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Sunday, March 31, 2019, 7:00 PM – 8:00 PM
Brooklyn Maqam: 1st Anniversary Concert
MUSIC
SUNDAY, MARCH 31, 2019
7:00 PM
Roulette
509 Atlantic Avenue (entrance on 3rd Avenue), Boerum Hill, Brooklyn
$25-$60 advance; $30 general admission door
https://roulette.org/event/brooklyn-maqam-presents-brooklyn-maqam-1st-anniversary-concert/
Brooklyn Maquam, a new organization devoted to bringing together Brooklyn's Arabic music community, presents an all-star show to celebrate its first anniversary. Takht al-Nagham, featuring vocalist Wajde Ayub, performs classical Syrian music. The Tarab Ensemble attends, among other things, to the Sufi side of things. Nano Raies is a Syrian jazz/pop fusion singer. Expect music of great spiritual and emotional depth but with plenty of surface appeal.
MAKE A NIGHT OF IT: Yemen Café has been good for years and years.
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Sunday, March 31, 2019, 4:00 PM – 5:00 PM
Theo Bleckmann with Endless Field
MUSIC
SUNDAY, MARCH 31, 2019
4:00 PM
Classical Interludes
Dweck Center, Central Library, Brooklyn Public Library
10 Grand Army Plaza, across the street from Prospect Heights, Brooklyn
Free (registration required)
https://www.bklynlibrary.org/calendar/classical-interludes-theo-central-library-dweck-20190331
Avant-garde vocalist Theo Bleckmann: endless inventive, endlessly engaging.
MAKE A NIGHT OF IT: Before the show, stop into Tom's Restaurant for the best pancakes you'll ever have out. Afterward, Oxalis: you can either go for the astonishing-value $60 tasting menu in the dining room, or for excellent cocktails and highly imaginative bar food in the bar in the back..
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Saturday, March 30, 2019, 8:00 PM – 9:00 PM
Daxophone Consort: HARD WOOD
MUSIC
SATURDAY, MARCH 30, 2019
8:00 PM
ISSUE Project Room
22 Boerum Place, Downtown, Brooklyn
$15
https://www.kopitiamnyc.com/
America's only extant daxophone consort! A daxophone is an instrument invented by a German maniac, consisting of a finely wrought wooden blade fixed to a block. The blade is usually bowed, although it can also be plucked or struck. The promotional materials for this event describe the instrument as sounding somewhere between a cello and a badger, which is about right. This show features a new piece for daxophone consort by no less than Alvin Lucier (who's just the guy to write such a piece). There'll also be some improvisations, and a new collaboration with experimental vocalist / cantor Judith Berkson. Frankly, if you've been to one daxophone recital, that's probably enough -- but if you haven't been to any, you might want to remedy that.
MAKE A NIGHT OF IT: Red Sauce and newer creations at longtime standy Queen..
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Saturday, March 30, 2019, 4:00 PM – 5:00 PM
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Friday, March 29, 2019, 8:00 PM – 9:00 PM
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Friday, March 29, 2019, 8:00 PM – 9:00 PM
Methyl Ethel / TEEN
MUSIC
FRIDAY, MARCH 29, 2019
8:00 PM
Elsewhere
599 Johnson Avenue, Bushwick, Brooklyn
$15 advance; $17 day of show online; $18 door
https://www.elsewherebrooklyn.com/events/2019-03-29-methyl-ethel/
Methyl Ethel is a good-enough neo-New Wave band. But this show gets the nod for the opening act, TEEN. They were one of my favorite bands even before I sussed out that its principal members are the three daughters of the late, great composer Peter Lieberson (maybe you saw Sara Mearns recreate a role originated by their grandmother at Encores! last week). (Look, including the children of a really good classical composer doesn't insure that a pop/rock band will be good -- Roy Harris's sons were in what might be the worst rock band of all time.) Great pop songs, great arrangements, great performances.
MAKE A NIGHT OF IT: OK, so maybe you're tired of going to Mission Chinese Food Brooklyn, even though it's right in the same building as Elsewhere. In that case, go to Guadalupe Inn, where you can replicate the experience of eating decent Mexican food in a bordello.
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Fri, Mar 29, 2019, 8:00 PM – Sat, Mar 30, 2019, 9:00 PM
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Fri, Mar 29, 2019, 7:30 PM – Sun, Mar 31, 2019, 3:30 PM
Racoco Productions: TILT
PERFORMANCE
FRIDAY - SUNDAY, MARCH 29 - 31, 2019 (continuing through APRIL 6)
7:30 PM FRIDAY & SATURDAY
2:30 PM SUNDAY
Abrons Arts Center
466 Grand Street, Lower East Side, Manhattan
$26; $16 age 18 and under
https://www.abronsartscenter.org/program/abrons-racoco-productions-tilt/
A performance piece that somehow combines wood, movement, live music, tap, pinball, and the story of Don Quixote. There's an installation in the lobby to examine before the show.
MAKE A NIGHT OF IT: Everybody loves the Malaysian coffee house food at Kopitiam.
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Thursday, March 28, 2019, 9:00 PM – 10:00 PM
Leikeili47
MUSIC
THURSDAY, MARCH 28, 2019 (also on APRIL 2)
9:00 PM
Elsewhere
599 Johnson Avenue, Bushwick, Brooklyn
$18 advance; $22 door
https://www.elsewherebrooklyn.com/events/2019-03-28-leikeli47/
Brooklyn's masked rapper Leikeili47 is just wonderful: sharp, self-aware, down-to-earth, with a lot to say. Lots of people apparently have already decided that this sold-out show is unmissible (look for some last-minute availability or the secondary market). Still tickets left for next Tuesday's show, though.
MAKE A NIGHT OF IT: So there's this real good alt-Sichuan place right in this building.
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Thu, Mar 28, 2019, 8:00 PM – Sun, Mar 31, 2019, 9:00 PM
Target Margin Theater: Marjana and the Forty Theives
THEATER
THURSDAY - SUNDAY, MARCH 28 - 31, 2019 (continuing through APRIL 20)
8:00 PM THURSDAY - SATURDAY
3:00 PM SUNDAY
The Doxsee Theater
232 52nd Street, Sunset Park, Brooklyn
$25-$35
http://www.targetmargin.org/our-season/show-1/
Target Margin -- who believe passionately that avant-garde theater should beaccessible, even entertaining -- continue their exploration of the endlessly rich and labyrinthine Thousand and One Nights (with an emphasis on gender issues). Plus: dates, almonds, apricots, and sesame honey candy for the audience!
MAKE A NIGHT OF IT: Xun Yu Si Kao specializes in Sichuan fish pot. You choose a fish. You choose a broth. You put the fish in the broth. You put other stuff (noodles, vegetables, rice cakes, pig's blood cakes) into the broth. Eventually you eat it. There are other things if you're not in the mood for fish pot.
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Thursday, March 28, 2019, 8:00 PM – 9:00 PM
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Thursday, March 28, 2019, 8:00 PM – 9:00 PM
Donny McCaslin / Novellor
MUSIC
THURSDAY, MARCH 28, 2019
8:00 PM
BRIC House
647 Fulton Street, Fort Greene, Brooklyn
$20 advance; $25 door
https://www.bricartsmedia.org/events-performances/donny-mccaslin-noveller
Donny McCaslin will now always inevitably be referred to as the guy who led the backup jazz band on David Bowie's titanic swan song, Blackstar. But saxophonist McCaslin got that gig because he has long been an excellent bandleader and an intriguing stylist, making rock-tinged jazz that is compulsive listening. Making this show an even more appealing prospect is the opening act, Sarah Lipstate's electric guitar project Noveller -- whose droaning, distorted, dreamy looped music is also compulsive listening.
MAKE A NIGHT OF IT: New cocktail bar right up the street? The Rockwell Place: I'm THERE.
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Thursday, March 28, 2019, 8:00 PM – 9:00 PM
Zeena Parkins: Captiva
MUSIC
THURSDAY, MARCH 28, 2019
8:00 PM
Roulette
509 Atlantic Avenue (entrance on 3rd Avenue), Boerum Hill, Brooklyn
$18 advance; $25 door
https://roulette.org/event/zeena-parkins-captiva/
Downtown harp goddess Zeena Parkins plays what appears to be a "game piece", in which a set of rules determines what she plays.
MAKE A NIGHT OF IT: Grand Army Bar for splendid cocktails and surprisingly good food.
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Thursday, March 28, 2019, 8:00 PM – 9:00 PM
Jack Callahan: Toward Agave Expressionism
MUSIC
THURSDAY, MARCH 28, 2019
8:00 PM
Musical Ecologies Series
Old Stone House, Washington Park
336 Third Street, Park Slope, Brooklyn
$10
https://www.brownpapertickets.com/event/4108953
Electronic musician Jack Callahan presents a piece for voice and electronics composed of chords sampled from classic House tracks.
MAKE A NIGHT OF IT: You should just be able to make it across the street to Stone Park Cafe for competent-plus American Bistro. If it's closed, keep walking up Fifth Avenue to Al Di La, Park Slope's favorite Venetian restaurant.
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Thursday, March 28, 2019, 8:00 PM – 9:00 PM
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Thu, Mar 28, 2019, 8:00 PM – Sun, Mar 31, 2019, 6:00 PM
Jean-Claude van Itallie: The Fat Lady Sings
THEATER
MONDAY & THURSDAY - SUNDAY, MARCH 25 & 28 - 31, 2019 (continuing through APRIL 7)
8:00 PM MONDAY & THURSDAY - SATURDAY
5:00 PM SUNDAY
La Mama
66 East 4th Street, East Village, Manhattan
$30; $25 students/seniors
http://lamama.org/fat_lady_sings/
Van Itallie, a legend of the 1960s glory days of Off-Broadway, presents a new play about the value system that has led to Trumpism. One hopes he is duly sympathetic to his subjects, who after have been and are being royally screwed. New York opera queen Lauren Flanigan stars!
MAKE A NIGHT OF IT: Let's Thai one on at Fish Cheeks.
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Thu, Mar 28, 2019, 7:30 PM – Sun, Mar 31, 2019, 4:30 PM
Ann Carlson: Elizabeth, the Dance
DANCE
THURSDAY - SUNDAY, MARCH 28 - 31, 2019
7:30 PM THURSDAY & FRIDAY
8:00 PM SATURDAY
3:00 PM SUNDAY
Peak Performances
Alexander Kasser Theater, Montclair State University
1 Normal Avenue, Montclair, New Jersey
$30
https://www.peakperfs.org/event/elizabeth-the-dance/2019-03-29/
How do you write about an artist as ineffable as Ann Carlson? Her work is determinedly modest: modest in means, modest in technique, modest in scope. Sometimes it doesn't seem like it's even dance. It doesn't incorporate the everyday so much as that it is the everyday. But it carries you along, and along the way it gives you these little surprises, little insights, little pings of pleasure. It's not big, but it's kind of wonderful. It seems characteristic that Carlson choreographed this piece on the company founded by her college dance teachers in Utah, Ririe-Woodbury.
MAKE A NIGHT OF IT: Turtle + the Wolf serves American Bistro as appealing as any you'd get in Brooklyn.
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Thu, Mar 28, 2019, 7:30 PM – Sun, Mar 31, 2019, 8:30 PM
Sasha Velour: Smoke & Mirrors
PERFORMANCE
TUESDAY & THURSDAY - SUNDAY, MARCH 26 & 28 - 31, 2019
7:30 PM
New York Live Arts
219 West 19th Street, Chelsea, Manhattan
$25-$150
https://newyorklivearts.org/event/smoke-mirrors/
Drag queen supreme Sasha Velour does her first one-woman show!
MAKE A NIGHT OF IT: You wished chefed-up pan-Latin faux-lunch counter Coppelia were a little bit better -- more imaginative, more technically precise -- than it is. But only a little bit: as is, it's really quite good. And props for being open all night!
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Thursday, March 28, 2019, 7:30 PM – 8:30 PM
Kate Soper & Friends
MUSIC
THURSDAY, MARCH 28, 2019
7:30 PM
New York Festival of Song Next
The DiMenna Center for Classical Music
450 West 37th Street, Hell's Kitchen, Manhattan
$25-$50
http://nyfos.org/nyfos-next/
Kate Soper is a jewel, a gem, a composer/vocalist we're lucky to be alive at the same time as. She writes these quirky, wordy, musically and intellectually engaging vocal pieces -- songs, music-theater pieces, operas -- and is her own best interpretor. Here, she'll do her own stuff, as well as things by such other composers as Kaija Saariaho(!). Charmaine Lee and Sam Pluta will also contribute some voice/electronics improvisations.
MAKE A NIGHT OF IT: Hudson Yards is turning out to be such a clusterfuck in these early days -- and the development is just so appalling -- that I'm going to keep sending you in the opposite direction, for the jolly, hearty Central Asian food at Farida.
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Thu, Mar 28, 2019, 7:30 PM – Fri, Mar 29, 2019, 8:30 PM
A Stone's Throw Series / Metropolis x BLUEPRINTS In Visible Roads Piano Festival: Parallax
MUSIC
FRIDAY, MARCH 29, 2019
7:30 PM
1 Rivington
1 Rivington Street, Lower East Side, Manhattan
$15; $10 students
https://metropolisensemble.org/all-events/parallax
Pianist Conor Hanick stars in a concert/recital curated by the marvelous composer Kati Agócs. The big draws are two Agócs pieces, one for solo piano as well as a piano trio. But there's lots of other appealing stuff as well.
MAKE A NIGHT OF IT: I think we're going to go to the stylish Uncle Boon's for delicious Thai.
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Thu, Mar 28, 2019, 7:00 PM – Fri, Mar 29, 2019, 8:00 PM
Bach: St. Matthew Passion
MUSIC
THURSDAY & FRIDAY, MARCH 28 & 29, 2019
7:00 PM
TENET
St. Peter's Episcopal Church
346 West 20th Street, Chelsea, Manhattan
$10-$100
https://tenet.nyc/season/st-matthew-passion
While you're all debating whether Bach's St. Matthew Passion is or isn't the single greatest piece of music in the Western canon (SPOILER: probably), I'll just note that these are hands down the most promising performances of it in New York this Eastertide. TENET is New York's splendid hometown Baroque vocal ensemble -- and here they're backed by an outstanding local Baroque instrument band, The Sebastians.
