Out today, and appear­ing on stage for eight per­for­mances start­ing tomor­row, is an opera from com­poser Yoav Gal, Mosheh . This is Gal’s telling of the story of Moses, set in con­tem­po­rary New York City. The baby is plucked out of the East River and raised under the BQE.

It’s a tightly inte­grated project, with the com­poser respon­si­ble for the music, libretto and the stag­ing, includ­ing cre­at­ing the video pro­jec­tions that will be seen in per­for­mance and col­lab­o­rat­ing on the sets and cos­tumes. The sung nar­ra­tive is all in high voices, that of five women involved in sav­ing and rais­ing him, with the voice of God con­veyed by a counter-tenor and alto. This gives the music an eerie, com­pelling sound, enhanced by Gal’s ear for unusual and evoca­tive tim­bres. The lan­guage of the music is devel­oped from the post-Minimal tech­niques of Arvo Pärt and David Lang, and he uses woodwind’s to cre­ate a shofar-like, micro­tonal sound. There’s very much a rit­u­al­is­tic struc­ture to the work, at least in the hear­ing, and the audio alone makes the case for Mosheh as an inno­v­a­tive update to the dra­matic ora­to­rio. There are long instru­men­tal sec­tions that strongly imply an accom­pa­ni­ment to some­thing on stage, and since this is such inter­est­ing and involv­ing music, I rec­om­mend catch­ing a per­for­mance even more than just buy­ing the music.

Mosheh will be per­formed at HERE Arts Cen­ter, 145 Sixth Avenue, Jan­u­ary 26 through Feb 5. TIck­ets are $20, $50 for open­ing night, but that price gets you a CD and afterparty.

At the end of this week, you can see and hear new music from Marika Hughes, who has two CDs out this month. Hughes is one of a grow­ing num­ber of string play­ers who are at ease and accom­plished in clas­si­cal and con­tem­po­rary cham­ber music, jazz and pop, and her releases put both sides of her play­ing on dis­play. The Sim­plest Thing is her “pop” record, with her core band of gui­tarists Kyle Sanna and Shahzad Ismaily, Todd Sick­afoose on bass and Math­ias Kün­zli at the drums, and numer­ous guests, includ­ing Jenny Schein­man, Charles Burn­ham and Jew­lia Eisen­berg. The disc sounds like a labor of love, a musi­cian pre­sent­ing what seem to be a very per­sonal set of songs and with a tal­ented bunch of true friends adding fine, sym­pa­thetic sup­port — the ensem­ble sound and play­ing on the record is really fine, with a relaxed, con­fi­dent focus and a sure and sup­ple feel. Hughes cello is sec­ondary, she’s the front girl and singer on all the tracks. There’s a nice mix of urban and rural fla­vors, and the best songs, and the ones that are best for Hughes singing, have a touch of coun­try twang. A mix of songs that are seem so tightly woven into the artists expe­ri­ences means that there will be a cou­ple mis­steps for every lis­tener, but over­all this is a pol­ished, solid and good natured CD.

The other side of her musi­cian­ship, and the stronger one for my taste, can be heard on her After­life Music Radio , a set of eleven pieces for solo cello, all con­tributed by other musi­cians, includ­ing Burn­ham, Schein­man and other band­mates, and also with works from Nasheet Waits, Carla Kihlst­edt, Eyvind Kang and oth­ers. These are all com­pelling works that suc­cinctly explore spe­cific qual­i­ties of the instru­ment, from long, singing phrases to rough, aggres­sive bow­ing. Hughes plays these with an impro­vi­sa­tional feel that seems per­fect, and the sequenc­ing of the col­lec­tion makes this sound like an extended and involved suit, a real jour­ney from the musi­cian through fas­ci­nat­ing, intro­verted places, and back out again. An involv­ing lis­ten from begin­ning to end, and a disc that fits right along side with the recent record­ings of Maya Beiser, Zoe Keat­ing and Matt Haimovitz.

Marika Hughes is pre­sent­ing both sets of music at 92YTribeca, Fri­day Jan­u­ary 28.

This Sun­day, you can hear music from Matt Blostein and Vin­nie Sper­razza at the Cor­nelia Street Cafe. The two have a new CD out next month, Para­phrase , a nice exam­ple of con­tem­po­rary small group jazz, with solid writ­ing, smart and musi­cal inter­play within the band, and a great group sound. I’m a sucker for the trom­bone in small group set­tings, and Jacob Garchik has a tasty sound. The music is maybe a lit­tle too polite and mod­est, but in the live set­ting you can expect more fire from the band. Still, a fine record and a com­pletely sat­is­fy­ing lis­ten. Here’s a sample: