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Wednesday, May 22, 2019, 8:30 PM – 9:30 PM
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Sunday, May 19, 2019, 3:00 PM – 4:00 PM
Hannah Mitchell: Warm Line
DANCE / THEATER
SUNDAY, MAY 19, 2019 (also MAY 20)
3:00 PM
Mabou Mines Resident Artists Program
Mabou Mines
150 First Avenue, East Village, Manhattan
Free
https://www.maboumines.org/production/warm-line-hannah-mitchell/
A dance/theater reflection on/reaction to a mother's suicide, done (thank God) with deep humor -- and a lot of classical and popular references. Direction by choreographer Lisa Fagan provides its own recommendation.
MAKE A NIGHT OF IT: Even I like the vegetarian/vegan food at punk rocker-turned-pastry chef-turned veg savant Brooks Headley's Superiority Burger.
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Saturday, May 18, 2019, 8:00 PM – 9:00 PM
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Saturday, May 18, 2019, 8:00 PM – 9:00 PM
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Saturday, May 18, 2019, 7:30 PM – 8:30 PM
Stephin Merritt: Tod Browning's "The Unholy Three"
MUSIC
SATURDAY, MAY 18, 2019
7:30 PM
The Town Hall
123 West 43rd Street, Midtown, Manhattan
$39.50-$49.50
http://thetownhall.org/event/the-unholy-three-stephin-merritt
Bent popmeister Stephin Merritt composes music to be performed live to a highly typical if little-known silent movie of Tod Browning (a sideshow ventriloquist, midget, and strongman band together for . . . crime!). This seems like so much fun that I won't quibble that what's best about Merritt is his lyrics.
MAKE A NIGHT OF IT: Los Tacos No. 1 is really good.
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Saturday, May 18, 2019, 7:00 PM – 8:00 PM
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Friday, May 17, 2019, 9:00 PM – 10:00 PM
Oneida / James Brandon Lewis & Val Jeanty / Reg Bloor
MUSIC
FRIDAY, MAY 17, 2019
9:00 PM
Littlefield
635 Sackett Street, Gowanus, Brooklyn
$12 advance; $14 day of show
https://www.littlefieldnyc.com/e/oneida-59007204136/
They're almost at the point of being a nostalgia band, but longstanding Brooklyn psych heroes Oneida's last album was one of their best, bringing their melange of psych/minimalism/krautrock to what may be a new height. The show is made even more tempting by the duo of James Brandon Lewis, an excellent young avant-gutbucket sax player, and the intriguing Haitian electronics/rhythmist Val Jeanty. Guitarist Reg Bloor will be noisy.
MAKE A NIGHT OF IT: Threes Brewing for beer and a burger.
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Friday, May 17, 2019, 9:00 PM – 10:00 PM
Innervisions New York
MUSIC
FRIDAY, MAY 17, 2019
9:00 PM
Knockdown Center
52-19 Flushing Avenue, Maspeth, Queens
$45-$50
https://knockdown.center/event/innervisions-new-york/
Berlin techno/electronics labe Innervisions brings its moveable feast to New York for the first time. A very strong bill. I might like Hamburg's DJ Koze; you might like Paris's Jennifer Cardini. But there'll be plenty you want to hear (and dance to) if you're a fan of the genre.
MAKE A NIGHT OF IT: Before the show, why not down some extremely Alte Schule German at Gottscheer Hall?
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Friday, May 17, 2019, 8:00 PM – 9:00 PM
Ensemble Échappé: Reaching for the Distant
MUSIC
FRIDAY, MAY 17, 2019
8:00 PM
Mis-en_Place
678 Hart Street, Bushwick, Brooklyn
$15; $10 students
https://www.facebook.com/events/306534870144933/
It's not often you see a program featuring Prokofiev, Glazunov, and Liza Lim (among many others). I guess that's what this trumpet/piano duo means by "reaching for the distant." (If you don't know her, Lim -- an Australian whose work encompasses Asian/Australian ritual elements, sure, but is mainly attractive for the way it combines sonic sensuality with visceral force -- is one of the best composers around. Not that you'd know it from how frequently she gets programed in New York.)
MAKE A NIGHT OF IT: Charming mother-daughter French at Le Garage.
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Friday, May 17, 2019, 8:00 PM – 9:00 PM
Livewire: an evening of live coding and keyboard performance
MUSIC
FRIDAY, MAY 17, 2019
8:00 PM
Areté Venue & Gallery
67 West Street #103, Greenpoint, Brooklyn
$15
https://www.aretevenue.com/events
Live-coded visuals accompanying piano and accordian music, all simultaneously processed through machine learning alogorithms.
MAKE A NIGHT OF IT: I'ma keep sending you to English-inflected meatery Cherry Point cuz I love it so.
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Fri, May 17, 2019, 8:00 PM – Sat, May 18, 2019, 9:00 PM
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Friday, May 17, 2019, 7:30 PM – 8:30 PM
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Friday, May 17, 2019, 3:00 PM – 4:00 PM
Onyx Collective: NYXO: Defying Gravity
MUSIC
FRIDAY, MAY 17, 2019
3:00 PM
East River Park Amphitheater
East River Promenade, Lower East Side, Manhattan
Free (with R.S.V.P.)
https://www.redbull.com/us-en/music/events/nyxo-defying-gravity
Onyx Collective is a freewheeling jazz etc. ensemble. You never know who will show up their shows, or what genres will be incorporated.
MAKE A NIGHT OF IT: Chinese-inflected cocktails and bar snacks at Mr. Fong's.
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Thursday, May 16, 2019, 8:00 PM – 9:00 PM
Fire Over Heaven: Nate Wooley & Special Guest / Sean Meehan / !CALHAU!
MUSIC
THURSDAY, MAY 16, 2019
8:00 PM
Outpost Artists Resources
1665 Norman Street, Ridgewood, Queens
$10-$15 suggested donation
https://www.outpostartistsresources.org/archives/2861
Nate Wooley is an avant-jazz trumpeter with amazing technical dexterity (or chops as we call them) and a rigorous mind. He's playing tonight with an as yet undisclosed Special Guest. !CALHAU! are a mad art/music collective (actually "collective" seems a bit wrong, since there are only two of them) from Portugal who, trust me, you don't want to miss (at least if you like highly conceptualized electronic noise music with the occasional crazy beat and insane visuals). Percussionist Sean Meehan is, we are told, resigning his kit to play a set on . . . cowbell.
MAKE A NIGHT OF IT: Things close early around here on Thursdays. Have to send you to uber-fun taproom/beer garden Nowadays again (not that it's so painful to be at Nowadays).
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Thursday, May 16, 2019, 8:00 PM – 9:00 PM
Holly Herndon: PROTO
MUSIC
THURSDAY, MAY 16, 2019
8:00 PM
Red Bull Music Festival
Pioneer Works
159 Pioneer Street, Red Hook, Brooklyn
$25
https://www.redbull.com/us-en/music/events/holly-herndon-proto
Tennessee-to-Berlin-to-Stanford electronic musician Holly Herndon specializes in making her electronics sound human, almost homespun. She's always worth hearing. But her new album PROTO, which she's playing tonight, sounds especially rewarding, teaming Herndon with eight vocalists (and, in live performance, dancers and visual artists). If you need further inducement to get out to Red Hook, New York's prog-alt-R&B darling Ian Isiah is opening.
MAKE A NIGHT OF IT: Thursday night is Tiki Night at Fort Defiance!
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Thursday, May 16, 2019, 8:00 PM – 9:00 PM
Ensemble Mis-en: Portrait of Pelle Gudmundsen-Holmgreen
MUSIC
THURSDAY, MAY 16, 2019
8:00 PM
Scandinavia House
58 Park Avenue, Murray Hill, Manhattan
$15
http://www.scandinaviahouse.org/events/portrait-of-pelle-gudmundsen-holmgreen-by-ensemble-mise-en/
Danish composer Pelle Gudmundsen-Holmgreen was a real original. I remember the first time I heard one of his pieces; I was at a New Music recital, and at one point someone came out on stage and started playing a potted plant -- or maybe it was a stack of crumpled paper (or maybe a potted plantand then a stack of crumpled paper) -- and I thought, "yes!" People talk about New Simplicity, about going back to first principles, but Gudmundsen-Holmgreen does it. In very good humor, without a shred of solemnity. Open-minded audiences enjoy his sonic and conceptual shenanigans because it's so clear that Gudmundsen-Holmgreen is enjoying himself. He's not trying to shock and offend -- he's trying to spread pleasure in the face of the existential abyss that obviously is at the forefront of his consciousness at all times. Maybe you could say he's what Satie would have been if Satie had come after Cage rather than before him. (I should note that, despite my use of the present tense here, Gudmundsen-Holmgreen died in 2016.) If you're open to the unconventional, I urge you to attend this show.
MAKE A NIGHT OF IT: You could do a lot worse than the "Dinner and a Concert" deal offered by Smõrgås Chef's branch in the Scandinavia House.
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Thursday, May 16, 2019, 7:30 PM – 8:30 PM
Iestyn Davies: England's "Orpheus"
MUSIC
THURSDAY, MAY 16, 2019
7:30 PM
Zankel Hall, Carnegie Hall
881 Seventh Avenue, Midtown, Manhattan
$78
https://www.carnegiehall.org/Calendar/2019/05/16/Iestyn-Davies-Countertenor--Thomas-Dunford-Lute-0730PM
Accompanied by Thomas Dunford on lute, world-beating countertenor Iestyn Davies focusses on songs by three composers who were, in their various times, denominated "England's 'Orpheus'": John Dowland, Henry Purcell, and Handel (yeah, too bad England's all-time greatest composer was German). Dowland's incredibly moving lute songs are a very peak of British music (those snickering that that's not very high praise will stay in the back of the room) (anyway, shut up: the Beatles are pretty good). Purcell's are lots of fun. Handel, well . . . Handel didn't write any lute songs, but I'm sure the arrangements of his opera/oratorio arias will sound fine in these extremely capable hands.
MAKE A NIGHT OF IT: When I was very very young, I thought the basic French bistro at La Bonne Soupe was le fin du fin -- and even a high school student could afford to splurge on it. I'm almost afraid to try it now. But really, how bad could it be?
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Thursday, May 16, 2019, 7:00 PM – 8:00 PM
Linda May Han Oh: "Aventurine" Album Release
MUSIC
THURSDAY, MAY 16, 2019
7:00 PM
National Sawdust
80 North 6th Street, Williamsburg, Brooklyn
$25
https://nationalsawdust.org/event/linda-may-han-oh/
Linda Oh is a really good jazz bassist. And tonight she's celebrating the release of a new album with an interesting group: a rhythm section and a string quartet.
MAKE A NIGHT OF IT: Somewhat tarted-up Polish at Dzipula.
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Thu, May 16, 2019, 7:00 PM – Sun, May 19, 2019, 4:00 PM
Bobbi Jene Smith: Lost Mountain
DANCE
THURSDAY - SUNDAY, MAY 16 - 19, 2019
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/lost_mountain/
Ex-Batsheva dancer Bobbi Jene Smith does her post-Batsheva thing. She calls it abstract and visceral, which sounds about right (others have called it "heart and guts"). She's supported by an international cast of exciting dancers and instrumentalists.
MAKE A NIGHT OF IT: Haven't been to snacky Mexican hotspot Atla in a while.
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Thursday, May 16, 2019, 6:30 PM – 7:30 PM
Chamber Music Society of Lincoln Center: New Music
MUSIC
THURSDAY, MAY 16, 2019
6:30 & 9:00 PM
Rose Studio
165 West 65th Street, Upper West Side, Manhattan
$35
https://www.chambermusicsociety.org/nyc/events/upcoming/new-music-may-16-2019-630/
https://www.chambermusicsociety.org/nyc/events/upcoming/new-music-may-16-2019-900/
New Music, outgrowth of Old Music division: Wolfgang Rihm, Joan Tower,Mark-Anthony Turnage. 'Nuff said.
