Le Poisson Rouge celebrates its fifth anniversary June 7-15 with LPR X 5, a series of specially curated concerts that exemplify the venue’s commitment to diverse musical programming. Dubbed “the coolest place to hear contemporary music” by The New York Times, LPR has grown and evolved over the last five years, while staying true to the philosophy that inspired co-founders Justin Kantor and David Handler to open the venue. LPR is dedicated “to the fusion of popular and art cultures in music, dance, literature, and visual art. The venue’s mission is to revive the symbiotic relationship between art and revelry, to establish a creative asylum for both artists and audiences.”
The fifth anniversary celebration will feature performances that look back on the roots of the venue, and also look forward to new projects and programming. Opening the celebration will be a Friday June 7 installment of Doveman’s Burgundy Stain Sessions. Doveman’s salon brings musicians from around the world together to play an in-the-round performance without set breaks or pretense. This will be the 13th installment of the series that that began at LPR in January 2011. Burgundy Stain Sessions has featured guest artists such as Glen Hansard, St. Vincent, Norah Jones, Rufus Wainwright, Martha Wainwright, Beth Orton, Tegan & Sara, and many others. Not only has Doveman’s salon been a regular at LPR, but he has performed countless other times with artists such as Yoko Ono, Antony Hegarty, members of the National, and with Nico Muhly and Sam Amidon in 2008, the opening year of Le Poisson Rouge.
Saturday June 8 will feature the John Zorn, Bill Laswell, and Milford Graves Trio, a group that performed as one of the earliest jazz concerts at LPR on September 8th, 2008. The jazz programming at LPR is headed by LPR Music Director Brice Rosenbloom, who is also the founder of the Boom Collective booking group, the Undead Jazz Series, and the annual NYC concert highlight, Winter Jazz Fest.
Sunday June 9 will feature a performance of Bach’s Goldberg Variations by pianist Simone Dinnerstein. Classical music has been inextricable from LPR’s identity since inception; indeed, the idea of presenting classical music in a relaxed atmosphere with imaginative programming was one of the venue’s earliest hallmarks, led by Music Director and Wordless Music founder Ronen Givony. Simone Dinnerstein was also the very first classical artist to perform at LPR, two days after the venue’s opening, on June 17, 2008, when she also performed the Goldberg Variations.
Wednesday June 12 will see a special performance from The Antlers, a show that more secretly speaks to LPR’s past. The Antlers’ singer and guitarist Peter Silberman worked as an employee of the LPR fledgling marketing department shortly before the release of their highly praised recording, Hospice. LPR was also the first spot listeners got a taste of Hospice as the venue hosted the first listening party of The Antlers’ album.
On Thursday June 14 the venue’s resident Ensemble LPR performs with violinist Jennifer Koh and conductor Tito Muñoz. Created by LPR co-founders Justin Kantor and David Handler, as well as Ensemble LPR artistic directors Orlando Alonso and Ronen Givony, the ensemble has performed with Max Richter, Ólafur Arnalds, Fred Sherry, Daniel Hope, and many others. The ensemble is a major part of the growth and future of the venue as it begins performing outside the four walls of Le Poisson Rouge.
Alarm Will Sound returns to LPR on Saturday, June 15 with a program devoted to the music of composer and multi-instrumentalist Caleb Burhans. This will be Alarm Will Sound’s fourth performance at LPR in five years. Incredibly, Burhans himself has performed on the LPR stage over 100 times with groups such as Ensemble Signal, ACME, Alarm Will Sound, the Wordless Music Orchestra, itsnotyoutitsme, and countless others.
Also included in the celebration are main room parties on June 7 and 14 with the Freedom Party, who have held down the Friday late night slot at LPR since May 2009. New regulars in the main room, Powerslug, present Classixx on June 15th. In The Gallery at LPR there is the return of Macaulay Culkin for another installment of Macaulay Culkin’s iPod. Away for the last few months, Culkin will return to create a mash-up of all the themes from his LPR parties over the last year and a half in an event called Macaulay Culkin’s iPod presents Hulk Hogan’s Slutty New Year’s Eve in June Dinosaur Prom Night.
Other events over the week include the Wednesday night Props party with Rich Medina and Akalepse; the b-boy dance party Behind the Groove; the hilarious reading series The Book Report, where authors do elementary school style book reports; Minne-apple in the Big Apple, a Minnesota-themed happy hour that has been at LPR since 2008; Le Bingo, which started at LPR December 2009; the Red Light party, a Gelf Magazine reading, Playdate, and More Than Enough.
Over the past five years LPR has grown into its goals, with an art gallery that has featured the work of Chuck Close, Devorah Sperber, Itamar Jobanni, Ofri Cnanni, Macaulay Culkin, Adam Green, Toby Goodshank, and many others, all programmed by LPR’s curator since 2008, Taphat Tawil. The Gallery at LPR currently features the drawings of NYC-based artist Leah Yerpe. LPR has reached outside of the building as well, launching a streaming platform that has streamed hundreds of concerts in HD, with a multi camera, live-edited set-up. It’s also been home to streams from Livestream, Pitchfork, and NPR Music, who have used LPR as a home away from home, streaming concerts from Tori Amos, The Shins, Regina Spektor, Josh Ritter, Daniel Barenboim and the West-Eastern Divan Orchestra, Flying Lotus, Death Grips, and many others.
LPR invites you to join their celebration of five years of art and revelry in Greenwich Village June 7-15.
LPR Members will get pre-sale privileges on most LPR X 5 shows. Pre-sales start Thursday. Most shows on sale to the public Friday.
More performances and streams will be announced in the coming weeks.
posted by dustin