this week in music

STARS IN THE HOUSE: CATS AND DOGS HUMANE SOCIETY BENEFIT

Sierra Boggess and her cat are among the performers joining Stars in the House benefit for the Humane Society of New York

Who: Sierra Boggess, Lilli Cooper, Darius de Haas, Andy Karl, Jose Llana, Jesse Mueller, Orfeh, Paige Price, Kate Rockwell, Doug Sills, Will Swenson, Seth Rudetsky, James Wesley
What: Livestreamed benefit show for the Humane Society of New York
Where: Stars in the House YouTube channel
When: Friday, November 27, pay-what-you-can, 8:00
Why: Dogs and cats and other household pets are scratching their pretty little heads trying to figure out why we’re home with them all day every day since mid-March, never giving them an ounce of freedom. Yes, animals have been impacted by the Covid-19 crisis, in different ways than their people are. On November 27 at 8:00, Stars in the House, the tireless charity site hosted by Seth Rudetsky and James Wesley that features live play readings and cast reunions, will recognize our furry four-legged friends with a benefit event for the Humane Society of New York, which, during the coronavirus pandemic, has been “doing the daily work of helping those that need help; those owners who may need financial support. More and more we are seeing people from all walks of life that have just lost their jobs and their income, and don’t know when they will be employed again. They know that they can turn to us when their pets need medical attention.” The society’s annual Best in Shows gala fundraiser was canceled, so Stars in the House has stepped in to fill part of the void. Rudetsky and Wesley will be joined by an all-star lineup of Broadway actors and their animals, performing together, featuring Sierra Boggess, Lilli Cooper, Darius de Haas, Andy Karl, Jose Llana, Jesse Mueller, Orfeh, Paige Price, Kate Rockwell, Doug Sills, and Will Swenson.

TETHERED X

Who: Antonio Brown, Rakeem Hardy, Mario Bermudez Gil and Catherine Coury of Marcat Dance, China Central Song and Dance Ensemble, Johnnie Cruise Mercer, Justin Shoulder, Tyler Ashley (the Dauphine of Bushwick), OHMME
What: Tenth edition of digital music and dance series
Where: Public Records TV
When: Wednesday, November 18, streaming free, watch party $10, 6:00 – 10:00
Why: Since May, four/four has been commissioning and presenting Tethered, a collection of works that bring together musicians and dancers from around the world to create virtual collaborations. On November 18 at 6:00, Tethered X will make its debut, featuring movement by Spanish choreographers Mario Bermudez Gil and Catherine Coury of Marcat Dance, Toronto-based dancer Rakeem Hardy, and Cleveland-based dancer-choreographer Antonio Brown, set to an original score by Chicago-based experimental indie-pop duo OHMME. There will also be archival works by Justin Shoulder, Johnnie Cruise Mercer, Tyler Ashley (the Dauphine of Bushwick), and China Central Song and Dance Ensemble, curated by Benjamim Akio Kimitch. In addition to streaming for free online, there is an in-person garden watch party at Public Records in Brooklyn; tickets are $10. You can check out previous Tethered programs, with such guests as Jon Batiste, Madison McFerrin, Lloyd Knight, Charlotte Dos Santos, Gus Solomons, and Princess Lockerooo, here.

PERFORMA TELETHON

Laurie Anderson will revisit Nam June Paik’s 1984 Good Morning, Mr. Orwell for Performa telethon (photo courtesy Electronic Arts Intermix (EAI), New York)

Who: Jason Moran, Ragnar Kjartansson, Lang Lang, Yvonne Rainer, Jennifer Rubell, Laurie Anderson, Omer Fast, Maria Hassabi, Jesper Just, William Kentridge, Liz Magic Laser, Rashid Johnson, Shirin Neshat, more
What: Virtual benefit gala for Performa
Where: Pace Gallery
When: Wednesday, November 18, free with RSVP, 2:00 to 10:00 pm
Why: Performa is celebrating its fifteenth anniversary with an eight-hour gala fundraiser featuring live performances, specially commissioned artist editions, and testimonials, an online mashup of Nam June Paik’s 1984 Good Morning, Mr. Orwell and Barbara Kruger’s 1989 critique of Jerry Lewis and his annual MDA Labor Day Telethon, aired live from the seventh floor of Pace Gallery in Chelsea. “Nam June Paik’s innovations in broadcast and large-scale architectural installations of television monitors changed the way we think about the screen as an art form,” Performa founder and director RoseLee Goldberg said in a statement. “Half a century after Paik’s legendary interventions in television, we find ourselves in a unique situation: We must now rely on the screen in new ways in the midst of a pandemic that has cost over one million lives. Like Paik, we approach the screen as an exciting platform for artists to communicate their work and ideas.”

