this week in music

CAROLING AT THE MORGAN

Charles Dickens’s original marked-up manuscript of A CHRISTMAS CAROL is on view at the Morgan

Morgan Library & Museum
225 Madison Ave. at 36th St.
Friday, December 16, free, 6:30 – 8:30
212-685-0008
www.themorgan.org

As part of its free Friday programming on December 16, the Morgan Library will feature singers from the Mannes College the New School for Music performing Christmas carols throughout the museum from 6:30 to 8:30. And you can continue the holiday spirit at the Morgan exhibition “Charles Dickens at 200,” which celebrates the Christmas Carol scribe’s life and career with original manuscripts, letters, books, photographs, illustrations, caricatures, and more. There will be a docent tour of the show, which runs through February 12, on Sunday at 2:00. As Dickens wrote in the preface to the book in 1843, “I have endeavoured, in this Ghostly little book, to raise the Ghost of an Idea, which shall not put my readers out of humour with themselves, with each other, with the season, or with me. May it haunt their houses pleasantly, and no one wish to lay it!” To which we add, “Merry Christmas to all, and to all a good night.”

SEE THE LIGHT(S): HANUKKAH AT THE JEWISH MUSEUM

Maurice Sendak has gathered together menorahs for the Jewish Museum exhibition “An Artist Remembers” (photo of final illustration of GRANDPA’S HOUSE courtesy the Maurice Sendak Collection, Rosenbach Museum & Library)

Jewish Museum
1109 Fifth Ave. at 92nd St.
December 15-27, free – $20
212-423-3337
www.thejewishmuseum.org

What better place to celebrate Hanukkah than at the Jewish Museum? The stately Fifth Ave. institution will be partying up for the Festival of Lights with a series of programs and exhibitions over the next two weeks. On Thursday night, December 15 ($12-$15, 8:00-11:00), “Cheryl Does Chanukah” will feature techno dreidels, sweet sufganiot, a one-hour open bar, a dance party hosted by DJ Nick, and a live performance by Brooklyn-based quartet Cheryl. On Saturdays, admission to the museum is free, so be sure to check out the special exhibition “An Artist Remembers: Hanukkah Lamps Selected by Maurice Sendak,” a group of lamps chosen by the children’s book legend from the Jewish Museum’s permanent collection. Sunday is Hanukkah Family Day, with a menorah workshop for children three and up and live music by Ben Rudnick and Friends. On Monday (free with museum admission, 12 noon – 3:00), there will be a tour of “An Artist Remembers,” followed by Hanukkah-themed tours of the permanent exhibition, “Culture and Continuity,” at 1:15 on December 22, 23, 26, and 27. The Macaroons will perform three holiday shows on Sunday ($15-$20, 11:00, 1:00, 3:00); look for such seasonal favorites as “Dreidel Bird” and “Hurry Up and Light the Candles.” And Frank London’s Klezmer Brass Band Allstars will say goodbye to Hanukkah by rocking out on December 27 ($45, 7:30) with their inspiring brand of Jewish roots music.

FIVE POINTS: TAKE DANCE + PULSE — PART II

Merce Cunningham Dance Studios
55 Bethune St.
December 15-16 at 9:00, December 17 at 8:00, $20
800-838-3006
www.merce.org

As the Merce Cunningham Dance Company prepares for its farewell performances December 29-31 at the Park Avenue Armory, the troupe’s studios on Bethune St. will also be closing up shop. One of the last shows to take place there will be Five Points, in which TAKE Dance and the Pulse music collective pay tribute to Cunningham’s revolutionary synesthetic style by presenting five new works set to original post-classical jazz compositions. Touch and sound, science and art combine in unique ways in pieces by choreographer Takehiro Ueyama and composer Melissa Dunphy (“Summer Collection 2012”), Kile Hotchkiss and Pulse founder Joseph C. Phillips, Jr. (“The Substance of Things Unseen”), Milan Misko and Jamie Begian (“From Over Here”), Jill Echo and JC Sanford (“Views from the Inside”), and Kristen Arnold and Joshua Shneider (“unclearly departed”). The works will be performed by dancers Brynt Beitman, John Eirich, Jillian Hervey, Gina Ianni, Clinton Edward Martin, Sarah Mettin, Nana Tsuda Misko, Lynda Senisi, Kristi Tornga, Marie Zvosec, Misko, Hotchkiss, and Arnold and musicians Hannah Levinson (viola), Jacob Garchik (accordion, laptop, trombone), Ana Milosavljevic (violin/Viper), Chris Reza (woodwinds), Mariel Roberts (cello). Tickets must be reserved in advance; there will be no sales at the door.

GILDING THE LONELY: AN EVENING OF CABARET

Raquel Cion will be gilding the lonely in one-woman cabaret show at Dixon Place this week

The Lounge at Dixon Place
161A Chrystie St. between Rivington & Delancey Sts.
December 14-16, $5
212-219-0736
www.dixonplace.org

Last year sexy chanteuse Raquel Cion performed the one-woman show Pour Vous at Dixon Place in the guise of her alter ego, Cou-Cou Bijoux, who is also a member of the Magnetic Cabaret. Cion is now back at Dixon Place to present Gilding the Lonely, an evening of original cabaret directed by Luke Harlan, with musical direction by Matthew Leonard and percussion by Bill Gerstel. Cion, a powerful, engaging performer who exerts high energy and a burning sexuality, will be wearing what should be daring costumes by David Quinn in what she promises to be “three nights of glitter-ball performance, wry humor, open-hearted pathos, passion, and lots of singing. I’m going to face down that wall of loneliness through song.” Indeed, it’s impossible to be lonely when Cion is around, so if you’re in need of a little extra love this holiday season, you’re sure to find plenty of it at Dixon Place this week.