MAKE A NIGHT OF IT: Let's not overthink this. Nearby, open after the show -- and absolutely delicious? Pintxos at Txikito.
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Thu, Mar 28, 2019, 7:00 PM – Sun, Mar 31, 2019, 8:00 PM
The Brink Guitar Festival
MUSIC
THURSDAY - SUNDAY, MARCH 28 - 31, 2019
7:00 PM THURSDAY, FRIDAY & SUNDAy
5:00 PM SATURDAY
Spectrum
70 Flushing Avenue, Garage A, Fort Greene, Brooklyn
$15 per show; $30 festival pass
https://www.brownpapertickets.com/event/4102837
Guitars: New Music, art song, experimental, jazz, free improv. (Elliot Sharp on Sunday!)
MAKE A NIGHT OF IT: From one garage to another: Samui, for Thai in stylish surroundings.
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Wed, Mar 27, 2019, 8:00 PM – Sun, Mar 31, 2019, 5:00 PM
Mabou Mines: Faust 2.0
THEATER
WEDNESDAY - SUNDAY, MARCH 27 - 31, 2019 (continuing through APRIL 14)
8:00 PM WEDNESDAY - SATURDAY
4:00 PM SUNDAY
150 1st Avenue, East Village, Manhattan
$25; $18 students/seniors
https://www.maboumines.org/production/faust-2-0/
The veteran avant-theater company Mabou Mines do their multi-media Mabou Mines thing with Goethe's Faust Part II (the more abstract fabulistic hard part, as you'll recall). Music by Big List Fave Eve Beglarian is icing on the cake.
MAKE A NIGHT OF IT: The resurgent (downtown OG) Momofuku Noodle Bar, a key site in food culture history.
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Wednesday, March 27, 2019, 8:00 PM – 9:00 PM
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Wed, Mar 27, 2019, 8:00 PM – Sat, Mar 30, 2019, 9:00 PM
William Burke: Variations on the Main
THEATER
MONDAY & WEDNESDAY - SATURDAY, MARCH 25 & 27 - 30, 2019
8:00 PM
JACK
505 1/2 Waverly Avenue, Clinton Hill, Brooklyn
$18
http://www.jackny.org/variations.html
If you go to the theater in Brooklyn, chances are you've seen the work of William Burke. A bear of a playwright (and sometimes performer), he's happily ubiquitous on Brooklyn stages -- and, as far as I'm concerned, always more than welcome, his work funny, astute, and joyously non-linear. Here, along with singer-songwriter Catherine Brookman, he presents "a theatrical séance for listening". I'd forego trying to suss that out and just go.
MAKE A NIGHT OF IT: It must look like back-scratching, but I can't help it if my friends run great places. Mekelburg's Clinton Hill (a/k/a OG Mekelburg's): have some caviar pie, have a Nana's Meatloaf sandwich, have lots of beer.
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Wed, Mar 27, 2019, 7:30 PM – Sat, Mar 30, 2019, 8:30 PM
Batsheva Dance Company: Venezuela
DANCE
WEDNESDAY - SATURDAY, MARCH 27 - 30, 2019
7:30 PM
BAM Opera House
30 Lafayette Avenue, Fort Greene, Brooklyn
$30-$75
https://www.bam.org/dance/2019/venezuela
A turning point for Israel's magnificent, daring Batsheva Dance Company, as the great Ohad Naharin steps down as Artistic Director while staying on as choreographer. Will we see a difference? Naharin's movement style is absolutely unique; the question is whether training and recruitment without him in charge will keep that style intact (or even whether the company would want to). In any event, this new Naharin piece should display his usual combination of intense physicality with formal rigor.
MAKE A NIGHT OF IT: The obvious play is Modern Israeli at Miss Ada -- if you can get in.
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Wed, Mar 27, 2019, 7:00 PM – Sun, Mar 31, 2019, 3:00 PM
Jackie Sibblies Drury: Marys Seacole
THEATER
MONDAY & WEDNESDAY - SUNDAY, MARCH 25 & 27-31, 2019 (continuing through APRIL 7)
7:00 PM MONDAY & WEDNESDAY - SUNDAY
2:00 PM SATURDAY & SUNDAY
Claire Tow Theater, Lincoln Center Theater
150 West 65th Street, Upper West Side, Manhattan
$50
https://www.lct.org/shows/marys-seacole/
Jackie Sibblies Drury is one of the best (and, it emerges more and more, most influential) playwrights in America. So her new play -- a time-spanning tale of ambition and being a woman who is paid to care -- is kind of a must.
MAKE A NIGHT OF IT: Very good food for the price at Indie Food & Wine, in the lobby of the Elinor Bunin Munroe Film Center.
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Wednesday, March 27, 2019, 12:00 PM – 1:00 PM
Mariel Roberts feat. Eric Wubbels
MUSIC
WEDNESDAY, MARCH 27, 2019
12:00 PM
Gould Memorial Library Rotunda, Bronx Community College
2155 University Avenue #107, University Heights, Bronx
Free
http://www.bcc.cuny.edu/academics/academic-departments/art-and-music-department/announcements/
Mariel Roberts is an excellent (and, if I'm allowed to say so, extremely glamorous) cellist-about-town, playing to great effect wherever New Music is heard. This recital focuses on the gnarlier side of New Music -- skeptics be warned -- and features a piece by Chicago electronic composer Sam Pluta, one by Roberts herself, and -- best of all -- the star cut on Roberts's last album (actually, no: the album is so good you can't pick out a star cut), Wet Inker Eric Wubbels's instrumental take on Gretchen Am Spinnrade (and trust me, in Wubbels's hands, it's a wild ride!). Wubbels will join Roberts on piano for his piece.
MAKE A NIGHT OF IT: First of all, be sure to take a walk around BCC's hilltop campus, formerly the Uptown NYU campus. It's all brilliantly imposing Stanford White Classical Revival (with the Gould Memorial Library Rotunda in fact the centerpiece), supplemented by prime back-in-style Marcel BreuerBrutalism (in a landscape designed by Calvert Vaux's firm). Then, take a half-hour walk to Belmont (singing I Wonder Why and Teenager in Love along the way) for the Albanian restaurant that had Pete Wells going wild a couple of weeks ago, Çka Ka Qëllu.
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Tue, Mar 26, 2019, 9:30 PM – Sat, Mar 30, 2019, 10:30 PM
The TEAM / National Theater of Scotland: Anything that Gives Off Light
THEATER
TUESDAY - SATURDAY, MARCH 26 - 30, 2019
9:30 PM TUESDAY & FRIDAY
7:00 PM WEDNESDAY - THURSDAY & SATURDAY
Joe's Pub, The Public Theater
425 Lafayette Street, NoHo, Manhattan
$35
https://publictheater.org/en/Tickets/Calendar/PlayDetailsCollection/Joes-Pub/2019/Anything-That-Gives-Off-Light/
Brooklyn's The TEAM -- theatrical explorers of contemporary America -- teams up with the National Theater of Scotland to add Scotland to the locus of exploration. The piece -- described as "rowdy" -- starts in a London pub and then moves on (as things that start in pubs do) to the Scottish Highlands and our own Appalachians. For once, the accompanying music of the Bengsons won't seem too folky.
MAKE A NIGHT OF IT: Of course, Joe's Pub is a bar with good-enough food and drinks -- and there's a two-drink or $12-for-food minimum. My own recommendation is to skip the food and have two cocktails -- and then over to Setegaya for ramen.
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Tue, Mar 26, 2019, 8:00 PM – Sun, Mar 31, 2019, 6:00 PM
Wooster Group: The B-Side
THEATER
TUESDAY - SUNDAY, MARCH 26 -31, 2019
8:00 PM TUESDAY - SATURDAY
5:00 PM SUNDAY
St. Ann's Warehouse
45 Water Street, DUMBO, Brooklyn
$40-$55
https://stannswarehouse.org/show/the-b-side/
Another of those shows where New York's leading avant-theater company, the Wooster Group, "performs" a record album, this time a set of "Negro" work songs, spirituals, and toasts recorded in 1964 in a segregated Texas prison farm (no, sorry, not Parchman Farm -- that was in Mississippi).
MAKE A NIGHT OF IT: Great views, good Mediterranean food at Celestine.
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Tue, Mar 26, 2019, 8:00 PM – Sun, Mar 31, 2019, 4:30 PM
Taylor Mac: Gary: A Sequel to Titus Andronicus
THEATER
TUESDAY - SUNDAY, MARCH 18 - 23, 2019
8:00 PM TUESDAY - SATURDAY
2:00 PM WEDNESDAY & SATURDAY
3:00 PM SUNDAY
Booth Theatre
222 West 45th Street, Midtown, Manhattan
$39-$275
https://garyonbroadway.com/
I've wondered what it would take to get me to List a Broadway show. Written by Taylor Mac? Starring Nathan Lane and Andrea Martin? (Oops! Lost Andrea Martin.) Directed by George C. Wolfe? I guess this has what it takes. Hope it's hilarious. The title sure is.
MAKE A NIGHT OF IT: It's been decades, but I remember thinking the vaguely Venetian Osteria al Doge was pretty good. Stays open late like a Theater District restaurant should, too. But what you really want, after dinner (or after the show if you've already eaten), is the new cocktail lounge Blue, from the Blue Ribbon folks.
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Tue, Mar 26, 2019, 7:30 PM – Sun, Mar 31, 2019, 8:30 PM
Soledad Barrio & Noche Flamenca: Entre Tú y Yo
DANCE
TUESDAY - SUNDAY, MARCH 26 - 31, 2019
7:30 PM TUESDAY - THURSDAY
8:00 PM FRIDAY & SATURDAY
3:00 PM SUNDAY
Connelly Theater
220 East 4th Street, East Village, Manhattan
$22-$53
https://www.connellytheater.org/
After Hurricane Farruquito a few weeks ago, you might worry that New York's flamenco home team will look a little pale. But the ferocious Soledad Barrio is a force in herself. And Martín Santangelo's programmatic conceptions are a step beyond: they engage you intellectually as the dancing grabs you by the whatever.
MAKE A NIGHT OF IT: A place focusing almost totally on gnocchi? Sounds good to me. From a noted pizzaiolo.
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Tuesday, March 26, 2019, 7:30 PM – 8:30 PM
Sasha Velour: Smoke & Mirrors
PERFORMANCE
TUESDAY & THURSDAY - SUNDAY, MARCH 26 & 28 - 31, 2019
7:30 PM
New York Live Arts
219 West 19th Street, Chelsea, Manhattan
$25-$150
https://newyorklivearts.org/event/smoke-mirrors/
Drag queen supreme Sasha Velour does her first one-woman show!
MAKE A NIGHT OF IT: You wished chefed-up pan-Latin faux-lunch counter Coppelia were a little bit better -- more imaginative, more technically precise -- than it is. But only a little bit: as is, it's really quite good. And props for being open all night!
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Tue, Mar 26, 2019, 7:30 PM – Sun, Mar 31, 2019, 8:30 PM
-
Tue, Mar 26, 2019, 7:00 PM – Sun, Mar 31, 2019, 3:00 PM
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Monday, March 25, 2019, 8:00 PM – 9:00 PM
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Monday, March 25, 2019, 8:00 PM – 9:00 PM
William Burke: Variations on the Main
THEATER
MONDAY & WEDNESDAY - SATURDAY, MARCH 25 & 27 - 30, 2019
8:00 PM
JACK
505 1/2 Waverly Avenue, Clinton Hill, Brooklyn
$18
http://www.jackny.org/variations.html
If you go to the theater in Brooklyn, chances are you've seen the work of William Burke. A bear of a playwright (and sometimes performer), he's happily ubiquitous on Brooklyn stages -- and, as far as I'm concerned, always more than welcome, his work funny, astute, and joyously non-linear. Here, along with singer-songwriter Catherine Brookman, he presents "a theatrical séance for listening". I'd forego trying to suss that out and just go.
MAKE A NIGHT OF IT: It must look like back-scratching, but I can't help it if my friends run great places. Mekelburg's Clinton Hill (a/k/a OG Mekelburg's): have some caviar pie, have a Nana's Meatloaf sandwich, have lots of beer.
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Mon, Mar 25, 2019, 8:00 PM – Tue, Mar 26, 2019, 9:00 PM
Yves Tumor
MUSIC
MONDAY - TUESDAY, MARCH 25 - 26, 2019
8:00 PM
National Sawdust
80 North 6th Street, Williamsburg, Brooklyn
$25
https://nationalsawdust.org/event/yves-tumor/
https://nationalsawdust.org/event/yves-tumor/
Be basically a noise/cyberpunk guy who makes music that also sounds like R&B and pop, and I'll be there listening. Tennessee-to-Turin Yves Tumor's last album, Safe in the Hands of Love, was something of a triumph, and this two-night stand (a different show each night) is his victory lap. On Monday, he plays with a band. On Tuesday he presents what is described as a live A/V show with . . . what, Ezra Miller? It's all sold out -- but there's a waitlist.
MAKE A NIGHT OF IT: I'm thinking Fresh Kills Bar -- certainly some of the very best cocktails in Brooklyn -- even though there isn't much to eat there.
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Monday, March 25, 2019, 8:00 PM – 9:00 PM
False Harmonics #2: YoshimiO-Robert Aiki Aubrey Lowe Duo / Jaap Blonk Quartet
MUSIC
MONDAY, MARCH 25, 2019
8:00 PM
Pioneer Works
159 Pioneer Street, Red Hook, Brooklyn
$15 advance; $20 door
https://pioneerworks.org/programs/false-harmonics-2-yoshimio-robert-a-a-lowe-duo-jaap-blonk-quartet-feat-weasel-walter-jeb-bishop-and-damon-smith/
YoshimiO established her legend as drummer for the Japanese noise group the Boredoms. But she has a big place in my heart for her work as leader of the wonderful psych band 00I00. Whatevs. Here she performs in a duo with vocal/electronics whiz Robert Aiki Aubrey Lowe (a/k/a Lichens) (usually it's atrio also including the fantastic drummer Susie Ibarra -- but not tonight). Also on the bill is a new quartet fronted by the Dutch avant-garde legend Jaap Blonk, whose vocal stylings will be backed by a rhythm section including American noise drummer Weasel Walter. This will not be the same old stuff.
