January 2024: New Year, New Me
Traditions, resolutions, and tamales
Well kids, we’ve made it. Whether sprinting, walking, sashaying, or hobbling, we’ve now seen the backside of 2023. I could make any number of generalizations about my year: that it was long, short, full of ups and downs, busy, uncomfortably idle, and most of all, musical.
It’s around this time of year that arts journalists love to tell you just how artistic (dramatic, musical, dance-filled, etc.) their years have been. The retrospective year-end roundups that flood my newsfeed each December are strolls down memory lane, markers of talent to watch in the future, and much-needed reminders that I can’t be everywhere at once. The most comprehensive one comes from Britain’s Gramophone magazine, whose nearly fifty critics each recommend a single favorite album, though The New York Times’ top performance and recording lists are perhaps more to-the-point. (The FOMO of NYT’s out-of-town entries is tough to bear — someone want to send me to Salzburg this summer?)
“So Emery, where’s your year-end roundup?” Glad you asked. I wish I could say that I’ve been scrupulously preparing for this very moment, my notes crisply organized in the red Moleskine I bought as a New Year’s resolution last December. I really hate scribbling notes during concerts — it takes me out of the moment — but in 2023, even a few bullet points on the train home proved aspirational. That seems like an attainable place to start for 2024, as soon as I find that damn notebook.
All this to say: I don’t have enough notes for a year-end roundup, but here’s what I can scrape from the top of my head. I’d put my performance count in the 125 range, if you count ones where I was working. The single best was Wild Up’s five-hour rendition of Julius Eastman’s Buddha at the 92nd Street Y. In just four hours (even we geeks need a dinner break), the LA-based new-music ensemble fundamentally changed the way I conceive music. It might have been the most transformational concert I’ve ever seen, and it took me four full nights to muster something resembling a review. (The other two performances of Wild Up’s 92NY residency round out my top three. Yes, really.)
A few more fond memories: Kate Soper’s The Hunt at Miller Theatre. Enno Poppe’s speicher i-vi with Talea Ensemble at the TIME:SPANS Festival. Recitals by vocalists Stéphane Degout and Allan Clayton with pianists Cédric Tiberghien and James Baillieu, respectively, at the Park Avenue Armory. The new(ly-borrowed from English National Opera) Magic Flute production that the Met Opera debuted last June. Pianist Alex Peh playing Burmese sandaya music at the Bang on a Can Long Play. Harpsichordist Justin Taylor screwing around on the world’s oldest fortepiano at the Met Museum — that was a work perk. Surely many, many more.
For singers, December is a season of under-eye bags, caffeine drips, and Handel. “Thank you, George, for paying the mortgage,” quipped soprano Sherezade Panthaki — my undergraduate voice teacher — as we caught up by phone a couple days after Christmas. She had just returned from a five-city, month-plus Messiah soloist run that finished with the Philadelphia Orchestra, and her only plans for 2023’s final week were to lie catatonic.
I escaped the Messiah this season (at least, as a performer) but rest assured, I spent much of my insane December singing. A few lessons from the road: Catalan is really hard to pronounce on the fly. A glass of happy-hour wine makes evening rehearsals feel hours longer. Chinese food between Christmas Eve services is a totally legit way to celebrate Jewmas. The hallowed diminished chord of David Willcocks’ “O Come, All Ye Faithful” reharmonization remains ravishing, even when you’re basically asleep in the choir loft during midnight mass. (That chord is so iconic that it has its own merch.)
Usually, the sprint extends through Christmas Day, but I thankfully had no service on the 25th, so I slept in and prepped for my small holiday gathering. As a Jew, I get to choose whatever Christmas tradition yields the tastiest treats. This year, my colleague-neighbor-bestie Epongue Ekille and I orchestrated a small group of friends to make tamales from scratch, a project I hadn’t undertaken since the dark days of 2020. Three pounds of banana leaves, a four-pound bag of instant corn masa, several pounds of chicken and pork and duck confit, three quarts of homemade salsa, and two cups of duck fat later, we had many dozen ready to freeze. (In related news, Avery Fisher Career Grant-winning cellist Sterling Elliott owes me a rematch at Nintendo Switch tennis…)
As I mixed dough and seared duck, I took a full listen through Bach’s Christmas Oratorio, my only standing Christmas Day tradition. I choose a different recording each time; on this year’s pick, a restrained Hyperion Records account from the Choir of Trinity College, Cambridge and Stephen Layton, the soloists sounded absolutely stellar, though the chorus was only fine, and the orchestra spotty.
My holiday traditions largely revolve around music. Take New Year’s Eve: when I celebrate on the West Coast, it’s with chamber music into the wee hours. The circuit of Los Angeles amateurs goes hard, and I’m usually sawing away at the Mendelssohn Octet when the clock strikes midnight.
But this year, I stayed east for the holidays, so I brought a gaggle of friends to Doug Balliett’s Baroque-twinged opera Gawain and the Green Knight, which has become a New Year’s Eve tradition at the Chinatown church where Balliett serves as a Bach-esque Kapellmeister. (More on that in my upcoming Early Music America profile.)