MAKE A NIGHT OF IT: I wish I liked the stuff Shea Gallante -- an excellent chef -- is doing at Lincoln as much as I liked the work of his predecessor, Jonathan Benno. But it's still good, the dining room is still stunning (to me, if no one else I know) -- and it's still right there.
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Wednesday, May 15, 2019, 8:00 PM – 9:00 PM
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Wed, May 15, 2019, 7:00 PM – Thu, May 16, 2019, 8:00 PM
Vivier: Kopernikus
OPERA
WEDNESDAY & THURSDAY, MAY 15 & 16, 2019
7:00 PM
22 Boerum Place, Downtown, Brooklyn
$20
https://www.as-coa.org/events/kopernikus
The late (murdered by some rough trade he picked up) Canadian crypto-Spectralist composer Claude Vivier* is yet another whose works would attain some popularity if only they were played more often. The chance to see his shimmeringly complex opera Kopernikus is a rare bounty. The non-linear book concerns a young woman's transition into death, with her encountering such characters as Lewis Carroll, Mozart, the Queen of the Night, Tristan and Isolde, and (natch) Copernicus along the way. That the peerless International Contemporary Ensemble is playing this riveting music is icing on the cake.
MAKE A NIGHT OF IT: This show will end early enough for you to cap off the night at Brooklyn Red Sauce classic (with a mod half of the menu as well, just for fun) Queen.
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Wed, May 15, 2019, 7:00 PM – Sat, May 18, 2019, 8:00 PM
Theater of War: Antigone in Ferguson
THEATER
WEDNESDAY - SATURDAY, MAY 15 - 18, 2019 (continuing through JULY 13)
7:00 PM WEDNESDAY - SATURDAY
2:00 PM SATURDAY
St. Ann & the Holy Trinity Church
157 Montague Street, Brooklyn Heights, Brooklyn
Free (by registration)
https://www.stannholytrinity.org/event/antigone-in-ferguson/
We long ago saw, in The Gospel at Colonus, how eloquently and effectively a gospel chorus could function as the chorus in a Greek tragedy. Now, in the wake of the murder at Ferguson, Missouri, that approach takes its gloves off. A rotating cast of high-powered New York actors reads excerpts fromSophocles's Antigone (about, as I don't have to tell you, resisting oppressive governmental power), with choral interjections by members of Brooklyn and Ferguson gospel choirs: activists, police officers, youth, citizens. An audience discussion follows -- not, the creators of this piece emphasize, a post-performance "talk back", but rather an integral part of the piece.
MAKE A NIGHT OF IT: It's funny to say so about such a homey place, but Polish standby Teresa's shines like a beacon in the food desert that is Montague Street.
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Tuesday, May 14, 2019, 9:00 PM – 10:00 PM
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Tuesday, May 14, 2019, 8:00 PM – 9:00 PM
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Tuesday, May 14, 2019, 8:00 PM – 9:00 PM
Manu Delago
MUSIC
TUESDAY, MAY 14, 2019
8:00 PM
(Le) Poisson Rouge
158 Bleecker Street, Greenwich Village, Manhattan
$12-$15 advance; $15-$20 door
https://lpr.com/lpr_events/manu-delago-may-14th-2019/
Austrian percussionist Manu Delago (in town to back up Björk) creates fascinating sonorities on the the hang, a recently developed pan percussion instrument of which he is the absolute master. Here he'll play a live set and also screen a new movie showing him and an instrumental ensemble on a hiking expedition in the Alps, pausing at various places to play music influenced by their spectacular surroudings.
MAKE A NIGHT OF IT: The guys behind Brooklyn's Mod Peruvian Llama Inn have reconfigured their Village outpost Llamita from a Peruvian sandwich shop into a "Peruvian bistro". Sounds good to me.
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Tue, May 14, 2019, 8:00 PM – Sun, May 19, 2019, 4:00 PM
Taylor Mac: Gary: A Sequel to Titus Andronicus
THEATER
TUESDAY - SUNDAY, MAY 14 - 19, 2019
8:00 PM TUESDAY - SATURDAY
2:00 PM WEDNESDAY & SATURDAY
3:00 PM SUNDAY
Booth Theatre
222 West 45th Street, Midtown, Manhattan
$129-$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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Tuesday, May 14, 2019, 8:00 PM – 9:00 PM
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Tuesday, May 14, 2019, 7:40 PM – 8:40 PM
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Tue, May 14, 2019, 7:30 PM – Sun, May 19, 2019, 3:30 PM
Dave Malloy: Octet
THEATER
TUESDAY - SUNDAY, MAY 14 - 19, 2019 (continuing through JUNE 16)
7:30 PM TUESDAY - FRIDAY
2:00 PM SATURDAY & SUNDAY
8:00 PM SATURDAY
Romulus Linney Courtyard Theater, The Pershing Square Signature Center
480 West 42nd Street, Hell's Kitchen, Manhattan
$35
https://www.signaturetheatre.org/shows-and-events/Productions/2018-2019/Octet.aspx
I have never seen a music/theater piece by Dave Malloy I didn't love love love. Whether he's leaning electro-pop (Natasha, Pierre & the Great Comet of 1812), folkie (Ghost Quartet), Martian rock (Beowulf: A Thousand Years of Baggage), or classical (Preludes and every Schubertian's dream night, the sublime Three Pianos), his music is fluent, catchy, surprising, and beautifully arranged. This piece for a cappella chamber choir explores our old friends addiction and nihilism through the lenses of internet discussion boards, scientific debates, religious texts, and Sufi poetry. Really, can you think of anything more enticing?
MAKE A NIGHT OF IT: The Polynesian -- where the Tiki cocktails and snacks are a lot better than they need to be.
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Tue, May 14, 2019, 7:30 PM – Sun, May 19, 2019, 4:30 PM
Anne Carson: Norma Jeane Baker of Troy
THEATER
TUESDAY - SUNDAY, MAY 14 - 19, 2019
7:30 PM TUESDAY - SATURDAY
3:00 PM SUNDAY
The Shed
545 West 30th Street, Hudson Yards, Manhattan
$99-$179
https://theshed.org/program/4-norma-jeane-baker-of-troy
Even aside from The Shed's multitude of fundamental contradictions, this production brings to a light a basic problem with at least one part of The Shed's mission: the problem of bringing Downtown Uptown. If you saw this show at, say, the Underground Theater at Abrons Arts Center, you and the rest of the undoubtedly packed audience would think it was fine: stimulating, provoking, unexpected. You wouldn't care whether or not it was the greatest night of theater you've ever experienced; you wouldn't care whether everything hung together perfectly; you certainly wouldn't care that the piece required a certain body of knowledge on your part about both Classics and pop culture, and that it required you to think hard about what was being presented on stage. You'd only care whether you had a good, thought-provoking night. Move it Uptown, however, put it into a slick much-hyped venue, cast two superduperstar performers, charge Uptown prices, and you get what you got here: tepid reviews; a leap of 20 or 30 years in the average audience age; empty seats; a continuing stream of disgruntled walk-outs. Well, I'm here to tell you that Norma Jeane Baker of Troy is a perfectly good piece, well worth an hour-and-a-half of your time (whether it's worth $99-$179 of your money is probably undeterminable -- but let's recall that you usually get this kind of theater [minus the superduperstars] for a fraction of these prices Downtown and in Brooklyn). It's good not despite, but because of, all of its difficulties and ambiguities. People who need to have theater put on a plate for them can go see To Kill a Mockingbird. Also, it must be said, the two superduperstars really deliver. Ben Whishaw I expected to be great. ButRenée Fleming -- whom I adored as an opera singer -- does such an unexpectedly good job both with her distinctly non-operatic singing and her speaking part that I'm newly optimistic about her pending post-operatic career.
MAKE A NIGHT OF IT: Kāwi, the most forthrightly Korean (which is not to say it's straight Korean) of the Momofukus, is finally open for dinner as well as lunch, so they have you covered all day. (Its adjacent sandwich/snack bar closes at 5 PM.
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Tue, May 14, 2019, 7:30 PM – Sun, May 19, 2019, 4:30 PM
Christoper Chen: Passage
THEATER
TUESDAY - SUNDAY, MAY 14 - 19, 2019 (continuing through JUNE 2)
7:30 PM TUESDAY - SUNDAY
3:00 PM SATURDAY
Soho Rep.
46 Walker Street, Tribeca, Manhattan
$35-$65; rush tickets $30/$20 students; 99¢ non-advance sales Sunday
https://sohorep.org/passage
Reality is a shifting construct in Christopher Chen's involving works, which are "immersive" not in the usual physical sense (a cheap trick if you ask me), but rather intellectually. This one's about colonialism; with that title, E.M. Forster can't be too far away.
MAKE A NIGHT OF IT: I feel like I have to recommend the hottest restaurant in Manhattan, imported Chicago gastrodiner Au Cheval, as it's essentially around the corner. It has the reputation of being impossible to get into without a long wait, but it's kind of doable after a show (and they now purport to take reservations -- for all the good that will probably do you). If you do get in, skip the famous burger, which is gloppy and overdressed (you can't even taste the meat), in favor of the supernal duckheart-gravied potato hash -- a dish you wish you were eating when you aren't (e.g., like me right now) -- or the fried bologna sandwich, which -- trust me on this -- is infinitely better than you would ever expect. The downstairs bar is missable.
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Tue, May 14, 2019, 7:00 PM – Sun, May 19, 2019, 3:00 PM
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Tuesday, May 14, 2019, 6:00 PM – 7:00 PM
Jason Trueuting: Go Placidly with Haste
MUSIC
TUESDAY, MAY 14, 2019
6:00 PM
Pop-Up Concert
Miller Theater at Columbia University
2960 Broadway, Morningside Heights, Manhattan
Free
https://www.millertheatre.com/events/jason-treuting
Jason Treuting is not only a founding member of the fabulous Sō Percussion ensemble, but he's also a fine, quirky composer. Here, he presents a big piece for mixed ensemble, featuring a gaggle of his favorite collaborators (who are probably your favorites as well). This will be fun (as Miller Theater Pop-Up Concerts tend to be).
MAKE A NIGHT OF IT: It wouldn't be a Miller Theater Pop-Up Concert if I didn't remind you that the show's early curtain gives you time to get to supernal steam-table soul food mecca Manna's before its absurdly early closing (the Frederick Douglass Boulevard branch is the closest).
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Tue, May 14, 2019, 11:15 AM – Sun, May 19, 2019, 5:30 PM
Reich Richter Pärt
MUSIC
TUESDAY - SUNDAY, MAY 14 - 19, 2019 (continuing through JUNE 2)
11:15 AM & 12:30, 3:00 & 4:30 PM TUESDAY, WEDNESDAY & SUNDAY
1:00, 2:30, 5:00 & 6:30 PM THURSDAY - SATURDAY
The Shed
545 West 30th Street, Hudson Yards, Manhattan
$52
https://theshed.org/program/2-reich-richter-part
This show is both quite good and somewhat dispiriting. It is an almost bodyless collaboration among three major international artists. And yes, the three principals are all undeniably great (the new piece Steve Reich wrote for this show is especially good, maybe the best thing he's written in years -- perhaps because, as he has noted, Gerhard Richter's artistic approach impelled him to recur in part to the style of his early years). But another outlet for Major Collaborative Works by the Established International Avant-Garde isn't going to make at least one visitor forgive the epic scar on the urban fabric this real estate development represents, built for the ultra-rich with money filched from taxpayers.
MAKE A NIGHT OF IT: Kāwi, the most forthrightly Korean (which is not to say it's straight Korean) of the Momofukus, is finally open for dinner as well as lunch, so they have you covered all day. (Its adjacent sandwich/snack bar closes at 5 PM.)
