In a city full of unlikely marvels, Bargemusic is among the foremost treasures any music lover could hope to know. Housed on a converted coffee barge moored at Fulton Ferry Landing just below the Brooklyn Bridge, the floating concert hall welcomed chamber-music cognoscenti and curiosity seekers alike since Olga Bloom, a violinist and violist, launched the venue in 1977.
In his 2011 obituary of Bloom for The New York Times (gift link), reporter Dan Wakin got to the heart of what made Bargemusic so vital:
What began as a weekly chance for conservatory students to play in public has grown into chamber music’s Old Reliable. Bargemusic now has around 220 concerts on its yearly docket, so no matter what the season, there is usually something going on at the barge. Mr. Peskanov plays at many of its concerts, along with major performers well known to classical music audiences like Alisa Weilerstein, Gil Shaham and Jonathan Biss, but also a legion of lesser-known musicians.
Reliable the concert series has been, steadfast amid the ripples and waves that gently rocked its concert platform—but lately, less so the boat that has housed it. After a period of evaluation, and without any fanfare, on Monday afternoon the historic vessel designated EL 375 by the Erie Lackawanna Railway was released from its longtime mooring and towed away, most likely bound for demolition.
Bargemusic artistic director Mark Peskanov, the performer noted in Wakin’s article, had been on site since 6am to oversee the celebrated vessel’s departure. He addressed the development in a letter to patrons, posted on the Bargemusic website:
Dear Bargemusic Family,
Bargemusic is approaching its 50th anniversary in the water slip at Pier One in Brooklyn Bridge Park.
The Barge is now approximately 150 years old and has served the audiences, the musicians and the community well for nearly 50 years. Although it has always been diligently maintained and repaired, recently it has been determined that it can no longer be restored to the level required.
We will actively be looking for a new boat that will best serve Bargemusic’s mission for the next 50 years.
We are grateful to Brooklyn Bridge Park who have been very helpful and have expressed how much they value Bargemusic as a longtime partner. They have generously provided a wonderful space with gorgeous views in Brooklyn Bridge Park where Bargemusic can continue to present its concerts until a new boat can be found.
Bargemusic remains a valuable jewel in the artistic landscape of New York and we look forward to resuming our concerts in April and seeing you all again.
We will keep you updated.
With much love,
Mark Peskanov & Everyone at Bargemusic
Peskanov, a gifted, genial violinist born in Ukraine, has had a long, fruitful relationship with Bargemusic. He joined its leadership soon after the departure of Ik-Hwan Bae, the South Korean violinist who served as artistic director from 1984 to 1995, and helped to shift the institution’s emphasis from students to professional artists. (Bae, who departed to concentrate on his work as a soloist and teacher, died in 2014 at age 57.)
Members of the artistic committee that succeeded Bae – Peskanov and fellow violinist Carmit Zori, violists Toby Hoffman and Paul Neubauer, cellists Ronald Thomas and Fred Sherry, and pianist Anne-Marie McDermott – took turns at the helm. Bargemusic programming grew more diverse, while maintaining the high standards Bae had bolstered.
A decade later, Bloom began to withdraw from leadership, and in 2006 appointed Peskanov the organization’s president and artistic director. A natural, congenial host as well as an intelligent, curious planner, Peskanov struck a deft balance between serving a core audience hungry for canonical recital and chamber-music repertoire and expanding the institution’s offerings, adding a new-music series (Here and Now), an early music series (There and Then), and forays into jazz, cabaret, and more eclectic fare.
Some innovations fared better than others, but Peskanov was committed to presenting modern music and living composers covering a wide range of styles and practices. The barge hosted concerts by pianists Ursula Oppens, Lisa Moore, Ethan Iverson, and Melaine Dalibert; violinists Rolf Schulte, Miranda Cuckson, and Johnny Gandelsman; guitarists Rupert Boyd and Aaron Larget-Caplan; theremin champion Rob Schwimmer, and so many more.
As a reviewer for The New York Times, I enjoyed the privilege of recounting numerous memorable evenings. (The highlighted names that follow are gift links.) In 2008, pianist David Holzman was magisterial in music by Roger Sessions, Ralph Shapey, Stefan Wolpe, and Elliott Carter. That same year, the NeoLit Ensemble made a noteworthy debut with a program of works by Chen Yi, Shulamit Ran, Hilary Tann, Gabriela Lena Frank, Belinda Reynolds, Katerina Kramarchuk, and Alexandra du Bois.
When FLUX Quartet played Morton Feldman’s String Quartet No. 1 in 2010, I wrote that the venue’s “amniotic wobble” complemented the piece. That same “gentle liquid wobble” also proved amenable to a 2011 performance of Feldman’s Triadic Memories by Blair McMillen. In 2012, Peskanov and the redoubtable vocalist Thomas Buckner contributed to another remarkable FLUX Quartet performance:
For “Speech,” a 1955 work by Cage, Mr. Peskanov joined the quartet in manipulating portable radios, tuning and distorting random broadcasts at intervals dictated in the score, while the baritone Thomas Buckner read passages from a pile of New York newspapers. Hip-hop, salsa, chatter and chestnuts by AC/DC and Talking Heads fused in merry gnarls.
