An uneven mix with animation by the St Luke’s Chamber Ensemble

Jon Manasse

St Luke's Chamber Ensemble

By Kurt Gottschalk, 20 March 2023

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“video animation... suggesting, perhaps, busy city streets in geometric shapes viewed from above”

Reviewed at DiMenna Center for Classical Music: Mary Flagler Cary Hall, New York City on 16 March 2023

Bach, Die Kunst der Fuge (The Art of Fugue), BWV1080 (selection)

Clyne, Woman Holding a Balance

Clyne, Pardes

Clyne, The Violin (selection)

Reich, New York Counterpoint

Josh Dorman, Animation

St Luke's Chamber Ensemble

Jesse Mills, Violin

Dana Kelley, Viola

Daire FitzGerald, Cello

Jon Manasse, Clarinet

Jyll Bradley, Artist

Minimalism with a beating heart: Julius Eastman's Femenine

Kurt Gottschalk, 4th February

The spirit of the St Luke's Chamber Ensemble makes for a successful performance of Julius Eastman's 1974 composition Femenine.

****1

St Luke's Chamber Ensemble finds the joy in Julius Eastman

Kurt Gottschalk, 22nd June

In their “Visionary Sounds” concert, the ensemble lets Eastman's Stay On It fall into abandon at times... but never without a plan.

****1

A Parisian affair at the Morgan Library, New York

Kay Kempin, 6th March

Regular concert-goers are used to hearing the harp on a church altar or mixed in with a large symphony, barely audible above the mass of strings, bass and brass. But the St Luke’s Chamber Ensemble put the harp center stage, in an evening of 20th-century French music, no less.

***11

How it's done: John Zorn celebrates his 60th birthday at the Barbican

Paul Kilbey, 12th July

John Zorn doesn’t look 60. He looks 35, or whatever age it is where you’re still just about young enough to get away with wearing baggy camouflage pants. “And that’s how it’s done!” he yells through his mic at the end of the first half, over huge applause and cheering from this passionate Barbican audience.

*****

Metropolitan Museum Artists bring Adams and Dvořák to life

Amanda Keil, 12th May

The loosely-affiliated Metropolitan Museum Artists in Concert, now in its ninth season at the museum, illustrates all that is good about music-making among friends – and even family members. Two sets of siblings and numerous old friends were on stage for a concert of music inspired by the completion of the museum’s new wing of American art.

****1

Savall conducts Beethoven and Haydn at the Elbphilharmonie

Mengguang Huang, 3rd April

Beethoven's Christus am Ölberge is paired with Haydn's Die sieben letzten Worte, a journey from agony to transcendence in which the agony proves the more honest companion.

***11

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Kurt Gottschalk

Kurt Gottschalk is a journalist and author based in New York City. His writings on contemporary and classical music, jazz and improvisation have been published in outlets throughout Europe and America and he has two volumes of short fiction to his name. He produced and hosted the Miniature Minotaurs radio programme on WFMU and currently hosts Afternoon New Music on WKCR.

An uneven mix of Bach, Reich, Clyne and animation by the St Luke’s Chamber Ensemble