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Monday, May 13, 2019, 8:00 PM – 9:00 PM
Tigue: This New Forest
MUSIC
MONDAY, MAY 13, 2019
8:00 PM
Roulette
509 Atlantic Avenue (entrance on 3rd Avenue), Boerum Hill, Brooklyn
$18-$25
https://roulette.org/event/tigue-this-new-forest/
The galvanic percussion band Tigue tackles environmental concerns.
MAKE A NIGHT OF IT: Good Middle Eastern -- on FABULOUS pita -- at Bedouin Tent.
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Sunday, May 12, 2019, 8:00 PM – 9:00 PM
Wavefield: Clocks Are Hearts in Search of Bodies
MUSIC
SUNDAY, MAY 12, 2019
8:00 PM
Areté Venue & Gallery
67 West Street #103, Greenpoint, Brooklyn
$15
https://www.wavefieldensemble.org/future-events/clocks-are-hearts-in-search-of-bodies
Great program by this acoustic/electronic ensemble, featuring a digital recreation of the Phase Shifting Pulse Gate, an analogue electronic instrument created by Steve Reich and Bell Labs in the late '60s and used by Reich (in a piece played here) to further the "phase" music he was then writing. Also, among other things, pieces by electronic fun-on-a-stick Brooklyn compser Angélica Negrón, Irish soundscaper Ann Cleare, and French percussion masterGeorges Aperghis.
MAKE A NIGHT OF IT: Chez Ma Tante: comfort food that's actually interesting.
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Sunday, May 12, 2019, 5:00 PM – 6:00 PM
XIX Collective: Transclassical(TM) Concert
PERFORMANCE
SUNDAY, MAY 12, 2019
5:00, 6:00 & 7:00 PM
Pedro
10-16 46th Avenue, Long Island City, Queens
$20
https://www.xixcollective.com/rsvp/transclassical-concert
So you and your fellow audience members lay underneath this dome that accommodates surround-sound and 360-degree projections, on top of a vibrating platform that enables you to experience the subsonic portions of the music. Psychedelic!
MAKE A NIGHT OF IT: It seems very clear to me that the play here is to go to the 5:00 or 6:00 shows and then head over to M. Wells Steakhouse for jazz and Occitanie dim sum (ticket required).
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Saturday, May 11, 2019, 10:00 PM – 11:00 PM
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Saturday, May 11, 2019, 8:00 PM – 9:00 PM
Kristín bóra Haraldsdóttir: Blódhófnir
MUSIC
SATURDAY, MAY 11, 2019
8:00 PM
MATA
University Settlement
184 Eldridge Street, Lower East Side, Manhattan
$20-$30
https://www.artful.ly/store/events/17313
A contemporary music-theater piece retelling an Eddic poem concerning a god's battle with a giantess from the point of view of the giantess, who is now revealed to be a victim of sexual violence. The music is written for, and played on, ancient instruments. Icelandic New Music is the shit.
MAKE A NIGHT OF IT: Wouldn't it be great if you could get into Wildair after the show for great natural wine and excellent food?
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Sat, May 11, 2019, 8:00 PM – Sun, May 12, 2019, 9:00 PM
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Saturday, May 11, 2019, 7:00 PM – 8:00 PM
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Sat, May 11, 2019, 7:00 PM – Sun, May 12, 2019, 8:00 PM
Piano / Piano: Jacky Terrrasson
MUSIC
SATURDAY & SUNDAY, MAY 11 & 12, 2019
7:00 PM
M. Wells Steakhouse
43-15 Crescent Street, Long Island City, Queens
$160 Saturday; $35 Sunday
https://www.magasinwells.com/event/pianopiano/
A jazz concert and international culinary collaboration. The jazz part is supplied by the splendid pianist Jacky Terrasson. The international culinary collaboration has leading chefs and wine producers of the Occitanie visiting that wonderful slice of gluttonous Montreal in Long Island City, M. Wells Steakhouse. Saturday's ticket price gets you a five-course seated dinner with wine. Sunday's rather lower ticket price gets you an amuse-bouche and a glass of wine, with Occitanie-inflected dim sum available à la carte. Terrasson comes with both.
MAKE A NIGHT OF IT: If you can eat or drink any more after leaving here, you didn't do it right.
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Sat, May 11, 2019, 2:00 PM – Sun, May 12, 2019, 3:00 PM
Classic NYCB I
DANCE
THURSDAY & SATURDAY - SUNDAY, MAY 9 & 11 - 12, 2019 (continuing through MAY 12)
7:30 PM THURSDAY
2:00 PM SATURDAY
3:00 PM SUNDAY
New York City Ballet
David H. Koch Theater
20 Lincoln Center Plaza, Upper West Side, Manhattan
$35-$195
https://www.nycballet.com/season-tickets/18-19-season/spring/may-9-2019-classic-nycb-1.aspx
https://www.nycballet.com/season-tickets/18-19-season/spring/may-11-2019-mat-classic-nycb-1.aspx
https://www.nycballet.com/season-tickets/18-19-season/spring/may-12-2019-classic-nycb-1.aspx
Some usual Balanchine retreads (which, hard as it may be to believe, I don't mean pejoratively at all), and a revival of a rarely performed solo piece (it was choreographed on Baryshnikov, so who's going to dare?) by Jerome Robbins. But we're going to this show for fractured Post-Modern choreographer Pam Tanowitz's debut with this company, set to Bartók. And for a new piece by the stunning Justin Peck.
MAKE A NIGHT OF IT: Bar Boulud, still serving first-rate bistro food.
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Saturday, May 11, 2019, 12:00 PM – 1:00 PM
Poulenc: Dialogues de Carmélites
OPERA
WEDNESDAY & SATURDAY, MAY 8 & 11, 2019
7:30 PM WEDNESDAY
12:00 PM SATURDAY
Metropolitan Opera
30 Lincoln Center Plaza, Upper West Side, Manhattan
$140-$495
https://www.metopera.org/season/2018-19-season/dialogues-des-carmelites/
Francis Poulenc has the reputation of a petit-maître -- and while he's one of my very favorite composers, I can't disagree. But how then do you account for this exquisite, nearly three-hour opera whose ending, hieratic as it may be, packs a real emotional wallop? The lead, Sister Blanche, is another part the cool mezzo Isabel Leonard could have been born to play, and soprano Erin Morley should be a joy as the chatterbox Sister Constance; but what has opera buffs really excited here is the assumption by Karita Mattila, she of the volcanic stage presence, of the role of the First Prioress, whose (SPOILER ALERT) first-act death should, in Mattila's hands, be a shattering experience. The production is one of the few remaining from the Met's lamented John Dexter era, spare and eloquent in a way the company has since lost. New Music Director Yannick Nézet-Séguin should conduct as to the manor born.
MAKE A NIGHT OF IT: Cafe Luxembourg, part of a fine old (it pains me to say that) line of French bistro dining in New York (one that leads through to Frenchette).
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Friday, May 10, 2019, 8:00 PM – 9:00 PM
-
Friday, May 10, 2019, 8:00 PM – 9:00 PM
Tierra Whack
MUSIC
FRIDAY, MAY 10, 2019
8:00 PM
Red Bull Music Festival
Rainbow Room
30 Rockefeller Plaza, Midtown, Manhattan
$25
https://www.redbull.com/us-en/music/events/tierra-whack
Tierra Whack's audio-visual album Whack World -- 15 songs, each exactly one minute long -- was the best pop music debut of last year. Whack (Tierra Whack's her real name, BTW) may just be the best pop musician out there right now. Her hip-hop is as overstuffed musically and conceptually as, say, Kevin Barnes's pop-rock is with of Montreal. But Whack is a lot smarter and more down to earth. There is not a second on Whack World that is not surprising and captivating. The new stuff she's released this year ago is almost as great: no sophomore slump here. And whoever thought to book her into the Rainbow Room is a genius. OF COURSE this show sold out in nano-seconds -- but you can get in if you really want to. (Word to the wise: Whack will be performing at Afropunk Brooklyn late this Summer.)
MAKE A NIGHT OF IT: One assumes there will be drink and maybe food available at the Rainbow Room. Before the show, you can grab some excellent Sichuan at Wu Liang Ye. After, Russian Samovar.
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Friday, May 10, 2019, 8:00 PM – 9:00 PM
-
Friday, May 10, 2019, 7:30 PM – 8:30 PM
Ekmeles: Mystical Paths
MUSIC
FRIDAY, MAY 10, 2019
7:30 PM
The Crypt at Church of the Intercession
550 West 155th Street, Hamilton Heights, Manhattan
$20
https://mysticalpaths.brownpapertickets.com/
The excellent contemporary vocal ensemble Ekmeles presents a program of New Music of a mystical bent -- appropriate to a crypt. The star piece is by Agata Zubel, a Polish composer (she's also a really great singer) whose works are very visceral but sonically appealing. We hear her stuff here far too infrequently.
MAKE A NIGHT OF IT: Harlem Public is a good bar with good beers and improbable burgers.
-
Friday, May 10, 2019, 7:00 PM – 8:00 PM
-
Fri, May 10, 2019, 7:00 PM – Sat, May 11, 2019, 8:00 PM
Henze: El Cimarrón
OPERA
FRIDAY & SATURDAY, MAY 10 & 11, 2019
7:00 PM
American Modern Opera Company
Grace Rainey Rogers Auditorium, Metropolitan Museum of Art
1000 Fifth Avenue, Upper East Side, Manhattan
$55-$65
https://www.metmuseum.org/events/programs/met-live-arts/el-cimarron-19
A rarely heard peak of 20th Century opera, Henze's El Cimarrón tells the tale of a runaway slave in Colonial Cuba. But musically and culturally, it breathes the air of the late 1960s, the time of its composition. Here, the solo vocal part is assumed by the eloquent Davóne Tines -- just the singer you want to hear in it. The riveting, partially aleatoric flute-guitar-percussion score is in excellentlocal hands. God knows when you'll get another chance to see this performed. An event.
MAKE A NIGHT OF IT: I'm sure Henze would have wanted you to go to the Old Skool German Heidelberg (I crack myself up), one of the last remnants of old German Yorkville.
-
Friday, May 10, 2019, 6:00 PM – 7:00 PM
Sonnambula: Sounding the Dutch Baroque
MUSIC
FRIDAY, MAY 10, 2019
6:00 PM & 7:00 PM
Galleries 963-65, Robert Lehman Wing, Metropolitan Museum of Art
1000 Fifth Avenue, Upper East Side, Manhattan
Free with museum admission
https://us17.admin.mailchimp.com/campaigns/wizard/neapolitan?id=956789
This able early music ensemble plays the music of the Dutch Baroque -- yeah, the Netherlands generated some excellent music as well as paintings then, even if no one listens to that music any more -- in galleries featuring Dutch Baroque paintings. The power move is to drop in on the 6:00 PM (half-hour-long) set before seeing the unmissable El Cimarrón in the Museum's auditorium at 7:00 PM.
MAKE A NIGHT OF IT: If you don't go to El Cimmarón (but WHY???????), might as well take advantage of the opportunity to dine at the eminently charming and delicious '70s-NYC-French throwback The Simone.
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Thursday, May 9, 2019, 9:00 PM – 10:00 PM
Ex Hex
MUSIC
THURSDAY, MAY 9, 2019
9:00 PM
Elsewhere
599 Johnson Avenue, Bushwick, Brooklyn
$20 advance; $22 online day of show; $23 door
https://www.elsewherebrooklyn.com/events/2019-05-09-ex-hex/
If you still like power-pop-oriented garage-goes-to-the-arena guitar-band rock, it doesn't currently get any better than Mary Timony's Ex Hex. Great songs (gigantic hooks! gigantic riffs!), great playing (Timony's guitar!), great live show. Among the other bands on the bill are Versus, who've managed to hang around the New York rock scene for 30 years without generating a really first-rate song catalogue. They'll make Ex Hex sound even better.
MAKE A NIGHT OF IT: I know I sound like a broken record, but why would you not go to antic power-pop (they think they're hip-hop, actually) Sichuan clubstaurant Mission Chinese Food Brooklyn when it's right there?
