Critical Band Plays Steve Martland. Evan Ziporyn's new 11-piece ensemble performs works for winds and amplified instruments by Steve Martland, Joel Roston, and Ziporyn. 8pm, Kresge Auditorium. Visit: criticalband.org. General admission $5; Free in advance only to MIT Community with MIT email address.

This is the debut performance of a new Boston-based ensemble, Critical Band, presenting a program of pieces by British composer Steve Martland, who passed away unexpectedly this past spring. Martland's music was rarely performed in the US during his lifetime, but his signature sound was well known in the UK and Europe: street-smart and hard-edged, lyrical and infectious, equal parts brass band and rock group. Critical Band draws on a broad range of Boston's musical talent: including violinist Shaw-Pong Liu (whose own Arise was premiered at the Gardner Museum last spring), guitarist Joel Roston (of Big Bear and Beautiful Weekend), saxophonists Dylan Sherry and Kathy Olson, trumpeter Jonah Kappraff, trombonist Randy Pingrey, and members of MIT's Festival Jazz Ensemble and Gamelan Galak Tika.