The Metropolis Ensemble is getting set to record the complete collection of chamber orchestra concerti of Avner Dorman with producer David Frost but you don’t have to wait to hear it; the best little orchestra in New York will be performing the same repertoire live and in color next Thursday night, October 11, at the Angel Orensanz Foundation Center for the Arts (172 Norfolk St, between Houston and Delancey), commencing at 8 pm. On tap are the American premieres of Dorman’s Concerto in A and Concerto Grosso, the New York premiere of Piccolo Concerto, and an encore performance of Mandolin Concerto. Soloists Mindy Kaufman of the New York Philharmonic, Avi Avital, and Eliran Avni will join the Metropolis Ensemble led by conductor Andrew Cyr. If you haven’t heard the Metropolis in action you’ve missed something pretty special. These cats seriously cook. (Just showing my age for a moment.)
Meanwhile, Miller Theater opens its new Composer Portraits series tonight with a program devoted to the music of Esa-Pekka Salonen. Performers include Darrett Adkins, cello; Tony Arnold, soprano; the wonderful Imani Winds; Blair McMillen, piano and artistic director and Jeffrey Milarsky, conductor. Unlike dilettantes like, say Michael Tilson-Thomas, Salonen is a serious composer and I want very much to love Salonen’s music someday. I’m not there yet which is probably my failing rather than his.
Speaking of liking something, Tina Turner’s cover of Edith and the Kingpin on Herbie Hancock’s River: The Joni Letters is nothing short of revelatory.
UPDATE: This just in. Frank J. Oteri writes:
Edith and the Kingpin has always been one of my four or five favorite J.M. J.M. songs. I wrote an arrangement of it myself this past summer for a singer TBA later.