MUSIC

Ensemble Connect

THURSDAY, JANUARY 25, 2024
7:30 PM

Paul Hall, Juilliard School In Person & Live Stream
155 W. 65th Street, Upper West Side, Manhattan

$18 in person; free live stream
TICKETS + INFORMATION

A typically appealing program from Ensemble Connect. A piece for flute, cello, percussion, and piano by Chen Yi. What one assumes will be the superior chamber version of Schoenberg’s hyper-Expressionist Verklarte Night, which in its orchestral version can get overbearing. And Wayne Shorter’s Terra Incognita: Shorter always confounded me as a jazz musician, because while his astringent style as both a player and composer should have been just what I liked in theory, in practice I generally found his work thin and underdone: astringent in a bad way. So who knew that his chamber music would entice in precisely the way his famous jazz work, at least to me, didn’t?

MAKE A NIGHT OF IT: In person, mouthwatering Indian kabobs at Kebab Aur Sherab. Streaming at home, have a Bitter Giuseppe: pour 2 oz. Cynar, 1 oz. sweet Vermouth (Carpano Antico strongly preferred), and 1/4 oz. lemon juice, with 6 (not a typo) dashes orange bitters, into an ice-filled cocktail shaker. Shake. Strain into an Old Fashioned glass over ice. Garnish with a lemon twist.