MAKE A NIGHT OF IT: Take out your scorecard: Argentine chef (and Francis Mallmann protegé) Norberto Piattoni has moved from Fort Greene's METTĀ, where he did work at least influenced by Mallmann's fire cuisine, to a new cantina that has taken over the space formerly occupied by the beloved Red Hook neo-dive bar Bait & Tackle. (Everything is connected: the new interior is, in fact, virtually copied from an installation that took place at . . . Pioneer Works!) And at this new San Pedro Inn, the ambitious Chef Piattoni is cooking . . . tacos and tostadas. Strange world.
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Monday, March 25, 2019, 8:00 PM – 9:00 PM
Jean-Claude van Itallie: The Fat Lady Sings
THEATER
MONDAY & THURSDAY - SUNDAY, MARCH 25 & 28 - 31, 2019 (continuing through APRIL 7)
8:00 PM MONDAY & THURSDAY - SATURDAY
5:00 PM SUNDAY
La Mama
66 East 4th Street, East Village, Manhattan
$30; $25 students/seniors
http://lamama.org/fat_lady_sings/
Van Itallie, a legend of the 1960s glory days of Off-Broadway, presents a new play about the value system that has led to Trumpism. One hopes he is duly sympathetic to his subjects, who after have been and are being royally screwed. New York opera queen Lauren Flanigan stars!
MAKE A NIGHT OF IT: Let's Thai one on at Fish Cheeks.
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Monday, March 25, 2019, 7:00 PM – 8:00 PM
Jackie Sibblies Drury: Marys Seacole
THEATER
MONDAY & WEDNESDAY - SUNDAY, MARCH 25 & 27-31, 2019 (continuing through APRIL 7)
7:00 PM MONDAY & WEDNESDAY - SUNDAY
2:00 PM SATURDAY & SUNDAY
Claire Tow Theater, Lincoln Center Theater
150 West 65th Street, Upper West Side, Manhattan
$50
https://www.lct.org/shows/marys-seacole/
Jackie Sibblies Drury is one of the best (and, it emerges more and more, most influential) playwrights in America. So her new play -- a time-spanning tale of ambition and being a woman who is paid to care -- is kind of a must.
MAKE A NIGHT OF IT: Very good food for the price at Indie Food & Wine, in the lobby of the Elinor Bunin Munroe Film Center.
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Sunday, March 24, 2019, 8:30 PM – 9:30 PM
The Music of Margaret Anne Schedel
MUSIC
SUNDAY, MARCH 24, 2019
8:30 PM
Female Composers' Festival
Spectrum
70 Flushing Avenue, Garage A, Fort Greene, Brooklyn
$15; $10 students/seniors
http://www.spectrumnyc.com/site/calendar.php
This composer/cellist describes her work as "ferociously interactive". Yikes.
MAKE A NIGHT OF IT: You'll still have time to make it Vinegar Hill House for the obligatory cozy Sunday night New American dinner.
-
Sunday, March 24, 2019, 4:00 PM – 5:00 PM
ETHEL: Devoted
MUSIC
SUNDAY, MARCH 24, 2019
4:00 PM
Classical Interludes
Dweck Center, Central Library, Brooklyn Public Library
10 Grand Army Plaza, across the street from Prospect Heights, Brooklyn
Free (registration required)
https://www.bklynlibrary.org/calendar/classical-interludes-central-library-dweck-20190324
This expert string quartet, hugely concerned with accessibility, constructs a program focusing on secular religious devotion, touching on Hildegard von Bingen, Appalachian hymnody, qawwali, klezmer, and more more more. The tickets all appear to be taken; check for cancellations.
MAKE A NIGHT OF IT: Before the show, stop into Tom's Restaurant for the best pancakes you'll ever have out. Afterward, Oxalis: you can either go for the astonishing-value $60 tasting menu in the dining room, or for excellent cocktails and highly imaginative bar food in the bar in the back.
-
Sunday, March 24, 2019, 4:00 PM – 5:00 PM
-
Sunday, March 24, 2019, 3:00 PM – 4:00 PM
Soledad Barrio & Noche Flamenca: Entre Tú y Yo
DANCE
TUESDAY - SUNDAY, MARCH 19 - 24, 2019 (continuing through MARCH 31)
7:30 PM TUESDAY - THURSDAY
8:00 PM FRIDAY & SATURDAY
3:00 PM SUNDAY
Connelly Theater
220 East 4th Street, East Village, Manhattan
$22-$53
https://www.connellytheater.org/
After Hurricane Farruquito a couple of weeks ago, you might worry that New York's flamenco home team will look a little pale. But the ferocious Soledad Barrio is a force in herself. And Martín Santangelo's programmatic conceptions are a step beyond: they engage you intellectually as the dancing grabs you by the whatever.
MAKE A NIGHT OF IT: A place focusing almost totally on gnocchi? Sounds good to me. From a noted pizzaiolo.
-
Sunday, March 24, 2019, 3:00 PM – 4:00 PM
-
Saturday, March 23, 2019, 9:00 PM – 9:00 PM
The Music of Viola Yip
MUSIC
SATURDAY, MARCH 23, 2019
9:00 PM
Female Composers' Festial
Spectrum
70 Flushing Avenue, Garage A, Fort Greene, Brooklyn
$15; $10 students/seniors
http://www.spectrumnyc.com/site/calendar.php
Viola Yip plays handmade instruments (mostly handmade by herself), often incorporating everyday objects, and her own body -- all with acoustic treatment, natch. Fascinating stuff.
MAKE A NIGHT OF IT: Solid American bistro fare at Walter's.
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Saturday, March 23, 2019, 7:30 PM – 8:30 PM
Mivos Quartet feat. Yarn / Wire: 10th Anniversary Concert
MUSIC
SATURDAY, MARCH 23, 2019
7:30 PM
Willow Place Auditorium
26 Willow Place, Brooklyn Heights, Brooklyn
Free
https://www.facebook.com/events/395899687868270/
The Mivos Quartet celebrates ten years of highly effective advocacy of New Music by getting together with the unique piano/percussion quartet Yarn/Wire. The focus of the show is an octet by Alex Mincek, as viscerally exciting a young composer as you could hope to find. Among other things, there's also a piece by Alvin Lucier, who is very far from young but whose sonic explorations have never stopped surprising.
MAKE A NIGHT OF IT: Very nice New American at Colonie.
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Saturday, March 23, 2019, 7:00 PM – 8:00 PM
The Witches: Visions of Pythia
MUSIC / DANCE
SATURDAY, MARCH 23, 2019
7:00 PM
Female Composers' Festival
Spectrum
70 Flushing Avenue, Garage A, Fort Greene, Brooklyn
$15; $10 students/seniors
http://www.spectrumnyc.com/site/calendar.php
Those of us who can't get enough of the flute/violin-viola duo The Witches will be happy to get a second shot at hearing them this week. This show is more up their usual street, original self-compositions featuring (minimalist) stage choreography for the two players. Appropriately for a women's music festival, these new pieces "reimagine" the Delphic oracle, the Pythia.
MAKE A NIGHT OF IT: I guess we'll do lovely pasta and stuff at LaRina.
-
Saturday, March 23, 2019, 3:00 PM – 4:00 PM
Washington Heights Chamber Orchestra: Simple Strings
MUSIC
SATURDAY, MARCH 23, 2019
3:00 PM
Fort Washington Collegiate Church
729 West 181st Street, Washington Heights, Manhattan
Free
https://www.washingtonheightsorchestra.org/march-strings
There are plenty of community orchestras in New York City -- but do any of them feature as consistently fresh programming as the Washington Heights Chamber Orchestra? In a program like this for string orchestra, maybe you'd expect the young Britten's delightful Simple Symphony, although I for one never hear it as much as I'd like to. Things get a little more surprising withKorngold's rarely heard (some would say for a reason) attempt to return to serious composition after gaining fame writing movie music, the Symphonic Serenade. But would you ever expect pieces by Michael Torke and Anna Clyne (her heartrending elegy for her mother)?
MAKE A NIGHT OF IT: Anyone in the neighborhood would tell you to go to George's Pizza.
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Saturday, March 23, 2019, 2:00 PM – 3:00 PM
-
Sat, Mar 23, 2019, 12:00 PM – Sun, Mar 24, 2019, 1:00 PM
Come Together: Music Festival & Label Mart
MUSIC
SATURDAY & SUNDAY, MARCH 23 & 24, 2019
12:00 PM
PS1
22-25 Jackson Avenue, Long Island City, Queens
Day pass 12:00-6:00 PM Saturday or Sunday $10 advance, $15 door; Festival pass 12:00-9:00 PM Saturday and 12:00-6:00 PM Sunday, $20 advance, $25 door
https://www.moma.org/calendar/events/5030
Co-curated by the people behind the late lamented Other Music brick-and-mortar record store, two days of live music and DJ sets by artists on the more indie/experimental side of various forms of pop music, together with films, workshops, and a huge record and merch market.
MAKE A NIGHT OF IT: After the shows, M. Wells Steakhouse: one thing I can promise you, you won't leave hungry (or unhappy!). Before the shows, Bierocracy: I've said it before and I'll say it again, nothing says weekend brunch like beer and sausage.
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Friday, March 22, 2019, 8:00 PM – 9:00 PM
Inside Her Head: The Music of Bethany Younge
MUSIC
FRIDAY, MARCH 22, 2019
8:00 PM
Female Composers' Festival
Spectrum
70 Flushing Avenue, Garage A, Fort Greene, Brooklyn
$15; $10 students/seniors
http://www.spectrumnyc.com/site/calendar.php
A younge composer (I crack myself up) whose music I just spent a some time listening to. She uses extended techniques of vocal and instrumental production in a way that is engaging and diverting rather than offputting; I for one really like it. There will be live performances, filmed performances, and a piece performed by the audience.
MAKE A NIGHT OF IT: Samui for Thai in stylish surroundings.
-
Fri, Mar 22, 2019, 8:00 PM – Sat, Mar 23, 2019, 9:00 PM
Soledad Barrio & Noche Flamenca: Entre Tú y Yo
DANCE
TUESDAY - SUNDAY, MARCH 19 - 24, 2019 (continuing through MARCH 31)
7:30 PM TUESDAY - THURSDAY
8:00 PM FRIDAY & SATURDAY
3:00 PM SUNDAY
Connelly Theater
220 East 4th Street, East Village, Manhattan
$22-$53
https://www.connellytheater.org/
After Hurricane Farruquito a couple of weeks ago, you might worry that New York's flamenco home team will look a little pale. But the ferocious Soledad Barrio is a force in herself. And Martín Santangelo's programmatic conceptions are a step beyond: they engage you intellectually as the dancing grabs you by the whatever.
MAKE A NIGHT OF IT: A place focusing almost totally on gnocchi? Sounds good to me. From a noted pizzaiolo.
-
Fri, Mar 22, 2019, 8:00 PM – Sat, Mar 23, 2019, 9:00 PM
-
Fri, Mar 22, 2019, 8:00 PM – Sun, Mar 24, 2019, 6:00 PM
Jean-Claude van Itallie: The Fat Lady Sings
THEATER
FRIDAY - SUNDAY, MARCH 22 - 24, 2019 (continuing through APRIL 7)
8:00 PM FRIDAY & SATURDAY
5:00 PM SUNDAY
La Mama
66 East 4th Street, East Village, Manhattan
$30; $25 students/seniors
http://lamama.org/fat_lady_sings/
Van Itallie, a legend of the 1960s glory days of Off-Broadway, presents a new play about the value system that has led to Trumpism. One hopes he is duly sympathetic to his subjects, who after have been and are being royally screwed. New York opera queen Lauren Flanigan stars!
MAKE A NIGHT OF IT: Let's Thai one on at Fish Cheeks.
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Friday, March 22, 2019, 7:30 PM – 8:30 PM
The Witches: Rise of the Witches
MUSIC
FRIDAY, MARCH 22, 2019
7:30 PM
Groupmuse Massivemuse
MÔTÔ Spirits
93 Forrest Street, Bushwick, Brooklyn
$20
https://www.groupmuse.com/events/8100-the-rise-of-the-witches-a-bushwick-massivemuse
The flute/violin-violin duo The Witches are solid List favorites. Inventive, interesting, exploratory. Here, they combine with a string quartet (that includesa Witch!) to play music that's more, um, normal than what they usually play -- but none the worse for that. So along with a piece by the wonderful Caroline Shaw and something by Flute Witch Louna Dekker, there'll be Bach, Mozart, and Telemann. And it's in a distillery!
MAKE A NIGHT OF IT: I've got just the place to soak up everything you drink at the distillery: Benelux (for soaking up alcohol, the mitraillette is sovereign).
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Friday, March 22, 2019, 7:30 PM – 8:30 PM
Aizuri Quartet
MUSIC
FRIDAY, MARCH 22, 2019
7:30 PM
5 Boroughs Music Festival
Tenri Cultural Institute
43 West 13th Street, Greenwich Village, Manhattan
$30; $15 students/seniors
http://5bmf.org/aizuri-quartet/
The Aizuri Quartet are like all over the place this season -- and one thing that's become clear is that they are really good. Here, just limiting things to composers whose work I know (sorry, Evan Premo!), they'll be doing Gabriella Smith's lively-with-a-bullet Carrot Revolution (if you don't absolutely love it, I'll refund you the price of this newsletter); some of Komitas's entrancingArmenian folksong arrangements; and, joined by the excellent soprano Mary Bonhag (married to Evan Premo, so I guess he'll get two mentions in any event), Schoenberg's landmark Second String Quartet, in which you can hear tonality start to crumble before your ears.
MAKE A NIGHT OF IT: Hip Indian at Babu Ji.
