine, cinematic art-rock instrumentalists You Bred Raptors followed eventually at midnight by edgy, uneasy female-fronted retro new wavers the New Tarot at the Music Hall of Williamsburg, $15

4/13, 3 PM Iraqi maqam music icon Hamid Al-Saadi with trumpeter Amir ElSaffar’s hypnotic, incisive classical Iraqi music ensemble Safaafir in Gallery 401 at the Metropolitan Museum of art, free w/museum adm

4/13, 3 PM the colorful Fordham University Orchestra play Slavonic Dance V, Op. 46 – Dvorak; Overture to “Candide” – Bernstein; Pictures at an Exhibition, Promenade – Mussorgsky,at Leonard Theatre, Fordham Prep (441 East Fordham Rd, Bronx,, free, B/D to Fordham Rd. 

4/13, 4 PM the Erik Satie Quartet – Ron Hay (trombone), Max Seigel (bass trombone), Ben Holmes (trumpet), and Andrew Hadro (bari sax) –reinvent classic and obscure Satie chamber pieces as well as rare compositions by his obscure contemporaries, followed at 8 by intense, lyrical jazz bassist/composer Pedro Giraudo leading his Tango Quartet and at 10 by Cumbiagra – who’ve been going in a much more psychedelic, electric cumbia direction lately at Barbes

4/13, 5 PM a rare sharply literary, vivid enigmatic indie songwriter twinbill: Marykate O’Neil followed by Lianne Smith at Pete’s

4/13, 7 PM perennially sharp;, wickedly tuneful, brilliantly lyrical, jangly Americana band Mary Lee’s Corvette with Cait O’Riordan – founding member of the Pogues – on bass at the Mercury

4/13, 7:15 PM dark psychedelic acoustic blues/klezmer/reggae/soca jamband Hazmat Modine at Terra Blues. They’re also here on 4/27

4/13, 8 PM Hamza Akram Qawwal & Brothers perform trancey sufi chants from Pakistan at Roulette, $30 adv tix rec

 4/13, 8 PM adventurous third-stream jazz pianists Luiz Simas, Steve Sandberg and Armen Donelian at the DiMenna Center, $25/$20 stud/srs 

4/13, 8 PM typical MATA Festival edginess: “on an intrepid journey from our present to the post-human future. pianist Conrad Tao and a chamber ensemble play Remy Siu’s Foxconn Frequency no. 2, a multimedia theater work that questions perfection, pedagogy, and factory culture, and – wrapped in aluminum foil – vocalist Paul Pinto, in works that make the future come alive in all of its sensory overload – a world of androids, bots, and zombies where yesterday’s science fiction is tomorrow’s reality,” yikes, at the Kitchen, $25

4/13, 8 PM the Parthenia Viol Consort with special guests the Les Canards Chantants vocal ensemble play 17th century madrigals at Corpus Christi Church, 529 West 121st St, $25

 4/13, 8 PM eclectic, tuneful accordionist/songwriter Ali Dineen and similarly dark, carnivalesque oldtimey songwriter Feral Foster and haunting, dynamic, charismatic Romany/Balkan chanteuse Eva Salinawith pyrotechnic accordionist Peter Stanat the Owl

4/13, 8:30 PM Mike Khoury’s Spite of Darkness featuring Mike Khoury (violin), Jason Hwang (violin), Ben Hall (percussion), Ryan Sawyer (percussion) at Spectrum, $15

4/13, 9:30 PM hilarious, savagely cynical, fearlessly political C&W parody band the Great American Country Drifters at Pine Box Rock Shop

4/13, 10 PM Hollywood’s Dan Finnerty leads his savagely hilarious top 40 parody group the Dan Band at Joe’s Pub,, $25

4/14, 4 PM violinist Stanichka Dimitrova and the PhiloSonia ensemble  play works by Golijov and Messiaen at the Dreck Center at the Brooklyn Public Library, free, no under-sixes.

4/14, 4 PM the Cassatt String Quartet with Sumie Kaneko, koto and voice; Yoko Reikano Kimura, shamisen and voice; James Nyoraku Schlefer, shakuhachi play works by Ravel, Daron Hagen and James Nyoraku Schlefer at the Tenri Institute, 43A W 13th St., $25

4/14, 4 PM the Sometime Boys’ riveting, powerful, theatrical frontwoman Sarah Mucho with pianist Elliott Roth at Freddy’s

4/14, 7 PM a very rare (these days) show by diverse, smartly playful viola virtuoso/film composer Ljova with his wildly cinematic string band the Kontraband followed by paradigm-shifting Romany jazz/psychedelic rock guitar mastermind Stephane Wrembel at Barbes

4/14, 7 PM entertainingly shuffling, harmony-driven jug band the Salt Cracker Crazies at LIC Bar

4/14, 8 PM moodily lyrical, politically savvy Irish folk-rocker Niall Connolly at 11th St Bar. He’s at LIC Bar on 4/17 at 8.

4/14, 8 PM several of Columbia University’s jazz ensembles join with special guest pianist Helen Sung at Symphony Space, free

4/14, 7 PM Drew Wesely and Dave Zakarian play guitar-and-alto sax jams followed at 8 by Viv Corringham and Mia Zabelka on vocals adn violin at Downtown Music Gallery

4/14, 7 PMEnsemble RAZAN: Ramsey Ameen (violin), Melanie Dyer (viola), Jack De Salvo (plucked strings), Ras Moshe Burnett (bass clarinet),Tom Cabrera (hand drums) improvise at Spectrum, $15

4/14, 9 PM pensive, poignant Michigan acoustic Americana guy/girl duo Red Tail Ring at the Jalopy, $10

4/14, 9:30 PM edgy, eclectic pan-Mediterranean art-rock/latin/chanson ensemble Banda Magda at Joe’s Pub, $25

4/15, 6 and 9 PM the perennially intense, tuneful godfather of edgy, lyrical, anthemic downtown NYC rock, Willie Nile at City Winery, $30 standing room avail

4/15, 7:30 PM the East Coast Chamber Orchestra play works by Bach, Purcell, Britten and Gabriela Lena Frank at Music Mondays, Advent Church, northwest corner of 93rd and Broadway, free

4/15, 7:30 PM pianist Robert Dvorkin plays an all-Debussy program at Spectrum, $15

4/15. 9 PM boisterously funny oldschool 60s C&W and brooding southwestern gothic with the Jack Grace in a rare solo show at Bar Chord. 4/22 at 9 he’s with his band at Skinny Dennis 

4/15, 9:30 PM ex-Chicha Libre keyboard sorcerer Josh Camp’s wryly psychedelic cumbia/tropicalia/dub band Locobeach at 

4/15, 9:30 PM dynamic original bluegrass and newgrass with Olivia & the Significant Others at Pete’s 

4/16, 7:30 PM Del Rey – one of the great oldtime Americana fingerstyle blues guitarist out there – in a rare Brooklyn show on guitar and uke downstairs at the old American Can building, 232 3rd St. in Gowanus, F/R to 4th Ave/9th St. $15

