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Concert Preview
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Boston Herald, Concert Preview >>
-by Bob Young
If you’re wondering where one of the city’s hippest concert series is playing these days, don’t bother with listings for the usual tiny, off-the-beaten-trail spots.
The Museum of Fine Arts, which is big enough to have its own T stop, has been upping its cool quotient steadily in recent years with a Concert in the Courtyard series that’s both daring and entertaining.
If you’ve never heard of DJ Dolores and Aparelhagem, who visit the 400-seat outdoor Calderwood Courtyard Wednesday, you’re not alone. The Brazilian DJ and his band mix an updated traditional forro style with electronica, breakbeats, dub and raucous rock, and they’re an example of the adventurous acts that series programmer Dan Hirsch has been bringing in since he took over the MFA’s concert series nearly three years ago.
But Hirsch hasn’t been booking just edgy up-and-comers. For every funky Budos Band (Aug. 22), there are acts with buzz (Vieux Farka Toure, July 25; Andy Palacio and the Garifuna Collective, Aug. 1; Elvis Perkins, Aug. 8) and groups with a lengthy track record of tearing it up (Terrance Simien and the Zydeco Experience, July 18).
Mexican singer Lila Downs and indie rockers Tortoise appeared earlier this summer, while Ivory Coast singer Dobet Gnahore (Sept. 12) and Gruff Rhys, singer and guitarist with the Welsh experimental rock group Super Furry Animals (Sept. 23), have just beenannounced for late summer.
“What I do as a programmer is research different genres and fields and try to get my ears on things that are exciting and that our audiences will respond to,” said Wayland native Hirsch, who cut his teeth booking avant-garde jazz and experimental music acts at Bard College.
While the MFA has hosted concerts for many years, many of those acts were relatively safe, tried-and-true picks that often appeared in other local venues.
Hirsch’s charge was to shake things up a bit to mirror the museum’s outreach in other areas.
“When I came onboard,” he said, “my conversations with people in management and in departments were very much focused on reaching out to younger, diverse audiences and getting away from the idea of the music being the kind of castle-on-the-hill thing, exclusive and elitist.”
Hirsch, a bassist, was a founder of Non-Event, a music series devoted to presenting electronic, improvised and experimental music around Boston.His programming choices at the MFA are more wide-ranging, and accessible to a broader audience. And he feels that these days he has a more colorful sonic palette from which to choose.
“It’s exciting. Music is becoming increasingly global. We have more and more exposure to music of different kinds in different parts of the world, and artists have the technology and savvy to make connections.”
DJ Dolores and Aparelhagem, atCalderwood Courtyard at the MFA, Wednesday night at 7:30. Tickets: $25; 617-369-3306 or www.mfa.org. 07/11/07 >> go there
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