POPGUN AND NEW AMSTERDAM PRESENT LAUREL HALO, FORMA, CORPS EXQUIS, LORNA DUNE

Glasslands Gallery
289 Kent Ave.
Tuesday, December 13, $10, 8:30
www.newamsterdampresents.com
www.glasslands.blogspot.com

Cosmic avant-pop, chamber music, and cutting-edge electronic soundscapes will take center stage on December 13 at Glasslands as a collection of local composers gather for a night of twenty-first-century orchestrations. Presented by PopGun and New Amsterdam Records, the evening includes performances by Lorna Dune, FORMA (George Bennett, Sophie Lam, and Mark Dwinell), Laurel Halo, and Daniel Wohl, who will be teaming up with TRANSIT for the multimedia Corps Exquis, inspired by the Surrealists’ artistic parlor game Exquisite Corpse.

THE BIRTHDAY MASSACRE / DIR EN GREY

The Birthday Massacre will have the audience on pins and needles at Irving Plaza

Irving Plaza
17 Irving Pl. at East 15th St.
Monday, December 12, $41.50 – $63.50 ($29.50 – $51.50 without fees), 7:00
www.thebirthdaymassacre.com
www.irvingplaza.com

Touring behind their first album in three years, Dum Spiro Spero (the End, August 2011), Japanese heavyweights Dir En Grey arrive in New York City on Monday night to headline Irving Plaza, but you’d be doing yourself a disservice if you don’t get there early to catch the opening act, Toronto goth rockers the Birthday Massacre — and not only to get the biggest bang for your buck, since the relatively high ticket prices reach up to $63.50 for VIP access. On such discs as 2004’s Violet, 2007’s Walking with Strangers, and last year’s Pins and Needles, Chibi, Rainbow, M. Falcore, Rhim, O.E., and Owen play it hard and loud. Their latest EP, Imaginary Monsters (Metropolis, August 2011), features three new tracks, the soaring power ballads “Burn Away,” “Forever,” and “Left Behind,” along with five remixes of older tunes: Tweaker’s “Control,” Kevvy Mental & Dave Ogilvie’s “Pale,” Skold’s “Pins and Needles,” and Combichrist’s and Assemblage 23’s dueling versions of “Shallow Grave.” As we’ve said before, TBM know how to rock out live; just don’t be put off by the gothic metal makeup, black costumes, black hair, tattoos, and demonic signage. At heart, they’re just a bunch of pussycats. Well, maybe.

WHITE HILLS / PONTIAK

Pontiak will be at Littlefield with Thrill Jockey labelmates White Hills, previewing songs from their upcoming discs (photo by Lino Brunetti)

Littlefield
622 Degraw St.
Saturday, December 10, $10-$12, 10:00
www.littlefieldnyc.com
www.thrilljockey.com

One of our favorite labels, Chicago’s Thrill Jockey, is offering a little taste of things to come with a great double bill Saturday night at Littlefield in Brooklyn, with local natives White Hills and Virginia’s Pontiak highlighting songs from their upcoming records. In just the last couple of years, space-rock pioneers White Hills — guitarist Dave W. and bassist Ego Sensation — have released such far-out head trips as H-p1, Heads on Fire, the eponymous White Hills, and the twelve-inch Stolen Stars Left for No One (which features the amazing “Drift Away” and is currently back in stock in a very limited quantity). Wearing intergalactic costumes and electric face paint, White Hills take off for dimensions unknown in their live shows, captured on the Christmas release Live at Roadburn 2011. At Littlefield, they’ll be previewing songs from their March 2012 record, Frying on This Rock, which promises to be another energetic and unpredictable sojourn, with such tracks as “Pads of Light,” “Robot Stomp,” and “Song of Everything.” They’ll be joined by labelmates Pontiak, who will be giving concertgoers an advance look at their amazing new disc, Echo Ono, which Thrill Jockey will be releasing on February 21. Recorded by brothers Van, Lain, and Jennings Carney at their farm studio, Echo Ono is a sonic concept album in which the band seeks to capture texture and color, incorporating classic amps and instrumentation. From the explosive psychedelic opening of “Lions of Least” to the ass-kicking finale, the guitar-and-drums freak-out “Panoptica,” Pontiak takes the band to a whole new level. The middle of the record gets more melodic, as soaring harmonies and acoustic guitars lift the back-to-back duo of “The Expanding Sky” and “Silver Shadow,” while “Royal Colors” includes a massive guitar jam. Along the way, the brothers Carney give nods to Pink Floyd, the Grateful Dead, and even Ozzie. Make sure you’re ready for one loud, crazy, psychedelic night. (And if that’s not enough Thrill Jockey for you, Arbouretum will be at Union Pool on Saturday night as well, touring behind their 2011 disc, The Gathering.)