-
Friday, March 22, 2019, 7:00 PM – 8:00 PM
-
Friday, March 22, 2019, 7:00 PM – 8:00 PM
-
Friday, March 22, 2019, 5:00 PM – 6:00 PM
Feldman: For Philip Guston
MUSIC
FRIDAY, MARCH 22, 2019
5:00 PM
S.E.M. Ensemble
Willow Place Auditorium
26 Willow Place, Brooklyn Heights, Brooklyn
Free (registration available)
https://www.eventbrite.com/e/the-sem-ensemble-presents-for-philip-guston-tickets-57632618714
Composer Morton Feldman and painter Philip Guston were best friends until Guston's return to figurative painting from Abstract Expressionism alienated Feldman (people were serious back then). When Guston died about 10 years later, Feldman felt bad enough to compose a five-hour piece in his memory. And it's one of Feldman's absolute masterpieces. These hyper-expansive late Feldman pieces are unlike anything else in music: you're like, "I'm bored, I'm bored, I'm bored, I'm . . . transported! I'm fascinated! I'm enraptured! The slightest harmonic variation has never hit me with such sublime force before! Time has become meaningless to me!" If you can get behind Bruckner on the one hand or Autechre on the other, you owe it to yourself to try Feldman, if you haven't already.
MAKE A NIGHT OF IT: After five hours of harmonic floating, a nice dinner is, happily, right around the corner: the eminently pleasant Sardinian spot River Deli. (N.B.: Cash only.)
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Thursday, March 21, 2019, 9:30 PM – 10:30 PM
The TEAM/National Theater of Scotland: Anything that Gives Off Light
THEATER
MONDAY & WEDNESDAY - SUNDAY, MARCH 18 & 20 - 24, 2019 (continuing through MARCH 30)
7:00 PM MONDAY, WEDNESDAY & FRIDAY - SUNDAY
9:30 PM THURSDAY
Joe's Pub, The Public Theater
425 Lafayette Street, NoHo, Manhattan
$35
https://publictheater.org/en/Tickets/Calendar/PlayDetailsCollection/Joes-Pub/2019/Anything-That-Gives-Off-Light/
Brooklyn's The TEAM -- theatrical explorers of contemporary America -- teams up with the National Theater of Scotland to add Scotland to the locus of exploration. The piece -- described as "rowdy" -- starts in a London pub and then moves on (as things that start in pubs do) to the Scottish Highlands and our own Appalachians. For once, the accompanying music of the Bengsons won't seem too folky.
MAKE A NIGHT OF IT: Of course, Joe's Pub is a bar with good-enough food and drinks -- and there's a two-drink or $12-for-food minimum. My own recommendation is to skip the food and have two cocktails -- and then over to Setegaya for ramen.
-
Thursday, March 21, 2019, 9:00 PM – 10:00 PM
Ensemble NeoN
MUSIC
THURSDAY, MARCH 21, 2019
9:00 PM
Experimental Intermedia
224 Centre Street, Little Italy, Manhattan
Ticket price unavailable
https://www.facebook.com/events/395163047966643/
Bringing coals to Newcastle (but coals we want), Oslo's New Music Ensemble NeoN plays some music by New York's own Phill Niblock (who, one must note, runs the venue), creator of compelling textures. Speaking of compelling textures, they're also doing a piece by Catherine Lamb, whose spaced-out pieces I've become rather obsessed with over the last year or so.
MAKE A NIGHT OF IT: There's no better wine bar than Compagnie des Vins Surnaturels. And their kitchen will still be open after the show!
-
Thursday, March 21, 2019, 9:00 PM – 10:00 PM
-
Thursday, March 21, 2019, 8:00 PM – 9:00 PM
María Grand: Music as a User's Manual
MUSIC
THURSDAY, MARCH 21, 2019
8:00 PM
Roulette
509 Atlantic Avenue (entrance on 3rd Avenue), Boerum Hill, Brooklyn
$18 advance; $25 door
http://roulette.org/event/maria-grand-music-as-a-users-manual/
María Grand is the very picture of an up-and-comer on the saxophone. She has great ideas, both musically and conceptually, and a fluent technique. Tonight she'll play a solo piece (including her own vocals) and with an ensemble.
MAKE A NIGHT OF IT: Grand Army Bar for splendid cocktails and surprisingly good food.
-
Thursday, March 21, 2019, 8:00 PM – 9:00 PM
Mark Fell feat. Okkyung Lee / Kara-Lis Coverdale: Solo Organ / LXV
MUSIC
THURSDAY, MARCH 21, 2019
8:00 PM
First Unitarian Congregational Society
119 Pierrepont Street, Brooklyn Heights, Brooklyn
$25
https://issueprojectroom.org/event/mark-fell-okkyung-lee-kara-lis-coverdale-solo-organ-lxv
A night of fascinating experimental electronic and electronic-associated music. Mark Lee, who came out of the Sheffield techno scene, in his first U.S. collaboration with the experimental cellist Okkyung Lee, plays new music based on Indian rhythmic structures. Philadelphia sonic explorer LXV will use processed human voice and synthesized found media sounds. Most intriguing of all, Montreal's Kara-Lis Coverdale (a onetime church organist) will play a set of spacey music made for the church's pipe organ.
MAKE A NIGHT OF IT: Brooklyn Heights closes early. Your best bet is to walk over to The Long Island Bar.
-
Thursday, March 21, 2019, 7:30 PM – 8:30 PM
-
Thu, Mar 21, 2019, 7:30 PM – Sat, Mar 23, 2019, 8:30 PM
Sasha Velour: Smoke & Mirrors
PERFORMANCE
THURSDAY - SATURDAY, MARCH 21 - 23, 2019 (continuing through MARCH 30)
7:30 PM
New York Live Arts
219 West 19th Street, Chelsea, Manhattan
$25-$150
https://newyorklivearts.org/event/smoke-mirrors/
Drag queen supreme Sasha Velour does her first one-woman show!
MAKE A NIGHT OF IT: You wished chefed-up pan-Latin faux-lunch counter Coppelia were a little bit better -- more imaginative, more technically precise -- than it is. But only a little bit: as is, it's really quite good. And props for being open all night!
-
Thu, Mar 21, 2019, 7:00 PM – Sun, Mar 24, 2019, 3:00 PM
-
Thursday, March 21, 2019, 7:00 PM – 8:00 PM
Paul O'Dette: Mr. Dowland's Midnight
MUSIC
THURSDAY, MARCH 21, 2019
7:00 PM
Music Before 1800
Kockiuszko Foundation
15 East 65th Street, Upper East Side, Manhattan
$35
https://mb1800.org/concert/paul-odette-lute/
Paul O'Dette playing the exquisitely sad lute music of English Renaissance master John Dowland is about as sure a thing as there is. So big surprise that this show is sold out. Look for last-minute cancellations.
MAKE A NIGHT OF IT: Walk over a block and go to the bar at Restaurant Daniel. Or, get in a cab and get the fuck out of that intolerable neighborhood. (Before the show, you can have an absolutely fantastic turkey club at the Viand, followed by an ambrosial rice pudding.)
-
Wednesday, March 20, 2019, 9:00 PM – 10:00 PM
-
Wednesday, March 20, 2019, 8:00 PM – 9:00 PM
Thomas Adès: Piano Concerto
MUSIC
WEDNESDAY, MARCH 20, 2019
8:00 PM
Boston Symphony Orchestra
Carnegie Hall
881 7th Avenue, Midtown, Manhattan
$15-$161
https://www.carnegiehall.org/Calendar/2019/03/20/Boston-Symphony-Orchestra-0800PM
Thomas Adès is a composer who shows there's still life left in mainstream classical music. It's hard not to get excited about a new Piano Concerto from him -- especially when it was written for, and played, by no less a probingly intellectual virtuoso as Kirill Gerstein. What's odd is that the rest of the program, conducted by composer Adès, comprises music that strikes me as affirmatively bad (the orchestral version of Liszt's Mephisto Waltz No. 1 and -- spare us -- Tchaikovsky's Fourth Symphony). Which I guess shows that just because you like a composer, it doesn't mean you share his taste. Maybe Adès is trying to make a point, in view of the reportedly intentional (and completely welcome) throw-back style of his new concerto.
MAKE A NIGHT OF IT: After sitting through close to an hour of vulgar Russian self-dramatization, you deserve a good time: the jolly Cuban bar and restaurant Guantanamera.
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Wed, Mar 20, 2019, 8:00 PM – Sat, Mar 23, 2019, 9:00 PM
William Burke: Variations on the Main
THEATER
WEDNESDAY - SATURDAY, MARCH 20 - 23, 2019 (continuing through MARCH 30)
8:00 PM
JACK
505 1/2 Waverly Avenue, Clinton Hill, Brooklyn
$18
http://www.jackny.org/variations.html
If you go to the theater in Brooklyn, chances are you've seen the work of William Burke. A bear of a playwright (and sometimes performer), he's happily ubiquitous on Brooklyn stages -- and, as far as I'm concerned, always more than welcome, his work funny, astute, and joyously non-linear. Here, along with singer-songwriter Catherine Brookman, he presents "a theatrical séance for listening". I'd forego trying to suss that out and just go.
MAKE A NIGHT OF IT: It must look like back-scratching, but I can't help it if my friends run great places. Mekelburg's Clinton Hill (a/k/a OG Mekelburg's): have some caviar pie, have a Nana's Meatloaf sandwich, have lots of beer.
-
Wed, Mar 20, 2019, 8:00 PM – Sat, Mar 23, 2019, 9:00 PM
Kristine Haruna Lee: Suicide Forest
THEATER
WEDNESDAY - SATURDAY, MARCH 20 - 23, 2019
8:00 PM
Bushwick Starr
207 Starr Street, Bushwick, Brooklyn
$30
https://www.thebushwickstarr.org/suicide-forest
Kristine Haruna Lee makes fanciful theater pieces that are bursting with life. Does she overreach sometimes? Sure -- but better that than tired theater that just sits there, dead on the stage. This play deals with some of the oppressive aspects of Japanese-American culture, with suicide looming large. But this is Kristine Haruna Lee, so it'll still be alive.
MAKE A NIGHT OF IT: Joachim Baca, who jumpstarted David Chang's empire at the original Momofuku Noodle Bar, has just opened Teo -- a sort of experimental, fushiony (mainly fusing with U.S. Southern cooking) izakaya -- right here on Starr Street. In Baca's hands, fusion is nothing to worry about: years of eating his stuff has made me wonder if he's even capable of turning out anything that isn't absolutely delicious.
-
Wed, Mar 20, 2019, 7:30 PM – Sat, Mar 23, 2019, 8:30 PM
Little Lord: SKINNAMARINK
THEATER
MONDAY & WEDNESDAY - SATURDAY, MARCH 18 & 20 -23, 2019
7:30 PM
NYTW Next Door
4th Street Theater
83 East 4th Street, East Village, Manhattan
$30-$40
https://www.nytw.org/show/skinnamarink/
A follow-up to/further development of this riotous theater company's The Peanut Butter Show of last year, this antic piece explores, in hilarious manner, the brutal world evoked by McGuffey's Eclectic Readers, the basic pedagogical tools in American schools from the mid-19th to the mid-20th Century -- still in use in some places today.
MAKE A NIGHT OF IT: Modern Mexican at The Black Ant -- one of the few places in Manhattan where you can count on getting chapulines.
-
Wednesday, March 20, 2019, 7:30 PM – 8:30 PM
-
Wednesday, March 20, 2019, 7:30 PM – 8:30 PM
Voices of Ascension: A Voice of Her Own
MUSIC
WEDNESDAY, MARCH 20, 2019
7:30 PM
The Brick Church
1140 Park Avenue, Upper East Side, Manhattan
$10-$85
https://www.brownpapertickets.com/event/3513373
This excellent chorus presents a concert of music by female composers through the ages, which is nice enough. But even better is that the program ranges from Hildegard von Bingen, one of the peaks of medieval music, to a new piece by the marvelous composer (and chorister) Bora Yoon, whose music combines various technologies and influences from throughout the ages. Along the way is a piece by early 20th Century African-American composer Florence Price, whose work is receiving more and more attention.
MAKE A NIGHT OF IT: Table d'Hote has been a good bistro for as long as I've known what a good bistro is. And it still is.
-
Wednesday, March 20, 2019, 7:00 PM – 8:00 PM
-
Wed, Mar 20, 2019, 7:00 PM – Sun, Mar 24, 2019, 8:00 PM
The TEAM/National Theater of Scotland: Anything that Gives Off Light
THEATER
MONDAY & WEDNESDAY - SUNDAY, MARCH 18 & 20 - 24, 2019 (continuing through MARCH 30)
7:00 PM MONDAY, WEDNESDAY & FRIDAY - SUNDAY
9:30 PM THURSDAY
Joe's Pub, The Public Theater
425 Lafayette Street, NoHo, Manhattan
$35
https://publictheater.org/en/Tickets/Calendar/PlayDetailsCollection/Joes-Pub/2019/Anything-That-Gives-Off-Light/
Brooklyn's The TEAM -- theatrical explorers of contemporary America -- teams up with the National Theater of Scotland to add Scotland to the locus of exploration. The piece -- described as "rowdy" -- starts in a London pub and then moves on (as things that start in pubs do) to the Scottish Highlands and our own Appalachians. For once, the accompanying music of the Bengsons won't seem too folky.
MAKE A NIGHT OF IT: Of course, Joe's Pub is a bar with good-enough food and drinks -- and there's a two-drink or $12-for-food minimum. My own recommendation is to skip the food and have two cocktails -- and then over to Setegaya for ramen.
-
Wednesday, March 20, 2019, 7:00 PM – 8:00 PM
Patrick Higgins: TOCSIN
MUSIC
WEDNESDAY, MARCH 20, 2019
7:00 PM
Metropolis x BLUEPRINTS In Visible Roads Piano Festival
1 Rivington
1 Rivington Street, Lower East Side, Manhattan
$15; $10 students; $100 festival pass (festival continues through April 21)
https://metropolisensemble.org/all-events/tocsin
The star event of the first week of this contemporary-leaning piano festival. Composer Patrick Higgins is the guitarist of Zs, a galvanic band that mines No Wave, Post-Minimalist, noise, and drone in a way that makes it one of New York's premiere avant-garde music ensembles. His piece is a trio for piano and two cellos. And the players are Vicky Chow (of the Bang On A Can All-Stars), Jay Campbell (of the JACK Quartet), and Mariel Roberts (of all-over-the-place)!
