Critic’s Choice
Liminar. Photo: Karla González Treviño
Spring is creeping in at an agonizingly slow pace in New York, but there are promising portents on the horizon. In classical music, the major spring event this year, as it has been for nineteen years before it, is this year’s MATA Festival.
Music At The Academy—brought to life by Philip Glass, Lisa Bielawa, and Eleonor Sandreseky—has become the best annual survey of current thinking among contemporary composers. Under artistic director Du Yun, it has continued to expand the breadth of its reach.
A preliminary event the first weekend in April has passed, and Monday, April 9 is set aside for a member’s only gala. The main events begin Tuesday, April 10, at the Kitchen.
This year’s anchor ensemble, the Mexican new music group Liminar makes their East Coast debut with music for both on-stage and off-stage musicians, including new commissioned works from Annie Gosfield and Daniel Stillman and the world premiere of Joe Bates’ A Noise So Loud. The concerts that follow will bring more premieres and performances from Contemporaneous, and the concluding April 21 concert will including a sonified pool for a truly immersive experience.
The 2018 MATA Festival runs from April 10 to April 14, and April 21. Most concerts are at the Kitchen. matafestival.org
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