-
Thursday, May 9, 2019, 9:00 PM – 10:00 PM
Yuka C. Honda / Angélica Negrón: Rational Numbers: Music and AI
MUSIC
THURSDAY, MAY 9, 2019
9:00 PM
New York Live Arts
219 West 19th Street, Chelsea, Manhattan
$10
https://newyorklivearts.org/event/music-and-ai/
Complementing the AI dance performance going in in New York Live Arts' big theater, the Studio houses the first encounter of composer/performers Yuka C. Honda and Angélica Negrón with Artificial Intelligence-based software to aid in the composition and performance of their music. Honda was, of course, a member of the marvelous '90s art band Ciba Matto. Negrón is one of the freshest composers and performers now active in New York. Both can tend temptingly toward the madcap. The AI-based software I can't comment on.
MAKE A NIGHT OF IT: Bistro Le Singe. For old times' sake.
-
Thursday, May 9, 2019, 8:00 PM – 9:00 PM
Opera on Tap: Swipe Right or Swipe Left?
OPERA / MUSIC
THURSDAY, MAY 9, 2019
8:00 PM
Freddy's Bar
627 Fifth Avenue, Greenwood Heights, Brooklyn
$10 suggested donation
https://www.operaontap.org/newyork/
Opera on Tap's bar shows are always fun -- this one uses the operatic repertoire to explore online dating -- but I'm recommending this show as much for the opening act (in case you missed them last night at Brooklyn Bound). Forever House is a fascinating collection of musicians from New York's experimental jazz, classical, and indie scenes -- and their music is correspondingly fascinating.
MAKE A NIGHT OF IT: Korzo for really good, really hearty, but veged-up-for-Brooklyn Serbian food.
-
Thursday, May 9, 2019, 8:00 PM – 9:00 PM
-
Thu, May 9, 2019, 8:00 PM – Sun, May 12, 2019, 4:00 PM
Britten: Owen Wingrave
OPERA
THURSDAY - SUNDAY, MAY 9 - 12, 2019
7:30 PM THURSDAY - SATURDAY
3:00 PM SUNDAY
Little Opera Theater of NY
Gelsey Kirkland Arts Center
29 Jay Street, DUMBO, Brooklyn
$20-$45
http://www.lotny.org/
Benjamin Britten's anti-war television opera Owen Wingrave is very far from Britten's best -- which must be why it's so rarely performed. But you don't lightly pass up a chance to hear even a lesser work by the greatest operatic composer of the 20th Century. What makes Britten's music -- and his operas in particular -- so great is that he always comes up with these unexpected touches that turn out to be the perfect things to do what Britten wants. So while there's nothing particularly "strange" about his music (he was an avowed anti-avant-gardeist), it's always surprising -- and, in the operas, extremely effective dramatically without being the tiniest bit overblown.
MAKE A NIGHT OF IT: The Gelsey Kirkland Arts Center is even closer to Mediterranean-accented Celestine -- whose river views get more enticing as Spring rolls on -- than is St. Ann's Warehouse.
-
Thursday, May 9, 2019, 8:00 PM – 9:00 PM
Moor Mother: Red Summer
MUSIC / PERFORMANCE
THURSDAY, MAY 9, 2019
8:00 PM
Red Bull Music Festival
BRIC House
647 Fulton Street, Fort Greene, Brooklyn
$20
https://www.redbull.com/us-en/music/events/moor-mother-red-summer
The terrific hardcore/punk/industrial/electronic/hip-hop Afrofuturist Moor Mother presents a commemoration of Red Summer, 100 years ago this year, notable because anti-black violence in the United States was even more prevalent that summer than the disgusting norm. This will be a large-scale show incorporating an installation by Black Quantum Futurism, an arts collective of which Moor Mother is a member.
MAKE A NIGHT OF IT: Good cocktails and bar food at The Rockwell Place.
-
Thursday, May 9, 2019, 7:30 PM – 8:30 PM
-
Thu, May 9, 2019, 7:30 PM – Sat, May 11, 2019, 8:30 PM
Heidi Latsky Dance Company: Unfinished . . . a way out
DANCE
THURSDAY - SATURDAY, MAY 9 - 11, 2019
7:30 PM
Dixon Place
161A Chrystie Street, Lower East Side, Manhattan
$18/$15 students/seniors advance; $21/$18 students/seniors door
http://dixonplace.org/performances/unfinished/
The marvelous dancer/choreographer Heidi Latsky and her wonderful company explore, among other things, Latsky's stated newfound interest in death and dying. Ut-oh! Expect a lot of fluidity of motion with interludes of rhythmic pounding.
MAKE A NIGHT OF IT: Nom Wah Nolita for good dim sum.
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Thursday, May 9, 2019, 7:30 PM – 8:30 PM
Classic NYCB I
DANCE
THURSDAY & SATURDAY - SUNDAY, MAY 9 & 11 - 12, 2019 (continuing through MAY 12)
7:30 PM THURSDAY
2:00 PM SATURDAY
3:00 PM SUNDAY
New York City Ballet
David H. Koch Theater
20 Lincoln Center Plaza, Upper West Side, Manhattan
$35-$195
https://www.nycballet.com/season-tickets/18-19-season/spring/may-9-2019-classic-nycb-1.aspx
https://www.nycballet.com/season-tickets/18-19-season/spring/may-11-2019-mat-classic-nycb-1.aspx
https://www.nycballet.com/season-tickets/18-19-season/spring/may-12-2019-classic-nycb-1.aspx
Some usual Balanchine retreads (which, hard as it may be to believe, I don't mean pejoratively at all), and a revival of a rarely performed solo piece (it was choreographed on Baryshnikov, so who's going to dare?) by Jerome Robbins. But we're going to this show for fractured Post-Modern choreographer Pam Tanowitz's debut with this company, set to Bartók. And for a new piece by the stunning Justin Peck.
MAKE A NIGHT OF IT: Bar Boulud, still serving first-rate bistro food.
-
Thursday, May 9, 2019, 7:30 PM – 8:30 PM
-
Thursday, May 9, 2019, 6:00 PM – 7:00 PM
New York Baroque Inc. / Benjamin Sheen: Now Is the Month of Maying
MUSIC
THURSDAY, MAY 9, 2019
6:00 PM
Saint Thomas Church
1 West 53rd Street, Midtown, Manhattan
$10-$40; $10 students/seniors
https://www.saintthomaschurch.org/calendar/events/worship/24689/now-is-the-month-of-maying
Among the evergreens on this program by Bach, Vivaldi, and "Albinoni", I'm recommending this show for a performance of one of Handel's marvelous organ concertos; although I'm sure some of these concertos have been played in New York over the last several decades, I myself have never been aware of a live New York performance of any of them. I'm sure you care that Handel's organ concertos were the works that got me not only into Baroque music, but into classical music as a whole. Anyway, this is recommended even if you're not me.
MAKE A NIGHT OF IT: Gabriel Kreuther's trad Alsatian at the Baccarat Hotel Grand Salon.
-
Wed, May 8, 2019, 8:30 PM – Sat, May 11, 2019, 9:29 PM
Rhizomatiks Research x ELEVENPLAY x Kyle McDonald: discrete figures 2019
DANCE
WEDNESDAY - SATURDAY, MAY 8 - 11, 2019
8:30 PM
New York Live Arts
219 West 19th Street, Chelsea, Manhattan
$36-$45
https://newyorklivearts.org/event/discrete-figures/
Two Japanese technology-based dance companies and a Los Angeles computer/media artist get together to explore the application of Artifical Intelligence to choreography, the dancers actually interacting with machine learning technology onstage in a way, it is claimed, that has never been attempted before.
MAKE A NIGHT OF IT: I haven't been to Tuscan charmer Da Umberto in years -- decades, really. But it would have had to have undergone a really precipitous decline to make it anything less than delightful.
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Wednesday, May 8, 2019, 8:00 PM – 9:00 PM
-
Wednesday, May 8, 2019, 7:45 PM – 8:45 PM
Brooklyn Bound: An Evening Curated by DITHER
MUSIC
WEDNESDAY, MAY 8, 2019
7:45 PM
Sō Percussion Studio
20 Grand Avenue #205, Clinton Hill, Brooklyn
$10 suggested donation
https://sopercussion.com/events/brooklyn-bound/
The amazingly good, stylistically broad-ranging electric guitar quartet DITHER puts together an evening of like-minded -- which is not to say like-sounding -- musicians. Topping the bill are DITHER themselves. Adding some fun is the kick/floor-drum duo Fuck Ton O' Money (Shayna Dunkelman and Clara Warnaar: it doesn't get better), whose deep deep sounds will be aided and abetted at this performance by the percussive Dutch-Indonesian electronic musician Sannety. And then there's Forever House, a fascinating cross-genre collection of New York experimental jazz, classical, and indie musicians (genre must DIE).
MAKE A NIGHT OF IT: Neighborhood fancied-up Carribean joint Wray's is one of those places that's good enough that you wish it were just a little bit better. But you won't be sorry you ate this flavorful food.
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Wednesday, May 8, 2019, 7:30 PM – 8:30 PM
Mahan Esfahani & Orpheus Chamber Orchestra
MUSIC
WEDNESDAY, MAY 8, 2019
7:30 PM
92nd Street Y
1395 Lexington Avenue, Upper East Side, Manhattan
$30-$66
https://www.92y.org/event/orpheus-chamber-orchestra-mahan-esfahani
This concert is a big deal because it features a major major harpsichordist playing two 20th Century harpsichord concertos that you never ever get a chance to hear live. Falla's concerto (usually heard on piano when you can hear it at all) is surprisingly dense and challenging, but very appealing. The harpsichord concerto by this List's adored Martinu is pure tangy pleasure. The rest of the concert is rounded out by some arrangements: Françaix's arrangement of Mozart's extremely charming quintet for piano and winds with the piano part transposed to a string quartet, a not-bad (and very French) idea; and Modern Australian Brett Dean's arrangement of Strauss's orchestral showpiece Till Eulenspiegel for nonet, about which one can only ask: why????????
MAKE A NIGHT OF IT: Italian charmer Sfoglia used to be just wonderful. Now it's just kind of good. It's still conveniently diagonally across the street from the 92nd Street Y, though.
-
Wednesday, May 8, 2019, 7:30 PM – 8:30 PM
Poulenc: Dialogues de Carmélites
OPERA
WEDNESDAY & SATURDAY, MAY 8 & 11, 2019
7:30 PM WEDNESDAY
12:00 PM SATURDAY
Metropolitan Opera
30 Lincoln Center Plaza, Upper West Side, Manhattan
$140-$495
https://www.metopera.org/season/2018-19-season/dialogues-des-carmelites/
Francis Poulenc has the reputation of a petit-maître -- and while he's one of my very favorite composers, I can't disagree. But how then do you account for this exquisite, nearly three-hour opera whose ending, hieratic as it may be, packs a real emotional wallop? The lead, Sister Blanche, is another part the cool mezzo Isabel Leonard could have been born to play, and soprano Erin Morley should be a joy as the chatterbox Sister Constance; but what has opera buffs really excited here is the assumption by Karita Mattila, she of the volcanic stage presence, of the role of the First Prioress, whose (SPOILER ALERT) first-act death should, in Mattila's hands, be a shattering experience. The production is one of the few remaining from the Met's lamented John Dexter era, spare and eloquent in a way the company has since lost. New Music Director Yannick Nézet-Séguin should conduct as to the manor born.
MAKE A NIGHT OF IT: Cafe Luxembourg, part of a fine old (it pains me to say that) line of French bistro dining in New York (one that leads through to Frenchette).