 4/16, 7:30 PM star indie classical composer-vocalist Lisa Bielawa makes her orchestral conducting debut with the Mannes String Orchestra in Philip Glass’ Symphony No. 3 and her own composition, The Trojan Women at the New School auditorium, 63 5th Ave, free

4/16, 7:30/9:30 PM the haunting, smokily cinematic Michael Leonhart Orchestra at the Jazz Standard, $30

4/16, 8 PM timeless, haunting, playful octogenarian Armenian jazz sage and multi-reedman Souren Baronian in a rare trio show at Sisters Brooklyn, 900 Fulton St. at Washington, $10

4/16-20, 8:30 PM fascinatingly lyrical, individualistic pianist Sylvie Courvoisier leads a series of groups at the New School, $20. Choice pick: 4/19 with Mark Feldman (violin) Ingrid Laubrock (sax) Tom Rainey (drums)

4/16, 9 PM magically atmospheric violinist Charlie Burnham leads his band at Bar Lunatico

4/16, 10 PM Kiwi & the Papaya Mangoes play a surreal, kinetic mashup of psychedelia, Japanese folk, Central Asian steppe themes and tropicalia at Shrine 

4/16, 10 PM quirky, smartly lyrical avant cello-rock with the Icebergs at the Treehouse at 2A

4/17, 7 PM the lavish, wickedly catchy Petey & the True Mongrel Hearts with their darkly defiant vintage Springsteenian rock and soaring four-part harmonies  at Arlene’s, $8

4/17, 7 PM jazz pianist Aaron Diehl performs works by Philip Glass, Timo Andres, and beyond with Andres also on piano at 1 Rivington St. upstairs, $15/$10 stud/srs

4/17, 7:30 PM psychedelic Bob Dylan keyboardist Mick Rossi and multi-reedman Peter Hess play the album release show for their new one Cut the Red Wire”at Spectrum, $15

4/17, 7:30 PM one of this era’s most vividly bustling, entertaining big bands, Miho Hazama & M-Unit at the Jazz Standard, $30

4/17, 8 PM haunting noir singer Karla Rose & the Thorns play her menacingly playful, brilliantly lyrical songs at 11th St Bar

4/17, 8:30 PM brilliant noir swing/Romany jazz/latin soul composer and guitarist Jack Martin (ex-Knoxville Girls and Dimestore Dance Band) at Troost

 4/17, 9 PM intense, rapturous Balkan/Middle Eastern ensemble the Secret Trio –Tamer Pinarbasi, Ismail Lumanovski & Ara Dinkjian – at Bar Lunatico

4/17, 9 PM ferociously panstylistic tropical jazz guitarist Juancho Herrera plays a bday show at the Bitter End of all places

4/17, 10 PM oldschool 60s style soul crooner Durand Jones & the Indications at the Music Hlal of Williamsburg, $18 

4/18, 6 PM pianist Nicolas Namoradze plays works by Scriabin andYork Bowen at Elebash Hall at CUNY, free

4/18, 7 PM haunting, cinematic Mediterranean art-rock/postrock themes with Xylouris White at Joe’s Pub, $20

 4/18,, 7 PM a celebration of new music by composers from the Dominican Republic: ” conductor Darwin Aquino, featuring soloists Edmundo Ramirez, viola and Luis E. Casal, violin, performing pieces of Carlos Jose Castro from Costa Rica,Roque Cordero & Luis Enrique Casal from Panama and Esteban Servellon from El Salvadorat Aaron Davis Hall, free, rsvp req 

4/18, 7:30 PM the Castalian String Quartet play works by Britten and Schubert at the Lincoln Center Atrium, free, early arrival advised

4/18-20, 7:30/9:30 PM a classy take on classic 60s gutbucket B3 organ jazz: Larry Goldings, Peter Bernstein and Bill Stewart at the Jazz Standard, $30

4/18, 7:30/9:30 PM fearlessly political, tuneful trombonist/composer Ryan Keberle & Catharsis at the Jazz Gallery, $15

4/18, 8 PM fiery, charismatic violinist/singer Mireya Ramos of the all-female Mariachi Flor de Toloache at Greenwich House Music School, $15 includes beer/wine

4/18, 8 PM deviously theatrical oldschool C&W/rockabilly parodists Susquehanna Industrial Tool & Die Co. at Otto’s. They’re also here on 4/24, same tisme

4/18, 8 PM indie classical group American Contemporary Music Ensemble and Third Coast Percussion play a composer portrait of the fearlessly political, theatrical David T. Little at the Miller Theatre, $20 tix avail

4/18, 8 PM the Orchestra of St. Luke’s play works by Haydn, Prokofiev and Ravel at Stern Auditorium at Carnegie Hal, $30 seats avail

 4/18, 8 PM, avant garde trumpeter Nate Wooley leads an ensemble at the Old Stone House in Park Slope $10

 4/18, 8 PM whirlwind klezmer violin icon Alicia Svigals & Donald Sosin – play a live score to the playful, groundbreaking 1923 silent film The Ancient Law at Town & Village Social Hall, 334 E 14th St.(between 1st & 2nd Ave.), $15

4/18, 8 PM pianist Richard Valitutto invites listeners to reflect on the modern/postmodern dialectic [can’t we just stay modern for this one?] in a program of solos by Rebecca Saunders, György Kurtág, Artur Avanesov, and a premiere by Thomas Feng, followed by a rare solo set by vibraphonist Patricia Brennan at Arete Gallery, $15

4/18, 8:30 PM an allstar Indian music trio: Utsav Lal (piano), Roopa Mahadevan (vocal), and Jake Charkey (cello) explore soundscapes in classical, jazz, soul, and experimental music. at the Jalopy, $15

4/18, 9 PM poignant, eclectic, lyrical jazz bassist/composer Pedro Giraudo’s tango orchestra at Terraza 7, $15

4/18. 9 PM Smashing Humans with violinist Sana Nagano, reedman Peter Apfelbaum, Keisuke Matsuno, bassist Ken Filiano  and drummer Joe Hertenstein duel it out at the old Nublu, $10

4/18, 10 PM bass sax monster Stefen Zeniuk’s punk mambo crew the NY Fowl Harmonic at Hank’s, $10

4/18, 10 PM sizzling electric bluegrass and C&W with Demolition String Band at Skinny Dennis

4/19, 7 PM pianists Daniel Anastasio, Xak Bjerken, Vicky Chow, David Kaplan, Cory Smythe; soprano Kristina Bachrach, cellist Gabriel Cabezas and flutist Catherine Gregory play synesthetically-inspired works by Andy Akiho, George Crumb, Olivier Messiaen, Alexander Scriabin, and improvisatory interludes by Smythe at1 Rivington St. upstairs, $15/$10 stud/srs. The following night at 8 at similar crop of talent parse “a collection of personal journeys and transformations from Missy Mazzoli’s ghostly Isabelle Eberhardt Dreams of Pianos to Jesse Jones’ Handel-inspired Variations on a Fiddle Tune.”

