How do you get to Carnegie Hall? Here’s Dan Tepfer’s answer, as formulated in a recent blast to friends. “First, become a jazz pianist with a Bach habit, then develop an obsession for writing computer programs that improvise with you and generate graphics. At least that’s what seems to have worked for me.” His debut takes place in the speakeasy intimacy of Zankel Hall, with graphics splashed across a new state-of-the-art projection system that covers the entire back wall. The first half of the evening showcases Natural Machines as Tepfer has been performing it since 2019—alone at a Yamaha Disklavier (player piano of the data age) that links to algorithms on his computer. Tepfer’s more recent experiment Natural Machines 2.0 incorporates a live orchestra into the feedback loop. Sight-reading off mobile phones, the members of the intrepid Brooklyn-based collective The Knights will be playing—as Tepfer improvises—parts generated for them in real timeby his hand-written algorithms. Coming to grips with the nuts and bolts of the technowizardry can be a challenge, but falling under the spell of the music is like falling off a log. Maybe that’s because, for all his smarts, Tepfer’s a musician first and last. —Matthew Gurewitsch