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Sunday, October 31, 2021, 7:00 PM – 8:00 PM
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Sunday, October 31, 2021, 3:00 PM – 4:00 PM
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Sunday, October 31, 2021, 2:30 PM – 3:30 PM
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Saturday, October 30, 2021, 8:00 PM – 9:00 PM
Alec Hall: Credo: A Surveillance Mass
OPERA
SATURDAY, OCTOBER 30, 2021
8:00 PM
Qubit
Riverside Church Theater
91 Claremont Avenue, Morningside Heights, Manhattan
Free (by registration)
https://qubitmusic.com/Credo
A Mass "celebrating" the online takeover of our social interactions, personal information, and politics. Ekmeles will sing it.
MAKE A NIGHT OF IT: Not that the competition is fierce, but one would be hard-pressed to find better Eritrean in New York than at Massawa.
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Saturday, October 30, 2021, 8:00 PM – 9:00 PM
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Saturday, October 30, 2021, 7:30 PM – 8:30 PM
Fluxus Fest 2021
PERFORMANCE / MUSIC
SATURDAY, OCTOBER 30, 2021
7:30 PM
1 Rivington Street, Lower East Side, Manhattan
$5-$25 recommended donation
https://metropolisensemble.org/all-events/fluxusfest2021
An exploration and celebration of the foundational Fluxus movement of the early '60s, which birthed much of what I write about here today.
MAKE A NIGHT OF IT: Sophisticated Indonesian at Wayan.
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Saturday, October 30, 2021, 7:30 PM – 8:30 PM
Caroline Shaw & Andrew Yee
MUSIC
SATURDAY, OCTOBER 30, 2021
7:30 PM
Just in Time
Merkin Hall, Kaufman Music Center
129 West 67th Street, Upper West Side, Manhattan
Free (registration recommended)
https://www.kaufmanmusiccenter.org/mch/event/just-in-time-caroline-shaw-andrew-yee/
Caroline Shaw and Andrew Yee's joint concert a month or two ago at Green-Wood Cemetery was lovely (not an adjective you'd often apply to exploratory New Music concerts) and bracing (now we're back on familiar terrain). So should this one be (even if it's not in a catacomb).
MAKE A NIGHT OF IT: Shows at Merkin are now easy: Old John's Diner across the street.
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Saturday, October 30, 2021, 12:30 PM – 6:30 PM
Elijah J. Thomas: For Harlem
MUSIC
SATURDAY, OCTOBER 30, 2021
12:30, 2:30, 4:30 & 6:30 PM
MATA Presentation
Kente Royal Gallery
2373 Adam Clayton Powell Junior Boulevard, Harlem, Manhattan
Free (by registration)
https://www.matafestival.org/elijah-j-thomas
Composer/reed-wind player Elijah J. Thomas pays tribute to his neighborhood.
MAKE A NIGHT OF IT: Great great beer, and food that won't hurt you, at Harlem Hops.
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Fri, Oct 29, 2021, 8:00 PM – Sat, Oct 30, 2021, 9:00 PM
Washington Heights Chamber Orchestra: From Above 96th Street
MUSIC
FRIDAY & SATURDAY, OCTOBER 29 & 30, 2021
8:00 PM FRIDAY & SATURDAY
5:00 PM SATURDAY
Fort Washington Collegiate Church
729 West 181st Street, Washington Heights, Manhattan
Free (registration required)
https://www.washingtonheightsorchestra.org/from-above-96th-street
The most fecund New York classical music neighborhood outside Brooklyn struts its stuff. Among the composers are the enthralling Jessica Meyer, the atmospheric Jorge Sosa, and onetime Downtown Music-master Peter Gordon.
MAKE A NIGHT OF IT: La Casa de Mofongo is where I wanna live.
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Friday, October 29, 2021, 8:00 PM – 9:00 PM
George Lewis: Recombinant Works 2014 – 2019
MUSIC
FRIDAY, OCTOBER 29, 2021
8:00 PM
Flamboyán Theater, The Clemente
107 Suffolk Street, Lower East Side, Manhattan
$25
https://issueprojectroom.org/event/george-lewis-recombinant-works-2014-2019
George Lewis is an exemplary figure: a major figure in advanced jazz, and also a major composer of contemporary classical music. Because — repeat after me — genre is a construct. Tonight's program showcases works Lewis has written for soloists (or, in the case of String Noise, a duo) to play, with software then creating sounds that "follow" them. Fascinating, compelling stuff.
MAKE A NIGHT OF IT: Sandwiches in the front (guess what kind?), real food in the back, cocktails all around at Double Chicken Please.
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Friday, October 29, 2021, 8:00 PM – 9:00 PM
Ehsan Matoori & Guests: Voices and Bridges
MUSIC
FRIDAY, OCTOBER 29, 2021
8:00 PM
Symphony Space
2537 Broadway, Upper West Side, Manhattan
$35-$100
https://www.facebook.com/events/378826813842877/
Persian santoorist Ehsan Matoori, a master musician, leads a group of musicians from all over in musical realizations of Medieval poetry from their various countries.
MAKE A NIGHT OF IT: Excellent Northern Chinese at Yu Kitchen.
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Friday, October 29, 2021, 7:30 PM – 8:30 PM
AXIOM
MUSIC
FRIDAY, OCTOBER 29, 2021
7:30 PM
Alice Tully Hall, Lincoln Center
1941 Broadway, Upper West Side, Manhattan
Free (ticket required)
https://www.juilliard.edu/event/151586/axiom
You can't hear enough of the wonderful Post-Minimalist Alvin Singleton (and now, suddenly, you do). Messiaen and Boulez are icing on the cake (a very rich icing indeed) (BTW, that's the funniest Boulez link I've yet come across).