4/19-20, 7:30 PM colorful yet subtle trombonist/composer Michael Dease leads a quartet at Smalls

4/19, 7:30 PM percussionists Bobby Allende and Marc Quiñones’ new salsa dura band 8 Y Mas at the Lincoln Center Atrium, free, early arrival advised

4/19, 7:30/9:30 PM  poignant, eclectic, lyrical jazz bassist/composer Pedro Giraudo, leads his tango octet at the Jazz Gallery, $25. He’s here the next night, 4/20 with his mighty big band for the same price

4/19, 8 PM the gorgeously shapeshifting Iranian Hamidreza Maleki Ensemble followed at 9:15 by a screening of “Apart-ment” by fillmmaker Mohamad Aghebati at Spectrum, $15

 4/19-20, 8 PM state-of-the-art trumpeter Dave Douglas’ Engage with Miles Okazaki on guitar, Anna Webber on sax, Tomeka Reid on cello, Nick Dunston on bass and Kate Gentile on drums at Happy Lucky No. 1 Gallery, $20

4/19, 9 PM creepy noir chamber pop/murder ballad duo Charming Disaster followed by similarly sinister psychedelic art-rock/circus rock band Cookie Tongue at Coney Island USA, 1280 Surf Ave, Coney Island, $20 includes dessert

4/19, 9 PM deliriously fun accordion band Los Mochuelos play classic Colombian vallenato and oldschool cumbias at Bar Chord

4/19-20, 10:30 PM vibraphonist Felipe Fournier‘s wild Tito Puente and Dave Brubeck cover band, Supermambo at Terraza 7, $15

4/20, 8 PM blistering ska-punk band Uncle Djuzeppe & the Mob, the  dark second-wave style ska crew the Ladrones and then horn-fueled psychedelic cumbia band Consumata Sonidera, playing the album release show for their new one, at the Mayday Space, 176 St. Nicholas Ave (Himrod/Stanhope), Bushwick, L to DeKalb, $10. Figures they’d do this on 4/20.

4/20 8 PM accordion genius Shoko Nagai ’s haunting, increasingly loud and psychedelic Tokala Silk Road/klezmer mashup project at Barbes

4/20, 8 PM bluegrass legend Buddy Merriam and Back Roads, mashing up the night with the “hip-swiveling” Afro-Cuban rhythms of Conjunto Guantánamo at Flushing Town Hall, $16

4/20, 8 PM wild Hungarian mandolin jams with Sondorgo at Drom, $20 adv tix rec

4/20, 8 PM Satie-esque pianist/composer Caitlin Pasko at the Owl

4/20, 8 PM drummer Sanah Kadoura leads a really cool trio with Tivon Pennicott on alto sax and Parker McAllister on bass at the Cell Theatre, $15

4/20, 8:30PM bassist Joe Policastro leads his tuneful, pastorally-inclined trio with Dave Miller, guitar; Mikel Avery, drums w/ special guest Jon Irabagon, saxophone at Iridium, $25

4/20. 10 PM, sive, creepy, colorful psychedelic rembetiko metal band Greek Judasat Rubulad, $10 if you get there before 10, email for location/deets/rsvp

4/21, 5 PM Iranian sounds with pianist Ava Nazarat Spectrum, $15

4/21, 5 PM pianists Vicky Chow, Mikael Darmanie, Qing Jiang, David Kaplan, and Dan Tepfer play dance works by Samuel Carl Adams, Timo Andres, J.S. Bach, Michael Brown, Molly Joyce, Oliver Knussen, Andrew Norman, Caroline Shaw, and Robert Schumann at1 Rivington St. upstairs, $15/$10 stud/srs

4/21, 7 PM hauntingly lyrical art-rock songwriter/multi-instrumentalist Joanna Wallfisch plays the album release show for her new one Far Away From Any Place Called Home, with Marta Sanchez on piano at Joe’s Pub, $15. Followed at 9:30 (separate $16 adm) by fiery ecological activist/bandleader Rev. Billy and his massive original gospel-style choir

4/21, 8 PM intriguing, alternately haunting and bustling pianist/composer Moira Lo Bianco plays an electroacoustic set at the DiMenna Center, $20/$15 stud/srs

4/21, 10 PM the surviving members of legendary 70s Detroit African-American proto-punks Death at the Poisson Rouge, $25 adv tix rec

4/22, 7:30 PM Brannon Cho, cello and Victor Santiago Asuncion, piano play works by Boccherini, Brahms, Britten and Sarasate at Weil Hall at Carnegie Hall, $25 tix avail

4/22, 9 PM Mancie – who do a decent late 70s/early 80s female-fronted CBGB powerpop thing – at LIC Bar

4/22 10 PM eclectic, witty, paradigm-shifting B3 jazz organist Brian Charette leads a trio at 55 Bar, $12

4/22, 11 PM lyrical, kinetic jazz pianist Julia Chen leads her quartet at the old Nublu, $10 

4/22, 11;30PM psychedelic, hypnotic road warriors Acid Mothers Temple at the Mercury, $20

4/23-24, 7:30/9:30 PM this era’s most cutting-edge, politically relevant large jazz ensemble, Darcy James Argue’s Secret Society at at the Jazz Standard, $30

4/23, 7:30 PM Lev Sivkov, cello and Nikita Mndoyants, piano play works by Britten, Schubert, Kachaturian, Mindoyants, and Yu-Hui Chang at Weil Hall at Carnegie Hall, $20 tix avail

4/23, 8 PM jazz loft veterans the OGJB Quartet: Oliver Lake, Graham Haynes, Joe Fonda, Barry Altschul at Roulette, $18 adv tix rec

4/23, 8 PM adventurous improvisation: longtime Ken Vandermark 5 member Dave Remps on sax, Brandon Lopez on bass and Ryan Packard on drums at Michiko Studios, 149 W 46th St. $20

4/23-28, 8:30/10 PM intense pianist Gerald Clayton leads a quintet with Logan Richardson on alto sax at the Vanguard

4/23-27, 8:30 PM cellist Okkyung Lee leads a series of groups at the New School, $20. Choice pick: a hard one. 4/24 is really good: Sara Serpa (voice) Ches Smith (percussion) Cory Smythe (piano)

4/23, 9 PM wickedly torchy noir songwriter Julia Haltigan at 11th St Bar

4/23, 9 PM hard honkytonk road warriors American Aquarium at the Mercury, $15 adv tix rec

4/23. 9 PM Chrysta Bell – from the new Twin Peaks – at the Poisson Rouge, $12 adv tix rec. Flash in the pan or true noir? Jury’s out.