MAKE A NIGHT OF IT: When you're at 1 Rivington, you inevitably come to consider visiting Loreley Beer Garden, which is basically right next door. The question is, why would you not go there?
-
Wednesday, March 20, 2019, 2:00 PM – 3:00 PM
-
Tuesday, March 19, 2019, 8:00 PM – 9:00 PM
-
Tue, Mar 19, 2019, 8:00 PM – Sun, Mar 24, 2019, 7:00 PM
Wooster Group: The B-Side
THEATER
TUESDAY - SUNDAY, MARCH 19 -24, 2019 (continuing through MARCH 31)
8:00 PM TUESDAY - SATURDAY
5:00 PM SUNDAY)
St. Ann's Warehouse
45 Water Street, DUMBO, Brooklyn
$40-$55
https://stannswarehouse.org/show/the-b-side/
Another of those shows where New York's leading avant-theater company, the Wooster Group, "performs" a record album, this time a set of "Negro" work songs, spirituals, and toasts recorded in 1964 in a segregated Texas prison farm (no, sorry, not Parchman Farm -- that was in Mississippi).
MAKE A NIGHT OF IT: Great views, good Mediterranean food at Celestine.
-
Tue, Mar 19, 2019, 7:30 PM – Thu, Mar 21, 2019, 8:30 PM
Soledad Barrio & Noche Flamenca: Entre Tú y Yo
DANCE
TUESDAY - SUNDAY, MARCH 19 - 24, 2019 (continuing through MARCH 31)
7:30 PM TUESDAY - THURSDAY
8:00 PM FRIDAY & SATURDAY
3:00 PM SUNDAY
Connelly Theater
220 East 4th Street, East Village, Manhattan
$22-$53
https://www.connellytheater.org/
After Hurricane Farruquito a couple of weeks ago, you might worry that New York's flamenco home team will look a little pale. But the ferocious Soledad Barrio is a force in herself. And Martín Santangelo's programmatic conceptions are a step beyond: they engage you intellectually as the dancing grabs you by the whatever.
MAKE A NIGHT OF IT: A place focusing almost totally on gnocchi? Sounds good to me. From a noted pizzaiolo.
-
Tue, Mar 19, 2019, 7:30 PM – Sat, Mar 23, 2019, 8:30 PM
-
Tuesday, March 19, 2019, 7:30 PM – 8:30 PM
Samitha Sinha
MUSIC
TUESDAY, MARCH 19, 2018
7:30 PM
Pan Asia Sounding Festival
National Sawdust
80 North 6th Street, Williamsburg, Brooklyn
$20
https://nationalsawdust.org/event/samita-sinha/
Kicking off a festival curated by the great composer Du Yun of contemporary music from Asia, singer-songwriter/conceptualist Samitha Sinha deconstructs classical Indian art forms to show how they represent (and misrepresent) (and indeed construct) the female body. She's joined by the other members of her old Indo-indie-pop band Tongues in Trees, Brooklyn bhangra percussion legend Sonny Jain and experimental guitarist Grey McMurray.
MAKE A NIGHT OF IT: Great oysters, good Cajun/Creole food, good wine at Maison Premiere.
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Tuesday, March 19, 2019, 7:00 PM – 8:00 PM
Kristin Lee & Jeremy Jordan: Americana
MUSIC
TUESDAY, MARCH 19, 2019
7:00 PM
Metropolis Ensemble x BLUEPRINTS In Visible Roads Piano Festival
1 Rivington
1 Rivington Street, Lower East Side, Manhattan
$15; $10 students; $100 festival pass (festival continues through April 21)
https://metropolisensemble.org/all-events/americana
This festival of contemporary-oriented music featuring the piano starts with a crowd-pleasing recital of jazz-and-standards arrangements and new pieces, with an emphasis on improvisation.
MAKE A NIGHT OF IT: Spicy Village for their famous Big Tray Chicken.
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Tuesday, March 19, 2019, 7:00 PM – 8:00 PM
Tuesday Night Mega Power Concerts: Jeffrey Gavett feat. Ian Power / Chris Chriswell
MUSIC
TUESDAY, MARCH 19, 2019
7:00 & 8:30 PM
Areté Venue & Gallery
67 West Street #103, Greenpoint, Brooklyn
$15 each set
https://www.aretevenue.com/events
A further installment of this series of shows featuring a set by a member of the exciting voice/wind quaret loadbang and another set by a selected musician. This time the loadbang representative is the voice, Jeffrey Gavett. Among the pieces he'll perform is one by Wolfgang Mitterer, which is certainly something worth leaving home for. The second set is of music written by or for the guitarist Chris Chriswell.
MAKE A NIGHT OF IT: Maybe this early in the week you can get into smash-hit Vietnamese hotspot Di An Di. If not, a few doors down is Paulie Gee's (the OG whole-pie restaurant).
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Monday, March 18, 2019, 8:00 PM – 9:00 PM
This Is Not This Heat
MUSIC
MONDAY, MARCH 18, 2019
8:00 PM
(Le) Poisson Rouge
158 Bleecker Street, Greenwich Village, Manhattan
$30 advance; $35 door
https://lpr.com/lpr_events/this-is-not-this-heat-march-18th-2019/
This Heat were legends behind the Engish punk-into-post-punk-into-industrial scene. Of course they didn't last; no one could keep that up. But now they've reconstituted (to the extent they're still alive). There are hints that this will be the last time they play in New York.
MAKE A NIGHT OF IT: After the maelstrom of (This Is Not) This Heat, time to relax with the charming homestyle Japanese at Bessou.
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Monday, March 18, 2019, 8:00 PM – 9:00 PM
Cecilia Lopez: Dos (tres)/Bifurcation feat. Aki Onda
MUSIC
MONDAY, MARCH 18, 2019
8:00 PM
Roulette
509 Atlantic Avenue (entrance on 3rd Avenue), Boerum Hill, Brooklyn
$18 advance; $25 door
http://roulette.org/event/cecilia-lopez-bifurcations/
Composer/multimedia artist Cecilia Lopez presents two pieces. One is music for brass and electronics (it doesn't hurt that one of the brass is the galvanic trumpeter Joe Moffett). The other piece features Lopez and another composer/multimedia artist, Aki Onda, playing simultaneous feedback compositions, Lopez on handmade instruments, Onda in tandem with his custom lighting system.
MAKE A NIGHT OF IT: And then to Bedouin Tent, for some of the best pita you've ever had (and pretty wonderful things put on or in it).
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Monday, March 18, 2019, 7:30 PM – 8:30 PM
Little Lord: SKINNAMARINK
THEATER
MONDAY & WEDNESDAY - SATURDAY, MARCH 18 & 20 -23, 2019
7:30 PM
NYTW Next Door
4th Street Theater
83 East 4th Street, East Village, Manhattan
$30-$40
https://www.nytw.org/show/skinnamarink/
A follow-up to/further development of this riotous theater company's The Peanut Butter Show of last year, this antic piece explores, in hilarious manner, the brutal world evoked by McGuffey's Eclectic Readers, the basic pedagogical tools in American schools from the mid-19th to the mid-20th Century -- still in use in some places today.
MAKE A NIGHT OF IT: Modern Mexican at The Black Ant -- one of the few places in Manhattan where you can count on getting chapulines.
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Monday, March 18, 2019, 7:00 PM – 8:00 PM
The TEAM/National Theater of Scotland: Anything that Gives Off Light
THEATER
MONDAY & WEDNESDAY - SUNDAY, MARCH 18 & 20 - 24, 2019 (continuing through MARCH 30)
7:00 PM MONDAY, WEDNESDAY & FRIDAY - SUNDAY
9:30 PM THURSDAY
Joe's Pub, The Public Theater
425 Lafayette Street, NoHo, Manhattan
$35
https://publictheater.org/en/Tickets/Calendar/PlayDetailsCollection/Joes-Pub/2019/Anything-That-Gives-Off-Light/
Brooklyn's The TEAM -- theatrical explorers of contemporary America -- teams up with the National Theater of Scotland to add Scotland to the locus of exploration. The piece -- described as "rowdy" -- starts in a London pub and then moves on (as things that start in pubs do) to the Scottish Highlands and our own Appalachians. For once, the accompanying music of the Bengsons won't seem too folky.
MAKE A NIGHT OF IT: Of course, Joe's Pub is a bar with good-enough food and drinks -- and there's a two-drink or $12-for-food minimum. My own recommendation is to skip the food and have two cocktails -- and then over to Setegaya for ramen.
-
Mon, Mar 18, 2019, 2:00 PM – Sat, Mar 23, 2019, 9:00 PM
Taylor Mac: Gary: A Sequel to Titus Andronicus
THEATER
MONDAY - SATURDAY, MARCH 18 - 23, 2019
8:00 PM MONDAY - SATURDAY
2:00 PM MONDAY
Taylor Mac: Gary: A Sequel to Titus Andronicus
Booth Theatre
222 West 45th Street, Midtown, Manhattan
$39-$275
https://garyonbroadway.com/
I've wondered what it would take to get me to List a Broadway show. Written by Taylor Mac? Starring Nathan Lane and Andrea Martin? (Oops! Lost Andrea Martin.) Directed by George C. Wolfe? I guess this has what it takes. Hope it's hilarious. The title sure is.
MAKE A NIGHT OF IT: It's been decades, but I remember thinking the vaguely Venetian Osteria al Doge was pretty good. Stays open late like a Theater District restaurant should, too. But what you really want, after dinner (or after the show if you've already eaten), is the new cocktail lounge Blue, from the Blue Ribbon folks.
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Sunday, March 17, 2019, 8:00 PM – 9:00 PM
-
Sunday, March 17, 2019, 8:00 PM – 9:00 PM
Gamelan Dharma Swara
MUSIC
SUNDAY, MARCH 17, 2019
8:00 PM
Areté Venue & Gallery
67 West Street #103, Greenpoint, Brooklyn
$20
https://www.dharmaswara.org/calendar/2019/3/17/aret-gallery
I'm really in the mood for some gamelan. So how nice that what is probably New York's leading gamelan ensemble is giving a concert/dance performance this week. There really is nothing like the hypnotic yet kinetic sound produced by these orchestras of gongs (as Debussy, for one, would have been the first to tell you).
MAKE A NIGHT OF IT: Maybe on a Sunday night you can get into the gorgeous Vietnamese hot spot Di An Di.
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Sunday, March 17, 2019, 3:00 PM – 4:00 PM
Soledad Barrio & Noche Flamenca: Entre Tú y Yo
DANCE
TUESDAY - SUNDAY, MARCH 12 - 17, 2019 (continuing through MARCH 31)
7:30 PM TUESDAY - THURSDAY
8:00 PM FRIDAY & SATURDAY
3:00 PM SUNDAY
Connelly Theater
220 East 4th Street, East Village, Manhattan
$22-$53
https://www.connellytheater.org/
After Hurricane Farruquito a couple of weeks ago, you might worry that New York's flamenco home team will look a little pale. But the ferocious Soledad Barrio is a force in herself. And Martín Santangelo's programmatic conceptions are a step beyond: they engage you intellectually as the dancing grabs you by the whatever.
MAKE A NIGHT OF IT: A place focusing almost totally on gnocchi? Sounds good to me. From a noted pizzaiolo.
-
Saturday, March 16, 2019, 8:00 PM – 9:00 PM
-
Saturday, March 16, 2019, 7:00 PM – 8:00 PM
Symbiosis: Coco Karol / Sxip Shirey
MUSIC / DANCE
SATURDAY, MARCH 16, 2019
7:00 PM
Spectrum
70 Flushing Avenue, Garage A, Fort Greene, Brooklyn
$15; $10 students/seniors
http://www.spectrumnyc.com/site/calendar.php
Another installment of this series combining music and dance. This is a particularly close collaboration, as the participants are married to each other. Probably they will present some version of their joint piece The Gauntlet, in which the audience, led by dancer Karol, moves between lines of chorus members standing on footstools who relay to one another, down the line, phrases sung to the chorister at the end by musician Shirey (the American Tom Zé, I've just realized).
MAKE A NIGHT OF IT: I guess we'll do lovely pasta and stuff at LaRina.
-
Saturday, March 16, 2019, 6:00 PM – 7:00 PM
-
Saturday, March 16, 2019, 12:00 PM – 6:00 PM
Ariadne Greif: An Opera Singer Serenades a Puddle
PERFORMANCE
SATURDAY, MARCH 16, 2019
12:00 - 6:00 PM
Art in General
145 Plymouth Street, DUMBO, Brooklyn
Free
https://www.artingeneral.org/exhibitions/679
So artist Ander Mikalson has this exhibition, Scores for a Black Hole, in which various performers interact with a seven-foot hole filled with black ink. Today features the ab fab Baroque/New Music soprano Ariadne Greif singing to the hole. Also, A Choreographer Scores an Action for a Sinkhole, featuring dancers Katie Gaydos and Madeline Hollander.
MAKE A NIGHT OF IT: Pedro's has been serving Mexican food (with some Dominican ringers) to hungry and thirsty guests for, like, forever. Take a hit of the old DUMBO before it all goes away.
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Friday, March 15, 2019, 8:00 PM – 9:00 PM
Pas Musique: Record Release Party
MUSIC
FRIDAY, MARCH 15, 2019
8:00 PM
Muchmore's
2 Havermeyer Street, Williamsburg, Brooklyn
$10
https://www.facebook.com/events/283426575887096/
Long-running Brooklyn experimental electronic (with some Krautrock thrown in for good measure) band Pas Musique celebrates the release of a new album.
MAKE A NIGHT OF IT: Muchmore's is a bar, so they should take care of all your beverage needs. To soak it up, Best Pizza: you'll thank me.