MAKE A NIGHT OF IT: Out of all the restaurants in the world, there's only one I know of named after Lady Gaga: Joanne Trattoria.
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Friday, October 29, 2021, 7:30 PM – 8:30 PM
-
Friday, October 29, 2021, 5:00 PM – 6:00 PM
ETHEL and Friends: Balcony Bar from Home
MUSIC
FRIDAY, OCTOBER 29, 2021 (weekly)
5:00 PM
Metropolitan Museum of Art
Facebook
Free
https://www.metmuseum.org/events/programs/met-live-arts/ethel-online
The fab alt string quartet ETHEL brings its weekly recitals in the Met Balcony Bar home (theirs and yours). Expect old and new music, and surprise guests (from still more homes).
MAKE A NIGHT OF IT: Amber Negroni: pour 1/2 oz. each of Gin and Braulio Amaro, and 1 oz. each of Lillet Blanc (with the usual preferred substitutions, especially Tempus Fugit Kino l'Áero d'Or) and lemon juice, with 3 dashes of Bitterman's Burlesque Bitters, into an ice-filled cocktail shaker. Shake. Strain into a chilled Martini glass or coupe. Garnish with a rosemary sprig.
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Thu, Oct 28, 2021, 8:30 PM – Sat, Oct 30, 2021, 9:30 PM
Mary Halvorson Residency
MUSIC
THURSDAY – SATURDAY, OCTOBER 28 – 30, 2021
8:30 PM
The Stone
Glass Box Theater, The New School
55 West 13th Street, Greenwich Village, Manhattan
$20 (registration recommended)
http://www.thestonenyc.com/calendar.php
A three-night stand featuring various contexts for Mary Halvorson, who may just be the best guitarist playing now. I have to give a special shout-out to the Thursday show, featuring Halvorson's wonderful duo with violist Jessica Pavone.
MAKE A NIGHT OF IT: Georgian at Chama Mama.
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Thursday, October 28, 2021, 8:00 PM – 9:00 PM
-
Thu, Oct 28, 2021, 8:00 PM – Sun, Oct 31, 2021, 9:00 PM
-
Thursday, October 28, 2021, 8:00 PM – 9:00 PM
-
Thursday, October 28, 2021, 8:00 PM – 9:00 PM
-
Thursday, October 28, 2021, 8:00 PM – 9:00 PM
Interpretations: Roscoe Mitchell
MUSIC
THURSDAY, OCTOBER 28, 2021
8:00 PM
Roulette
509 Atlantic Avenue, Boerum HIll, Brooklyn
$20
https://roulette.org/event/interpretations-roscoe-mitchell/
Roscoe Mitchell: is he jazz or classical? Classical when he notates, jazz when he doesn't? Does that distinction even make sense? Does he make any such distinctions? Here, chamber ensembles will play some of his pieces, and he'll get involved in improvisations. You decide — or better, don't. Because the better question is, does it matter?
MAKE A NIGHT OF IT: Kind of Soul.
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Thursday, October 28, 2021, 7:30 PM – 10:00 PM
Jay Clayton: 80th Birthday Celebration
MUSIC
THURSDAY, OCTOBER 28, 2021
7:30 & 9:30 PM
Jazz Gallery In Person & 7:30 PM Live Stream
1160 Broadway, NoHo, Manhattan
$25-$35 in person; $20 live stream
https://www.jazzgallery.org/calendar/jay-clayton
If the great vocalist Jay Clayton wants to turn 80, there's nothing I can say about it. I associate her most with 1970s Downtown Minimalism — but tonight she'll be singing jazz.
MAKE A NIGHT OF IT: Oscar Wilde isn't the best cocktail bar in New York City — but it may well be the longest.
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Thu, Oct 28, 2021, 7:30 PM – Sat, Oct 30, 2021, 8:30 PM
Christopher Williams: Narcissus
DANCE
THURSDAY – SATURDAY, OCTOBER 28 – 30, 2021
7:30 PM THURSDAY – SATURDAY
2:30 PM SATURDAY
New York Live Arts
219 West 19th Street, Chelsea, Manhattan
$15-$35
https://newyorklivearts.org/event/narcissus/
Les Ballets Russes go (overtly) queer!
MAKE A NIGHT OF IT: Reliable local bistro Le Singe (f/k/a Le Singe Vert).
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Thursday, October 28, 2021, 7:30 PM – 8:30 PM
Chamber Music Society of Lincoln Center: New Milestones: Boundaries and Edges
MUSIC
THURSDAY, OCTOBER 28, 2018
7:30 PM
Rose Studio, Juilliard School, Lincoln Center
165 West 65th Street, Upper West Side, Manhattan
$35
https://www.chambermusicsociety.org/nyc/events/upcoming/new-milestones-boundaries-and-edges/
I used to complain about the ghettoisation of New Music on programs that mainstream audiences could ignore. But I'm so sick of programs where some new piece is thoughtessly shoved onto a run of standard repertoire that it does not relate to that I'm no longer complaining. In any event, if the Chamber Music Society wants to play the likes of George Lewis and Marcos Balter, I can only say, "hell yeah!"
MAKE A NIGHT OF IT: Lincoln Ristorante is back with a severely paired-down (Italian) menu and no indication of who the chef is. Proceed with extreme caution.
