Here in New York we are on the cusp of another great week of concerts.  Check out as many of these as possible.

Sunday, December 5th – Two concerts at Galapagos:

1) at 4:30 the Chiara Quartet will play Gorecki’s 2nd quartet, Quasi Una Fantasia, and will premiere a new piece by Huang Ruo, Calligraffiti, which features projected video art by Seattle-based video artist Juniper Shuey.  2) and at 7:00, American Opera Projects and Opera on Tap present a show titled Sex, Cigarettes and Psychopaths (a Night of Laughs).  There will be scenes from Matt Marks’ serial killer song-cycle The Adventures of Albert Fish, Daniel Felsenfeld’s collection of comedic sex songs called La BoneMe, among other sex(y) scenes.  More information about each of these shows here.

Monday, December 6th at Miller Theatre:

First the good news: The Talea Ensemble performs the music of Boulez for the Miller Theatre Composer Portrait concert at 8pm.  Now the bad news: it’s sold out!  However, if you weren’t lucky enough to get your Boulez tickets in time, you can check out the MIVOS quartet at 9:30 at The Tank.  They’ll be performing Wolfgang Rihm and Carl Bettendorf, which is pretty cool, too!

Wednesday, December 8th at Zebulon:

The bagpipe master Matt Welch, and his group Blarvuster will release their self-titled CD at 8pm.  This show is free, folks, so make sure you pick up the new disc while you’re there.  More info here.

Thursday, December 9th on the Upper West Side:

The Metropolis Ensemble (who were just nominated for a Grammy!) will be presenting an intimate performance called, It takes a long time to become a good composer, featuring Timo Andres on piano.  You’ll want to get your tickets for this one early if you can; they’ve already added extra shows on the 10th and 11th and one night is already sold out.  More information about the show here.

Friday, December 10th at WNYC’s Greene Space:

American Opera Projects presents a workshop performance of John Glover’s one-act monodrama opera, Our Basic Nature.  Fans of WNYC’s Radiolab might recall an episode entitled “Lucy”; this opera was inspired by that show, and the libretto (by dramaturg Kelley Rourke) is taken from the memoir written by the scientist that raised a chimpanzee as his daughter.  The music will be performed by Redshift, pianist Jocelyn Dueck, and baritone Andrew Wilkowske, with projections by Erik Pearson.  More information about the show here.