Avant Music News

Institute for Contemporary Performance (Saturday through Wednesday) The Mannes College the New School for Music presents a parade of festivals during the summer, including a hefty new-music series, now in progress. On Saturday at Mannes Concert Hall, the program includes Elliott Carter’s “Esprit Rude/Esprit Doux II” as well as works by Linda Dusman and Donald Wheelock. The festival moves to Le Poisson Rouge for a hefty Sunday evening program that includes music by Phillipe Hurel, David Lang, Pascal Dusapin, Unsuk Chin, Nathan Davis and José-Luis Hurtado. The Monday evening program, also at Le Poisson Rouge, includes chamber music by Outis and Jean Barraqué. And two final free concerts at Mannes are devoted to contemporary solo and chamber works, to be chosen during the festival. Saturday, Tuesday and Wednesday at 8 p.m., Mannes Concert Hall, 150 West 85th Street, (212) 580-0210, ext. 4884, newschool.edu; Sunday and Monday at 7:30 p.m., Le Poisson Rouge, 158 Bleecker Street, near Thompson Street, Greenwich Village , (212) 505-3474, lepoissonrouge.com; $20, $10 for students — except Tuesday and Wednesday, which are free. (Allan Kozinn)

Make Music New York (Monday) The fourth annual installment of this Summer Solstice festival is a full day of just about every kind of music, performed by professionals and amateurs, in parks, gardens, cafes, building lobbies and even closed-off streets. For classical music fans, this year’s main offering is a Xenakis festival in Central Park, starting with a performance by the Yale Percussion Quartet at the Naumburg Bandshell at 12:30 p.m. and including four performances, by marionettes, of Xenakis’s opera version of “Oresteia” at the Swedish Marionette Cottage Theater between 1 p.m. and 10 p.m. and two performances of “Persephassa,” for which six percussionists will position themselves around the Central Park Lake at 3:30 p.m. and 5:30 p.m. Other highlights include the Dessoff Choirs singing Tallis and Mozart at St. Andrew’s Church, 20 Cardinal Hayes Place, at 5:45 p.m. and at the Municipal Building, 1 Centre Street, at 6:15 p.m.; a reading of Terry Riley’s classic “In C,” by Composers Collaborative, on Cornelia Street in Greenwich Village, at 6; and the Voxare Quartet’s program of classical works and Beatles transcriptions at Bargemusic at 8 p.m. Make Music New York events run from 11 a.m. to 10 p.m. at various locations in all five boroughs. (917) 779-9709, makemusicny.org; free. (Kozinn)

Darcy James Argue’s Secret Society (Monday) This postmillennial big band, led by the indefatigable young composer Mr. Argue, recently released an admirable studio debut, “Infernal Machines” (New Amsterdam). In performance the group balances airtight precision with a good measure of looseness and crackle. Part of the CareFusion Jazz Festival. At 7:30 and 9:30 p.m., Dizzy’s Club Coca-Cola, Frederick P. Rose Hall, Jazz at Lincoln Center, 60th Street and Broadway , (212) 258-9595, nycjazzfestival.com; $20, $10 students, with a minimum of $10 at tables, $5 at the bar. (Nate Chinen)

Jim Black Trio (Thursday) Jim Black is a drummer whose spirit of polymorphous propulsion draws equally from the wellsprings of noise rock, electronic music and free improvisation. In this trio he works with an old compatriot, the multireedist Chris Speed, and a new arrival, the pianist known as Elias. At 8:30 p.m., Cornelia Street Café, 29 Cornelia Street, West Village , (212) 989-9319, corneliastreetcafe.com; $10 cover, with a one-drink minimum. (Chinen)

Mark Helias Trio (Friday) Mark Helias is a bassist equally committed to the causes of momentum and texture, and in that sense he has ideal partners here: the pianist Craig Taborn and the drummer Nasheet Waits. At 9 and 10:30 p.m., Cornelia Street Café, 29 Cornelia Street, West Village , (212) 929-9883, corneliastreetcafe.com; $10 cover, with a one-drink minimum. (Chinen)

