A prominent pianist at (le) poisson? Sign us up.

The most romantic ear in New York may belong to the booker of (le) poisson rouge, who deftly redefines the East Village space nightly with jazz quartets, art-buzz rock bands, Jamaican dancehall parties, movie screenings, literary readings, and everything in between. But the most thrilling evenings in the cozy Deco basement are invariably the avant-garde classical concerts, which leap past the staid confines of the genre into challenging, defiantly cool statement. Pianist Taka Kigawa, winner of such international prizes as the 1998 Diploma Prize at Concurs Internacional Maria Canals de Barcelona and First Prize at the 1990 Japan Music Foundation Competition, is a master of 20th- and 21st-century composition, especially those by Murali, Boulez, and Ligeti. His famed take on Bach’s “The Art of the Fugue” is ebullient and audacious—with these stripes, he’ll bring LPR to yet another unknown high.