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Friday, March 15, 2019, 8:00 PM – 9:00 PM
Rafiq Bhatia: Breaking English
MUSIC
FRIDAY, MARCH 15, 2019
8:00 PM
The Kitchen
512 West 19th Street, Chelsea, Manhattan
$20
https://thekitchen.org/event/rafiq-bhatia-breaking-english
Guitarist Rafiq Bhatia is really one of the most intriguing musicians out there right now. The Times accurately described his current music as "not quite jazz and not quite electronica." But whatever it is, it's great, eclectic and sonically disruptive. Tonight, Bhatia and associates will play the music from his excellent album of last year, Breaking English -- accompanied by "immersive" visuals.
MAKE A NIGHT OF IT: Good sushi will never be really cheap, but Ushiwakamaru is one of the better sushi values in New York.
-
Fri, Mar 15, 2019, 8:00 PM – Sat, Mar 16, 2019, 9:00 PM
Soledad Barrio & Noche Flamenca: Entre Tú y Yo
DANCE
TUESDAY - SUNDAY, MARCH 12 - 17, 2019 (continuing through MARCH 31)
7:30 PM TUESDAY - THURSDAY
8:00 PM FRIDAY & SATURDAY
3:00 PM SUNDAY
Connelly Theater
220 East 4th Street, East Village, Manhattan
$22-$53
https://www.connellytheater.org/
After Hurricane Farruquito a couple of weeks ago, you might worry that New York's flamenco home team will look a little pale. But the ferocious Soledad Barrio is a force in herself. And Martín Santangelo's programmatic conceptions are a step beyond: they engage you intellectually as the dancing grabs you by the whatever.
MAKE A NIGHT OF IT: A place focusing almost totally on gnocchi? Sounds good to me. From a noted pizzaiolo.
-
Fri, Mar 15, 2019, 8:00 PM – Sat, Mar 16, 2019, 9:00 PM
-
Friday, March 15, 2019, 7:00 PM – 11:00 PM
Tei Blow / Laurel Atwell: Entry
DANCE / PERFORMANCE
FRIDAY, MARCH 15, 2019
7:00 & 9:00 PM
Baryshnikov Arts Center
450 West 37th Street, Hell's Kitchen, Manhattan
$15
https://bacnyc.org/performances/performance/tei-blow-with-laurel-atwell
I don't usually recommend works-in-progress. But this one is too tempting to skip. A sound/video designer and a choreographer combine to reimagine Merce Cunningham and John Cage's Ocean, originally presented as a dance in the round in which the dancers were surrounded by the audience, which was in turn surrounded by some 112 musicians playing Cage's score. Here, the immersion is accomplished by having the audience lie on the (fleece-blanketed) floor staring at projections on the ceiling. Let's face it: any production that combines the concepts "Cage", "Cunningham", "psychedelic", and "lie on the floor and stare at projections on the ceiling" has got me.
MAKE A NIGHT OF IT: Today is the day the restaurants at Hudson Yards start to open. First, let's try Northern California meat purveyor Belcampo.
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Friday, March 15, 2019, 7:00 PM – 8:00 PM
Shawn Jaeger: Places We Know
MUSIC
FRIDAY, MARCH 15, 2018
7:00 PM
Areté Venue & Gallery
67 West Street #103, Greenpoint, Brooklyn
$15
https://www.aretevenue.com/events
This is how you make use of American folk music in classical composition. Shawn Jaeger writes this incredibly appealing, highly original music with strong Appalachian folk/hymn elements. The main event tonight is a new piece for digital piano trio, played by the questing ensemble Longleash, about memory and place, incorporating field recordings from New York City and Kentucky. There will also be some songs sung by Lucy Dhegrae; when you're married to one of the best singers in New York (or anywhere, really), it only makes sense to write for her.
MAKE A NIGHT OF IT: The English/Canadian-inflected charmer Chez Ma Tante would be nice after this show.
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Friday, March 15, 2019, 6:30 PM – 7:30 PM
The Music of Lee Hyla
MUSIC
FRIDAY, MARCH 15, 2019
6:30 PM
The Stone at the New School
55 West 13th Street, Greenwich Village, Manhattan
$20
http://thestonenyc.com/calendar.php
Cellist Bryan Hayslett and associates present a set of music by the fantastic composer Lee Hyla, who incorporated jazz, punk, and rock influences into a unique, propulsive classical style.
MAKE A NIGHT OF IT: Maybe you'll be able to get into the red-hot neo-Red Sauce Don Angie and figure out why it's so popular.
-
Thursday, March 14, 2019, 8:30 PM – 9:30 PM
-
Thursday, March 14, 2019, 8:00 PM – 9:00 PM
-
Thu, Mar 14, 2019, 8:00 PM – Sat, Mar 16, 2019, 9:00 PM
William Burke: Variations on the Main
THEATER
THURSDAY - SATURDAY, MARCH 14 - 16, 2019 (continuing through MARCH 30)
8:00 PM
JACK
505 1/2 Waverly Avenue, Clinton Hill, Brooklyn
$18
http://www.jackny.org/variations.html
If you go to the theater in Brooklyn, chances are you've seen the work of William Burke. A bear of a playwright (and sometimes performer), he's happily ubiquitous on Brooklyn stages -- and, as far as I'm concerned, always more than welcome, his work funny, astute, and joyously non-linear. Here, along with singer-songwriter Catherine Brookman, he presents "a theatrical séance for listening". I'd forego trying to suss that out and just go.
MAKE A NIGHT OF IT: It must look like back-scratching, but I can't help it if my friends run great places. Mekelburg's Clinton Hill (a/k/a OG Mekelburg's): have some caviar pie, have a Nana's Meatloaf sandwich, have lots of beer.
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Thursday, March 14, 2019, 7:30 PM – 8:30 PM
Magos Herrera feat. Brooklyn Rider: Dreamers
MUSIC
THURSDAY, MARCH 14, 2019
7:30 PM
National Sawdust
80 North 6th Street, Williamsburg, Brooklyn
$29
https://nationalsawdust.org/event/magos-herrera-with-brooklyn-rider/
Mexican jazz diva Magos Herrera teams with Brooklyn's favorite string quartet for a set of songs that, on record, was extremely attractive.
MAKE A NIGHT OF IT: My personal interest in a restaurant showcasing local (or any) vegetables could hardly be lower. But people seem to like Harvey.
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Thu, Mar 14, 2019, 7:00 PM – Sun, Mar 17, 2019, 8:00 PM
Quendra Multimedia: 55 Shades of Gay: Balkan Spring of Sexual Revolution
THEATER
MONDAY & THURSDAY - SUNDAY, MARCH 11 & 14 - 17, 2019
7:00 PM MONDAY & THURSDAY - SATURDAY
3:00 PM SUNDAY
La Mama
66 East 4th Street, East Village, Manhattan
$25; $20 students/seniors
http://lamama.org/shades_of_gay/
A burlesque by Kosavar playwright Jeton Neziraj questioning whether sexual liberation is even possible in the Balkans. Expect a lot of unforgivingly bitter ironic sarcasm along the way.
MAKE A NIGHT OF IT: I just learned that the milonga I wandered into at the Ukrainian National Home restaurant one night wasn't the bizarre fever dream I imagined but rather a regular weekly Monday-night event. So if you go on Monday, you too can have the surreal experience of eating very Ukrainian food in a very Ukrainian dining room with people passing in and out in tango togs. Apart from that, expect food that will stick to each and every one of your ribs.
-
Thu, Mar 14, 2019, 7:00 PM – Sat, Mar 16, 2019, 8:00 PM
The TEAM / National Theater of Scotland: Anything that Gives Off Light
THEATER
THURSDAY - SATURDAY, MARCH 14 - 16, 2019 (continuing through MARCH 30)
7:00 PM
Joe's Pub, The Public Theater
425 Lafayette Street, NoHo, Manhattan
$35
https://publictheater.org/en/Tickets/Calendar/PlayDetailsCollection/Joes-Pub/2019/Anything-That-Gives-Off-Light/
Brooklyn's The TEAM -- theatrical explorers of contemporary America -- teams up with the National Theater of Scotland to add Scotland to the locus of exploration. The piece -- described as "rowdy" -- starts in a London pub and then moves on (as things that start in pubs do) to the Scottish Highlands and our own Appalachians. For once, the accompanying music of the Bengsons won't seem too folky.
MAKE A NIGHT OF IT: Of course, Joe's Pub is a bar with good-enough food and drinks -- and there's a two-drink or $12-for-food minimum. My own recommendation is to skip the food and have two cocktails -- and then over to Setegaya for ramen.
-
Wed, Mar 13, 2019, 8:00 PM – Sat, Mar 16, 2019, 9:00 PM
Kristine Haruna Lee: Suicide Forest
THEATER
WEDNESDAY - SATURDAY, MARCH 13 - 16, 2019 (continuing through MARCH 23)
8:00 PM
Bushwick Starr
207 Starr Street, Bushwick, Brooklyn
$30
https://www.thebushwickstarr.org/suicide-forest
Kristine Haruna Lee makes fanciful theater pieces that are bursting with life. Does she overreach sometimes? Sure -- but better that than tired theater that just sits there, dead on the stage. This play deals with some of the oppressive aspects of Japanese-American culture, with suicide looming large. But this is Kristine Haruna Lee, so it'll still be alive.
MAKE A NIGHT OF IT: Joachim Baca, who jumpstarted David Chang's empire at the original Momofuku Noodle Bar, has just opened Teo -- a sort of experimental, fushiony (mainly fusing with U.S. Southern cooking) izakaya -- right here on Starr Street. In Baca's hands, fusion is nothing to worry about: years of eating his stuff has made me wonder if he's even capable of turning out anything that isn't absolutely delicious.
-
Wed, Mar 13, 2019, 7:30 PM – Sun, Mar 17, 2019, 8:30 PM
Little Lord: SKINNAMARINK
THEATER
MONDAY & WEDNESDAY - SUNDAY, MARCH 11 & 13 - 17, 2019 (continuing through MARCH 23)
7:30 PM MONDAY & WEDNESDAY - SATURDAY
3:00 PM SUNDAY
NYTW Next Door
4th Street Theater
83 East 4th Street, East Village, Manhattan
$30-$40
https://www.nytw.org/show/skinnamarink/
A follow-up to/further development of this riotous theater company's The Peanut Butter Show of last year, this antic piece explores, in hilarious manner, the brutal effects of McGuffey's Eclectic Readers, the basic pedagogical tools in American schools from the mid-19th to the mid-20th Century -- still in use in some places today.
MAKE A NIGHT OF IT: Modern Mexican at The Black Ant -- one of the few places in Manhattan where you can count on getting chapulines.
-
Wednesday, March 13, 2019, 7:30 PM – 8:30 PM
-
Wednesday, March 13, 2019, 7:30 PM – 8:30 PM
Thomas Adès/Kirill Gerstein
MUSIC
WEDNESDAY, MARCH 13, 2019
7:30 PM
Zankel Hall, Carnegie Hall
881 7th Avenue, Midtown, Manhattan
$54-$65
https://www.carnegiehall.org/Calendar/2019/03/13/Thomas-Ades-Piano-Kirill-Gerstein-Piano-0730PM
Thomas Adès is certainly one of the best composers now before the public. But also, he's a really really good pianist. He doesn't just play "composer's piano"; he could have a career as a concert pianist if he weren't so busy composing. Kirill Gerstein, OTOH, is a front-rank concert pianist, combining immense intellectual acuity with some of that Russian brawn (he actually gets jazz, too). In the run-up to the upcoming premiere of the concerto Adès has written for Gerstein, the two play a duo piano recital. Along with various usual two-piano suspects (all very welcome) is a new concert paraphrase by Adès of his glittering opera Powder Her Face (I can't wait to hear that). Also, did you know that Shostakovich made a two-piano transcription of what is probably my personal favorite Stravinsky piece, the Symphony of Psalms? Me neither. Can't wait to hear that, either.
MAKE A NIGHT OF IT: There's really no reason to anywhere other than Molyvos. The food is still excellent -- and they're really riding the current upswing in Greek wine.
-
Wednesday, March 13, 2019, 7:00 PM – 11:00 PM
LyonFest 2019: Beats and Chaos
MUSIC
WEDNESDAY, MARCH 13, 2019
7:00 & 9:00 PM
Areté Venue & Gallery
67 West Street #103, Greenpoint, Brooklyn
$20 per set; $30 for both
https://www.aretevenue.com/events
A night dedicated to the music of Eric Lyon, best known as a computer innovator but also an occasional composer for human players. Among the humans playing (along with electronics) in the mixed first set is the spectacular pianist Kathleen Supové. The second set is by String Noise: nuff said. Audience members will all be gifted with a String Noise recording of Lyon's arrangements of pieces by Flipper, Prince, and the Minutemen.
MAKE A NIGHT OF IT: And then a slice or five at Paulie Gee's Slice Shop.
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Tue, Mar 12, 2019, 8:30 PM – Sun, Mar 17, 2019, 5:00 PM
THEATER
TUESDAY - SUNDAY, MARCH 12 - 17, 2019
8:30 PM TUESDAY - SATURDAY
4:00 PM SUNDAY
Plexus Polaire: Ashes
HERE
145 6th Avenue (entrance on Dominick Street), Hudson Square, Manhattan
$25-$45 ($40 for both if you also see "Chimpanzee")
http://here.org/shows/detail/2012/
More puppets! French-Norwegian Plexus Polaire are absolute stars of contemporary puppet theater: inventive, accomplished, psychologically acute (yeah, these are puppets). You want to see anything they do. Very much including this show, about somebody growing up Norway and then somebody else writing it two generations later.
MAKE A NIGHT OF IT: Mav Soho is an extremely exciting new Modern Italian eatery. I don't know about you, but I can't wait.
-
Tue, Mar 12, 2019, 8:30 PM – Sat, Mar 16, 2019, 9:30 PM
Talea Residency
MUSIC
TUESDAY - SATURDAY, MARCH 12 - 16, 2019
8:30 PM
The Stone at the New School
55 West 13th Street, Greenwich Village, Manhattan
$20
http://thestonenyc.com/calendar.php
A week-long residency in which members of the highly virtuosic Talea Ensemble, specializing non-exclusively in the European wing of New Music, present solo and duo programs. The pick of the week is probably the Friday night show, where cellist Chris Gross plays music by Alvin Lucier, Giacinto Scelsi, Salvatore Sciarrino, Mario Diaz de Leon, and Eva-Maria Houben: a stylistically diverse set of fantastic composers. (Also, you might already be at the Stone for the preceding Lee Hyla tribute earlier that night.)