-
Wed, May 8, 2019, 7:30 PM – Sat, May 11, 2019, 8:30 PM
Mark Morris Dance Group: Pepperland
DANCE
WEDNESDAY - SATURDAY, MAY 8 - 11, 2019
7:30 PM
BAM Opera House
30 Lafayette Avenue, Fort Greene, Brooklyn
$30-$100
https://www.bam.org/music/2019/pepperland
If you can think of anything more fun than Mark Morris interpreting Sgt.Pepper, please let me know immediately. Until then, let's all rush to this candy-colored tribute to the High '60s. Morris's former Music Director Ethan Iverson is back to handle the music -- and as a co-founder of jazz-does-rock-does-classical The Bad Plus, he's just the guy for it.
MAKE A NIGHT OF IT: Mod Israeli hotspot Miss Ada is fun enough to be worthy of capping the night.
-
Wednesday, May 8, 2019, 7:00 PM – 8:00 PM
Solar Flare: World Premieres by the 2019 Luna Composition Lab Fellows
MUSIC
WEDNESDAY, MAY 8, 2019
7:00 PM
Merkin Hall, Kaufman Music Center
129 West 67th Street, Upper West Side, Manhattan
$15
https://www.kaufmanmusiccenter.org/mch/event/luna-composition-lab-2018-19-fellows-performance/
I don't like to spend much time on juvenilia -- even Mozart's. So as laudable as the Luna Composition Lab's goal is of promoting the development of female, non-binary, and gender non-conforming composers, I wouldn't send you to a night of very young composers' works (played by similarly young musicians). BUT add some pieces by such excellent post-juvenile composers as Shelley Washington, Mary Halvorson, and Alex Temple and, well, here I am telling you to go!
MAKE A NIGHT OF IT: One can't help suspect that many of the young composers and performers are going to end up at My Pie Pizzeria Romana for Roman-syle pizza.
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Wed, May 8, 2019, 7:00 PM – Sat, May 11, 2019, 8:00 PM
Theater of War: Antigone in Ferguson
THEATER
WEDNESDAY - SATURDAY, MAY 8 - 11, 2019 (continuing through JULY 13)
7:00 PM WEDNESDAY - SATURDAY
2:00 PM SATURDAY
St. Ann & the Holy Trinity Church
157 Montague Street, Brooklyn Heights, Brooklyn
Free (by registration)
https://www.stannholytrinity.org/event/antigone-in-ferguson/
We long ago saw, in The Gospel at Colonus, how eloquently and effectively a gospel chorus could function as the chorus in a Greek tragedy. Now, in the wake of the murder at Ferguson, Missouri, that approach takes its gloves off. A rotating cast of high-powered New York actors reads excerpts from Sophocles's Antigone (about, as I don't have to tell you, resisting oppressive governmental power), with choral interjections by members of Brooklyn and Ferguson gospel choirs: activists, police officers, youth, citizens. An audience discussion follows -- not, the creators of this piece emphasize, a post-performance "talk back", but rather an integral part of the piece.
MAKE A NIGHT OF IT: It's funny to say so about such a homey place, but Polish standby Teresa's shines like a beacon in the food desert that is Montague Street.
-
Tuesday, May 7, 2019, 8:00 PM – 9:00 PM
Britten: Owen Wingrave
OPERA
THURSDAY - SUNDAY, MAY 9 - 12, 2019
7:30 PM THURSDAY - SATURDAY
3:00 PM SUNDAY
Little Opera Theater of NY
Gelsey Kirkland Arts Center
29 Jay Street, DUMBO, Brooklyn
$20-$45
http://www.lotny.org/
Benjamin Britten's anti-war television opera Owen Wingrave is very far from Britten's best -- which must be why it's so rarely performed. But you don't lightly pass up a chance to hear even a lesser work by the greatest operatic composer of the 20th Century. What makes Britten's music -- and his operas in particular -- so great is that he always comes up with these unexpected touches that turn out to be the perfect things to do what Britten wants. So while there's nothing particularly "strange" about his music (he was an avowed anti-avant-gardeist), it's always surprising -- and, in the operas, extremely effective dramatically without being the tiniest bit overblown.
MAKE A NIGHT OF IT: The Gelsey Kirkland Arts Center is even closer to Mediterranean-accented Celestine -- whose river views get more enticing as Spring rolls on -- than is St. Ann's Warehouse.
-
Tue, May 7, 2019, 8:00 PM – Sun, May 12, 2019, 4:00 PM
Taylor Mac: Gary: A Sequel to Titus Andronicus
THEATER
TUESDAY - SUNDAY, MAY 7 - 12, 2019
8:00 PM TUESDAY - SATURDAY
2:00 PM WEDNESDAY & SATURDAY
3:00 PM SUNDAY
Booth Theatre
222 West 45th Street, Midtown, Manhattan
$129-$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, May 7, 2019, 8:00 PM – Sun, May 12, 2019, 6:00 PM
-
Tuesday, May 7, 2019, 8:00 PM – 9:00 PM
Eric Wubbels: Voided Cross (for Michael Heizer)
MUSIC
TUESDAY, MAY 7, 2019
8:00 PM
Hypercube
The DiMenna Center for Classical Music
450 West 37th Street, Hell's Kitchen, Manhattan
$10
https://www.eventbrite.com/e/hypercube-presents-voided-cross-by-eric-wubbels-tickets-59996521210
Hypercube, the exciting sax/guitar/piano/percussion quartet, gives the U.S. premiere of a piece by Wet Inker Eric Wubbels that all concerned promise will be loud. As if that weren't enough, there are also pieces by Hypercube's sax player, Erin Rogers (whose compositions never fail to surprise and intrigue), and Los Angeles composer/guitarist Nicholas Deyoe (whose work is right up this band's street).
MAKE A NIGHT OF IT: Once again, turn your back on the banal evil that is Hudson Yards and make your way to the hearty and delicious Central Asian food at the jolly Farida.
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Tuesday, May 7, 2019, 7:45 PM – 8:45 PM
-
Tue, May 7, 2019, 7:30 PM – Sun, May 12, 2019, 8:30 PM
Christoper Chen: Passage
THEATER
TUESDAY - SUNDAY, MAY 7 - 12, 2019 (continuing through MAY 26)
7:30 PM TUESDAY - SUNDAY
3:00 PM SATURDAY
Soho Rep.
46 Walker Street, Tribeca, Manhattan
$35-$65; rush tickets $30/$20 students; 99¢ non-advance sales Sunday
https://sohorep.org/passage
Reality is a shifting construct in Christopher Chen's involving works, which are "immersive" not in the usual physical sense (a cheap trick if you ask me), but rather intellectually. This one's about colonialism; with that title, E.M. Forster can't be too far away.
MAKE A NIGHT OF IT: I feel like I have to recommend the hottest restaurant in Manhattan, imported Chicago gastrodiner Au Cheval, as it's essentially around the corner. It has the reputation of being impossible to get into without a long wait, but it's kind of doable after a show (and they now purport to take reservations -- for all the good that will probably do you). If you do get in, skip the famous burger, which is gloppy and overdressed (you can't even taste the meat), in favor of the supernal duckheart-gravied potato hash -- a dish you wish you were eating when you aren't (e.g., like me right now) -- or the fried bologna sandwich, which -- trust me on this -- is infinitely better than you would ever expect. The downstairs bar is missable.
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Tue, May 7, 2019, 7:30 PM – Sun, May 12, 2019, 8:30 PM
Dave Malloy: Octet
THEATER
TUESDAY - SUNDAY, MAY 7 - 12, 2019 (continuing through JUNE 16)
7:30 PM TUESDAY - FRIDAY
2:00 PM SATURDAY & SUNDAY
8:00 PM SATURDAY
Romulus Linney Courtyard Theater, The Pershing Square Signature Center
480 West 42nd Street, Hell's Kitchen, Manhattan
$35
https://www.signaturetheatre.org/shows-and-events/Productions/2018-2019/Octet.aspx
I have never seen a music/theater piece by Dave Malloy I didn't love love love. Whether he's leaning electro-pop (Natasha, Pierre & the Great Comet of 1812), folkie (Ghost Quartet), Martian rock (Beowulf: A Thousand Years of Baggage), or classical (Preludes and every Schubertian's dream night, the sublime Three Pianos), his music is fluent, catchy, surprising, and beautifully arranged. This piece for a cappella chamber choir explores our old friends addiction and nihilism through the lenses of internet discussion boards, scientific debates, religious texts, and Sufi poetry. Really, can you think of anything more enticing?
MAKE A NIGHT OF IT: The Polynesian -- where the Tiki cocktails and snacks are a lot better than they need to be.
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Tue, May 7, 2019, 7:30 PM – Sun, May 12, 2019, 4:00 PM
Norma Jeane Baker of Troy
THEATER
TUESDAY - SUNDAY, MAY 7 - 12, 2019 (continuing through MAY 19)
7:30 PM TUESDAY - SATURDAY
3:00 PM SUNDAY
The Shed
545 West 30th Street, Hudson Yards, Manhattan
$99-$179
https://theshed.org/program/4-norma-jeane-baker-of-troy
If you're going to make a theater piece mashing up two enormously famous but somewhat disparate beauties, each having made a huge impact on Western Culture at some cost to themselves (imposed because they were sexualized women), then you might as well have a cast comprising . . . Ben Whishaw and Renee Fleming? It begins to make sense when you see that the piece was written by Anne Carson, one of the best there is at twisting the classics for immediate relevance. The director is the highly distinguished Katie Mitchell.
MAKE A NIGHT OF IT: Kāwi, the most forthrightly Korean (which is not to say it's straight Korean) of the Momofukus, is finally open for dinner as well as lunch, so they have you covered all day. (Its adjacent sandwich/snack bar closes at 5 PM.
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Tue, May 7, 2019, 7:00 PM – Sun, May 12, 2019, 8:00 PM
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Tuesday, May 7, 2019, 7:00 PM – 8:00 PM
ACME: Nordic Noir
MUSIC
TUESDAY, MAY 7, 2019
7:00 PM
(Le) Poisson Rouge
158 Bleecker Street, Greenwich Village, Manhattan
$15-$20
https://lpr.com/lpr_events/nordic-noir-may-7-2019/
Although the participants themselves would strongly deny any such categorization, there are two strands to the current, very vibrant Nordic contemporary classical scene. One strand is what you might want to call "serious" music (ugh there must be a better word) featuring large structures moving very slowly but with a lot of detail, with sound palettes that are austere but exquisitely beautiful. Indeed, as dry as that description may sound, "exquisitely beautiful" is not a bad descriptor for this music on the whole (as long as you're willing to accept a good deal of austerity with your exquisite beauty). The other strand is, you might say, more pop-oriented. At its worst, it comes off as a combination of prog rock, New Age, and elevator music. At its best, though, it's accessible melodic music that retains your interest (its being Nordic and all, it's still kind of austere, though). Tonight the sterling American Contemporary Music Ensemble gives us a taste of both strands with two disparate Danish composers, Ejnar Kanding representing the first and Carston Bo Erikson (a/k/a My Beautiful Decay 1973) the second. Cool yourself down now that the weather is heating up.
MAKE A NIGHT OF IT: The guys behind Brooklyn's Mod Peruvian Llama Inn have reconfigured their Village outpost Llamita from a Peruvian sandwich shop into a "Peruvian bistro". Sounds good to me.
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Tuesday, May 7, 2019, 7:00 PM – 8:00 PM
Dan Lippel & Alejandro Flórez Duo
MUSIC
TUESDAY, MAY 7, 2019
7:00 PM
Areté Venue & Gallery
67 West Street #103, Greenpoint, Brooklyn
$15
https://www.aretevenue.com/events
Two questing guitarists play their own compositions and improvisations, skirting jazz and classical New Music.
MAKE A NIGHT OF IT: Early in the week, you might be able to get into the redhot Mexican Oxomoco.
