Concerts Coming: Both Sublime and Raucous

Happy New Year to all! There are some great opportunities to celebrate the beginning of 2011 with live music, so bundle up, put on those snow shoes, and point your GPS-guided sled team to a concert nearby!

   The Hotchkiss School’s free Winter Concert Series begins on Jan. 14 at 7 p.m. with a piano recital by Robert Blocker in Katherine M. Elfers Hall. Dean of the Yale School of Music, Blocker has concertized widely and appears regularly on national radio and television as both artist and commentator. Program information will appear in next week’s column.   

   MASS MoCA is not only one of the country’s foremost contemporary art museums, but it also hosts cutting-edge performing artists from all wavelengths of the musical spectrum in its Hunter Center in North Adams. January 15 offers the chance to hear a group postponed from December, the Felice Brothers. This raucous crew of folk rockers from the Catskill Mountains has done everything from busking on New York City subway platforms to performing on the main stages of SXSW in Austin, Texas, the Newport Folk Festival, and Bonnaroo. They sing songs about love, murder and drinking, just the thing to warm a frosty winter night. $18 in advance / $22 day of / $15 students / 10% members discount. More at www.massmoca.org.

   On Jan. 22 at 8 p.m., Grammy-winning trumpeter/composer Frank London caps off a weeklong residency with an event called A Night in the Old Marketplace. Based on the legendary 1907 Yiddish play by I.L. Peretz, it features a score that mixes Jewish, jazz, world, rock, and classical music with abandon. London, director of the Klezmatics, will be joined by director Alexandra Aron, and lyricist Glen Berger (Spiderman) along with an eclectic troupe of Klezmer musicians. Tickets $13 at massmoca.org.

   Meanwhile at Vassar College, the ninth annual Modfest will run from Jan. 20 to Feb. 5 with performances of a fully-staged opera, dramatic performances, exhibitions, lectures, readings, and more. Among the many highlights will be the first fully-staged production of Richard Wilson’s comic opera, “Æthelred the Unready.†The work features the entire vocal faculty and will be performed twice on campus, and once at New York City’s Symphony Space. Performance times: Jan. 22 at 8 p.m. and Jan. 23 at 3 p.m. Admission is free, reservations requested. For tickets, go to the college’s information desk in main building or e-mail adwilson@vassar.edu.

   And finally, the entire staff of The Music Scene will present an evening of silent film and live music at Norfolk Free Library on Jan. 28 at 7:30 p.m. Joanna Seaton will sing songs from the early days of cinema by Irving Berlin and others, then add percussion (with your faithful columnist at the Steinway) accompanying two silent film comedies, Buster Keaton’s “The Boat,†and Charlie Chaplin’s “The Immigrant.†Admission is free, reservations strongly suggested. 860-542-5075.