MUSIC
TUESDAY - THURSDAY, SEPTEMBER 11 - 14, 2018
7:30 PM

Roulette
509 Atlantic Avenue (entrance on 3rd Avenue), Boerum Hill, Brooklyn

$20-$25 per show; $50-$65 three-day Festival Pass
http://www.resonantbodiesfestival.org/nyc-2018-artists

I remember, five years ago, wandering into the first show of the first Resonant Bodies Festival, showcasing new avant-garde vocal music, in an obscure venue in Gowanus.  I didn't really know what to expect:  it looked pretty interesting, that's all.  What I didn't expect was that I was going to be enraptured.  I didn't realize that there was this whole broad range of artists producing this whole broad range of genre-denying, vernacular-engaging contemporary classical music (broader than the so-called "indie classical" so much in vogue back then), using a whole broad range of traditional and nontraditional techniques and forms -- all of it made with the aim of engaging the audience (and New Music skeptics should note that the human voice is inherently more relatable than instruments, making vocal pieces as presented here unforbidding even when similar instrumental pieces conceivably might be).  I don't want to say anything as ridiculously overstated as that the first Resonant Bodies show was life-changing -- but it certainly had a fairly deep effect on at least this one listener.  I returned for every show that first year and haven't missed a show of any of the New York Festivals since (they've since expanded to Chicago, Sydney, and God knows where else); and I give this Festival my most enthusiastic possible recommendation.  It would be invidious to single out particular performers, both because they're all so good and because the fun of the Festival is unexpected discovery.  Just go, at least one night.

MAKE A NIGHT OF IT:  Your best bet for good food and drink after these shows is Grand Army Bar.