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Thursday, October 28, 2021, 7:00 PM – 8:00 PM
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Thu, Oct 28, 2021, 5:00 PM – Sun, Oct 31, 2021, 7:00 PM
Assemble
THEATER / PERFORMANCE
THURSDAY – SUNDAY, OCTOBER 28 – 31, 2021 (continuing through NOVEMBER 5)
5:00, 5:20, 5:40, 6:00, 6:20, 6:40 & 7:00 THURSDAY & FRIDAY
4:00, 4:20, 4:40, 5:00, 5:20, 5:40, 6:00, 6:20, 6:40 & 7:00 PM SATURDAY & SUNDAY
Secret Location (disclosed upon ticket purchase), Brooklyn
$40; $30 students/artists/unemployed
https://www.projectassemble.org/
A return of the immersive theatrical experience in which audience members, having downloaded an app that will guide them and provide content, wander around a disused Brooklyn store experiencing an early middle age reconsideration of life choices (the creators of this piece couldn't have anticipated how reflective of the zeitgeist it would turn out to be).
MAKE A NIGHT OF IT: How would I know? The location's a SECRET!
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Thu, Oct 28, 2021, 10:00 AM – Sun, Oct 31, 2021, 11:00 PM
Performa 2021 Biennial
PERFORMANCE
THURSDAY – SUNDAY, OCTOBER 28 – 31, 2021
VARIOUS TIMES
Various Street Locations, New York City
Free (R.S.V.P. required)
https://www.performa2021.org/
Performa's biennial selection of performance pieces this year takes to the streets (for reasons you can guess).
MAKE A NIGHT OF IT: Again, these pieces are all over the place.
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Wed, Oct 27, 2021, 8:00 PM – Sun, Oct 31, 2021, 4:00 PM
David Byrne: American Utopia
THEATER / DANCE / PERFORMANCE
WEDNESDAY – SUNDAY, OCTOBER 27 – 31, 2021 (ongoing)
8:00 PM WEDNESDAY – FRIDAY
5:00 & 9:00 PM SATURDAY
3:00 PM SUNDAY
St. James Theater
246 West 44th Street, Midtown, Manhattan
$59-$179
https://americanutopiabroadway.com/
If a collaboration between David Byrne and Annie-B Parson were put on at BAM, I wouldn't think twice about Listing it (although I'd still feel constrained to make a comment about Boomer Nostalgia moving on to the Pop Avant-Garde). So I'm not gonna demerit this cuz it's on Broadway. AM I? (BTW, Annie-B Parson has a piece coming up at BAM next month — be sure to make time for it!)
MAKE A NIGHT OF IT: Can you guess the specialty at E.A.K. Ramen?
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Wednesday, October 27, 2021, 8:00 PM – 9:00 PM
Charmaine Lee feat. Joanna Mattrey & Lester St. Louis
MUSIC
WEDNESDAY, OCTOBER 27, 2021
8:00 PM
Roulette In Person & Live Stream
509 Atlantic Avenue, Boerum HIll, Brooklyn
$20 advance in person; $25 door in person; free online
https://roulette.org/event/charmaine-lee-with-joanna-mattrey-and-lester-st-louis/
The last time I saw vocal-electronics explorer Charmaine Lee, she did something I'd never seen her do before: sing a nice diatonic song. As I keep saying, Lee can do anything.
MAKE A NIGHT OF IT: The eclectic As You Are, in the new Brooklyn Ace Hotel, is really pretty nice.
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Wed, Oct 27, 2021, 7:30 PM – Sat, Oct 30, 2021, 8:30 PM
Melisa Tien: Best Life
THEATER
WEDNESDAY – SATURDAY, OCTOBER 27 – 30, 2021 (continuing through NOVEMBER 6)
7:30 PM
JACK
20 Putnam Avenue, Clinton Hill, Brooklyn
$20
https://www.jackny.org/whats-on/best-life-flzfb-9rt4e-zkltk-dzb34
Can the races (as they used to rather racistly be called) interact with equity and forthrightness? Can it help if one of the interactors has the ability to manipulate time?
MAKE A NIGHT OF IT: Hartley's down the block is one of those places you walk by and you want to go in. I haven't been yet — but I can just tell the food is going to be better than neighborhood pub grub has any right to be.
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Wed, Oct 27, 2021, 7:00 PM – Thu, Oct 28, 2021, 7:59 PM
Tiresias: Hyperfantasia
PERFORMANCE
WEDNESDAY & THURSDAY, OCTOBER 27 & 28, 2021
7:00 PM
Sublet Series: Co-op
HERE
145 6th Avenue (entrance on Dominick Street, Hudson Square, Manhattan
$15-$30
https://here.org/shows/hyperfantasia/
If a self-described "transdisciplinary sci-fi fantasy drag cabaret that begins at the Big Bang and culminates in a vision of queer utopia" doesn't sound appealing to you, maybe you're reading the wrong List.
MAKE A NIGHT OF IT: New York restaurant legend Pino Luongo has consolidated his Soho locations into Cocco Pazzo Trattoria — so you can now get his Tuscan specialties alongside his pizza.
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Wednesday, October 27, 2021, 7:00 PM – 8:00 PM
Shawn Escargia: BLAH
PERFORMANCE
WEDNESDAY, OCTOBER 27, 2021
7:00 PM
The Brick
579 Metropolitan Avenue, Williamsburg, Brooklyn
Free (ticket required)
https://www.bricktheater.com/event/blah/
A performance variety. Among the performers is a Lebanese drag artist, which brings to mind an old Myron Cohen joke that I am charitably NOT going to repeat (it is really remarkable the detritus one's brain comes to be filled up with).
MAKE A NIGHT OF IT: I'm feeling some Peruvian tonight, so Llama Inn.
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Wednesday, October 27, 2021, 7:00 PM – 8:00 PM
-
Wednesday, October 27, 2021, 7:00 PM – 8:00 PM
Performa TV
MUSIC / PERFORMANCE
WEDNESDAY, OCTOBER 27, 2021
7:00 PM
Performa Live Stream
Free
https://ci.ovationtix.com/35281/production/1084106?performanceId=10873351
I thought I was over remote online performances, but this night of musical/conceptual play looks fabulous. Object Collection doing Jennifer Walshe: surrealism squared. The Alan Licht All-Stars — and in the world of Noise, they are all stars — backing up Luciano Chessa. And that's only part of it. Worth staying home for!
