Tuesday Happenings

Image courtesy NEC.

[nec]shivaree, the "attack wing of NEC's new music program," performs three benchmark pieces that span two and half decades of American minimalism. Steve Reich's Piano Phase (1967) might be the best known of the three; it was Reich's first attempt to integrate the phasing effects of his tape experiments into live, instrumental music. No less stunning is Morton Feldman's iconoclastic Why Patterns? (1978), in which three soloists play three separate patterns that eventually interlock with each other. ("The compositional concentration is solely on which pattern should be reiterated and for how long," Feldman said of the piece.) The third piece, Mario Davidovsky's Synchronism X (1992) pairs live guitar with a prerecorded electronic piece. Directed by Stephen Drury. Williams Hall, New England Conservatory, 30 Gainsborough St., 8 p.m. Free. More information.

Folk

The David Wax Museum plays "Mexo-Americana Music," fusing the twang of the Ozarks with sounds of the border towns. Boston's homegrown answer to Calexico. The Alchemist Lounge, 435 S. Huntington Ave., Jamaica Plain, 10 p.m. Free.

Indie Rock

Those of us who still fondly remember Three Mile Pilot might harbor a soft spot for The Black Heart Procession, which emerged from the ashes of that superior group. It's indie rock, but not the bad kind. Paradise Rock Club, 967 Comm. Ave., 8 p.m.