this week in music

SUMMER SOLSTICE CELEBRATION

Socrates Sculpture Park

Annual Summer Solstice Celebration in Socrates Sculpture Park features live music, art workshops, paddling, wrestling, and more

Socrates Sculpture Park
32-01 Vernon Blvd.
Friday, June 21, free, 5:00 – 9:30
718-956-1819
www.socratessculpturepark.org

It’s time to celebrate the longest day of the year, midsummer, on June 21, as festivals take place all over the Northern Hemisphere. In Long Island City, the annual Summer Solstice Celebration in Socrates Sculpture Park consists of a bevy of free activities from 5:00 to 9:30, offering the opportunity for the mind, body, and soul to restore their connection to the natural and spiritual worlds, specifically in relation Mayan tradition. There will be face painting by Agostino Arts, art workshops sponsored by Free Style Arts Association, Materials for the Arts, the Noguchi Museum, and the Queens Museum of Art, a costume workshop, walk-up paddling courtesy of Astoria Boaters and the LIC Community Boathouse, a Mexican wrestling demonstration by Lucha Libre, yoga with Monique Schubert, Mexican cuisine, and a solstice ritual with Urban Shaman Mama Donna before concluding with a community drum circle led by Toca & Alé Alé Drummers. While at Socrates, be sure to check out the current main exhibition, the twentieth anniversary of “do it (outside),” in which dozens of artists interpret instructions by the likes of Ai Weiwei, John Baldessari, Tacita Dean, Tracey Emin, Felix Gonzalez-Torres, Douglas Gordon, Joan Jonas, Sol LeWitt, Yoko Ono, Bruce Nauman, Ernesto Neto, Martha Rosler, Paul McCarthy, and many others. In addition, there’s also Heather Rowe’s “Beyond the Hedges (Slivered Gazebo),” Chitra Ganesh’s “Broadway Billboard: Her Nuclear Waters,” and Toshihiro Oki architect pc’s “FOLLY: tree wood.”

MAKE MUSIC NEW YORK 2013

Mungo Thomson will celebrate the summer solstice by performing his chamber ensemble piece “Crickets” on the High Line as part of Make Music New York (video still courtesy of the artist)

Mungo Thomson will celebrate the summer solstice by performing his chamber ensemble piece “Crickets” on the High Line as part of Make Music New York (video still courtesy of the artist)

Every June 21, Make Music New York celebrates the longest day of the year with a full slate of free concerts in limitless genres throughout the five boroughs, in parks, libraries, restaurants, stores, plazas, and out on the street and aboard party buses. Not only can you check out some great shows but you can also participate; Mass Appeal once again features nearly two dozen performances in which everyone is invited to bring their own instrument and join in, with accordions in Central Park, circuit benders at CultureFix, gongs in Herald Square, cellos in Flatiron Building Plaza, clarinets in Carroll Park, flutes on Wollman Rink Terrace, French horns at the South Street Seaport, toy pianos in Sakura Park, harps at the Cathedral Church of St. John the Divine, mandolins in Theodore Roosevelt Park, saxophones in Little Red Square, and ukuleles in Sheridan Playground, among other gatherings. And you don’t need an instrument at all to take part in humming in the DUMBO ConEd Farragut Substation and singing at St. John the Divine. Some of the more unusual presentations include Eli Keszler’s piano-wire sound installation in the DUMBO Archway of the Manhattan Bridge, R. Murray Schafer’s “Credo” performed by 144 singers on rowboats on the lake in Central Park, Nate Buccieri’s traveling Privia Piano Bar, an all-day performance of Beck’s Song Reader at Joe’s Pub, “Brass Ascension” in Tompkins Square Park, and Mungo Thomson’s “Crickets” on the High Line. The musical celebration of the summer solstice continues into Saturday, when more than one hundred hardcore bands descend on the Staten Island Coast Guard Pier for the sixth annual Punk Island.

FILMS IN TOMPKINS: RUSHMORE

Jason Schwartzman is a different kind of teenager caught up in an adult world in Wes Anderson’s RUSHMORE

RUSHMORE (Wes Anderson, 1998)
Tompkins Square Park
Ave. A between Seventh & Tenth Sts.
Thursday, June 20, free, 6:00
718-777-6800
www.filmsintompkins.com
rushmoreacademy.com

Wes Anderson’s Rushmore is a dazzlingly dark, sublime masterpiece. Anderson (The Royal Tenenbaums, Moonrise Kingdom) created one of the all-time-great quirky indie antiheroes in Max Fischer, played with relish by Jason Schwartzman. Max is a troubled genius at the private Rushmore Academy, where his eccentricities make him somewhat of an outcast. His best friend is wealthy iconoclast Herman Blume (Bill Murray in a career-redefining role), but their relationship turns sour when it becomes apparent that they both have their hearts set on beautiful teacher Rosemary Cross (Olivia Williams). A unique take on disaffected youth, Rushmore, which also features such Anderson regulars as Luke Wilson and Seymour Cassel and was cowritten by Owen Wilson, helped launch a new wave of American independent cinema with its offbeat narrative and eclectic soundtrack, which includes songs by Donovan, the Rolling Stones, Django Reinhardt, Cat Stevens, Yves Montand, and the Faces, along with original material by Devo’s Mark Mothersbaugh. Rushmore is screening June 20 as part of the free Films in Tompkins programming in Tompkins Square Park and will be preceded by a live performance by the all-women’s AfroBrazilian Samba Reggae drumming band BatalaNYC. The summer series continues into August with such other fab films as Reservoir Dogs (with Amour Obscur), Easy Rider (with Main Street Quintet), The Big Lebowski (with Jade Pinto and the Yeahtones), and O Brother, Where Art Thou?, which was rescheduled for August 22 after getting rained out on June 13.

MAD. SQ. MUSIC: SUZANNE VEGA

Suzanne Vega will perform her unique brand of indie folk pop for free in Madison Square Park on June 19

Suzanne Vega will perform her unique brand of intelligent indie folk pop for free in Madison Square Park on June 19

THE OVAL LAWN SERIES
Madison Square Park
Between 23rd & 26th St. and Madison & Fifth Aves.
Wednesday, June 19, free, 7:00
www.madisonsquarepark.org
www.suzannevega.com

Madison Square Park’s free annual summer music program kicks off in a big way on June 19 with a performance by longtime New York City favorite Suzanne Vega. The singer-songwriter broke through in the mid-1980s with her eponymous debut album and follow-up, Solitude Standing, displaying a supremely original, poetic take on indie folk pop with such songs as “Marlene on the Wall,” “Undertow,” “Tom’s Diner,” and “Luka,” which opened a national discussion on child abuse. During the first twenty-two years of her career, the California-born, New York-raised Vega, one of the early MTV stars, released seven well-regarded records, including 1992’s 99.9F°, 1996’s Nine Objects of Desire, and 2007’s Beauty & Crime, but she’s put out four records over the last two years as she reinvestigates her old songs and adds a few new and/or previously unreleased ones as part of her Close-Up series, which is divided thematically into Love Songs, People & Places, States of Being, and Songs of Family. Her performance in Madison Square Park is one of the highlights of the city’s free summer music season; she’ll be back for a ticketed residency July 3 and 10 at City Winery, after which she heads out to Japan, Lithuania, Russia, Estonia, Finland, Denmark, and Switzerland. Mad. Sq. Music’s Oval Lawn Series continues every Wednesday through August 7 with such other acts as Rene Marie’s “Experiment in Truth,” Ben Sollee, Erin McKeown, and Ivan Neville’s Dumpstaphunk.

LAURIE ANDERSON: THE LANGUAGE OF THE FUTURE

Laurie Anderson is curating and participating in a special series of events for the free River to River Festival this week (photo by Tim Knox)

Laurie Anderson is curating and participating in a special series of events for the free River to River Festival this week (photo by Tim Knox)

RIVER TO RIVER FESTIVAL
Note new time and place: Tuesday, June 18, Stuyvesant High School, 345 Chambers St., free, 8:00
Wednesday, June 19, Rockefeller Park, free, 7:00
Curated programming continues through June 22
www.rivertorivernyc.com
www.laurieanderson.com

Innovative experimental multimedia artist Laurie Anderson is guest-curating five days of special programming for the River to River Festival, including two nights that harken back to her seminal work United States 1-4. On June 18 and 19, Anderson will be in Rockefeller Park presenting “The Language of the Future,” with Tuesday focusing on “Stories” with the Annie Gosfield Trio (with Gosfield on sampling keyboard, Roger Kleier on guitar, and Ches Smith on drums), actor Steve Buscemi, choreographer Young Jean Lee, guitarist Gerry Leonard, horn player Doug Wieselman, and violist Eyvind Kang, while Wednesday will be all about “Songs,” with Richard Devine on electronics, Jacob Garchik on horns, and Jeffrey Zeigler on cello in addition to Wieselman, Kang, and Smith. [ed. note: Because of the weather, Tuesday’s show has been moved indoors to Stuyvesant High School and pushed back to 8:00.] “I wanted to explore how artists use time in their work,” Anderson explains in a statement about the shows. “Each guest artist in this series has a unique approach to time whether slowing it down, rolling it backwards, speeding it up, or pairing it with images in polyphonic ways. Perhaps, my real, and deeper, motive is to create a floating atmosphere that extends the summer evening and makes it all the more dream-like and timeless.” The series continues June 20 at Pier 15 on the East River Esplanade with “An Evening of Live Music and Cinema” featuring documentarian Sam Green, Brooklyn band the Quavers, and music collaborative yMUSIC. Next, Luibo Borissov and Konrad Kaczmarek team up for the interactive Peripatetic Audio Visual Ensemble beginning at River Terrace in Rockefeller Park, with an open rehearsal on June 20 followed by 2:00 and 7:00 shows on June 21-22, all of which require free advance RSVP here. Also on June 21, River to River will screen Chassol’s Indiamore, and on June 22, Andrew Schneider will perform his live multimedia Tidal, both on Pier 15. Anderson fans can also catch her inaugural New York painting and drawing exhibition, “BOAT,” along with a video installation and sculpture, at Vito Schnabel on Leroy St. through June 23.

NORTHSIDE FESTIVAL SONG OF THE DAY: “IN KIND” BY BRAIDS

Montreal experimental art-rock trio BRAIDS will be playing the Northside Festival on June 15, previewing songs from their upcoming sophomore full-length, Flourish // Perish (Arbutus, August 20), the follow-up to 2011’s Native Speaker. The band — which now consists of Raphaelle Standell-Preston on guitar, keyboards, and lead vocals, Austin Tufts on drums, and Taylor Smith on bass (fourth founding member Katie Lee left the group last year) — spent a year writing and recording the album in a Montreal studio, coming up with ten tracks, including “Victoria,” “Hossak,” “Girl,” “Ebben,” “Amends,”and “Juniper.” They’ll be at Cameo Gallery on Saturday night on a bill with Yellow Ostrich, Bell Mare, and Widowspeak.