MAKE A NIGHT OF IT: Ananvera: pour 1 oz. each of Cognac and sweet Vermouth and 2 teaspoons Strega into a tumbler over ice. Garnish with five or so banana slices — and a toothpick to extract them.
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Wed, Oct 27, 2021, 6:30 PM – Thu, Oct 28, 2021, 9:00 PM
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Tuesday, October 26, 2021, 8:00 PM – 9:00 PM
Tenth Intervention / Jason Cady Ensemble
MUSIC
TUESDAY, OCTOBER 26, 2021
8:00 PM
Scholes Street Studio
375 Lorimer Street, Williamsburg, Brooklyn
Free
http://www.scholesstreetstudio.com/news-events/index.html
A violin/piano duo — and not just any violinist and pianist, but Hajnal Pivnick and composer Dorian Wallace — plays live musical accompaniment to short films of Maya Deren: absolute peaks of American surrealism (not to mention American experimental film), if you ask me. Jason Cady plays modular synthesizer alongside a bunch of singers and a piano. This is gonna be quite the night.
MAKE A NIGHT OF IT: Exceptional Venezuelan at Casa Ora.
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Tuesday, October 26, 2021, 8:00 PM – 9:00 PM
Ches Smith & We All Break: "Path of Seven Colors" Record Release Show
MUSIC
TUESDAY, OCTOBER 26, 2021
8:00 PM
Roulette In Person & Live Stream
509 Atlantic Avenue, Boerum HIll, Brooklyn
$20 advance in person; $25 door in person; free online
https://roulette.org/event/ches-smith-and-we-all-break-path-of-seven-colors-record-release-show/
Ace drummer Ches Smith combines with some Haitian and non-Haitian musicians for an exploration of Hatian music in the context of American jazz.
MAKE A NIGHT OF IT: I can't send you to a Haitian restaurant anywhere near there. So we'll have to take a walk to a restaurant featuring Haiti's parent cuisine, from West Africa: Brooklyn institution Amarachi. My very strong advice to you is to order the unlikely appetizer of Moi Moi with Corned Beef: a shockingly good combination. Also, if you stop at one cocktail, you'll be the first person who ever did.
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Tue, Oct 26, 2021, 8:00 PM – Sat, Oct 30, 2021, 9:00 PM
-
Tuesday, October 26, 2021, 8:00 PM – 9:00 PM
-
Tuesday, October 26, 2021, 7:00 PM – 8:00 PM
Superette
MUSIC
TUESDAY, OCTOBER 26, 2021
7:00 PM
Mama Tried
787 3rd Avenue, Greenwood Heights, Brooklyn
Free but expect a hat to be passed around
https://mamatriedbk.com/upcoming-events/superette
What would it sound like if Ornette Coleman's Prime Time played vaguely psychedelic surf music while listening to Highlife, Juju, and Afrobeat? Not like Superette — but it'll have to do.
MAKE A NIGHT OF IT: Subscriber AS points out that despite my remonstrations that you've got to buy food and drink at a place presenting free music, the food at Mama Tried might not be what you'd hope (he was a lot blunter than that). SO, drink there: you're morally obligated. For food, snag some tasty Ecuadorian at Reina de la Nuba.
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Tue, Oct 26, 2021, 10:00 AM – Sun, Oct 31, 2021, 4:30 PM
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Mon, Oct 25, 2021, 7:30 PM – Tue, Oct 26, 2021, 10:29 PM
Immanuel Wilkins & Jason Moran: Chase the Wind
MUSIC
MONDAY & TUESDAY, OCTOBER 25 & 26, 2021
7:30 & 9:30 PM
Jazz Gallery In Person & Tuesday Live Streams
1160 Broadway, NoHo, Manhattan
$25-$35 in person; $20 live stream
MONDAY: https://www.jazzgallery.org/calendar/immanuel-wilkins-2
TUESDAY: https://www.jazzgallery.org/calendar/immanuel-wilkins-1
This List has made no secret of its conviction that alto saxophonist/composer Immanuel Wilkins is the Next Big Thing in mainstream jazz. Here he presents a new longform work in a duet with no less than Jason Moran, one of the four or five best jazz pianists on the planet.
MAKE A NIGHT OF IT: It is very difficult to recommend anything other than the astonishing (if not quite as astonishing as it was pre-Lockdown) West African (with some Caribbean ringers) buffet at B&B Restaurant Corp.
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Monday, October 25, 2021, 7:00 PM – 8:00 PM
S.E.M. Ensemble: The American Avant-Garde & Three Czech Artists
MUSIC
MONDAY, OCTOBER 25, 2021
7:00 PM
Bohemian National Hall
321 East 73rd Street, Upper East Side, Manhattan
Free (registration required)
https://www.eventbrite.com/e/the-american-avant-garde-three-czech-artists-tickets-181970156637
The American avant-garde indeed: Cage, Oliveros, Phil Niblock, Christian Wolff, and S.E.M.'s own Petr Kotik. And what Czechs! Lucie Vitková on accordion, Hana Kotková on violin, and Kotik conducting (he gets to be both Czech and American).
MAKE A NIGHT OF IT: It would be churlish not to go to Bohemian Spirit next door, for stick-to-your-ribs food and good beer (and tamales????????).
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Mon, Oct 25, 2021, 8:00 AM – Sun, Oct 31, 2021, 6:00 PM
Gelsey Bell feat. Joseph White: Cairns
MUSIC / PERFORMANCE
MONDAY – SUNDAY, OCTOBER 25 – 31, 2021 (ongoing)*
8:00 AM – 6:00 PM
#stillHERE IRL
Green-Wood Cemetery, Sunset Park Entrance
35th Street at 4th Avenue, Greenwood Heights, Brooklyn
$7 or more for soundtrack
https://here.org/shows/cairns/
One of the first shows during Quarantine that you could actually Go Out! to (although it's not quite "live"). Gelsey Bell, that vocal star of NYC Alt Classical, has conceived of a piece that walks you around Green-Wood Cemetery (starting at the Sunset Park Entrance). You download the soundtrack on your phone beforehand (the Times complains about how hard it is to download from Bandcamp to an iPhone — trust me: if I can figure out how to do it, anyone can). Bell wrote the text and narrates, with a co-composing assist from the inimitable Joe White. The Cemetery itself will do the performing. (You can also listen to the soundtrack at home and pretend you're walking around the Cemetery.)
MAKE A NIGHT OF IT: The Sunset Park entrance is only a short walk from Hometown BBQ Industry City (if you go over the weekend, you can get the fabulous pastrami).
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Mon, Oct 25, 2021, 6:00 AM – Sun, Oct 31, 2021, 10:00 PM
Stephanie Fleischmann, Christina Campanella & Mallory Catlett: The Visitation
PERFORMANCE
MONDAY – SUNDAY, OCTOBER 25 – 31, 2021 (ongoing)
6:00 AM – 10:00 PM
HERE Arts Center Presentation
Jackie Robinson Park
Between Edgecombe & Bradhurst Aves. & 145 – 155 Sts., Sugar Hill, Manhattan
Pay what you wish
https://here.org/shows/the-visitation/
Another sound walk (I LOVE these!), this one set to avant-pop you access through Soundcloud.
MAKE A NIGHT OF IT: Good beer, epic burgers at Harlem Public.
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Mon, Oct 25, 2021, 6:00 AM – Sun, Oct 31, 2021, 1:00 AM
Ellen Reid: SOUNDWALK
MUSIC / PERFORMANCE
MONDAY – SUNDAY, OCTOBER 25 – 31, 2021 (ongoing)
6:00 AM – 1:00 AM
New York Philharmonic
Central Park
59th Street – 110th Street/Central Park West – 5th Avenue, Manhattan
Free (registration required)
https://www.ellenreidsoundwalk.com/new-york-philharmonic
The New York Phil hops aboard the walk-around-the-landscaped-space-with-soundtrack train (see below). The highly allusive soundtrack was put together by Ellen Reid, who is one of the more soundscapey (and certainly one of the best) of today's many excellent young composers. This walk isn't guided: you download an app that triggers sounds sent to your earphones from various cells around the Park as you wander. So you can do it over many times. (Speaking of wandering around Central Park, here's something that I, for one, never knew.)
MAKE A NIGHT OF IT: Delicious pan-African at Teranga.
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Sunday, October 24, 2021, 8:00 PM – 9:00 PM
PinWheel PinWheel / God Complex / Menthol Menthol / Esther: Unforgivable Emotional Carnivore: the Halloween Spectacular
PERFORMANCE
FRIDAY & SUNDAY, OCTOBER 22 & 24, 2021
8:00 PM
the cell
338 West 23rd Street, Chelsea, Manhattan
$17.99
https://www.tickettailor.com/events/thecelltheatre/592218#
The drag protest against pediatric orthodontistry continues (will that scourge never be defeated) — this time with a Halloweeny theme!
MAKE A NIGHT OF IT: I'm sorry, but I just can't resist sending you back for more Palestinian home cooking at Qanoon.
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Sunday, October 24, 2021, 7:00 PM – 8:00 PM
-
Sunday, October 24, 2021, 3:00 PM – 4:00 PM
-
Saturday, October 23, 2021, 8:00 PM – 9:00 PM
Jody Christopherson: St. Kilda
THEATER / PERFORMANCE
SATURDAY, OCTOBER 23, 2021
8:00 PM
The Brick
579 Metropolitan Avenue, Williamsburg, Brooklyn
$20
https://www.bricktheater.com/event/st-kilda/
Now THIS looks interesting: a one-woman (with special effects) (that's important) telling of a creepy story of hidden family secrets tied to the famous (and often — memorably — retold) 1930 evacuation of St. Kilda, a remote archipelago at the very edge of the Outer Hebrides, where an almost Rube Goldberg set of such circumstances as imported diseases, economic depredations, and sheer remoteness of location eventually led the tiny remaining population to petition to be relocated.
MAKE A NIGHT OF IT: Delicious Roman pinsa at Montesacro.
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Sat, Oct 23, 2021, 8:00 PM – Sun, Oct 24, 2021, 9:00 PM
Third Rail Projects: Return the Moon
THEATER
SATURDAY & SUNDAY, OCTOBER 23 & 24, 2021
8:00 PM
Zoom
$15-$67
https://thirdrailprojects.com/return-the-moon#returnthemoon
Third Rail Projects, specialists in immersive theater presentations, goes Zoom. This piece recounts the old legend of how the Moon was lost and found (you've seen theatrical treatments before).
MAKE A NIGHT OF IT: Moon Dance: pour 2 oz. Corn Whisky, 1/2 oz. each of Cocchi Americano and dry Vermouth, and 1/4 oz. each of Green Chartreuse and Maraschino liqueur, with 1 dash of orange bitters, into an ice-filled cocktail shaker. Stir. Strain into a chilled Martini glass or coupe. Garnish with an orange twist.
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Saturday, October 23, 2021, 4:00 PM – 5:00 PM
Kid Millions & Clara Latham / Dan Friel / Jim McHugh
MUSIC
SATURDAY, OCTOBER 23, 2021
4:00 PM
Mama Tried
787 3rd Avenue, Greenwood Heights, Brooklyn
Free but expect a hat to be passed around
https://mamatriedbk.com/upcoming-events/clara-and-kid
The grabber here is a new collaboration between composer/band singer Clara Latham and does-anything drummer Kid Millions. But Your Compiler also loves to listen to the eclectic-with-a-bullet Ethiopian/Minimalist/free jazz/why-am-I-even-trying? music of Sunwatchers, and Jim McHugh is their mastermind. And Dan Friel's electronic scapes are entrancing.
MAKE A NIGHT OF IT: Subscriber AS points out that despite my remonstrations that you've got to buy food and drink at a place presenting free music, the food at Mama Tried might not be what you'd hope (he was a lot blunter than that). SO, drink there. For food, snag some tasty Ecuadorian at Reina de la Nuba.
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Saturday, October 23, 2021, 4:00 PM – 5:00 PM
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Sat, Oct 23, 2021, 2:00 PM – Sun, Oct 24, 2021, 6:00 PM
Noah Mease: Science Park
THEATER
SATURDAY & SUNDAY, OCTOBER 23 & 24, 2021
2:00 & 5:00 PM
Third Person
Target Margin Doxsee Theater
232 52nd Street, Sunset Park, Brooklyn
Free (ticket required)
https://www.eventbrite.com/e/science-park-tickets-188633486837
Exoplanets. Bosch. Queer eros. And that's not even the half of it.
MAKE A NIGHT OF IT: Weirdly unspicy, but absolutely delicious, Sichuan at Chuan Tian Xia.
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Saturday, October 23, 2021, 2:00 PM – 3:00 PM
American Composers Orchestra / Bergamot Quartet: New Canons
MUSIC
SATURDAY, OCTOBER 23, 2021
2:00 PM
In Person & Live Stream
Murray Hill Location provided upon ticketing
DiMenna Center
450 West 37th Street, Hell's Kitchen, Manhattan
$25
https://americancomposers.org/events/new-canons/
Another of those performances that attempt to take advantage of latency rather than defeat it. This one, though, also has live components. You can attend them at either the DiMenna Center (where the ACO will be) or a private home in Murray Hill to be disclosed (where the Bergamot Quartet will be). At each, the other will be intermixed virtually. Or you can watch the whole thing online.
MAKE A NIGHT OF IT: Having no idea where in Murray Hill this will be, I will give in to my base nature and send Murray Hill attendees to Sarge's (its founder was a policeman) for first-rate deli. Before or after the DiMenna Center, Spanish dining at Spanish Diner. Streaming at home, have a Remote Control: pour 1-1/4 oz. Galiano and 3/4 oz. each of Cointreau, orange juice, and cream into an ice-filled cocktail shaker. Shake. Strain into a chilled Martini glass or coupe.
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Friday, October 22, 2021, 8:00 PM – 9:00 PM
PinWheel PinWheel / God Complex / Menthol Menthol / Esther: Unforgivable Emotional Carnivore: the Halloween Spectacular
PERFORMANCE
FRIDAY & SUNDAY, OCTOBER 22 & 24, 2021
8:00 PM
the cell
338 West 23rd Street, Chelsea, Manhattan
$17.99
https://www.tickettailor.com/events/thecelltheatre/592218#
The drag protest against pediatric orthodontistry continues (will that scourge never be defeated) — this time with a Halloweeny theme!
MAKE A NIGHT OF IT: I'm sorry, but I just can't resist sending you back for more Palestinian home cooking at Qanoon.
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Fri, Oct 22, 2021, 7:30 PM – Sat, Oct 23, 2021, 8:30 PM
Shawné Michaelain Holloway: SUITABLE_FOR.EXE[CUTION
PERFORMANCE
FRIDAY & SATURDAY, OCTOBER 22 & 23, 2021
7:30 PM
Performance Space New York
150 First Avenue, East Village, New York
$25
https://performancespacenewyork.org/shows/_suitable_for-execution/
BDSM as a metaphor for . . . well, lots of things — everything, almost. This actually looks to be an exciting multi-media presentation.
MAKE A NIGHT OF IT: Travel back to the dawn of the Modern Korean juggernaut at Oiji. (If you can resist the Honey Butter Chips dessert you are a stronger person than me.)
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Friday, October 22, 2021, 6:30 PM – 7:30 PM
-
Friday, October 22, 2021, 5:00 PM – 6:00 PM
ETHEL and Friends: Balcony Bar from Home
MUSIC
FRIDAY, OCTOBER 22, 2021 (weekly)
5:00 PM
Metropolitan Museum of Art
Facebook
Free
https://www.metmuseum.org/events/programs/met-live-arts/ethel-online
The fab alt string quartet ETHEL brings its weekly recitals in the Met Balcony Bar home (theirs and yours). Expect old and new music, and surprise guests (from still more homes).
MAKE A NIGHT OF IT: Amber Negroni: pour 1/2 oz. each of Gin and Braulio Amaro, and 1 oz. each of Lillet Blanc (with the usual preferred substitutions, especially Tempus Fugit Kino l'Áero d'Or) and lemon juice, with 3 dashes of Bitterman's Burlesque Bitters, into an ice-filled cocktail shaker. Shake. Strain into a chilled Martini glass or coupe. Garnish with a rosemary sprig.
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Thu, Oct 21, 2021, 8:30 PM – Sat, Oct 23, 2021, 9:30 PM
Kris Davis Residency
MUSIC
THURSDAY – SATURDAY, OCTOBER 21 – 23, 2021
8:30 PM
The Stone
Glass Box Theater, The New School
55 West 13th Street, Greenwich Village, Manhattan
$20 (registration recommended)
http://www.thestonenyc.com/calendar.php
A three-night stand featuring the sharp angular composer/pianist Kris Davis, one of the shining lights of current jazz, playing in various contexts. If you go Saturday, you'll see her play with another shining light, next week's Stone resident, guitarist Mary Halvorson.