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Tuesday, May 7, 2019, 6:00 PM – 7:00 PM
big dog little dog
MUSIC
TUESDAY, MAY 7, 2019
6:00 PM
Pop-Up Concert
Miller Theater at Columbia University
2960 Broadway, Morningside Heights, Manhattan
Free
https://www.millertheatre.com/events/big-dog-little-dog
Violinist Jessie Montgomery and bassist Eleonore Oppenheim are two terrific musicians -- and they're not afraid to be as much fun musically as the Pop-Up Concerts' grab-a-chair-on-the-stage-and-have-a-beer format is socially. As a duo, they do cross-genre improvisations in a style they describe as "post-minimalist groove Americana". I think they need an additional "post" in there -- but either way this sounds extremely enjoyable.
MAKE A NIGHT OF IT: It wouldn't be a Miller Theater Pop-Up Concert if I didn't remind you that the show's early curtain gives you time to get to supernal steam-table soul food mecca Manna's before its absurdly early closing (the Frederick Douglass Boulevard branch is the closest).
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Tue, May 7, 2019, 11:15 AM – Sun, May 12, 2019, 12:15 PM
Reich Richter Pärt
MUSIC
TUESDAY - SUNDAY, MAY 7 - 12, 2019 (continuing through JUNE 2)
11:15 AM & 12:30, 3:00 & 4:30 PM TUESDAY, WEDNESDAY & SUNDAY 1:00, 2:30, 5:00 & 6:30 PM THURSDAY - SATURDAY
The Shed
545 West 30th Street, Hudson Yards, Manhattan
$52
https://theshed.org/program/2-reich-richter-part
This show is both quite good and somewhat dispiriting. It is an almost bodyless collaboration among three major international artists. And yes, the three principals are all undeniably great (the new piece Steve Reich wrote for this show is especially good, maybe the best thing he's written in years -- perhaps because, as he has noted, Gerhard Richter's artistic approach impelled him to recur in part to the style of his early years). But another outlet for Major Collaborative Works by the Established International Avant-Garde isn't going to make at least one visitor forgive the epic scar on the urban fabricthis real estate development represents, built for the ultra-rich with money filched from taxpayers.
MAKE A NIGHT OF IT: Kāwi, the most forthrightly Korean (which is not to say it's straight Korean) of the Momofukus, is finally open for dinner as well as lunch, so they have you covered all day. (Its adjacent sandwich/snack bar closes at 5 PM.)
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Monday, May 6, 2019, 8:00 PM – 9:00 PM
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Sunday, May 5, 2019, 4:00 PM – 5:00 PM
Monica Huggett & Byron Schenkman: Leclair, Rameau & The Age of Enlightenment
MUSIC
SUNDAY, MAY 5, 2019
4:00 PM
Monica Huggett & Byron Schenkman: Leclair, Rameau & The Age of Enlightenment
Music Before 1800
Corpus Christi Church
529 West 121st Street, Morningside Heights, Manhattan
$10-$50
http://mb1800.org/concert/monica-huggett-byron-schenkman/?utm_medium=display&utm_source=bachtrack.com&utm_campaign=listinglink
Veteran Early Music violinist Monica Huggett is not my particular favorite in this particular repertoire: I think French Baroque requires more elegance than Huggett's hearty playing normally provides (excellent as Huggett is in other stuff). But I love French Baroque chamber music so much for its ineffable refinement that I'm not going to warn you off a concert of Rameau, Leclair, and Couperin just because I don't consider the violinist/ensemble leader ideal.
MAKE A NIGHT OF IT: Good Northern Chinese food -- bordering on Central Asian in its meaty heartiness -- at Dun Huang.
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Sunday, May 5, 2019, 3:30 PM – 4:30 PM
International Street Cannibals: Schoenberg's DNA
MUSIC
SUNDAY, MARCH 5, 2019
3:30 PM
St. Mark's Church-in-the-Bowery
131 East 10th Street, East Village, Manhattan
$20
https://www.eventbrite.com/e/schoenbergs-dna-music-by-beethoven-schumann-berg-alma-mahler-webern-and-more-tickets-60702923077?aff=erelexpmlt
High Romanticism had two endpoints. One was Richard Strauss, which petered out into movie music. The other was the Mahler-into-Schoenbergstrand, which through Webern continued into Boulez and people like Kurtág. Well, the second part is this concert's thesis, anyway (I myself would say that what's key for late 20th Century music was Webern's takeaway fromDebussy), tracing the lead-in to Schoenberg's music through Beethoven,Schumann, and Alma Mahler; and then out through Berg and Webern into Kurtág. The splendid singer and players are Ariadne Greif, Conor Hanick, andAnna Tsukervanik.
MAKE A NIGHT OF IT: Little Tong Noodles, for contemporary Yunnanese Mixian noodles.
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Sunday, May 5, 2019, 11:15 AM – 12:15 PM
Reich Richter Pärt
MUSIC
TUESDAY - SUNDAY, APRIL 30 - MAY 5, 2019 (continuing through JUNE 2)
11:15 AM & 12:30, 3:00 & 4:30 PM TUESDAY, WEDNESDAY & SUNDAY
1:00, 2:30, 5:00 & 6:30 PM THURSDAY - SATURDAY
The Shed
545 West 30th Street, Hudson Yards, Manhattan
$52
https://theshed.org/program/2-reich-richter-part
This show is both quite good and somewhat dispiriting. It is an almost bodiless collaboration among three major international artists. And yes, the three principals are all undeniably great (the new piece Steve Reich wrote for this show is especially good, maybe the best thing he's written in years -- perhaps because, as he has noted, Gerhard Richter's artistic approach impelled him to recur in part to the style of his early years). But another outlet for Major Collaborative Works by the Established International Avant-Garde isn't going to make at least one visitor forgive the epic scar on the urban fabricthis real estate development represents, built for the ultra-rich with money filched from taxpayers.
MAKE A NIGHT OF IT: Kāwi, the most forthrightly Korean (which is not to say it's straight Korean) of the Momofukus, is finally open for dinner as well as lunch, so they have you covered all day. (Its adjacent sandwich/snack bar closes at 5 PM.)
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Saturday, May 4, 2019, 8:00 PM – 9:00 PM
Classic NYCB I
DANCE
SATURDAY, MAY 4, 2019 (continuing through MAY 12)
8:00 PM
New York City Ballet
David H. Koch Theater
20 Lincoln Center Plaza, Upper West Side, Manhattan
$35-$195
https://www.nycballet.com/season-tickets/18-19-season/spring/may-4-2019-eve-classic-nycb-1.aspx
Some usual Balanchine retreads (which, hard as it may be to believe, I don't mean pejoratively at all), and a revival of a rarely performed solo piece (it was choreographed on Baryshnikov, so who's going to dare?) by Jerome Robbins. But we're going to this show for fractured Post-Modern choreographer Pam Tanowitz's debut with this company, set to Bartók. And for a new piece by the stunning Justin Peck.
MAKE A NIGHT OF IT: Bar Boulud, still serving first-rate bistro food.
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Sat, May 4, 2019, 8:00 PM – Sun, May 5, 2019, 9:00 PM
Look & Listen Festival
MUSIC
FRIDAY & SATURDAY, MAY 4 & 5, 2019 (continuing on MAY 11)
8:00 PM
FRIDAY: BRIC House
647 Fulton Street, Fort Greene, Brooklyn
SATURDAY: Areté Venue & Gallery
67 West Street #103, Greenpoint, Brooklyn
Free (with R.S.V.P.)
http://www.lookandlisten.org/festival/2019-festival/
This annual festival presents New Music alongside complimentary visual art works. And I have to say, based on music alone, this year's is one of the most appealing line-ups they've yet come up with. Putting aside the themes of the several shows, Friday night's, at BRIC House, includes cellist Seth Parker Woods playing, among other composers, Nathalie Joaquim (who makes eloquent use of field recordings from her native Haiti) and the great George Lewis (who shows that the border between contemporary jazz and contemporary classical is illusory); the noise/chamber TAK Ensemble playingNatacha Diels (who never met a sound she couldn't make something of) and Doug Bailliet (baroque-inflected, rap-inflected, indie-pop-inflected, I-care-if-you-listen music); and Angélica Negrón (madcap electronic tropical contemporary classical). Saturday's amazingly compelling show has a set by Majel Connery, who doesn't care that you can't tell if she's singing New Opera or avant-pop; the exciting voice-and-winds quartet loadbang; and the fabulous, meaty neo-gutbucket jazz saxophonist Darius Jones playing duets with the ethereal out-of-India vocalist Amirtha Kidambi.
MAKE A NIGHT OF IT: The BRIC House pairs well with The Rockwell Place, a new cocktail bar with an excellent pedigree. For Areté, I'm going to continue to push Cherry Point, which looks like a bar but serves amazingly well-prepared English-inflected meat dishes.
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Saturday, May 4, 2019, 8:00 PM – 9:00 PM
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Saturday, May 4, 2019, 8:00 PM – 9:00 PM
May the 4th Be With You: Jaimie Branch's Anteloper & Fly or Die
MUSIC
SATURDAY, MAY 4, 2019
8:00 PM
Roulette
509 Atlantic Avenue (entrance on 3rd Avenue), Boerum Hill, Brooklyn
$18 advance; $20 door
https://roulette.org/event/may-the-4th-be-with-you-jaimie-branch-with-anteloper-and-fly-or-die/
There is no more interesting, distintinctive, and fun-to-listen-to trumpeter in jazz than Jaimie Branch. She plays tonight with two ensembles: a trumpet-drum duo (tonight with computer visuals) and a trumpet-cello-bass-drums quartet. Branch's playing is always described as "ghostly" (yeah, I like Miles Davis and Don Cherry, too). Although she now resides in Brooklyn, she comes out of the Chicago contemporary jazz/experimental scene, and her forward-looking, experimental style is characteristic of that city's contemporary music. Here in Brooklyn, she's a breath (no pun intended) of fresh air.
MAKE A NIGHT OF IT: You just know I'm gonna send you to that great Korean spot Insa, right? And that I'm gonna tell you to skip the tabletop barbecue in the dining room and eat in the bar / lounge?
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Saturday, May 4, 2019, 7:30 PM – 8:30 PM
yMusic
MUSIC
SATURDAY, MAY 4, 2019
7:30 PM
yMusic
Zankel Hall, Carnegie Hall
881 7th Avenue, Midtown, Manhattan
$38-$45
https://www.carnegiehall.org/Calendar/2019/05/04/yMusic-0730PM
yMusic was the "indie classical" supergroup, the ensemble that so perfectly encapsulated the "indie classical" ethos that the style almost had to start to fade thereafter. Which is not to say it doesn't/didn't have considerable appeal, as this show will demonstrate. You get a couple of pieces by emerging star composer Gabriella Smith, who generates interesting textures as easily as breathing (and whose Carrot Revolution -- NOT on this program -- was theNew Music hit of the past year). You get some pieces by the band. You get pieces by favorites Caroline Shaw (whose music never ever fails to enchant) and Nico Muhly. You get folk pop arrangements. And more! What's not to like?
MAKE A NIGHT OF IT: Souvlaki GR for high-quality Greek that in this neighborhood counts as a real bargain.
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Sat, May 4, 2019, 7:00 PM – Sun, May 5, 2019, 12:00 AM
Brooklyn Youth Chorus: Silent Voices: Lovestate
MUSIC
THURSDAY & SATURDAY - SUNDAY, MAY 2 & 4 - 5, 2019
7:00 PM THURSDAY & SATURDAY
2:00 PM SATURDAY
12:00 & 4:00 PM SUNDAY
New Victory Theater
209 West 42nd Street, Midtown, Manhattan
$17-$42
https://tickets.newvictory.org/single/PSDetail.aspx?psn=9438
The wonderful Brooklyn Youth Chorus presents a program in which they deal with the issues with which they are faced regarding race, gender, and orientation. They do it, however, via a set of compositions by a list of composers including several of this List's very favorites, like David Lang,Caroline Shaw, Olga Bell, Nico Muhly, Paola Prestini, and Bora Yoon.
MAKE A NIGHT OF IT: This may be a job for the new Theater District location of Pastrami Queen.