4/23, 9:30 PM the darkly eclectic, enigmatic Lorraine Leckie  – equally adept at Slavic and Americana noir and dark cabaret – at Pete’s

4/23, 9:30 PM oldtimey torch-swing cult favorite Jolie Holland at Bar Lunatico

4/24, 7 PM subtle Moroccan jazz chanteuse Malika Zarra at National Sawdust, $25 adv tix rec

 4/24. 7 PM a rare intimate small-room show with the fearlessly relevant, toweringly intense Arturo O’Farrill & the Afro-Latin Jazz Orchestra at the Greene Space, $30

4/24, 8 PM a Roswell Rudd tribute with trumpeter Steven Bernstein’s legendary noir jazz outfit Sexmob  w/ special guests John Medeski, Nels Cline, Fay Victor, Trombone Tribe & more at City Winery, $27 standing room avail

4/24, 8 PM, Stefan Tcherepnin and Taketo Shimada’s dirgey duo project Afuma followed bysepulchral, otherworldly Cairo singer/multi-instrumentalist Nadah El Shazly – who puts an eerie shoegaze spin on classical Arabic song – at Brooklyn Music School Theater, 126 St Felix St, up the block from BAM, $20 

4/24, 8 PM percussive, trance-inducing, bitingly tuneful, Middle Eastern-tinged female-fronted jamband SisterMonk at the small room at the Rockwood

4/24, 10 PM a good, artsy, jangly twinbill: the anthemic Flock of Indifference followed at 11 by uneasily jangling, southwestern gothic-tinged band the Spycats at Footlight Bar, $10

4/24, 10 PM erudite pianist Orrin Evans‘ richly tuneful, purist, stampeding Captain Black Big Band at the Django

4/25, 7 PM wryly psychedelic cinematic Italophile instrumentalists/parodists Tredici Bacci followed by a rare reunion of Brian Carpenters legendary 90s noir/circus rock band Beat Circus playing the album release show for their new one at National Sawdust, $20 adv trix rec

4/25-28, 7:30/9:30 PM postbop vibraphonist Stefon Harris & Blackout with Marc Cary on piano at the Jazz Standard, $30

4/25, 7:30 PM Haitian guitarist/bandleader Moonlight Benjamin mashes up Malian duskcore, compas, blues, psychedelia and scruffy garage rock at the Lincoln Center Atrium, free, early arrival advised 

4/25, 7PMthe Manhattan School of Music Afro-Cuban Jazz Ensemble, directed by  latin drum maven Bobby Sanabria, celebrates the 98th birthday of NEA Jazz Master Cándido Camero at the Bronx Music Heritage Center, 1303 Louis Nine Blvd, free, 2/5 to Freeman St., free

4/25, 8 PM singer Dida Pelled – who specializes in the work of obscure/awesome songwriters like Connie Converse and Molly Drake – followed at 10 by  followed by horn-driven psychedelic band Los Cumpleanos at Barbes.

 4/25, 8 PM intriguing near east-inspired pianist/singer Alina Engibaryan at Greenwich House Music School, $15 includes beer/wine

4/25, 8:30 PM Live Skull in their only second Brooklyn performance since 1985 at the Market Hotel, all ages, $12. If Sonic Youth were the noiserock Beatles (ok, they weren’t, just making an analogy here), Live Skull were the Stones.

4/25, 8:30 PM  rapturous Indian carnatic composer/violinist Arun Ramamurthy with his trio at the Jalopy, $15

4/25, 9 PM Changing Modes – NYC’s funnest, most unpredictable, sharply lyrical new wave art-rock band – at Arlene’s, $10

4/25, 9 PM crystalline-voiced noir Americana songwriter Jessie Kilguss with her excellent band followed by the ageless, catchy, Beatlesque Bubble at Hank’s, $10

4/25, 9 PM astonishingly prolific and acerbic guitarist Mary​ ​Halvorson with Jessica Pavone on viola followed by intense avant jazz singer Amirtha Kidambi leading her band through the album release show for her new one at Union Pool, $12

4/25, 11 PM awesomely unhinged horror surf/hotrod instrumentalists the Mad Doctors at the Gutter, $7

4/26, 5:30 PM well-liked, fearlessly political LES soul-rock songwriter/chanteuse Dina Regine, shambling oldtimey band the Locksmiths and intense, brilliantly lyrical, fearlessly political 1950s style original folk/blues singer Joshua Garcia at the American Folk Art Museum

4/26. 10 PM the world’s creepiest, slinkiest, most psychddelic crime jazz/film noir band, Big Lazy y at Barbes

4/26, 7 PM otherworldly Georgian choral group Ensemble Adilei with “wild yodeling by Lasha Bedenashvili (“the beast”), as well as underrepresented women’s voice with the Chamgeliani Sisters, who sing beautifully haunting music from Svaneti, a mountainous region,” at Elebash Hall at CUNY,  365 5th Ave north of 34th St., $25

4/26, 7 PM percussionist Rajna Swaminathan leads a killer ensemble with her sister Anjna on violin and Amir ElSaffar on trumpet playing the album release show for her new one Of Agency and Abstraction at the Rubin Museum of Art, $30

 4/26, 7:30 PM edgy jazz cellist Tomeka Reid and drummer Tomas Fujiwara duel it out subtly at the Jazz Gallery; at 9:30 she leads her killer quartet with Mary Halvorson, Jason Roebke and Fujiwara, $25

4/26 8 PM innovative bagpiper/guitarist David Watson plus cinematic multi-instrumentalist/violinist Laura Ortman plays new work “from the rosined-out beast of her tough-stained violin — where deranged crumpled wings twirling in starlight and oil slickness and shininess emerge” at Issue Project Room, $15/$12 stud/srs

4/26, 8 PM irrepressible, transgressively funny postbop saxophonist Jon Irabagon with Scott Robinson and Robbie Lee at Happy Lucky No. 1 Gallery, $20. Irabagon is also here 4/27 at 8, solo

4/26, 8 PM Iush catchy, anthemic Guinean chanteuse/guitarslinger Natu Camara – ex-Ideal Black Girls – at SOB’s, $20 adv tix rec

4/26, 8 PM a rare Queens show by lyrical jazz pianist Renee Rosnes with her quartet at Flushing Town Hall, $25

4/26, 11 PM  fiery bluegrass and newgrass picking with the Jon Stickley Trio at City Winery, $12

4/26-27, 10:30 PM lyrical, erudite, blues-infused tenor saxophonist Noah Preminger leads his quartet at Smalls

4/27, 7:30 PM the Juilliard String Quartet play Bartók: Quartet No. 3 as well as works by Beethoven and Haydn at Irving Auditorium, Irving Pl/17th St., $16

4/27, 8 PM Giftshop – the missing link between Blondie and the Distillers –sardonically catchy powerpop/janglerockers the Hell Yeah Babies and purist  CBs style female-fronted punks the Carvels NYC – a rare rock band with sax that’s actually good – at Shilleleigh Tavern, 47-22 30th Ave, Astoria, $10, R to Steinway St

4/27 8ish guitar mastermind Oren Bloedow’s haunting, fearlessly political art-rock/noir band Elysian Fields play Doors covers at their home base at the Owl

4/27, 8 PM the Toomai String Quintet play all kinds of adventurous, global classical repertoire, specializing in fiery Cuban materiaf ollowed at 10 by psychedelic salsa bandleader Zemog El Galle Bueno at Barbes

4/27, 8/10 PM the Evan Sherman Big Band celebrate Duke Ellingtons bdy at Ginny’s Supper Club, $15

4/27, 9:30 PM Andrew Vladeck – whose lyrically-driven songs careen from stark oldtimey tunes to epic, cinematic anthems – at Pete’s

4/28 starting at 11 AM the Mannes School of Music Chamber Music Program stages an all-day marathon – concerts in many of the New School’s venues — Arnhold Hall’s Ernst C. Stiefel Concert Hall, Baisley Powell Elebash Recital Hall, Room 450 and Glass Box Theater at 55 W 13th St., free

4/28, noon pianist Giusy Caruso plays Jacques Charpentier’s 72 Etudes Karnatiques at Spectrum followed eventually at 5 by solo works tba from members of the Iranian Female Composers Association and then at 7:30 Iranian traditional ensemble the Tan Haw Band, $15 

 4/28, 2 PM pianist Peter Serkin – one of the really great ones – plays a program at a place he seems to like a lot, the Town Hall, $17 tix avail

4/28, 2 PM the mighty fifty-piece Columbia Wind Ensemble in Riverside Park at 116th St.

