So there I was not long ago at Le Poisson Rouge, a New York club, for a classical-music show, and the guy in the DJ booth was telling all of us to "talk and clap when you like. And go to the bar if you get bored."
This was Gabriel Prokofiev, and if his name seems to have classical-music resonance, it ought to -- he's the grandson of the great classical composer Sergei Prokofiev, composer of symphonies, operas and "Peter and the Wolf." He's a composer himself, but in his native London he's also a club DJ.
He was here for the first New York outing of a London enterprise he calls Nonclassical -- a name that's partly ironic, because what he presents is classical music, and partly for real, because he wants to move far away from the formality of the classical-music world. Nonclassical is both a record label and a monthly club night, each featuring music that (to quote the group's Web site) is "taking inspiration from baroque/techno/grime/classical/avant-garde." And co-sponsoring the night was New Amsterdam Records, a New York record company run by young composers with more or less the same agenda.
Keep reading here.
New Amsterdam Records' act the NOW Ensemble are performing at tonight's MATA Festival event with Bing & Ruth.
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