MAKE A NIGHT OF IT: I'm all about Northern Chinese these days, so Auntie Guan's Kitchen.
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Thu, Oct 21, 2021, 8:00 PM – Sat, Oct 23, 2021, 9:00 PM
Robert Ashley: eL / Aficionado
OPERA
THURSDAY – SATURDAY, OCTOBER 21 – 23, 2021
8:00 PM
Robert Ashley: eL / Aficionado
Roulette
509 Atlantic Avenue, Boerum HIll, Brooklyn
$30 advance in person; $35 door
https://roulette.org/event/robert-ashley-el-aficionado/
During a show last week, Robert Ashley's epignone Laurie Anderson offhandedly remarked, "Does anybody remember Bob Ashley?" DOES ANYBODY REMEMBER??????? Ashley remains such a vibrant and vital part of our musical life, it's like he never left. Moreover, Ashley is like the great corrective for people who think they don't like New Opera. The music is pulsing, mellifluous, almost New Wavey — except Ashley started doing this stuff in the Ann Arbor New Music scene in the '60s (where he mentored a young man who would go on to become Iggy Pop); they're copying him (or to be more charitable were influenced). The vocal arrangements are clear, concise, and deadpan. The libretti are seemingly opaque, while giving the sense of having thrust even though it takes continued examination to get them to give up their secrets. This new production is droolworthy. I already thought Kayleigh Butcher could do anything — but recreating a role originated by Thomas Buckner would be a real stretch for any mezzo other than her (she'll no doubt make it seem effortless). The all-star trio that makes up the rest of the cast are more of the Usual Suspects of contemporary NYC Ashley performance, each one of them a reason to leave your apartment in themselves. And the opera has an (opaque) espionage theme: see it after No Time to Die.
MAKE A NIGHT OF IT: Kind of Soul.
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Thu, Oct 21, 2021, 8:00 PM – Fri, Oct 22, 2021, 9:00 PM
Neel Murgai: Waves of Gravity
MUSIC
THURSDAY & FRIDAY, OCTOBER 21 & 22, 2021
8:00 PM
Culture Hub In Person & Live Stream
47 Great Jones Street, NoHo, Manhattan
Free (ticket required)
https://www.culturehub.org/events/waves-of-gravity
Sitars! Vocal polyphony! Psychedelic visuals! I can barely contain myself.
MAKE A NIGHT OF IT: In person, the Modern Indian at Baar Baar isn't as good as you wish it were, but tonight it'll have to do. Streaming at home, have a Masala Martini: pour 2 oz. Gin and 1/2 oz. each of lime juice and Simple Syrup, with 1/8 teaspoon each of cumin and salt, in an ice-filled cocktail shaker. Shake. Strain into a chilled Martini glass our coupe. Garnish with a lemon slice (I'm not gonna tell if you get frugal and take the slice from the remaining part of the lime).
-
Thursday, October 21, 2021, 7:30 PM – 8:30 PM
-
Thu, Oct 21, 2021, 7:30 PM – Fri, Oct 22, 2021, 9:00 AM
-
Thu, Oct 21, 2021, 7:30 PM – Sat, Oct 23, 2021, 8:30 PM
Melisa Tien: Best Life
THEATER
THURSDAY – SATURDAY, OCTOBER 21 – 23, 2021 (continuing through NOVEMBER 6)
7:30 PM
JACK
20 Putnam Avenue, Clinton Hill, Brooklyn
$15 Thursday & Friday; $20 Saturday
https://www.jackny.org/whats-on/best-life-flzfb-9rt4e-zkltk-dzb34
Can the races (as they used to rather racistly be called) interact with equity and forthrightness? Can it help if one of the interacters has the ability to manipulate time?
MAKE A NIGHT OF IT: Hartley's down the block is one of those places you walk by and you want to go in. I haven't been yet — but I can just tell the food is going to be better than neighborhood pub grub has any right to be.
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Thu, Oct 21, 2021, 7:00 PM – Sun, Oct 24, 2021, 3:00 PM
Puppet Festival
THEATER / PERFORMANCE
THURSDAY – SUNDAY, OCTOBER 21 – 24, 2021
7:00 & 8:30 PM THURSDAY – SATURDAY
2:00 PM SUNDAY
La MaMa
66 East 4th Street, East Village, Manhattan
$25 per show; $20 per show students/seniors
https://www.lamama.org/shows/puppet-series-2021
Puppets! (You might [or might not] be wondering why this List is so partial to puppet theater. Well, I'll tell you: puppet theater generally calls for the abandonment of the kind of naturalism and straightforward narrative that this List abjures in theater.) (Of course, when puppet theater tries for naturalism and straightforward narrative, it's even more intolerable than when human theater does. But that won't be a problem in this Festival.) Note that the wide-ranging Puppet Slam is on Wednesday (7:00 PM), Thursday (8:30 PM), and Friday (8:30 PM).
MAKE A NIGHT OF IT: You no longer have to go to New Jersey for good fried fish from The Chippery chain. Who says life doesn't get better?
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Thu, Oct 21, 2021, 7:00 PM – Sat, Oct 23, 2021, 8:00 PM
-
Thursday, October 21, 2021, 5:00 PM – 8:00 PM
Assemble
THEATER / PERFORMANCE
THURSDAY – SUNDAY, OCTOBER 21 – 24, 2021 (continuing through NOVEMBER 5)
5:00, 5:20, 5:40, 6:00, 6:20, 6:40 & 7:00 THURSDAY & FRIDAY
4:00, 4:20, 4:40, 5:00, 5:20, 5:40, 6:00, 6:20, 6:40 & 7:00 PM SATURDAY & SUNDAY
Secret Location (disclosed upon ticket purchase), Brooklyn
$40; $30 students/artists/unemployed
https://www.projectassemble.org/
A return of the immersive theatrical experience in which audience members, having downloaded an app that will guide them and provide content, wander around a disused Brooklyn store experiencing an early middle age reconsideration of life choices (the creators of this piece couldn't have anticipated how reflective of the zeitgeist it would turn out to be).
