Leaving town tomorrow for a three-stop tour of sorts. First, it’s Univer­sity of Notre Dame for the première of Auster­ity Measures, a 25-minute quartet for Third Coast Percus­sion. I’ve written briefly about the piece here.

Next I’m meeting Gabe(riel Kahane) in Vancou­ver for two nights on the Push Festival, presented by Music On Main. We’ll be doing our two pianos/song and dance routine, featur­ing our own music along­side songs and pieces by Britten, Ives, Adès, Norman, Schumann, Schubert, and Bach.

And finally to Boston, to witness Kirill Gerstein at Jordan Hall. He’ll be playing my Old Friend, as well as music by upstarts Modest Mussorgsky and Robert Schumann. It’s the Boston première!

I’ve been happy to see Woody Guthrie’s list of “New Years Rulin’s” being shared widely online—not just because it’s quite a worthy list, but because over the summer I set the whole thing to music, as the conclu­sion of a new piece called Work Songs. The set is written for three singers: Becca Stevens, Gabriel Kahane, and Ted Hearne (who leads “Rulins” with some savage high C’s)—all playing instru­ments, and backed up by Nathan Koci on accor­dion and me on piano. It’ll be premièred in March at the Ecstatic Music Festival in New York and Liquid Music in St. Paul.