On June 30, Merrill Garbus (of indie sensation tUnE-yArDs) will team up once again with the intrepid vocal group Roomful of Teeth and composer William Brittelle for the first time since the 2011 Ecstatic Music Festival.  This time, joining the fold will be Judd Greenstein’s ensemble The Yehudim, who will perform from Greenstein’s work Sh’lomo, in addition to performing collaboratively with Garbus, Brittelle, and Roomful of Teeth. The set will include new work by Garbus and Brittelle, along with a performance by Garbus of selections from the tUnE-yArDs catalog with Roomful as backing group. The concert, free and open to the public, will take place outdoors at the World Financial Center Plaza at 7pm. Part of River To River® Festival.

On July 14, sound artist Daniel Lopatin, who performs as Oneohtrix Point Never, will join with fearless string ensemble A Far Cry to unveil a new interpretation of Pulitzer Prize-winning composer David Lang‘s hour-long work Darker. Lopatin and A Far Cry will also perform selections from Oneohtrix Point Never’s critically acclaimed albums Returnal and Replica, the latter of which was named the Number Six Album of 2011 by Pitchfork.  The concert, free and open to the public, will take place at the World Financial Center Winter Garden at 7pm.  Part of River To River® Festival.

On August 25, in what promises to be the dance party of the summer (if not the year), Darcy James Argue’s Secret Society (who were nominated for a Grammy for their NewAm Records album Infernal Machines) will join with Brooklyn disco stalwarts Escort, creators of “the best disco album of 2011″ (SPIN). Argue will write a new work for the combined ensembles.  The concert, free and open to the public, will take place outdoors at the World Financial Center Plaza at 7pm.

For more information about the concerts, visit the Arts Brookfield website here.

Ecstatic™ Summer extends the programming mission of the Ecstatic Music Festival, presented each winter by the Kaufman Center and curated by New Amsterdam co-director Judd Greenstein, into the summer months, reaching new audiences and bringing together exciting new musical collaborations from around the world of music.  To read a wrap-up of this year’s Ecstatic Music Festival, go here.  You can listen to archive recordings of the entire festival over atQ2 Music.

Also playing the festival will be St. Vincent, Beirut, The Walkmen, Sharon Van Etten, The Antlers, Atlas Sound, Brooklyn, Youth Chorus, Oneohtrix Point Never, Buke and Gase, Jherek Bischoff, So Percussion, Tyondai Braxton, and many others. Check out the full lineup at the Crossing Brooklyn Ferry website.

You can listen to archive recordings of many of the performances at WNYC and at NPR. If you’d like to read more, check out these NY Times articles about the Oneida/Rhys Chatham show and the Dan Deacon/NOW Ensemble/Calder Quartet show.

This concert is presented as part of Symphony Space’s Gertrude’s Paris Festival, a month-long, multi-disciplinary festival devoted to the vibrant cultural milieu of Gertrude Stein’s Paris and the birth of the avant-garde. Tin Hat Takes On e. e. cummings takes place Friday, April 13 in two shows at 7:00pm and 9:30pm at the Leonard Nimoy Thalia Theatre at Symphony Space, located at Broadway and 95th Street. Tickets range from $15 to $30 and are available at symphonyspace.org or by calling the box office at 212.864.5400.

An official press release from the group notes: “In these two concerts, Tin Hat salutes the unique marriage of American and Parisian sensibilities that arose in the American expat communities of turn-of-the-century Paris. e. e. cummings, like Gertrude Stein, was an American living in Paris at the turn of the century. His poetry has a special affinity with Tin Hat’s music: ‘e. e. cummings’s language straddles the same aesthetic worlds as Tin Hat’s music,’ says violinist Carla Kihlstedt. The result is an eclectic mix of songs that are thematically, if not musically, linked: ‘Some of these songs are very accessible and melodic, some are like classical art songs, and some are instrumental — inspired by the poems in a less direct way.’ “

New Amsterdam is very excited to announce the debut release from pianist Michael Mizrahi (NOW Ensemble, Moët Trio). The album, The Bright Motion, serves as a revitalization of a classic instrument told through new musical ideas with compositions by some of today’s most innovative composers: William Brittelle, Ryan Brown, Patrick Burke, Mark Dancigers, Judd Greenstein, and John Mayrose.  Almost all of the pieces were written specifically with Mizrahi’s hands, sound, and approach in mind. Both a testament to Mizrahi’s dedication to contemporary music, as well as his deep appreciation for the piano’s rich time-tested splendor, Motion is a masterfully performed, beautifully recorded, and truly singular statement of the piano’s indispensable role in modern music today.

While showcasing each forward-thinking composer’s unique voice for the classical instrument through an astoundingly wide variety of approaches to timbre, melody, form, rhythm, and range, Mizrahi’s expert execution unites each track in a beautiful and harmonious way to create an experience that builds on the solo piano tradition yet has a modern sense of flow and emotional consistency. This admirable dexterity comes from years spent dedicated to performing 21st century music not only as a soloist, but as a founding member of the renowned Moët Trio and NOW Ensemble–a chamber group devoted to the commissioning and performing of new music by emerging composers (of which Burke, Greenstein, and Dancigers are members as well; Dancigers also produced the album). Motion embodies a generation of young composers and perfo rmers who are establishing the new music traditions of today while creating works that find contemporary resonance with the traditions of yesterday.

Mizrahi will tour behind the album this spring.  On March 29th at Minneapolis’ Bryant Lake Bowl, he played to a sold-out crowd with fellow New Amsterdam artists William Brittelle and Nadia Sirota. There will also be an album release show in New York City with details to be announced soon. To read more about the album, go here.