4/28, 3 PM two chamber sonatas of Debussy, some solo piano music of Ravel, and the 1st Piano Quartet of Gabriel Fauré p.ayed by Ji Soo Choi, violin, Chien Tai, viola, Issei Herr, cello, Jerome Rosen, piano. at Christ & St. Stephen’s Church, 120 W 69th St,, $15

4/28, 7 PM haunting, windswept Azeri sounds with singer Asger Asgerzade, Yunis Qasimzade (tar – lute) and Jeffrey Werbock (kamancha – spike fiddle) at Merkin Concert Hall, $20

4/28, 8 PM haunting, purposeful viola improviser Jessica Pavone and her String Quartet plus saxophonist James Brandon Lewis‘ Trio at the Brooklyn Conservatory of Music, $20/$15 stud/srs

4/28, 8 PM brilliant carnatic violinistAnjna Swaminathan debuts her new multimedia suite “inspired by the works of Indian Malayali painter and artist Raja Ravi Varma (1848–1906) and Tamil poet Subramania Bharati (1882–1921), artists and freedom fighters integral to shaping images of women as vessels of Indian national identity during the movement against the British Raj,”at Roulette, $18 adv tix rec.

4/28, 8:30 PM Eric Whitacre conducts the Distinguished Concerts Singers in a concert of his celestially-inspired choral works at Stern Auditorium at Carnegie Hall, $20 tix avial

4/28, 9 PM catchy, politically fearless soulstress Alice Lee – Nina Simone meets Fiona Apple – with the mighty Tony Maimone from Pere Ubu on bass at Freddy’s

4/29, 9 PM darkly psychedelic circus punks Yula & the Extended Family at LIC Bar

4/29, 9:30 PM catchy, fun guy/girl indie soul band Sunshine Nights at Pete’s

4/29, 10ish  feral singer Carolina Oliveros’ mighty 13-piece Afro-Colombian trance/dance choir Bulla en el Barrio at Barbes

4/30-5/1,7;30/9:30 PM great vibraphonist with a noir streak – Joe Locke leads his group with Raul Midon and Adam Rogers on guitars at the Jazz Standard, $30

4/30, 7:30/9:30 PM Camille Thurman – a double threat as nuanced singer and intense tenor saxophonist – and the Darrell Green Trio at Dizzy’s Club, $30

4/30, 8 PM composer, and pianist Mary Prescott premieres her otherworldly Songs Between Life and Death with an excellent septet featuring Jonathan Finlayson on trumpet and Sara Serpa on vocals at Roulette, $18 adv tix rec

4/30, 8 PM spectacular yet nuanced Palestinian opera singer Nour Darwish and ensemble at Sisters Brooklyn, 900 Fulton St. at Washington, $10

4/30-5/4, 8:30 PM arguably the foremost piano improviser alive (and a hell of a composer too), Satoko Fujii leads a series of groups at the Stone at the New School, $20. Choice pick: opening night with her Orchestra NYC – who put out the best album of 2017 – is obvious, but the 5/1 duo show with bassist Joe Fonda also ought to be killer, considering their two albums together.

4/30, 10 PM the circus rock band that started the whole thing – World Inferno at the Mercury, $13 adv tix rec

5/1-2, noon nuanced, politically savvy Portuguese fado-jazz singer Sofia Ribeiro at the World Financial Center, free

5/1, 6 PM Sharon Goldman – one of the great tunesmiths to come out of the NYC acoustic scene since the turn of the century 0 at the small room at the Rockwood

5/1, 7 PM African-American string band polymath Rhiannon Giddens at the Greene Space, $25

5/1, 7:30 PM the amazing, haunting, otherworldly NY Andalus Ensemble – who play ancient Middle Eastern and North African Jewish sounds from as far back as a thousand years ago  –  at La Nacional, 239 W 14th St, $20/$16 stud/srs

5/1, 8 PM acerbic, enigmatic postrock band Marateck play their guitarist Brendon Randall-Myers’ compositions; peripatetic pianist Miki Sawada also plays his solo worksat Roulette, $18 adv tix rec

5/1-2, 8 PM drummer Tomas Fujiwara with a typically brilliant edgy lineup: Nick Dunston – bass; Mary Halvorson – guitar; Patricia Brennan – vibraphone at Happy Lucky No. 1 Gallery, $20

5/1-4, 8:30 PM arguably the foremost piano improviser alive (and a hell of a composer too), Satoko Fujii leads a series of groups at the Stone at the New School, Choice pick: opening du night, reprising her two magical duo albums with bassist Joe Fonda

5/1, 8:30 PM Dervisi feat. guitar god Steve Antonakos play “exotic Greek gangsta blues” and Middle Eastern flavored hash smoking anthems at Troost

5/2, 730 PM, repeating 5/4 at 8 the NY Philharmonic with pianist sisters Katia and Marielle Labèque perform Bruch’s double concerto and Richard Strauss’ Ein Heldenleben, $31 tix avail

5/2, 7:30/9:30 PM tthe mighty, Middle Eastern-tinged Eyal Vilner Big Band at Minton’s, $20

5/2, 7:30 PM the Minguett String Quartet play Beethoven: String Quartet in C-sharp minor, Op. 131 at the Lincoln Center Atrium, free, early arrival advised

5/2, 8 PM brilliant blues guitarist, above-average bassist, strongly tuneful blues songwriter and badass singer Celisse Henderson at Greenwich House Music School, $15, beer/wine included

5/2-5, 8/10:30 PM guitar icon Bill Frisell with the Sexmob rhythm section – Tony Scherr and Kenny Wollesen  – at the Blue Note, $20 standing room avail

5/2, 8 PM irrepressible 60s-style blue-eyed soul singer Eli “Paperboy” Reed at the Poisson Rouge, $15 adv tix rec

5/2 , 8 PM Pauline Kim Harris, Vicky Chow, Sylvie Courvoisier, and Roger Kleier play Annie Gosfield;s “real and imagined sounds for instruments and electronics:” plus Edmund Campion’s new work for triangles and electronics played by Marilyn Nonken, Manuel Laufer, Russel Greenberg and Bill Solomon at Roulette, $20 gen adm

