John Zorn @ 60 This Week
John Zorn is pretty much everywhere you look this week in New York, where the Zorn@60 birthday festivities are ramping up to a fever pitch. Today (9/24) you can hear Zorn himself host a 24-hour marathon broadcast of his own music on Q2, and this Saturday, the Met Museum hosts an unprecedented daylong celebration of Zorn's music throughout the galleries (free with Museum admission.)
Go below the jump for a quick rundown of all the places you can hear the music of this prolific, multifaceted, one-of-a-kind master. (Note: many of these events are close to selling out, so check with the venue before heading out.)
A Pocketful of Firecrackers: The Film Scores of John Zorn
Q2 Music 24-Hour Zorn Marathon
All-Star Orchestra Concert
John Zorn’s dream team orchestra—80 players, at last count—performs some of the composer's great symphonic works, including his masterpiece violin concerto. Featuring violin soloist Christopher Otto and conductor David Fulmer heading up an entire orchestra of soloists.
Suppôts et Supplications (2012) U.S. Premiere
Contes de Fées (1999)
Orchestra Variations (1996)
Kol Nidre (1996)
Chamber Music Marathon
Game Pieces
Featuring Bezique (1989); Cobra (1984); Rugby (1983); Book of Heads (1978); Fencing (1978); Xu Feng (1977-89); Lacrosse (1976).
John Zorn—A Museum-Wide Celebration
For an entire day, the Museum's galleries pulsate with John Zorn's restless and kinetic sounds, as musicians perform in twelve different galleries during an unprecedented event that marks the creative genius' 60th birthday. Some of the works presented on this day are Met Museum commissions; others are existing pieces, specifically selected for their organic and sonic relevance to particular gallery spaces.
Performances will begin in the Great Hall with a new work, an opening antiphonal fanfare for six trumpets; and continue at The Temple of Dendur in The Sackler Wing with Gnostic Preludes; the Emma and Georgina Bloomberg Arms and Armor Court with an organ solo by John Zorn; the Medieval Sculpture Hall with Holy Visions; the Van Rensselaer Hall in the American Wing with All Hallows’ Eve; a gallery of Abstract Expressionism, featuring Jackson Pollock’s painting Autumn Rhythm (No. 30), with a duo by John Zorn on alto saxophone and Milford Graves on drums; the Oceania galleries with selections including Dark River; the Assyrian gallery with a solo cello work; the Vélez Blanco Patio with Mycale; The British Eighteenth-Century Painting Gallery with The Alchemist; selections from Six Litanies for Heliogabalus at The Temple of Dendur in the Sackler Wing; and concluding with an organ solo by John Zorn at the Emma and Georgina Bloomberg Arms and Armor Court.
Performers include Mike Patton, voice; Milford Graves, percussion; Bill Frisell, guitar; John Zorn, organ; Jay Campbell, cello; Erik Friedlander, cello; and others.
The Song Project
Moonchild—Templars: In Sacred Blood
John Zorn + Ryuichi Sakamoto