Wednesday night I was at the New York Festival of Song's "Island Journeys" concert at Weill Recital Hall at Carnegie. This is art song, defined to include American popular song, at its absolute best, and the concert was spectacular: soprano, mezzo, tenor, baritone, cello, an astounding flautist, and at the piano, the co-artistic directors. (One of whom, in full disclosure mode, is Steve Blier, one of my oldest friends.) One of the things I love about NYFOS is they don't have that high art/low art problem, and are completely capable of programming Ravel, Villa-Lobos, Irish folk songs, John Corigliano, and Irving Berlin on the same concert. In fact, they do the Bobs and the Beatles, too, though they didn't on this program. It was a wonderful program, varied in mood, color and rhythm; the singers were in great voice; the hall is beautiful. All in all, a classic New York classical music night.

Then last night I went to hear the taiko drummers of Kodo. I've heard Kodo before, in fact on stage at Carnegie. They're an amazing precision drumming troupe, taiko being a Japanese group-drumming art that grew out of military drumming and uses some enormous drums. I wondered how, from the tiny stage at Joe's Pub, they could manage not to blast us all into the middle of next week. They didn't; we had a table right at the stage and even though they hadn't brought the biggest drums I still sometimes felt like I was inside a thunder cloud. The surprise was how much more the drummers let their enjoyment show. At the big venues they're a troupe of disciplined professionals, but at a small show like this they whoop and make faces -- without losing an iota of precision. I began to wonder if the hearts of everyone in the bar would start to beat in rhythm with the drums, but they didn't. At least, mine didn't. Which is probably a good thing, given the complicated syncopations they use. In this tiny club, Kodo was as breathtaking as on stage at Carnegie.

So my recommendation is, if you ever get a chance to hear either the New York Festival of Song or Kodo, go!