5/2, 8 PM conversational pianist Jeffrey Siegel plays boisterous works by Scott Joplin, Gershwin, Shostakovich, Weber, Prokofiev, Stravinsky and many others at Scandinavia House, $25

5/2, 8:30 PM a haunting klezmer-inspired twinbill: tMarianna Rosett’s harrowing Auschwitz family tale The Ghost Brothers, plus KIez Dispensers violinist Amy Zakar & band at Town & Village Social Hall, 334 E 14th St.(between 1st & 2nd Ave.), $15

5/3, 1 PM Austrian organist Stefan Donner plays Austrian music of the 20th and 21st centuries including pieces by Johann Nepomuk David and Wolfgang Sauseng amongst others.at St. Luke’s Lutheran Church, 308 W 46th St, free. He’s also at he Actor’s Chapel, 239 W 49th St, the same day at 6:30 playing works by Louis Vierne and Felix Mendelssohn

5/3, 4 PM violinist Monica Huggett & Byron Schenkman salute composers Leclair, Rameau, and the Age of Enlightenment at Corpus Christi Church, 529 W 121St St, $10 tix avail

5/3, 7:30 PM Portuguese fado stars Camané and Ana Sofia Varela with an all-star band André Dias (Portuguese guitar), André Ramos (classical guitar) and Rodrigo Serrão (acoustic bass guitar) at the World Financial Center, free

5/3 7:30/9:30 PM elegantly eclectic, tuneful pianist Angelica Sanchez at the Jazz Gallery, $20

5/3, 9 PM one of the year’s best lineups: creepy art-metal band Black Road, crescendoing, psychedelic doom metal band Clouds Taste Satanic, eclectic heavy psych/stoner boogie band Grandpa Jack and kinetic heavy psych band the Stone Eye at Footlight Bar, $10

5/3-5, 9 PM Hoboken janglerock legends the Feelies, with their twin drummers and three guitars at Rough Trade, $25 gen adm

5/3, 10 PM Brooklyn’s hilarious counterpart to Spinal Tap, stoner metal parodists Mighty High at Hank’s, $10

5/3, 10 PM deliciously brass-heavy retro 60 soul band Jeremy Beck & the Heavy Duty Horns play the album release show for their new one at the Knitting Factory, $12

5/3, 10:30 catchy Booker T-esque soul jazz with the David Gibson/Jared Gold Hammond B3 organ band at the Fat Cat

5/3, midnight unpredictably fun, funny psychedelic art-rock band the Academy Blues Project  at the big room at the Rockwood

5/4, 10 AM – 2:30 PM a free block party with music, dance and more to celebrate 60 years of Lincoln Center on the plaza there, an eclectic lineup includes hypnotically explosive live bhangra dance band Red Baraat at 1 PM plus some indoor classical shows, free tix distributed at 10 AM.

5/4, 7:30 PM fado stars Hélder Moutinho and Maria Emília with an all-star band: André Dias (Portuguese guitar), André Ramos (classical guitar) and Rodrigo Serrão (acoustic bass guitar) at the World Financial Center, free All singers on both nights will be backed up by a trio of dynamic musicians:.

5/4, 7:30 PM pianist Richard Goode plays works by Mozart, Beethoven, Janacek, Chopin and others at Irving Auditorium, Irving Pl/17th St., $16

5/4, 7:30/9:30 PM trombonist Kalia Vandever plays solo, trio and quartet works to celebrate the releae of her debut atlbum at the Jazz Gallery, $20

5/4, 8 PM ghostly avant-garde trumpeter Jaimie Branch presents new works with her drum-trumpet duo Anteloper and quartet Fly or Die at Roulette $18 adv tix req

5/4, 8 PM surrealist avant garde free jazz collective thingNY present the premieres of Skylighght by Erin Rogers & Gelsey Bell, a duet for voice and saxophone “that explores that larger space as well as the space within their instruments, and You Must Read a Lot of Jung by Dave Ruder, a slow-moving melodic sextet that seem to keep turning over the same questions,” plus Stevie May’s Softboarding multimedia project at Artefix, 38-02 61st St, Woodside, Queens (7 train to 61st St), $10

5/4, 8 PM sharply literary, ten-piece country/carnivalesque/acoustic rock powerhouse M Shanghai String Band at the Jalopy, $!0

5/4. 8 PM Guinean band Kakande and the amazing, phantasmagorical klezmer band Lemon Bucket Orkestra at Flushing Town Hall, $16

5/4, 9 PM lyrical third-stream pianist Vadim Neselovskyi with a fantastic string quintet playing compositions and improvisations at the Cell Theatre, $15

5/4, 9ish eclectic, acerbic Americana/klezmer violinist Lily Henley leads her band at the Owl

5/4, 9 PM eclectic, tuneful, seriously woke Americana guitarist/accordionist/songwriter Ali Dineen at Pete’s

5/4, 9 PM baritone crooner Sean Kershaw‘s Serpentones play “hi octane Brooklyn honkytonk”atat Bar Chord

5/4, 10 PM the latest edition of 90s alt-country favorites Son Volt at the music Hall of Williamsburg, $25

5/5, starting at around noon the annual Hoboken Arts & Music Festival, acts TBA starting at Washington St and 7th St.

5/5, 2:30 PM pianist Marilyn Nonken plays works by Scott Joplin and Charles Ives at St. Bartholomew’s Cathedral, $25/$15 stud/srs

5/5, 3 PM violinist Joshua Bell. pianist Jeremy Denk and cellist Steven Isserlis play piano trios by Mendelssohn, Shostakovich, Ravel and Rachmaninoff’s harrowing Trio Elegiaque at NJPAC in Newark, $30 tix avail

5/5, 3 PM St. George’s Choral Society sing Milhaud’s rarely staged Sacred Service with Paolo Bordignon on the organ at Church of the Incarnation,209 Madison Ave at 35th St, $30

5/5. 3 PM the epic Chinese Music Ensemble NY play lush tradiional themes at Merkin Concert Hall, $25

5/5, 4 PM acoustic folk vet Bev Grant and her songwriter colleagues, janglerocke Steve Mayone, Americana rock siren and ex-Red Molly multi-instrumentalist  Carolann Solebello & Lindsey Wilson at the Old Stone House in Park Slope, $10

5/5, 4 PM intense, fearlessly relevant Middle Eastern clarinetist Kinan Azmeh with pianist Jean Schneider, piano play a classical program TBA dreck

5/5, 5:30 PM clarinetist Jeff Perlman,with brilliant klezmer accordionist Shoko Nagai at Bar Thalia next to Symphony Space

5/5, 6 PM colorful, cinematic big band sounds: Migiwa Miyajima & Miggy Augmented Orchestra at Birdland, $30

5/5, 8 PM jamming out the lows: tuba player Jesse Dulman, baritone sax maven Dave Sewelson and multi-instrumentalst Leonid Galaganov at Downtown Music Gallery

5/5, 9 PM slashing guitarist Steve Antonakos plays slide guitar blues with his band at Bar Chord