“Doug is definitely in one of his creative frenzies,” one of the ensemble members texted me between rehearsals. “It’s like watching William Blake as a Turkish spinning dancer.” Balliett usually makes updates and edits to Gawain each year, doubly so as the crew gears up to record the opera over the next few days. I hear their afterparties often include drunken shape-note sings that last until the crack of dawn; this year’s fizzled much, much earlier. After all, good albums require beauty sleep!
2022 and 2023 have been fabulous years for my career, but after burning out twice in eight months, I desperately need a priority shift for 2024. I’m willing 2024 to be a year for me. A year where I don’t always have to work after work. A year with time for the things that fill my heart instead of my brain — cooking elaborate meals for my friends, guffawing at stupid TV, playing cozy video games. Perhaps even a year to start searching for a love interest: someone who enjoys cuddling, emotional intimacy, and most importantly, going to concerts. Any gender will do. (For those of you keeping score, that’s a new development. Ever learning, ever growing.)
But no matter how my life waxes or wanes, I’ll still be churning out newsletters — I’m moving toward two a month to alleviate some of the workload, so look out around January 15th for my monthly review dump.
If you’ve made it this far, you’re a mensch. Happy New Year, and cheers to a healthy, musical 2024.
What’s Coming Up
(note: all performances evening unless otherwise noted)
Met Opera: Carmen (new production)
Wed Jan 3
Fri Jan 5, 12, 19
Tues Jan 9, 16, 23
Sat Jan 27 (matinee)
The Metropolitan Opera House
[returns in April]
Met Opera: Nabucco
Tue Jan 2
Sat Jan 6 (matinee), 13
Wed Jan 10
Thu Jan 18
Sun Jan 21 (matinee)
Fri Jan 26
The Metropolitan Opera House
The Stone: Mary Halvorson (BRING CASH)
Wed-Sat Jan 3-6 | The Stone at The New School
The Sebastians: The Four Seasons
Sun Jan 7 (early eve) | Good Shepherd-Faith Presbyterian Church
Miles Mykkanen & Adam Rothenberg
Sun Jan 7 | Joe’s Pub
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PROTOTYPE FESTIVAL (full detailed schedule here)
The Promise
Wed-Sun Jan 10-14 | HERE Mainstage
Terce: A Practical Breviary
Wed-Fri Jan 10-19 | The Space at Irondale
Angel Island
Thu-Sat Jan 11-13 | Harvey Theater, BAM
Chornobyldorf
Thu-Sun Jan 11-21 | La MaMa
Adoration
Fri-Sat Jan 12-20 | The Sheen Center for Thought & Culture
Malinxe
Sat Jan 20 | The Playscape at Battery Park
—
NY Phil: Hilary Hahn Plays Prokofiev
Thu-Sat Jan 11-13 | David Geffen Hall
Darcy James Argue’s Secret Society
Fri-Sat Jan 12-13 | The Jazz Gallery
Yale Glee Club (FREE)
Sun Jan 14 (matinee) | Brick Presbyterian Church
thingNY: You Against Nature
Thu-Sat Jan 18-20 | The Brick
Julia Bullock, soprano & Bretton Brown, piano
Fri Jan 19 | Zankel Hall, Carnegie Hall
ARTEK presents Réunion des Goûts: Apotheoses of Corelli & Lully
Sat Jan 20 | St. Ignatius of Antioch Episcopal Church
The Cleveland Orchestra
Sat Jan 20 & Sun Jan 21 (matinee) | Stern Auditorium/Perelman Stage, Carnegie Hall
Music Before 1800: The Chevalier
Sun Jan 21 (matinee) | United Palace Theater
BlackBox Festival:
Sat Jan 20 | ShapeShifter Lab
Sun Jan 21 | Roulette Intermedium
The Philadelphia Orchestra
Tue Jan 23 | Stern Auditorium/Perelman Stage, Carnegie Hall
The Stone: Sylvie Courvoisier (BRING CASH)
Wed-Sat Jan 24-27 | The Stone at The New School
Philharmonia Baroque Orchestra: Garden of Good & Evil
Thu Jan 25 | 92nd Street Y
Sam Friedman’s Masters Recital (FREE — hi Sam!)
Fri Jan 26 | Ades Hall, Manhattan School of Music
Hamed Sinno: Westerly Breath (sponsored post, teehee)
Fri-Sat Jan 26-27 | The Temple of Dendur, The Metropolitan Museum of Art
ARTEK presents French Frenzy: Music of Lully and Muffat
Sat Jan 27 & Sun Jan 28 (matinee) | St. Ignatius of Antioch Episcopal Church
Boston Symphony Orchestra
Mon, Jan 29 & Tue Jan 30 | Stern Auditorium/Perelman Stage, Carnegie Hall
Brad Mehldau, piano
Wed Jan 31 | Zankel Hall, Carnegie Hall
Sandbox Percussion with Conor Hanick
Wed Jan 31 | 92nd St Y
The Stone: Brandon Lopez (BRING CASH)
Wed-Sat Jan 31-Feb 3 | The Stone at The New School
NY Phil: Mozart, Mahler, and Golda Schultz
Wed, Fri, & Sat Jan 31, Feb 2 (matinee) & Feb 3 | David Geffen Hall
This may be my favorite year-end wrap-up of 2023. I'd certainly rate Wild Up's residency at 92NY as a major highlight. And I'm guessing those tamales are pretty spectacular. (Though I do have a vegam pal who says, "Duck Fat? Fuck Dat.")