MAKE A NIGHT OF IT: Good solid Emilia-Romagnan food at Da Andrea. You won't be sorry if you start with tigelle.
-
Tue, Mar 12, 2019, 8:00 PM – Sun, Mar 17, 2019, 6:00 PM
Wooster Group: The B-Side
THEATER
TUESDAY - SUNDAY, MARCH 12 -17, 2019 (continuing through MARCH 24)
8:00 PM TUESDAY - SATURDAY
5:00 PM SUNDAY
St. Ann's Warehouse
45 Water Street, DUMBO, Brooklyn
$40-$55
https://stannswarehouse.org/show/the-b-side/
Another of those shows where New York's leading avant-theater company, the Wooster Group, "performs" a record album, this time a set of "Negro" work songs, spirituals, and toasts recorded in 1964 in a segregated Texas prison farm (no, sorry, not Parchman Farm -- that was in Mississippi).
MAKE A NIGHT OF IT: Great views, good Mediterranean food at Celestine.
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Tuesday, March 12, 2019, 8:00 PM – 9:00 PM
Vijay Iyer & Craig Taborn: The Transitory Poems
MUSIC
TUESDAY, MARCH 12, 2019
8:00 PM
Roulette
509 Atlantic Avenue (entrance on 3rd Avenue), Boerum Hill, Brooklyn
$18 advance; $30 door
http://roulette.org/event/vijay-iyer-and-craig-taborn-the-transitory-poems/
Two of the most interesting minds (and 20 of the most interesting fingers) in jazz get together for a two-piano collaboration, featuring a set of improvised pieces that the composer/players ended up sensing, after they were developed, were tributes to artists who influenced them. Neither Iyer norTaborn is to be missed separately. Together . . . .
MAKE A NIGHT OF IT: Plenty of time tonight to get to Freek's Mill, with its stylish but comfortable New American food and its delightful Loire-and-Beaujolais-centered wine list.
-
Tue, Mar 12, 2019, 7:30 PM – Thu, Mar 14, 2019, 8:30 PM
Soledad Barrio & Noche Flamenca: Entre Tú y Yo
DANCE
TUESDAY - SUNDAY, MARCH 12 - 17, 2019 (continuing through MARCH 31)
7:30 PM TUESDAY - THURSDAY
8:00 PM FRIDAY & SATURDAY
3:00 PM SUNDAY
Connelly Theater
220 East 4th Street, East Village, Manhattan
$22-$53
https://www.connellytheater.org/
After Hurricane Farruquito a couple of weeks ago, you might worry that New York's flamenco home team will look a little pale. But the ferocious Soledad Barrio is a force in herself. And Martín Santangelo's programmatic conceptions are a step beyond: they engage you intellectually as the dancing grabs you by the whatever.
MAKE A NIGHT OF IT: A place focusing almost totally on gnocchi? Sounds good to me. From a noted pizzaiolo.
-
Tue, Mar 12, 2019, 7:30 PM – Sun, Mar 17, 2019, 4:00 PM
-
Tue, Mar 12, 2019, 7:00 PM – Sun, Mar 17, 2019, 3:00 PM
Nick Lehane: Chimpanzees
THEATER
TUESDAY - SUNDAY, MARCH 12 - 17, 2019
7:00 PM TUESDAY - SATURDAY
2:00 PM SATURDAY & SUNDAY
HERE
145 6th Avenue (entrance on Dominick Street), Hudson Square, Manhattan
$25-$45 ($40 for both if you also see "Ashes")
http://here.org/shows/detail/2013/
Puppets! (Or more accurately, puppet!) An aging chimpanzee non-verbally reflects on its childhood in a human family, in a show supposedly based on real events (the real chimpanzee wasn't talking, either).
MAKE A NIGHT OF IT: A friend recently persuasively argued that I've been chronically underrating the Italian Cafe Altro Paradiso. It's gorgeous, too (especially the bar).
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Tuesday, March 12, 2019, 6:00 PM – 6:00 PM
Marilyn Nonken: Spectral Salon
MUSIC
TUESDAY, MARCH 12, 2019
6:00 PM
Pop-Up Concerts
Miller Theater at Columbia University
2960 Broadway, Morningside Heights, Manhattan
Free
https://www.millertheatre.com/events/marilyn-nonken-2018
You can't say that Spectral music -- that endlessly fascinating late-20th-Century French form of Modern classical, emphasizing timbre above all in a manner that is both starkly new and solidly French -- emerged directly fromMessiaen; you can say that it's hard to imagine its existing without Messiaen as a forerunner. And, indeed, master Spectralist Tristan Murail studied with the great man. Pianist Marilyn Nonken knows a thing or two about Spectralism (she is a frequent collaborator with Murail) -- and a thing or two about Messiaen as well. So this program featuring the work of the two composers is self-recommending. As at all these free Pop-Up Concerts, you sit up on stage with the performer and quaff some free beer or wine. Bang For The Buck with a bullet.
MAKE A NIGHT OF IT: The other great thing about the Miller Theater Pop-Up Concerts is that they let out early enough to allow you to get over to Manna's Soul Food for their wonderful steam-table treats. The Frederick Douglass Boulevard branch is the closest.
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Monday, March 11, 2019, 8:00 PM – 9:00 PM
Essa-Pekka Salonen: Cello Concerto
MUSIC
MONDAY, MARCH 11, 2019
8:00 PM
Philharmonia Orchestra
David Geffen Hall
10 Lincoln Center Plaza, Upper West Side, Manhattan
$35-$100
http://www.lincolncenter.org/great-performers/show/philharmonia-orchestra-3
Salonen's Cello Concerto certainly made a big impression when it premiered a couple of years ago, with its spectacular electronic sound enhancements augmenting the pyrotechnic orchestrations we've come to expect from virtuoso composer-conductors since Strauss. This will be New York's first chance to hear Salonen himself conduct his concerto. The soloist is Truls Mørk, who, while he may lack the star power of dedicatee Yo-Yo Ma, is one fabulous player. Also on the bill is a deservedly popular (and as colorful as the Salonen) piece of early Stravinsky and a Sibelius tone poem. You really should hear this.
MAKE A NIGHT OF IT: After a night of music from the frozen north, maybe it's time to let Boulud Sud take you to sunnier climes.
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Monday, March 11, 2019, 7:30 PM – 8:29 PM
Little Lord: SKINNAMARINK
THEATER
MONDAY & WEDNESDAY - SUNDAY, MARCH 11 & 13 - 17, 2019 (continuing through MARCH 23)
7:30 PM MONDAY & WEDNESDAY - SATURDAY
3:00 PM SUNDAY
NYTW Next Door
4th Street Theater
83 East 4th Street, East Village, Manhattan
$30-$40
https://www.nytw.org/show/skinnamarink/
A follow-up to/further development of this riotous theater company's The Peanut Butter Show of last year, this antic piece explores, in hilarious manner, the brutal effects of McGuffey's Eclectic Readers, the basic pedagogical tools in American schools from the mid-19th to the mid-20th Century -- still in use in some places today.
MAKE A NIGHT OF IT: Modern Mexican at The Black Ant -- one of the few places in Manhattan where you can count on getting chapulines.
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Monday, March 11, 2019, 7:00 PM – 8:00 PM
Quendra Multimedia: 55 Shades of Gay: Balkan Spring of Sexual Revolution
THEATER
MONDAY & THURSDAY - SUNDAY, MARCH 11 & 14 - 17, 2019
7:00 PM MONDAY & THURSDAY - SATURDAY
3:00 PM SUNDAY
La Mama
66 East 4th Street, East Village, Manhattan
$25; $20 students/seniors
http://lamama.org/shades_of_gay/
A burlesque by Kosavar playwright Jeton Neziraj questioning whether sexual liberation is even possible in the Balkans. Expect a lot of unforgivingly bitter ironic sarcasm along the way.
MAKE A NIGHT OF IT: I just learned that the milonga I wandered into at the Ukrainian National Home restaurant one night wasn't the bizarre fever dream I imagined but rather a regular weekly Monday-night event. So if you go on Monday, you too can have the surreal experience of eating very Ukrainian food in a very Ukrainian dining room with people passing in and out in tango togs. Apart from that, expect food that will stick to each and every one of your ribs.
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Monday, March 11, 2019, 6:00 PM – 7:00 PM
International Contemporary Ensemble: Collecting George Lewis
MUSIC
MONDAY, MARCH 11, 2019
6:00 PM
The Bruno Walter Auditorium, New York Public Library for the Performing Arts
111 Amsterdam Avenue, Upper West Side, Manhattan
Free (reservation recommended)
https://www.iceorg.org/events/2019/3/11/hhqfwyihvnr7ea73ws7glb8j2m4net
The fantastic International Contemporary Ensemble -- almost certainly the best New Music band in America -- puts on another one of its interactive shows at the Library showcasing the work of a contemporary composer and inviting audience response. This time the composer is no less than George Lewis, whose work demonstrates that it's a complete waste of time to try to draw generic distinctions between AACM-style free jazz and contemporary classical. But you knew that, right?
MAKE A NIGHT OF IT: Indie Food and Wine in the lobby of the Elinor Bunin Munroe Film Center: remarkably cheap for how good it is, remarkably good for how cheap it is.
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Mon, Mar 11, 2019, 2:00 PM – Sat, Mar 16, 2019, 10:00 PM
Taylor Mac: Gary: A Sequel to Titus Andronicus
THEATER
MONDAY - SATURDAY, MARCH 11 - 16, 2019
8:00 PM MONDAY - SATURDAY
2:00 PM MONDAY
Booth Theatre
222 West 45th Street, Midtown, Manhattan
$39-$275
https://garyonbroadway.com/
I've wondered what it would take to get me to List a Broadway show. Written by Taylor Mac? Starring Nathan Lane and Andrea Martin? (Oops! Lost Andrea Martin.) Directed by George C. Wolfe? I guess this has what it takes. Hope it's hilarious. The title sure is.
MAKE A NIGHT OF IT: It's been decades, but I remember thinking the vaguely Venetian Osteria al Doge was pretty good. Stays open late like a Theater District restaurant should, too. But what you really want, after dinner (or after the show if you've already eaten), is the new cocktail lounge Blue, from the Blue Ribbon folks.
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Sunday, March 10, 2019, 7:00 PM – 8:00 PM
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Sunday, March 10, 2019, 4:00 PM – 5:00 PM
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Saturday, March 9, 2019, 9:00 PM – 10:00 PM
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Saturday, March 9, 2019, 8:00 PM – 9:00 PM
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Saturday, March 9, 2019, 7:30 PM – 11:30 PM
Tomas Fujiwara's Triple Double
MUSIC
SATURDAY, MARCH 9, 2019
7:30 & 9:30 PM
Jazz Gallery
1160 Broadway, NoMad, Manhattan
$25-$35
https://jazzgallery.nyc/shows/
Bandleader Tomas Fujiwara is a really good drummer. But look at some of the other players in this intriguing grouping of two each of trumpets/cornets, guitars, bass, and drums: Ralph Alessi, a really fine trumpeter with a smooth, intriguing line (and the brother of an absolute star of the Philharmonic); Taylor Ho Bynum, one of the best out-there cornet players in New York; List regular Mary Halvorson, the best jazz guitarist of her generation; and Gerald Cleaver, one of the more purely interesting drummers on the scene. And that's not even the whole band.
MAKE A NIGHT OF IT: The NoMad Bar serves some of the best cocktails in New York. And the bar food is nothing to sneeze at, either.
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Saturday, March 9, 2019, 7:00 PM – 8:00 PM
Petra Haden / Julian Lage / Jorge Roeder / Kenny Wollensen / Jesse Harris: Songs for Petra
MUSIC
SATURDAY, MARCH 9, 2019
7:00 PM
National Sawdust
80 North 6th Street, Williamsburg, Brooklyn
$29
https://nationalsawdust.org/event/petra-haden-julian-lage-jorge-roeder-kenny-wollesen-and-jesse-harris/
I've been a huge fan of singer Petra Haden since her '90s indie band That Dog-- and not just because her bass-player father Charlie was one of my absolute favorite musicians of all time. Here, with a crack jazz-roots band, she sings songs written for her by Jesse Harris, best known for his songwriting for Norah Jones (also a daughter of one of my absolute favorite musicians of all time, now that I think of it), and John Zorn, who as far as I know has never written for Norah Jones.
MAKE A NIGHT OF IT: I'm feeling the sort of Sardinian D.O.C. Wine Bar tonight.
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Fri, Mar 8, 2019, 8:00 PM – Sun, Mar 10, 2019, 9:00 PM
-
Friday, March 8, 2019, 7:00 PM – 8:00 PM
Grotto: An Electronic Baroque Sound Cave
MUSIC
FRIDAY, MARCH 8, 2018
7:00 PM
Areté Venue & Gallery
67 West Street #103, Greenpoint, Brooklyn
$15 (R.S.V.P. required)
https://www.aretevenue.com/events
Questing counter-tenor Ju-eh is supported by piano and electronics in a reimagination of Bach, Handel, and up-and-comer-nearly-300-years-after-the-fact Porpora.
MAKE A NIGHT OF IT: Let's see if we can get a table or bar seat at English-oriented meatstaurant Cherry Point.
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Friday, March 8, 2019, 7:00 PM – 8:00 PM
Gemma Peacocke: Waves and Lines
MUSIC
FRIDAY, MARCH 8, 2019
7:00 PM
National Sawdust
80 North 6th Street, Williamsburg, Brooklyn
$20
https://nationalsawdust.org/event/gemma-peacocke/
Gemma Peacocke is one terrific composer, combining acoustic and electronic elements to enthralling effect. Celebrating the release of a recording, this concert reprises a song cycle setting Afghan women's folk poetry (as collected and translated by poet/journalist Eliza Griswold). One presumes -- or at least hopes -- that vocals will be provided, as at last year's premiere and on the new recording, by the excellent Eliza Bagg -- hot off a great set by her band Pavo Pavo at Elsewhere last month.