In one unlikely, startling confluence, Mr. Buckner’s impassive recitation from a New York Times article about the Fukushima disaster in Japan was cut short by a cheery radio ad for Hurricane Harbor, a New Jersey water park.
There’s so much more to the Bargemusic story than I can convey in a nostalgic rush—including one powerful detail I cited in a 2019 New Yorker listing and almost certainly elsewhere:
From its vantage point near the base of the Brooklyn Bridge, Bargemusic once offered breathtaking views of the Twin Towers; since 9/11, the venue has served as a space for commemoration and contemplative music on the tragedy’s anniversary.
Whatever music was being played, seeing the “Tribute in Light” beaming skyward from the World Trade Center site through the panoramic window behind the Bargemusic stage was an electric experience.
An observer named Bill Orme documented the barge’s departure yesterday, with poignant photos and a brief note on Instagram:
ormebill Beloved #bargemusic barge being tugged away into the sunset tonight, extracted from the #oldfultonlanding berth where the city’s only small floating impeccably programmed classical music venue has graced the Brooklyn waterfront for decades, since before #dumbo was ‘Dumbo’ and before there was a #brooklynbridgepark – the tug/barge crew hauling it away thought it had been condemned to be scrapped, but weren’t sure.
Orme’s photos can also be viewed on Facebook, and I’m grateful he allowed me to use them as well.
As Peskanov stated in his note to supporters, concerts under the Bargemusic banner will continue at a new site: specifically, the Brooklyn Bridge Park Boathouse, where programming is planned to resume on April 5.
“To have this new, incredible place for the musicians and the whole community, it’s a great miracle and evolution,” Peskanov wrote in a message. “We are very grateful to Eric Landau, the President of Brooklyn Bridge Park Corporation, and his great team at the Brooklyn Bridge Park.”
Peskanov further credits singer and composer DeBorge Pinnington, a Bargemusic board member, with the “amazing, impossible hard work and wisdom” that made possible what he terms a “miraculous transformation” as the Bargemusic concert series comes ashore for the time being.
The search for a new boat, he added, has already begun. Still, the last voyage of faithful EL 375 truly marks the end of an era.
Concerts listed in Eastern Standard Time
NOTAFLOF = no one turned away for lack of funds.
Tim Berne
Lowlands Bar
543 3rd Ave., Brooklyn
Tuesday, Jan. 14 at 9pm; pass-the-hat
instagram.com/berneornot
Pretty much every band saxophonist and composer Tim Berne assembles gets a catchy name sooner or later… over the years we’ve seen Caos Totale, Bloodcount, Paraphrase, Big Satan, Science Friction, Snake Oil, and more. His current spry trio with guitarist Gregg Belisle-Chi and drummer Tom Rainey appears to have been christened Capotosta; whatever it’s called, the band has a fierce new album, Yikes Too, arriving this Friday on CD and double vinyl.
PROTOTYPE
Various venues in Manhattan and Brooklyn
Through Sunday, Jan. 19; times and prices vary
prototypefestival.org
Jointly created by Beth Morrison Projects and HERE in 2013, PROTOTYPE instantly proved the most industrious, ingenious, and invaluable producers of new opera and music-theater works this city has ever known. Already open are Eat the Document, an adaptation by composer John Glover and librettist Kelley Rourke of Dana Spiotta’s novel about former political radicals forced to build new lives in hiding; Black Lodge, a live multimedia experience by composer David T. Little and librettist Anne Waldman suffused with mysterious impulses à la William S. Burroughs and David Lynch; and Positive Vibration Nation, a rock-guaguanco opera by Sol Ruiz. New this week are Night Reign, a staged concert by Arooj Aftab (opens Wed 15), and In a Grove, a hauntingly elusive adaptation by composer Christopher Cerrone and librettist Stephanie Fleischmann of the Ryūnosuke Akutagawa story that inspired Akira Kurosawa’s essential film Rashomon (opens Thu 16).
Ingrid Laubrock
Glass Box Theatre, The New School
55 W. 13th St., Greenwich Village
Wednesday, Jan. 15–Saturday, Jan. 18 at 8:30pm; $20 cash only
thestonenyc.com
Saxophonist and composer Ingrid Laubrock comes to The New School for a Stone series of concerts featuring the leader in a variety of settings. On Wednesday, she reprises a duo with electronic sound artist Cecilia Lopez documented on a riveting 2023 album, Maromas. Thursday brings her unique Quintet with fellow saxophonist Anna Webber, tuba player Dan Peck, and drummers Tom Rainey and Dan Weiss, and Friday finds her fronting Grammy Season, her quartet with Rainey, guitarist Brandon Seabrook, and bassist Shawn Lovato. The series ends Saturday with Lilith, Laubrock’s singular ensemble with trumpeter Dave Adewumi, accordionist Adam Matlock, pianist Yvonne Rogers, bassist Eva Lawitts, and drummer Henry Mermer.