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Saturday, May 4, 2019, 6:00 PM – 7:00 PM
Dave Ruder: You Must Read a Lot of Jung
MUSIC
SATURDAY, MAY 4, 2019
6:00 PM
thingNY
Artefix
38-02 61st Street, Woodside, Queens
$10
http://www.thingny.com/events
As far as I'm concerned, thingNY are it, a group of just the composer/performers I want to hear composing and performing just the kind of music I want to hear: pop-inflected vocal classical with all the formal rigor and intellectual acuity of the best classical with all the stylistic inventiveness and immediate appeal of the best pop. Here we get a new piece by band member Dave Ruder and another piece by band members Gelsey Bell and Erin Rogers. You really really should go to this.
MAKE A NIGHT OF IT: Smash hit Filipino fast food import Jolibee. It's most loved for its burger -- which might look just like everyone else's, but when you taste it you'll know you're not in Kansas anymore. I would also be remiss if I didn't point you to the Station Bar, as divey a bar as you could imagine.
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Friday, May 3, 2019, 8:00 PM – 9:00 PM
Liquid Light Lab & Ricardo Romaneiro: Liquidverse
MUSIC / PERFORMANCE
FRIDAY, MAY 3, 2019
8:00 PM
National Sawdust
80 North 6th Street, Williamsburg, Brooklyn
$25
https://nationalsawdust.org/event/liquidverse-2/
A light show like when I was in high school! Set to the music of Ricardo Romaneiro, whose electronic/acoustic compositions are trippy and clubby and perfect for this purpose. Cosmic!
MAKE A NIGHT OF IT: I cannot in good conscience tell you to order oysters in May, but the cocktails at Hotel Delmano are still great, and there's other food to snack on.
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Fri, May 3, 2019, 8:00 PM – Sat, May 4, 2019, 9:00 PM
Look & Listen Festival
MUSIC
FRIDAY & SATURDAY, MAY 3 & 4, 2019 (continuing on MAY 11)
8:00 PM
FRIDAY: BRIC House
647 Fulton Street, Fort Greene, Brooklyn
SATURDAY: Areté Venue & Gallery
67 West Street #103, Greenpoint, Brooklyn
Free (with R.S.V.P.)
http://www.lookandlisten.org/festival/2019-festival/
This annual festival presents New Music alongside complimentary visual art works. And I have to say, based on music alone, this year's is one of the most appealing line-ups they've yet come up with. Putting aside the themes of the several shows, Friday night's, at BRIC House, includes cellist Seth Parker Woods playing, among other composers, Nathalie Joaquim (who makes eloquent use of field recordings from her native Haiti) and the great George Lewis (who shows that the border between contemporary jazz and contemporary classical is illusory); the noise/chamber TAK Ensemble playingNatacha Diels (who never met a sound she couldn't make something of) andDoug Bailliet (baroque-inflected, rap-inflected, indie-pop-inflected, I-care-if-you-listen music); and Angélica Negrón (madcap electronic tropical contemporary classical). Saturday's amazingly compelling show has a set byMajel Connery, who doesn't care that you can't tell if she's singing New Opera or avant-pop; the exciting voice-and-winds quartet loadbang; and the fabulous, meaty neo-gutbucket jazz saxophonist Darius Jones playing duets with the ethereal out-of-India vocalist Amirtha Kidambi.
MAKE A NIGHT OF IT: The BRIC House pairs well with The Rockwell Place, a new cocktail bar with an excellent pedigree. For Areté, I'm going to continue to push Cherry Point, which looks like a bar but serves amazingly well-prepared English-inflected meat dishes.
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Fri, May 3, 2019, 8:00 PM – Sat, May 4, 2019, 9:00 PM
The Stone Series: Tomas Fujiwara
MUSIC
FRIDAY & SATURDAY, MAY 3 & 4, 2019
8:00 PM
Happylucky No. 1
734 Nostrand Avenue, Crown Heights, Brooklyn
$20
http://www.happyluckyno1.com/happenings/2019/3/8/the-stone-series-ami-yamasaki-bfbe5-ddzc7-6hrjp-g3m8p-dynch-4cz6b-ecre2-psy4b-fpmah-m3f5h-5gz6h-hbgl7-72blx
http://www.happyluckyno1.com/happenings/2019/3/8/the-stone-series-ami-yamasaki-bfbe5-ddzc7-6hrjp-g3m8p-dynch-4cz6b-ecre2-psy4b-fpmah-m3f5h-5gz6h-hbgl7-72blx-639y5
Tomas Fujiwara is a master drummer, constantly shifting and improvising around a strong rhythmic thread. But sometimes you get the feeling that he's almost even more concentrated on playing bands -- collections of interestingly disparate musicians -- than on playing his drums. So while the first night of this two-night residency, featuring a quartet with the great Mary Halvorson on guitar, Patricia Brennan on vibes, and the (happily) omnipresent Nick Dunston on bass, is extremely appealing, the second night, featuring Fujiwara playing solo, may be even more interesting in finally putting his playing solidly in the spotlight.
MAKE A NIGHT OF IT: I'll spare you the (great) backstory this time and just remind you that David's Brisket House has some of the best pastrami in Brooklyn. And the brisket's nothing to sneer at, either. (If you're me, you'll have a combo.)
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Friday, May 3, 2019, 7:30 PM – 8:30 PM
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Friday, May 3, 2019, 7:30 PM – 8:30 PM
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Friday, May 3, 2019, 7:30 PM – 8:30 PM
Poulenc: Diologues de Carmélites
OPERA
FRIDAY, MAY 3, 2019 (also MAY 8 & 11)
7:30 PM
Metropolitan Opera
30 Lincoln Center Plaza, Upper West Side, Manhattan
$140-$495
https://www.metopera.org/season/2018-19-season/dialogues-des-carmelites/
Francis Poulenc has the reputation of a petit-maître -- and while he's one of my very favorite composers, I can't disagree. But how then do you account for this exquisite, nearly three-hour opera whose ending, hieratic as it may be, packs a real emotional wallop? The lead, Sister Blanche, is another part the cool mezzo Isabel Leonard could have been born to play, and soprano Erin Morley should be a joy as the chatterbox Sister Constance; but what has opera buffs really excited here is the assumption by Karita Mattila, she of the volcanic stage presence, of the role of the First Prioress, whose (SPOILER ALERT) first-act death should, in Mattila's hands, be a shattering experience. The production is one of the few remaining from the Met's lamented John Dexter era, spare and eloquent in a way the company has since lost. New Music Director Yannick Nézet-Séguin should conduct as to the manor born.
MAKE A NIGHT OF IT: Cafe Luxembourg, part of a fine old (it pains me to say that) line of French bistro dining in New York (one that leads through to Frenchette).
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Fri, May 3, 2019, 7:30 PM – Sat, May 4, 2019, 8:30 PM
Heidi Latsky Dance Company: Unfinished . . . a way out
DANCE
FRIDAY & SATURDAY, MAY 3 & 4, 2019 (continuing through MAY 11)
7:30 PM
Dixon Place
161A Chrystie Street, Lower East Side, Manhattan
$18/$15 students/seniors advance; $21/$18 students/seniors door
http://dixonplace.org/performances/unfinished/
The marvelous dancer/choreographer Heidi Latsky and her wonderful company explore, among other things, Latsky's stated newfound interest in death and dying. Ut-oh! Expect a lot of fluidity of motion with interludes of rhythmic pounding.
MAKE A NIGHT OF IT: Nom Wah Nolita for good dim sum.
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Fri, May 3, 2019, 7:00 PM – Sun, May 5, 2019, 8:00 PM
Nick Lehane: Chimpanzee
THEATER
TUESDAY - WEDNESDAY & FRIDAY - SUNDAY, APRIL 30 & MAY 1 & 3 - 5, 2019
7:00 PM
HERE
145 Sixth Avenue (entrance on Dominick Street), Hudson Square, Manhattan
$25-$45
http://here.org/shows/detail/2013/
Nick Lehane's hit piece of puppet theater is back, in which an aging chimpanzee non-verbally pieces together her fragmented memories of her childhood in a human family.
MAKE A NIGHT OF IT: I'm still excited to try the mod Italian spot Mav Soho -- or to hear from someone else who's tried it.
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Fri, May 3, 2019, 7:00 PM – Sat, May 4, 2019, 8:00 PM
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Fri, May 3, 2019, 7:00 PM – Sat, May 4, 2019, 8:00 PM
Fado Festival
MUSIC
FRIDAY & SATURDAY, MAY 3 & 4, 2019
7:00 PM
Winter Garden, Brookfield Place
230 Vesey Street, Battery Park City, Manhattan
Free
http://www.fadofestival.net/
Fado -- the urban music of Lisbon and Coimbra -- is the saddest music in the world. Portuguese, filled with resentment and self-loathing over the fact thattheirs was the most powerful country in the world for a century and change 700 years ago but they then threw it down the toilet to become one of the worst-performing economies in Europe, channel all that into achingly beautiful guitar-accompanied songs about the impossibility of requited love (especially on the edge of a huge ocean that people can disappear onto whenever they want). These two free shows feature sets by two singers each. The pick is the Friday show, because it features Camané, one of the best Fadistos now performing. But on Saturday you can hear his brother, Helder Moutinho, who isn't fígado picado himself.
MAKE A NIGHT OF IT: Fancy barbecue (if you can conceive of such a thing) at Holy Ground.
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Thu, May 2, 2019, 8:00 PM – Sun, May 5, 2019, 4:00 PM
Stradella: La Susanna
OPERA
THURSDAY - SUNDAY, MAY 2 - 5, 2019
8:00 PM THURSDAY - SATURDAY
3:00 PM SUNDAY
Hearbeat Opera/Lafayette Opera
BAM Fisher
321 Ashland Place, Fort Greene, Brooklyn
$25-$135
https://www.heartbeatopera.org/la-susanna
New York's political opera company Heartbeat Opera teams with Washington, D.C.'s period opera company Opera Lafayette for one of many Baroque retellings of the "Susanna and the Elders" apocryphal addition to the BiblicalBook of Daniel. Given Heartbeat's proclivities, one can assume that this story of a young woman falsely accused of sexual misconduct by powerful older men who want to use her sexually will be given solid contemporary resonance. Alessandro Stradella, a star during his lifetime, is yet another of those really good Baroque composers whose music you don't get to hear enough; this is in fact a U.S. premiere. Given the tiny size of the venue, I'm kind of shocked there are still tickets available. Go.
MAKE A NIGHT OF IT: Let's try the new Fort Greene branch of Peaches HotHouse, featuring Nashville-style Hot Chicken.
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Thursday, May 2, 2019, 8:00 PM – 9:00 PM
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Thu, May 2, 2019, 8:00 PM – Sun, May 5, 2019, 8:59 PM
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Thu, May 2, 2019, 7:30 PM – Fri, May 3, 2019, 8:30 PM
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Thursday, May 2, 2019, 7:00 PM – 8:00 PM
The Orchestra Now: De Profundis: Out of the Depths
MUSIC
THURSDAY, MAY 2, 2019
7:00 PM
Carnegie Hall
881 7th Avenue, Midtown, Manhattan
$12.50-$60
https://www.carnegiehall.org/Calendar/2019/05/02/The-Orchestra-Now-0700PM
Former wunderkind Leon Botstein is a frustrating conductor. He's a whiz at programming, playing rare, interesting repertoire in thought-provoking combinations. But he's a stolid, sludgy music-maker. (To be sure, he has a lot more going on in his life than just conducting.) So this show, themed around interpretations of Psalm 130 ("Out of the depths . . . ."), is full of music you'd love to hear, even if the performances may leave you wanting more. A contemporary violin concerto by the graceful Lera Auerbach. A piece by Lili Boulanger, a French post-Romantic whose tuneful music with a hint of tartness would, people are now coming to realize, be played all the time if the composer weren't (a) a woman who (b) died tragically young. A Virgil Thomson piece that gives the lie to the commonplace that the poptart American composer/critic never wrote anything deep (no pun intended). And obscure Germanic High Romanticism by Joachim Raff, whose work will, if nothing else, make you really appreciate Brahms.