Produced in collaboration with E.S.P. TV, the fundraiser honors founding patron Toby Devan Lewis and will include a giant tally board, confetti, giant checks, balloons, a bank of people on telephones, and other telethon staples while acknowledging the Covid-19 crisis, election unrest, the BLM movement, and other critical contemporary social issues. The show will be highlighted by performances from Derrick Adams & Dave Guy, Jérôme Bel, Torkwase Dyson (reading an excerpt from Myself a Distance), David Hallberg, Glenn Kaino, Ragnar Kjartansson, Lang Lang, Marching Cobras, Jason Moran, Oyinda, Yvonne Rainer, Jennifer Rubell, Jacolby Satterwhite, Rufus Wainwright, Hank Willis Thomas & Ebony Brown, Samson Young, and Laurie Anderson, who will pay tribute to Paik; there will also be screenings of Lynda Benglis’s On Screen, The Grunions Are Running, and Document and testimonials from Tamy Ben-Tor, Elmgreen & Dragset, Omer Fast, Maria Hassabi, Jesper Just, William Kentridge, Liz Magic Laser, Kelly Nipper, Rashid Johnson, Shirin Neshat, and others, along with archival footage and never-before-seen behind-the-scenes outtakes. Six artist editions will make their debut and will be available only during the broadcast, by Korakrit Arunanondchai, Barbara Kruger, Kia LaBeija, Michèle Lamy, Cindy Sherman, and Laurie Simmons. The twentieth Performa Biennial, curated by David Breslin and Adrienne Edwards, is scheduled for 2021, but it might look very different from previous ones depending on the state of the pandemic.

ROSANNE CASH AND A. M. HOMES: EYE OF THE COLLECTOR

Rosanne Cash and A. M. Homes appear in new Met film Eye of the Collector (photo by Nicholas Hunt/Getty Images North America)

Who: Rosanne Cash, A. M. Homes
What: Prerecorded film with songs and poems
Where: Met Museum Facebook and YouTube
When: Tuesday, November 17, free, 7:00
Why: In conjunction with the exhibition “Photography’s Last Century: The Ann Tenenbaum and Thomas H. Lee Collection,” which continues through November 30, the Met is hosting the free virtual presentation Eye of the Collector. In the half-hour film, directed and edited by Phyllis Housen, singer-songwriter extraordinaire Cash, whose albums include Seven Year Ache, The List, and She Remembers Everything, and Homes, who has written such books as Days of Awe, This Book Will Save Your Life, and The Mistress’s Daughter, share songs and poems, accompanied by images from the exhibit, which features works by Paul Strand, Man Ray, László Moholy-Nagy, Alfred Stieglitz, Edward Weston, Walker Evans, Joseph Cornell, Diane Arbus, Andy Warhol, Sigmar Polke, Cindy Sherman, Richard Avedon, and many others, promised as a 150th anniversary gift to the Met from Tenenbaum and Lee. The film will be streamed over the Met’s Facebook and YouTube pages on November 17 at 7:00.

“The pandemic and the protests were the perfect storm of isolation, longing, inspiration, longing, fear, and hope,” Cash writes about her new single, the sociopolitical “Crawl into the Promised Land,” adding, “Living in New York City was a pressure cooker, particularly in April and May, when the deaths were spiking and the city sealed itself off, and utterly changed. But strangely, there was also a sense of unity and community, and the potential for transcendence. I kept thinking of the model in physics, where things have to fall apart in order to re-assemble themselves in a more refined, evolved state. . . . I need more space and time to understand what happened, what we are still going through. Why we elected such an unfit person to guide us, why we kill Black people with impunity, why our leaders dismantle and mock every institution we have painstakingly created to hold us safe, why some deaths matter and others don’t. I won’t be here ‘fifty years away from here,’ but someone I gave birth to, or someone they gave birth to, will live in those times and understand, and maybe pass the knowledge on to me, even in another world or another life. The magnitude of the moment requires time and an ocean of reflection.” That is precisely what Cash and Homes will be offering on Tuesday night.