5/6, 7:30 PM intense, fearlessly relevant Middle Eastern clarinetist Kinan Azmeh with perennially adventurous string quartet Brooklyn Rider play works by Azmeh, Kayhan Kahor, Beethoven, premieres by Caroline Shaw and Colin Jacobsen at Music Mondays, Advent Church, northwest corner of 93rd and Broadway, free

5/6, 8:30 PM the best 80s British songwriter not named Elvis Costello: the perennially relevant,, cynical Graham Parker at City Winery $25 standing room avail

5/7, 5:30 PM drinks at 5:30, show at 6 Big Dog Little Dog – Jessie Montgomery, violin; Eleonore Oppenheim, bass – improvise duets at the Miller Theatre, free

5/7, 7 PM American Contemporary Music Ensemble perform Nordic noir compositions by Ejnar Kanding and My Beautiful Decay 1973 (alias Carsten Bo Eriksen) at the Poisson Rouge, $15 adv tix rec

5/7-8, 7:30/9:30 PM vocal jazz supergroup Duchess -Amy Cervini, Hilary Gardner and Melissa Sthrisianou- at the Jazz Standard, $30

5/7-12, 8:30/10:30 PM drummer Antonio Sanchez leads an unorthodox, enticing quartet with Chris Potter and Donny McCaslin on saxes and Scott Colley on bass at the Vanguard

5/7-11,/10:30 PM tuneful postbop pianist Matthew Shipp leads a series of ensembles at the Stone, $20 Choice pick: 5/11 leading a trio wih vMichael Bisio (bass) Newman Taylor Baker (drums

5/7, 8 PM the Hypercube quartet (sax, electric guitar, piano, perc) play he US premiere of Eric Wubbels’ Voided Cross + works by Erin Rogers, Nick Deyoe at the DiMenna Center, $10

5/8, 7 PM woodwind ensemble Quintet of the Americas play “an evening of new music, including Mexican composer Arturo Marquez’s Danza de mediodia, Brazilian-American composer Ricardo Romaneiro’s minimalist piece Ventos, Xinyan Li’s Mo Suo’s Burial Ceremony, Valerie Coleman’s Tzigane and Owl City’s Fireflies (!?!). at the National Opera Center, 330 Seventh Ave, 7th Fl, $20/$10 stud

5/8, 8 PM Lizzi Bougatsos & Sadie Laksa’s assaultive dub industrial I.U.D. project followed by the NYC debut of Japanese noise quartet SAICOBAB at issue Project Room, $15

5/8, 9 PM 20s hot jazz revivalists Cait and the Critters at Radegast Hall

5/9, 7 PM soaringly explosive jazz composer/torch singer Nicole Zuraitis at 55 Ba

5/9, 7:30 PM the Danish Clarinet Trio play works by Brahms, Gade, Nieslen and Clara Schumann at Scandinavia House, $15

5/9, 7:30/930 PM alto saxophonist Caroline Davis leads an unorthodox tuneful trio with Matt Mitchell on piano and Dan Weiss on drums at the Jazz Gallery, $15

5/9, 7:30 PM pansori singer Lee Narae reinvents the classic Korean epic Byeongangseo-ga from the point of view of its anti-heroine at the Lincoln Center Atrium, free, early arrival advised

5/9, 8 PM the Oratorio Society of NY perform Verdi’s Requiem at Stern Auditorium at Carnegie Hall, $25 tix avail

5/9-12, 730/930 PM trumpet powerhouse Jeremy Pelt l leads a septet at the Jazz Standard, $30

5/9, 9ish oldtimey Appalachian duo Allison de Groot & Tatiana Hargreaves at the Owl

5/9, 9:30 PM Brandi & the Alexanders play oldschool-style soul ballads followed by eclectic, pensive, purposeful original acoustic Americana songwriter Ruby Landen at Pine Box Rock Shop

5/10, 6 PM crystalline-voiced, noir-tinged third-stream jazz chanteuse Tessa Souter at 55 Bar

5/10, 6ish darkly torchy southwestern gothic/Europolitan songwriter/guitarist Miwa Gemini followed by dark blues/folk noir/oldschool soul songwriter Kelley Swindall at the American Folk Art Museum

5/10, 7:30 PM the Verona Quintet play a classical program tba at the Cell Theatre, $20

5/10, 7:30/9:30 PM vibraphonist Nikara Warren leads a septet playing her Black Wall Street suite, examining the horrific genocide against black residents of Norman Oklahoma in 1921 at the Jazz Gallery, $20

5/10, 8 PM nuanced, fearlessly populist Malagasy chanteuse Razia Said at Club Bonafide, $20

5/10, 8ish horn-fueled 90s ska-punk nostalgia with Mephiskapheles at the Kingsland, $10

5/10, 8 PM the New York Virtuoso Singers perform Three Masses by Renaissance Composer William Byrd at St. Michael’s Episcopal Church, 225 W. 99th St., enter on Amsterdam Ave. between 99th and 100th, $25/$20 stud/srs

5/10, 8 PM, repeating on 5/11 at 3 and 8 PM Periapsis Music & Dance presents four collaborations, including three world premieres, by resident choreographers Erin Dillon and Hannah Weber, and guest choreographers Norbert De La Cruz III and Annalee Traylor, backed by a live score by composers Jonathan Howard Katz, Hilary Purrington and Harry Stafylakis, at the LIU Kumble Theatre, corner of Dekalb and Flatbush, downtown Brooklyn,$15 tickets with code ORACLE19

5/10, 9 PM colorful vintage Springsteenian highway rockers the Felice Bros. at the Bell House, $20

5/10, 9 PM pianist Orion Weiss plays Ravel’s Tombeau de Couperin, Shostakovich’s Shostakovich, Piano Sonata No. 2 and three of the Brahms Choral Preludes at the 92nd St. Y, $25

5/10 10 PM Nashville gothic crooner Sean Kershaw and band followed by brilliant Americana rock guitarist Tom Clark & the High Action Boys at Hank’s, $10

5/11, 7 PM electric microtonal improvisation with the Take Off Collective – Marko Djordjevic: drums; le Mathisen: saxophone; Matthew Garrison: bass at Shapeshifter Lab, $10

5/11, 7:30 PM Quatuor Daniel play Shostakovich’s haunting String Quartet No. 6 plus quartets by Beethoven and Weinberg at Irving Auditorium, Irving Pl/17th St., $16

5/11, 7:30 PM hauntingly innovative cellist Erik Friedlanderr solo followed by flutist Michel Gentile’s Works trio with Daniel Kelly – piano and Rob Garcia – drums at Brooklyn Conservatory of Music, $15

5/11, 8 PM the circus rock band that started the whole thing – World Inferno – at the Msuic Hall of Williamsburg, $20 gen adm

5/11, 8 PM jangly Merseybeat garage rockers Ghost King, soul/funksters Native Sun and retro psych road warriors Night Beats at the Knitting Factory, $15