MAKE A NIGHT OF IT: A good night for the Modern Indian at Indian Accent.
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Thu, May 2, 2019, 7:00 PM – Fri, May 3, 2019, 12:00 AM
Brooklyn Youth Chorus: Silent Voices: Lovestate
MUSIC
THURSDAY & SATURDAY - SUNDAY, MAY 2 & 4 - 5, 2019
7:00 PM THURSDAY & SATURDAY
2:00 PM SATURDAY
12:00 & 4:00 PM SUNDAY
New Victory Theater
209 West 42nd Street, Midtown, Manhattan
$17-$42
https://tickets.newvictory.org/single/PSDetail.aspx?psn=9438
The wonderful Brooklyn Youth Chorus presents a program in which they deal with the issues with which they are faced regarding race, gender, and orientation. They do it, however, via a set of compositions by a list of composers including several of this List's very favorites, like David Lang,Caroline Shaw, Olga Bell, Nico Muhly, Paola Prestini, and Bora Yoon.
MAKE A NIGHT OF IT: This may be a job for the new Theater District location of Pastrami Queen.
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Thursday, May 2, 2019, 3:00 PM – 4:00 PM
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Thu, May 2, 2019, 1:00 PM – Sat, May 4, 2019, 2:00 PM
Reich Richter Pärt
MUSIC
TUESDAY - SUNDAY, APRIL 30 - MAY 5, 2019 (continuing through JUNE 2)
11:15 AM & 12:30, 3:00 & 4:30 PM TUESDAY, WEDNESDAY & SUNDAY
1:00, 2:30, 5:00 & 6:30 PM THURSDAY - SATURDAY
The Shed
545 West 30th Street, Hudson Yards, Manhattan
$52
https://theshed.org/program/2-reich-richter-part
This show is both quite good and somewhat dispiriting. It is an almost bodiless collaboration among three major international artists. And yes, the three principals are all undeniably great (the new piece Steve Reich wrote for this show is especially good, maybe the best thing he's written in years -- perhaps because, as he has noted, Gerhard Richter's artistic approach impelled him to recur in part to the style of his early years). But another outlet for Major Collaborative Works by the Established International Avant-Garde isn't going to make at least one visitor forgive the epic scar on the urban fabricthis real estate development represents, built for the ultra-rich with money filched from taxpayers.
MAKE A NIGHT OF IT: Kāwi, the most forthrightly Korean (which is not to say it's straight Korean) of the Momofukus, is finally open for dinner as well as lunch, so they have you covered all day. (Its adjacent sandwich/snack bar closes at 5 PM.)
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Wednesday, May 1, 2019, 9:00 PM – 10:00 PM
Limited Resources 29
MUSIC
WEDNESDAY, MAY 1, 2019
9:00 PM
Muchmore's
2 Havermeyer Street, Williamsburg, Brooklyn
$10 donation
https://www.facebook.com/events/297560797794658/
A night of experimental noise music featuring, among others, List fave avant-vocalist Charmaine Lee in a duo with the extremely noisy Tokyo-to-Berlin avant-vocalist Kazehito Seki.
MAKE A NIGHT OF IT: The only way to find out if you think the wildly popular pastary Lilia is as overrated as I do is to go.
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Wednesday, May 1, 2019, 8:00 PM – 9:00 PM
Julia Wolfe: Fountain of Youth
MUSIC
WEDNESDAY, MAY 1, 2019
8:00 PM
New World Symphony
Carnegie Hall
881 7th Avenue, Midtown, Manhattan
$12-$80
https://www.carnegiehall.org/Calendar/2019/05/01/New-World-Symphony-0800PM
Julia Wolfe has composed an orchestral showpiece for Michael Tilson-Thomas's Miami-based youth orchestra -- and there's no reason to expect it to be any less vital, astringent, and compelling that the others in Wolfe's recent string of excellent pieces. As for the rest of the program, the dazzling pianist Yuja Wang playing Prokofiev is as sure a bet as there is (here, his rather rare [because hard to pull off] but, in the right hands [I'm betting on Yuja], fun and amazing Fifth Concerto). And the last time I heard Tilson-Thomas conduct Berlioz's psychedelic-avant-la-lettre Symphonie Fantastique, it was just right.
MAKE A NIGHT OF IT: I swear it isn't because this orchestra is from Miami, but I just think this concert deserves the sheer fun of the Cuban nightspot Guantanamera.
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Wednesday, May 1, 2019, 8:00 PM – 9:00 PM
Brendon Randall-Myers
MUSIC
WEDNESDAY, MAY 1, 2019
8:00 PM
Roulette
509 Atlantic Avenue (entrance on 3rd Avenue), Boerum Hill, Brooklyn
$18 advance; $25 door
https://roulette.org/event/brendon-randall-myers-marateck-miki-sawada-machines-and-mirrors/
Composer/guitarist Brendon Randall-Myers presents two complimentary sets. His "rock" band Marateck plays electronic music that, with elements of human fallibility, sounds human. Pianist Miki Sawada plays acoustic music by Randall-Myers that, with her busy superhuman technique, sounds electronic.
MAKE A NIGHT OF IT: After two complimentary sets of music, two complimentary drinking/dining spots: Building on Bond for the burger, then Robert for the swanky cocktails.
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Tue, Apr 30, 2019, 8:00 PM – Sun, May 5, 2019, 4:00 PM
Taylor Mac: Gary: A Sequel to Titus Andronicus
THEATER
TUESDAY - SUNDAY, APRIL 30 - MAY 5, 2019
8:00 PM TUESDAY - SATURDAY
2:00 PM WEDNESDAY & SATURDAY
3:00 PM SUNDAY
Booth Theatre
222 West 45th Street, Midtown, Manhattan
$129-$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, Apr 30, 2019, 8:00 PM – Sun, May 5, 2019, 6:00 PM
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Tue, Apr 30, 2019, 7:30 PM – Sun, May 5, 2019, 3:30 PM
Dave Malloy: Octet
THEATER
TUESDAY - SUNDAY, APRIL 30 - MAY 5, 2019 (continuing through JUNE 16)*
7:30 PM TUESDAY - FRIDAY
2:00 PM SATURDAY & SUNDAY
8:00 PM SATURDAY
Romulus Linney Courtyard Theater, The Pershing Square Signature Center
480 West 42nd Street, Hell's Kitchen, Manhattan
$35
https://www.signaturetheatre.org/shows-and-events/Productions/2018-2019/Octet.aspx
I have never seen a music/theater piece by Dave Malloy I didn't love love love. Whether he's leaning electro-pop (Natasha, Pierre & the Great Comet of 1812), folkie (Ghost Quartet), Martian rock (Beowulf: A Thousand Years of Baggage), or classical (Preludes and every Schubertian's dream night, the sublime Three Pianos), his music is fluent, catchy, surprising, and beautifully arranged. This piece for a cappella chamber choir explores our old friends addiction and nihilism through the lenses of internet discussion boards, scientific debates, religious texts, and Sufi poetry. Really, can you think of anything more enticing?
MAKE A NIGHT OF IT: The Polynesian -- where the Tiki cocktails and snacks are a lot better than they need to be.
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Tue, Apr 30, 2019, 7:30 PM – Sun, May 5, 2019, 4:30 PM
Norma Jeane Baker of Troy
THEATER
TUESDAY - SUNDAY, APRIL 30 - MAY 5, 2019 (continuing through MAY 19)
7:30 PM TUESDAY - SATURDAY
3:00 PM SUNDAY
The Shed
545 West 30th Street, Hudson Yards, Manhattan
$99-$179
https://theshed.org/program/4-norma-jeane-baker-of-troy
If you're going to make a theater piece mashing up two enormously famous but somewhat disparate beauties, each having made a huge impact on Western Culture at some cost to themselves (imposed because they were sexualized women), then you might as well have a cast comprising . . . Ben Whishaw and Renee Fleming? It begins to make sense when you see that the piece was written by Anne Carson, one of the best there is at twisting the classics for immediate relevance. The director is the highly distinguished Katie Mitchell.
MAKE A NIGHT OF IT: Kāwi, the most forthrightly Korean (which is not to say it's straight Korean) of the Momofukus, is finally open for dinner as well as lunch, so they have you covered all day. (Its adjacent sandwich/snack bar closes at 5 PM.
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Tue, Apr 30, 2019, 7:30 PM – Sun, May 5, 2019, 4:30 PM
Christoper Chen: Passage
THEATER
TUESDAY - SUNDAY, APRIL 30 - MAY 5, 2019 (continuing through MAY 26)
7:30 PM TUESDAY - SUNDAY
3:00 PM SATURDAY
Soho Rep.
46 Walker Street, Tribeca, Manhattan
$35-$65; rush tickets $30/$20 students; 99¢ non-advance sales Sunday
https://sohorep.org/passage
Reality is a shifting construct in Christopher Chen's involving works, which are "immersive" not in the usual physical sense (a cheap trick if you ask me), but rather intellectually. This one's about colonialism; with that title, E.M. Forstercan't be too far away
MAKE A NIGHT OF IT: I feel like I have to recommend the hottest restaurant in Manhattan, imported Chicago gastrodiner Au Cheval, as it's essentially around the corner. It has the reputation of being impossible to get into without a long wait, but it's kind of doable after a show (and they now purport to take reservations -- for all the good that will probably do you). If you do get in, skip the famous burger, which is gloppy and overdressed (you can't even taste the meat), in favor of the supernal duckheart-gravied potato hash -- a dish you wish you were eating when you aren't (e.g., like me right now) -- or the fried bologna sandwich, which -- trust me on this -- is infinitely better than you would ever expect. The downstairs bar is missable.
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Tue, Apr 30, 2019, 7:00 PM – Sun, May 5, 2019, 3:00 PM
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Tue, Apr 30, 2019, 7:00 PM – Wed, May 1, 2019, 8:00 PM
Nick Lehane: Chimpanzee
THEATER
TUESDAY - WEDNESDAY & FRIDAY - SUNDAY, APRIL 30 & MAY 1 & 3 - 5, 2019
7:00 PM
HERE
145 Sixth Avenue (entrance on Dominick Street), Hudson Square, Manhattan
$25-$45
http://here.org/shows/detail/2013/
Nick Lehane's hit piece of puppet theater is back, in which an aging chimpanzee non-verbally pieces together her fragmented memories of her childhood in a human family.
MAKE A NIGHT OF IT: I'm still excited to try the mod Italian spot Mav Soho -- or to hear from someone else who's tried it.
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Tue, Apr 30, 2019, 11:15 AM – Wed, May 1, 2019, 12:15 PM
Reich Richter Pärt
MUSIC
TUESDAY - SUNDAY, APRIL 30 - MAY 5, 2019 (continuing through JUNE 2)
11:15 AM & 12:30, 3:00 & 4:30 PM TUESDAY, WEDNESDAY & SUNDAY
1:00, 2:30, 5:00 & 6:30 PM THURSDAY - SATURDAY
The Shed
545 West 30th Street, Hudson Yards, Manhattan
$52
https://theshed.org/program/2-reich-richter-part
This show is both quite good and somewhat dispiriting. It is an almost bodiless collaboration among three major international artists. And yes, the three principals are all undeniably great (the new piece Steve Reich wrote for this show is especially good, maybe the best thing he's written in years -- perhaps because, as he has noted, Gerhard Richter's artistic approach impelled him to recur in part to the style of his early years). But another outlet for Major Collaborative Works by the Established International Avant-Garde isn't going to make at least one visitor forgive the epic scar on the urban fabricthis real estate development represents, built for the ultra-rich with money filched from taxpayers.
MAKE A NIGHT OF IT: Kāwi, the most forthrightly Korean (which is not to say it's straight Korean) of the Momofukus, is finally open for dinner as well as lunch, so they have you covered all day. (Its adjacent sandwich/snack bar closes at 5 PM.)