MAKE A NIGHT OF IT: My personal interest in a restaurant showcasing local (or any) vegetables could hardly be lower. But people seem to like Harvey.
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Friday, March 8, 2019, 7:00 PM – 8:00 PM
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Thu, Mar 7, 2019, 8:00 PM – Sat, Mar 9, 2019, 9:00 PM
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Thursday, March 7, 2019, 8:00 PM – 9:00 PM
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Thursday, March 7, 2019, 8:00 PM – 9:00 PM
Composer Portrait: John Zorn
MUSIC
THURSDAY, MARCH 7, 2019
8:00 PM
Miller Theater at Columbia University
2960 Broadway, Morningside Heights, Manhattan
$25-$30
https://www.millertheatre.com/events/john-zorn1
John Zorn may well be the single most post-modern person in all of Western culture. He may also be the most prolific. So it's no surprise that this program contains not one, not two, not three, not four, but five world premieres. Played by a gaggle of frequent Zorn collaborations (all of them excellent). Don't expect anything to stay in a single stylistic groove for too long.
MAKE A NIGHT OF IT: Pan-regional Chinese might seem inherently suspect. But Atlas Kitchen has been collecting accolades since it opened last year for its inventive cooking -- including several dishes of the chef's own creation. It also seems extremely stylish for a restaurant in Morningside Heights.
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Thursday, March 7, 2019, 7:30 PM – 8:30 PM
loadbang: Premieres Vol. 11
MUSIC
THURSDAY, MARCH 7, 2019
7:30 PM
National Opera America Center
330 Seventh Avenue, Chelsea (not really), Manhattan
$20; $10 students/seniors
https://www.brownpapertickets.com/event/4092118
The exciting wind/voice quartet loadbang presents an evening of premieres by such worthies as the excellent Chaya Czernowin. Plus something by John Cage that presumably isn't a premiere.
MAKE A NIGHT OF IT: I'm now going to give you one of my most cherished New York dining secrets: B&D Halal Restaurant, which sells wonderful West African food from a steam table by the pound. Honestly, their broiled goat chops are, to my palate, one of the best goat dishes available in New York -- and that's just the start of it. An endless variety of delicious food for a pittance. Although it wouldn't be strictly halal, you could walk across town after dinner to the Lost Hours cocktail bar, the new Murray Hill venture by the people behind Death & Co.
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Thu, Mar 7, 2019, 7:30 PM – Sat, Mar 9, 2019, 8:30 PM
-
Thursday, March 7, 2019, 7:30 PM – 8:30 PM
-
Thu, Mar 7, 2019, 7:30 PM – Sat, Mar 9, 2019, 8:30 PM
-
Thursday, March 7, 2019, 7:00 PM – 8:00 PM
Alkemie: Rosas das Rosas: Songs for the Virgin Mary
MUSIC
THURSDAY, MARCH 7, 2019
7:00 PM
Music Before 1800
The Kosciuszko Foundation
15 East 65th Street, Upper East Side, Manhattan
$35
https://mb1800.org/concert/alkemie/#tab-id-3
This excellent medieval vocal/instrumental ensemble performs a selection of Spanish medieval music dedicated to the Virgin Mary (not really much of a limitation).
MAKE A NIGHT OF IT: Am I really gonna send you to the bar at Restaurant Daniel? Yes, I am. But my real advice if you're in the East 60s: get the fuck out of the East 60s.
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Thu, Mar 7, 2019, 7:00 PM – Sun, Mar 10, 2019, 4:00 PM
Quendra Multimedia: 55 Shades of Gay: Balkan Spring of Sexual Revolution
THEATER
THURSDAY - SUNDAY, MARCH 7 - 10, 2019 (continuing through MARCH 17)
7:00 PM THURSDAY - SATURDAY
3:00 PM SUNDAY
La Mama
66 East 4th Street, East Village, Manhattan
$25; $20 students/seniors
http://lamama.org/shades_of_gay/
A burlesque by Kosavar playwright Jeton Neziraj questioning whether sexual liberation is even possible in the Balkans. Expect a lot of unforgivingly bitter ironic sarcasm along the way.
MAKE A NIGHT OF IT: I just learned that the milonga I wandered into at the Ukrainian National Home restaurant one night wasn't the surreal fever dream I imagined but rather a regular weekly Monday-night event. So don't expect a milonga these nights. Just expect food that will stick to each and every one of your ribs.
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Thu, Mar 7, 2019, 7:00 PM – Sat, Mar 9, 2019, 8:00 PM
Lime Rickey International: Future Faith
PERFORMANCE
THURSDAY - SATURDAY, MARCH 7 - 9, 2019
7:00 PM
Abrons Arts Center
466 Grand Street, Lower East Side, Manhattan
$21
https://www.abronsartscenter.org/program/world-premiere-lime-rickey-international-future-faith/
Lime Rickey International is the outrageous alter ego of performance artist Leyya Mona Tawil. Shipwrecked in our time from the future, she performs fictional folk dances, creates noise (I'll say!), and sings to a homeland that doesn't yet exist. I don't know why no one has yet called Tawil's work as Lime Rickey International Arab futurist -- but I'm doing so now and hoping it sticks.
MAKE A NIGHT OF IT: Can't keep from touting ramen master Shigetoshi Nakamura's new mazémen spot Niche, featuring those dry ramen that I, for one, love so much. If this tiny place is slammed, you can go next door to Nakamura for excellent -- albeit not dry -- ramen of the more standard variety.
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Wed, Mar 6, 2019, 8:00 PM – Sat, Mar 9, 2019, 9:00 PM
Kristine Haruna Lee: Suicide Forest
THEATER
WEDNESDAY - SATURDAY, MARCH 6 - 9, 2019 (continuing through MARCH 23)
8:00 PM
Bushwick Starr
207 Starr Street, Bushwick, Brooklyn
$30
https://www.thebushwickstarr.org/suicide-forest
Kristine Haruna Lee makes fanciful theater pieces that are bursting with life. Does she overreach sometimes? Sure -- but better that than tired theater that just sits there, dead on the stage. This play deals with some of the oppressive aspects of Japanese-American culture, with suicide looming large. But this is Kristine Haruna Lee, so it'll still be alive.
MAKE A NIGHT OF IT: Joachim Baca, who jumpstarted David Chang's empire at the original Momofuku Noodle Bar, has just opened Teo -- a sort of experimental, fushiony (mainly fusing with U.S. Southern cooking) izakaya -- right here on Starr Street. In Baca's hands, fusion is nothing to worry about: years of eating his stuff has made me wonder if he's even capable of turning out anything that isn't absolutely delicious.
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Wednesday, March 6, 2019, 7:30 PM – 8:30 PM
Contemporaneous IMAGINATION Presents
MUSIC
WEDNESDAY, MARCH 6, 2019
7:30 PM
Roulette
509 Atlantic Avenue (entrance on 3rd Avenue), Boerum Hill, Brooklyn
$18 advance; $25 door
http://roulette.org/event/contemporaneous-imagination-presents/
Demonstrating that genre is, happily, dead at least in Brooklyn, the excellent New Music chamber orchestra Contemporaneous collaborates with some genre-neutral bands and projects led by orchestra members: the terrific Finnegan Shanahan's terrific avant-rock band Boio, cellist Amanda Gookin's conscious Forward Music Project, and the jazz/rock/classical Warp Trio (which incongruously has four members). They'll play, among other things, an homage to the late avant-jazz great Butch Morris by the very much alive avant-jazz even-greater Henry Threadgill, and a new song cycle by indie-folk-rock-to-contemporary-classical singer/violinist Sarah Goldfeather.
MAKE A NIGHT OF IT: I'm sending you back to Grand Army Bar, where the cocktails are excellent and the food is good enough to stand on its own.
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Wed, Mar 6, 2019, 7:30 PM – Sat, Mar 9, 2019, 4:30 PM
Leegrid Stevens: Spaceman
THEATER
WEDNESDAY - SATURDAY, MARCH 6 - 9, 2019 (continuing through MARCH 9)
7:30 PM WEDNESDAY - SATURDAY
3:00 PM SATURDAY
Loading Dock Theater
The Wild Project
195 East 3rd Street, East Village, Manhattan
$30; $21 students/seniors
http://thewildproject.com/performances/
This run of this well-received show was supposed to take place last year -- but star (and wife of the playwright) Erin Treadway managed to have a stage accident that broke both her arms opening night. We can hope these performances will be less extraneously dramatic. The show's presentation of a flight to Mars by one all-too-human astronaut seems promising not only for its humor and psychological acuity about the effects of being alone for months on end, but also for its physical representation of a zero-gravity space flight.
MAKE A NIGHT OF IT: Il Posto Accanto is an almost ridiculously pleasant Italian wine-and-food bar.
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Tue, Mar 5, 2019, 8:30 PM – Sat, Mar 9, 2019, 9:30 PM
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Tue, Mar 5, 2019, 8:00 PM – Sun, Mar 10, 2019, 9:00 PM
Wooster Group: The B-Side
THEATER
TUESDAY - SUNDAY, MARCH 5 -10, 2019 (continuing through MARCH 24)
8:00 PM TUESDAY - SATURDAY
5:00 PM SUNDAY
St. Ann's Warehouse
45 Water Street, DUMBO, Brooklyn
$40-$55
https://stannswarehouse.org/show/the-b-side/
Another of those shows where New York's leading avant-theater company, the Wooster Group, "performs" a record album, this time a set of "Negro" work songs, spirituals, and toasts recorded in 1964 in a segregated Texas prison farm (no, sorry, not Parchman Farm -- that was in Mississippi).
MAKE A NIGHT OF IT: Great views, good Mediterranean food at Celestine.
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Tuesday, March 5, 2019, 8:00 PM – 9:00 PM
Shipp / Lowe / Cleaver / Ray
MUSIC
TUESDAY, MARCH 5, 2019
8:00 PM
Shipp / Lowe / Cleaver / Ray
Roulette
509 Atlantic Avenue (entrance on 3rd Avenue), Boerum Hill, Brooklyn
$18 advance; $20 door
http://roulette.org/event/shipp-lowe-cleaver-ray-2/
Four of the most interesting musicians, not just in jazz, but in music -- all part of the avant-garde but very much in the tradition: pianist Matthew Shipp, saxaphonist Allen Lowe, drummer Gerald Cleaver, and bassist Kevin Ray. These are all players who almost never do what you expect -- but usually end up doing what you want.
MAKE A NIGHT OF IT: Plenty of time to get to Freek's Mill, with its stylish but comfortable New American food and its delightful Loire-and-Beaujolais-centered wine list.
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Tuesday, March 5, 2019, 7:30 PM – 8:30 PM
Vertigo Dance Company: One. One & One
DANCE
TUESDAY, MARCH 5, 2019
7:30 PM
Baryshnikov Arts Center
450 West 37th Street, Hell's Kitchen, Manhattan
$25
https://bacnyc.org/performances/performance/vertigo-dance-company
Vertigo's work is thankfully hard-edged for a company whose leaders talk of consciousness, Kabbalah, and the like. I guess you can't help but be hard-edged if you're coming out of the great (hard-edged) tradition of Israeli modern dance. It doesn't hurt that the couple that runs this company are really smart, while their dances are really physical. It also doesn't hurt that they always get great dancers.
MAKE A NIGHT OF IT: I almost did a dance of joy myself when I heard that aCentral Asian restaurant was opening near the Baryshnikov Arts Center. The only reason I didn't actually do one when I tried some excellent grilled meats, stews, and dumplings at Farida was that the tiny dining room was too tightly packed with other, equally happy diners.
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Tuesday, March 5, 2019, 7:00 PM – 11:00 PM
Roscoe Mitchell
MUSIC
TUESDAY, MARCH 5, 2019
7:00 & 9:00 PM
Veterans Room, Park Avenue Armory
643 Park Avenue, Upper East Side, Manhattan
$45
http://armoryonpark.org/programs_events/detail/artists_studio_roscoe_mitchell
Figures in American music don't come any bigger than Roscoe Mitchell. The saxophonist was a founding member of the epochal Art Ensemble of Chicago, one of the best and most important bands in jazz history -- they always made sure to make their free jazz entertaining -- and also a founder of theAssociation for the Advancement of Creative Musicians, perhaps paradoxically an organized force for free jazz, responsible for untold quantities of great music over the years. Here, Mitchell leads two different separately-ticketed programs of his fantastic compositions.
MAKE A NIGHT OF IT: It's not like you're spoiled for choice up around the Armory. JoJo.
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Tue, Mar 5, 2019, 2:00 PM – Sun, Mar 10, 2019, 4:00 PM
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Monday, March 4, 2019, 7:30 PM – 8:30 PM
ReSoundings Trio
MUSIC
MONDAY, MARCH 4, 2019
7:30 PM
Spectrum
70 Flushing Avenue, Garage A, Fort Greene, Brooklyn
$15; $10 students/seniors
http://www.spectrumnyc.com/site/calendar.php
An oboe/flute-reeds/piano-electronics trio plays, among other things, Roscoe Mitchell, Takemitsu, and Cage.
MAKE A NIGHT OF IT: If you're a very different person from me, you might have an interest in American fast-food comfort classics -- burgers, hot dogs, ice cream, etc. -- reconfigured as vegan. In that case, Rip's Malt Shop.
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Saturday, March 2, 2019, 8:00 PM – 9:00 PM
Lisa Bielawa
MUSIC
SATURDAY, MARCH 2, 2019
8:00 PM
Adelphi University Performing Arts Center
1 South Avenue, Garden City, Long Island
$25
https://pac.adelphi.edu/au_event/new-music-xiv-lisa-bielawa/
If there's one composer this List adores, it's Lisa Bielawa: inventive, melodic, surprising, appealing -- another of those New Music composers everyone would love if they weren't scared off either by "New Music" if they're classical fans or by "classical music" in general if they're not.
MAKE A NIGHT OF IT: I am rather shocked to recall that I once ate at -- and enjoyed -- Waterzooi Belgian Bistro & Oyster Bar in Garden City. Wonder what I was doing there?