Myra Melford’s Be Bread (Sunday) “The Whole Tree Gone” (Firehouse 12) is the most recent release from Ms. Melford, an insightful and far-reaching pianist-composer, with the group she calls Be Bread: the trumpeter Cuong Vu, the clarinetist Ben Goldberg, the guitarist Brandon Ross, the bassist Stomu Takeishi and the drummer Matt Wilson. Ambitious but approachable, suffused with airy warmth and restless calm, it unpacks a suite of lyrical compositions Ms. Melford has been refining since 2004. At 10 p.m., Le Poisson Rouge, 158 Bleecker Street, near Thompson Street, Greenwich Village , (212) 505-3474, lepoissonrouge.com; $16 in advance, $20 day of show. (Chinen)

Cooper Moore/Peter Evans (Sunday) Mr. Moore, a committed multi-instrumentalist, and Mr. Evans, a trumpeter, share an approach to improvisation that’s open-ended but disciplined. Each appears here, as part of the CareFusion Jazz Festival, with a trio. At 9 and 10:30 p.m., Zebulon, 258 Wythe Avenue, near North Third Street, Williamsburg, Brooklyn , (718) 218-6934, nycjazzfestival.com; free. (Chinen)

Jason Moran with Mary Halvorson and Ron Miles (Thursday) Mr. Moran, an erudite and aggressively inventive pianist, recently hit the 10-year mark with his working trio, which he calls the Bandwagon. But he has also been branching out in the last few years, working with compatible but unexpected partners. For this CareFusion Jazz Festival special, he’ll tangle with two excellent and temperamentally divergent improvisers: Ms. Halvorson, a smartly prickly guitarist, and Mr. Miles, a calmly lyrical trumpeter. At 7:30 and 9:30 p.m., Jazz Standard, 116 East 27th Street, Manhattan , (212) 576-2232, nycjazzfestival.com; $15. (Chinen)

Matana Roberts’s ‘Coin Coin’ (Thursday) Ms. Roberts, an alto saxophonist, weaves history, folklore and genealogy into “Coin Coin,” an ambitious and audacious performance piece. She also enlists imaginative colleagues like the trumpeter Shane Endsley and the pianist Shoko Nagai, two of her collaborators on this CareFusion Jazz Festival gig. At 9 and 10:30 p.m., Jazz Gallery, 290 Hudson Street, at Spring Street, South Village , (212) 242-1063, nycjazzfestival.com; $15, members $10. (Chinen)

‘A Skirl Records Night’ (Monday) Skirl, a Brooklyn label started by the saxophonist and clarinetist Chris Speed, presents two of its newer flagships during this CareFusion Jazz Festival engagement. First up is the Benefit Band, a collective with Mr. Speed and Oscar Noriega on reeds, Trevor Dunn on bass and Jim Black on drums (at 8 p.m.). Then the aggressive but nimble drummer Ben Perowsky leads a knockabout quartet with Mr. Speed, Mr. Dunn and the accordionist Ted Reichman (at 10). Barbès, 376 Ninth Street, at Sixth Avenue, Park Slope, Brooklyn , (347) 422-0248, nycjazzfestival.com; $10 per set. (Chinen)

Vision Festival XV (Sunday through Thursday) This sprawling avant-garde festival enlists dozens of improvising artists, both in working groups and novel configurations. Its centerpiece event, on Thursday at Abrons Arts Center, honors the pianist and composer Muhal Richard Abrams. Other highlights include a set by the sharp young alto saxophonist Darius Jones with his trio (Monday at Local 269, 269 East Houston Street) and a series of groups anchored by the bassist William Parker (Wednesday at Abrons). For a full schedule and price information, see visionfestival.org. Abrons Arts Center, 466 Grand Street, Lower East Side , (212) 598-0400; $25 at the door, $20 for students. (Chinen)

What emerges from saxophonist Mats Gustafsson, drummer Paal Nilssen-Love and bassist Ingebrigt Haker Flaten is a daring trio sound that prefers to reference these varied works over reinterpreting them. The basic mode of operation is improvisation. That is especially true when American saxophonist and pocket trumpet stylist Joe McPhee collaborates with The Thing, as he will Friday night in Lexington.