LE PETIT GALA: OUTSIDE THE BOX

FIAF’s virtual gala on November 16 features live music and dance from Florence Gould Hall

Who: Jonah Bokaer, Isaiah João, Nadia Khayrallah, Hala Shah, Rourou Ye, Cal Hunt, Anthony Roth Costanzo, Bryan Wagorn
What: Virtual gala
Where: FIAF online
When: Monday, November 16, free with RSVP, 7:00
Why: The French Institute Alliance Française will be holding its gala on November 16 at 7:00, featuring livestreamed performances direct from the stage in Florence Gould Hall. The soirée “Le Petit Gala: Outside the Box” will include the live world premiere of Jonah Bokaer Choreography’s Softer Distances, a dance solo and quartet with Jonah Bokaer, Isaiah João, Nadia Khayrallah, Hala Shah, and Rourou Ye; FlexN specialist Cal Hunt’s solo dance Gliding: From Brooklyn to Paris; and France en chansons (“L’invitation au voyage” by Henri Duparc, “J’ai perdu mon Eurydice” from Gluck’s Orphée et Eurydice, “Sous le ciel de Paris” in honor of Juliette Gréco) with opera countertenor Anthony Roth Costanzo and pianist Bryan Wagorn. The limited in-person dinner in the FIAF Skyroom is sold out, but you can also participate by bidding in the silent auction, where you’ll find jewelry, wine, art, perfume, a Frédéric Fekkai experience, a private piano lesson with Wagorn, furniture, food, luxury bags, and more. All proceeds benefit FIAF’s cultural, artistic, and educational programs.

SOIL BENEATH: AN EMPIRICAL DECAY

Soil Beneath: An Empirical Decay streams through Primary Stages this week

Who: Chesney Snow, Kevin Hillocks, Rachael Holmes, Winston Dynamite Brown, Latra Wilson, Kimille Howard, Diedre Murray
What: Choreopoem
Where: Primary Stages online
When: November 11-15, $35
Why: Beatboxer, actor, songwriter, poet, and educator Chesney Snow will debut his Primary Stages commission, Soil Beneath: An Empirical Decay, this week, livestreaming November 11-15. The sociopolitical, multidisciplinary exploration of race and class in America was created by and stars Snow (In Transit, Oo Bla Dee), who will be joined in the forty-minute show by Kevin Hillocks as Homerel, Rachael Holmes as Dori, and choreographers Winston Dynamite Brown and Latra Wilson; Soil Beneath, which includes music, dance, poetry, and storytelling, is directed by Kimille Howard and features a score by Pulitzer Prize finalist Diedre Murray (Running Man, Eli’s Comin’). The November 11 opening-night performance will be followed by a Zoom talkback with members of the cast and artistic staff.

LIVE AT THE VILLAGE VANGUARD: FRED HERSCH

Fred Hersch and Miguel Zenón will perform live fron the Village Vanguard this weekend

Who: Fred Hersch, Miguel Zenón
What: Livestreamed concerts from the Village Vanguard
Where: Village Vanguard online
When: Friday, November 6, and Saturday, November 7, $10, 9:00
Why: Jazz pianist, composer, and educator Fred Hersch is celebrating his sixty-fifth birthday, this past October 21, with the release of the intimate Songs from Home (Palmetto Records, November 6) and two shows at the Village Vanguard, to be streamed live from the legendary club. The Cincinnati-born Hersch will perform solo on November 6, then be joined by multiple Grammy nominee and MacArthur and Guggenheim Fellow Miguel Zenón on alto saxophone on November 7; tickets for each concert are $10 and will be available for viewing for twenty-four hours. Hersch recorded the album on a laptop in the woods of Pennsylvania during the pandemic; it includes such classics as Jimmy Webb’s “Wichita Lineman,” the Beatles’ “When I’m 64,” Frederick Loewe’s “Wouldn’t It Be Loverly,” Joni Mitchell’s “All I Want,” and Duke Ellington’s “Solitude.” In the liner notes he explains, “I hope this selection of songs that mean something to me will bring some warmth to your days and that all of you stay well and walk with peace.” Puerto Rico native Zenón’s latest release is Sonero: The Music of Ismael Rivera, a tribute to the famed salsa singer.