5/11, 8 PM instrument inventor/electronic composer Daniel Fishkin plays a “concert that may or may not include: solar sound, pre-synthesizer electronic music, craft in America, radical lutherie and wood that is attached or unattached to the ground,” free, rsvp req, reception to follow

5/11, 9ish jangly, catchy sad-sack acoustic songwriter Field Medic at Alphaville

5/11, 8:30 PM hilarious, savagely cynical, fearlessly political C&W parody band the Great American Country Drifters at Pine Box Rock Shop

5/11, 10 PM sizzling electric bluegrass and C&W with Demolition String Band at Skinny Dennis

5/11, 10 PM swirly fuzz/dreampop band Mantismass, epic, cinematic postrock/metal instrumentalists Lighteater and the thundering, Mastodon-inspired Somnuri at Footlight Bar, $10

5/12, 7 PM a good triplebill at Coney Island Baby: catchy, fun guy/girl indie soul band Sunshine Nights,  wickedly jangly surf/twang/country instrumentalists the Bakersfield Breakers and guitar goddess Barbara Endes’ exhilarating psychedelic janglerock band Girls on Grass  $8

5/12, 7:30 PM wildfire Macedonian trumpet virtuoso Džambo Agušev and his equally ferocious, brassy orchestra at Hungarian House, 213 E 82nd St (1/2 Aves), $20

5/14, drinks at 5:30, show at 6 So Percussion’s Jason Treuting leads a quintet playing his new works at the Miller Theatre, free

5/16, 7:30 PM  Anthony Arnove – Howard Zinn’s collaborator for the Voices of a People’s History of the United States anthology emcees a night of Zinn-inspired readings and music tba at the Lincoln Center Atrium, free, early arrival advised

5/18, 5 PM the Make Some Noise festival in Riverside Park just north of 91st St with Bacchantae, Barnard College’s all-female a cappella group, ferociously dynamic, tuneful, female-fronted power trio Castle Black, the Educadorian-flavred Luz Pinos Band and eventually genre-smashing avant-jazz saxophonist/singer Stephanie Chou and her band at the crabapple grove in Riverside Park, enter at 91st or 95th St. and follow the noise

5/19, 2 PM sardonically relevant guitar-fueled female-fronted Americana punks Spanking Charlene at Mulligan’s Pub in Hoboken

5/23, 7:30 PM salsa dura flutist Karen Joseph leads her own band, MamboCha at the Lincoln Center Atrium, free, early arrival advised

5/26, 5 PM pianist Andrea Lam performs Bach, Schumann and Stravinsky at the Lounge at Hudson View Gardens, 128 Pinehurst Ave @ W 183rd St, A train or #1 train (to 181st St) or the M4 bus (to 183rd St), $15/$12 stud/srs

5/30, 7:30 PM powerhouse retro 60s soul singer Meah Pace and her killer band at the Lincoln Center Atrium, free, early arrival advised

5/30, 7:30 riveting, charismatic, intuitive pianist Karine Poghosyan plays fiery works by De Falla, Liszt and Kachturian at Zankel Hall at Carnegie Hell, $20 seats avail

6/4 drinks at 5:30, show at 6 the Bent Duo -David Friend, piano; Bill Solomon, percussion – play works by Hannah Lash, Sarah Hennies and Mayke Nas at the Miller Theatre, free

6/11, drinks at 5:30, show at 6 Ensemble Échappé play works by Selim Göncü, Katherine Balch, Nina C. Young and others at the Miller Theatre, free

6/16, 5 PM cellist Angela Lee, with pianist Evelyne Luest play works by Beethoven, Prokofiev and Janáček at the Lounge at Hudson View Gardens, 128 Pinehurst Ave @ W 183rd St, A train or #1 train (to 181st St) or the M4 bus (to 183rd St), $15/$12 stud/srs

Jaap van Zweden Shares His Optimism for Women Composers and New Music at Lincoln Center

Beginning in the fall of this year, the New York Philharmonic will be celebrating a century of women in this country having the right to vote. The orchestra’s upcoming Project 19 series. built around works by nineteen contemporary female composers, features an intriguing list including but not limited to Sarah Kirkland Snider, Joan LaBarbara and Paola Prestini. Last night at Lincoln Center, in a conversation with Philharmonic President Deborah Borda, Musical Director Jaap van Zweden enthused about the advantages of working with them. “We can come close, but we can never know what Brahms wanted,” he mused. But engaging with a composer willing to tweak the music to make it more orchestra-friendly pays big dividends, he reminded.

Anybody who doubts van Zweden’s commitment to new music “Didn’t research enough about my past,” he chuckled. In his tenure with the Dallas Symphony, he earned a reputation for programming old Germanic warhorses. “We had to fill the hall,” he groused. “Whenever I had to do a contemporary piece, I had to fight for it.”

Those battles began after the 2008 market crash and continued, and he made no secret how happy he is that these battles are over. Van Zweden comes with the reputation for being a very straight shooter, a rarity in a world that so often stands on ceremony and where candor can get you in a lot of trouble. Mozart in the Jungle may be a stupid soap opera, but the intrigue is real.

Van Zweden’s advocacy for living composers dates back to his days leading the Netherlands Radio Philharmonic. With weekly broadcasts, there was a constant need for new material: standard repertoire from centuries past runs out fast.

Borda confided that the Philharmonic had never played a piece by Philip Glass until van Zweden came aboard – an acknowledgment that was as painful as it should have been. And both she and van Zweden whooped it up – well, kind of whooped it up – about how last month’s performances of Julia Wolfe’s epic, Triangle Shirtwaist Fire-themed cantata sold out so quickly.

In her tenure with the Los Angeles Philharmonic, Borda landed Gustavo Dudamel, and she seems to have similar faith in van Zweden. Like Dudamel, he comes across as more of a bon vivant than obsessive music geek. “Sing with your brain, think with your heart,” seems to be his guiding principle, a mantra he shared with a somewhat starstruck music student in the crowd. That would make sense, considering that van Zweden was inspired to take up the violin after being present at his pianist father’s many jams with fiddlers who dazzled him with their Hungarian Romany songs.

Asked how the orchestra’s programming is conceived, he made no secret of how it’s a group effort, and that “there are requests.” Nonetheless, the orchestra members are consulted and number among those putting in requests, he assured.

In about an hour worth of banter and then audience Q&A, van Zweden also touched on the legacy of Gustav Mahler, his distant predecessor as Musical Director at the Philharmonic, whose work will be feted both here and in Holland next year. He and Borda reassured the crowd that the imminent replacement for the former Avery Fisher Hall would be built to accommodate the Philharmonic’s schedule, not the other way around, “Because we don’t want to lose you.” And he beamed about the orchestra’s  Phil the Hall program next month, a series of hourlong concerts with five-dollar tickets, which were first offered to New York City first responders. These shows aren’t just pops fluff either: there’s Beethoven, and Bernstein, and even Steven Stucky on the bill.

The next classical music event at the Lincoln Center atrium space on Broadway just north of 62nd St. is on April 18 at 7:30 PM with the Castalian String Quartet playing works by Britten and Schubert. These free shows fill up fast; getting to the space early is always a good idea.