Ryan Sawyer’s Shaker Ensemble
Union Pool
484 Union Ave.; Brooklyn
Wednesday, Jan. 15 at 7pm; $24.21
dice.fm
The list of artists post-punk percussion poet Ryan Sawyer has worked with reads like a multigenerational who’s who of underground heavydom: Marshall Allen, Boredoms, Thurston Moore, TV on the Radio, Rhys Chatham… the list goes on and on. The latest iteration of his Shaker Ensemble – Laura Cocks, Jessica Pavone, Lester St. Louis, Stuart Bogie, Nate Wooley, and Henry Fraser – headlines an arresting Union Pool bill that also includes two formidable duos: Lee Ranaldo/Leila Bordreuil and Holland Andrews/Yuniya Edi Kwon.
Patrick Higgins
Roulette
509 Atlantic Ave.; Brooklyn
Thursday, Jan. 16 at 8pm; $30, advance $25, seniors and students $20
roulette.org
Patrick Higgins, a versatile improvising guitarist and composer known for his work in the beyond-category ensemble Zs, turns the spotlight on his own ventures in a creative double bill. Half the program is devoted to music from Versus, the quietly intense mostly-solo project on his arresting 2024 album of the same title; the other half features the New York premiere of Three Lines of Flight, composed for piano/percussion quartet Yarn/Wire.
JACK Quartet
Roulette
509 Atlantic Ave.; Brooklyn
Friday, Jan. 17 at 8pm; $35, advance $30, seniors and students $25
roulette.org
The intrepid JACK Quartet has marked its enduring relationship with composer and improviser John Zorn with an authoritative 2CD set of Zorn’s complete works for string quartet, out today on his Tzadik label. That set is celebrated tonight with a program featuring two of those works: Necronomicon and Memento Mori—the latter also featuring its dedicatee, electronic artist Ikue Mori.
Unheard-of
Tenri Cultural Institute
43A W. 13th St.; Greenwich Village
Saturday, Jan. 18 at 8pm; free with RSVP, pay-what-you-wish donation
unheard-ofensemble.com
Unheard-of presents a “Dialogues” program bringing together new music by two disparate composers: Vicki Nguyen, whose Ginger Flavored Bubblegum honors the late poet, filmmaker, and artist Theresa Hak Kyung Cha; and David Crowell, whose Memories of the Imagined blends post-minimalism and jazz.
Prism Quartet
Christ & St. Stephen’s Church
120 W. 69th St.; Upper West Side
Sunday, Jan. 19 at 7pm; $10–$35 pay-what-you-wish general admission
prismquartet.com
Prism Quartet, a saxophone ensemble adept at manuvering among classical and jazz idioms, teams up with award-winning saxophonist and composer Miguel Zenón for the world premiere of his newest piece, El Eco del Tambor (“The Echo of the Drum”). Also on the program are further works by Zenón, Melissa Aldana, and quartet member Matthew Levy.
Exorcising the Tyrant
St. Mark’s Church in-the-Bowery
131 E. 10th St.; East Village
Monday, Jan. 20 at noon; free with RSVP
withfriends.co
Poet Bob Holman, choreographer Patricia Nicholson Parker, and guitarist Marc Ribot are the organizers behind this explicitly timely show of resistance. They’ll be joined by Laurie Anderson, Anne Waldman, William Parker, Joan Jonas, and further arts and culture luminaries in a communal reading of The Descent of Alette, an epic poem by Alice Notley about a woman who confronts and defeats “The Tyrant,” punctuated with music and dance interludes.
Susan Alcorn
Zurcher Gallery
33 Bleecker St.; Greenwich Village
Tuesday, Jan. 21 at 8pm; $20 cash only
galeriezurcher.com
The iconoclastic pedal-steel guitarist Susan Alcorn has long been a devotee of the mystic French composer Olivier Messiaen. Here, that passion comes to the fore in Alcorn’s interpretations of selections from Messiaen’s L’Ascension, Quatuor pour la fin du Temps, and O sacrum convivium, plus improvisations on additional Messiaen themes and Alcorn originals.
ARTIFACT
Sleepwalk
251 Bushwick Ave., Brooklyn
Tuesday, Jan. 21 at 7pm; $13.60
dice.fm
The 11th installment of this Bushwick experimental-sound series offers a compelling triple bill of interdisciplinary artist and sound healer C. Lavender, percussion duo NOMON (Nava and Shayna Dunkelman), and electro-acoustic saxophone explorer Chris Pitsiokos.
More vital directories of new-music destinations:
Find even more events in Night After Night Watch: The Master List, here.
Photographs by Steve Smith, except where indicated.