MAKE A NIGHT OF IT: How would I know? The location's a SECRET!
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Thu, Oct 21, 2021, 10:00 AM – Sun, Oct 24, 2021, 11:00 PM
John Luther Adams: Veils and Vesper
MUSIC / PERFORMANCE
THURSDAY – SUNDAY, OCTOBER 21 – 24, 2021
All Day
Winter Garden, Brookfield Place
230 Vesey Street, Brookfield Place, Manhattan
Free
https://bfplny.com/newsoundslive
An installation by John Luther Adams, who here combines his usual nature illumination with rigorous mathematics. The pro move is to go Thursday (10/21) or Friday (10/22) nights, when, respectively, the Ekmeles vocal ensemble and the JACK Quartet will provide live accompaniment (these free performances are ticketed).
MAKE A NIGHT OF IT: A legendary Tuscan butcher goes global fast casual (can't beat Global Capitalism) (although some of us are trying) at Cicci di Carne.
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Thu, Oct 21, 2021, 10:00 AM – Sun, Oct 24, 2021, 11:00 PM
Performa 2021 Biennial
PERFORMANCE
THURSDAY – SUNDAY, OCTOBER 21 – 24, 2021 (continuing through OCTOBER 30)
VARIOUS TIMES
Various Street Locations, New York City
Free (R.S.V.P. required)
https://www.performa2021.org/
Performa's biennial selection of performance pieces this year takes to the streets (for reasons you can guess).
MAKE A NIGHT OF IT: Again, these pieces are all over the place.
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Wednesday, October 20, 2021, 8:00 PM – 9:00 PM
-
Wed, Oct 20, 2021, 8:00 PM – Fri, Oct 22, 2021, 9:00 PM
-
Wed, Oct 20, 2021, 7:30 PM – Sat, Oct 23, 2021, 9:00 PM
New York Philharmonic: An American Triptych: Mazzoli, Davis & Adams
MUSIC
WEDNESDAY – SATURDAY, OCTOBER 20 – 23, 2021
7:30 PM WEDNESDAY & THURSDAY
8:00 PM FRIDAY & SATURDAY
Alice Tully Hall, Lincoln Center
1941 Broadway, Upper West Side, Manhattan
$39-$79
https://nyphil.org/concerts-tickets/2122/american-triptych
Imagine, the NY Phil doing a program of "our" music, where the standard rep guy is JOHN ADAMS. Thank the new imperatives of inclusiveness and social engagement.
MAKE A NIGHT OF IT: I myself am planning to head Downtown immediately. But you will actually be able to eat at newly-reopened Boulud Sud after any of these shows.
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Wednesday, October 20, 2021, 7:30 PM – 8:30 PM
-
Wednesday, October 20, 2021, 7:00 PM – 8:00 PM
Human Hearts / Love, Burns
MUSIC
WEDNESDAY, OCTOBER 20, 2021
7:00 PM
Mama Tried
787 3rd Avenue, Sunset Park, Brooklyn
Free but expect a hat to be passed around
https://mamatriedbk.com/upcoming-events/human-hearts-ft-franklin-bruno
These bands specialize in janglely '60s-influenced, vaguely psych-inflected alt rock music. This is the kind of backward-looking stuff I don't usually List here (I mean, guitar rock is kind of becoming the 19th Century Common Practice of pop music). But I'll admit I sure like it.
MAKE A NIGHT OF IT: Remember what I said about free music in a bar that serves food?
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Wednesday, October 20, 2021, 7:00 PM – 8:00 PM
-
Wed, Oct 20, 2021, 5:00 PM – Sun, Oct 24, 2021, 4:00 PM
David Byrne: American Utopia
THEATER / DANCE / PERFORMANCE
WEDNESDAY – SUNDAY, OCTOBER 20 – 24, 2021 (ongoing)
8:00 PM WEDNESDAY – FRIDAY
5:00 & 9:00 PM SATURDAY
3:00 PM SUNDAY
St. James Theater
246 West 44th Street, Midtown, Manhattan
$59-$179
https://americanutopiabroadway.com/
If a collaboration between David Byrne and Annie-B Parson were put on at BAM, I wouldn't think twice about Listing it (although I'd still feel constrained to make a comment about Boomer Nostalgia moving on to the Pop Avant-Garde). So I'm not gonna demerit this cuz it's on Broadway. AM I? (BTW, Annie-B Parson has a piece coming up at BAM next month — be sure to make time for it!)
MAKE A NIGHT OF IT: Can you guess the specialty at E.A.K. Ramen?
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Wednesday, October 20, 2021, 11:00 AM – 12:00 PM
-
Tue, Oct 19, 2021, 8:00 PM – Sat, Oct 23, 2021, 9:00 PM
-
Tue, Oct 19, 2021, 8:00 PM – Sat, Oct 23, 2021, 9:00 PM
Taylor Mac: Sugar in the Tank: New Songs about Queer People
MUSIC / PERFORMANCE
TUESDAY – SATURDAY, OCTOBER 19 – 23, 2021
8:00 PM
Joe's Pub, Public Theater
426 Lafayette Street, NoHo, Manhattan
$10 Tuesday; $50 rest of run
https://publictheater.org/productions/joes-pub/2021/t/taylor-mac/
What more can (or need) be said about drag music theater genius Taylor Mac?
MAKE A NIGHT OF IT: Isakaya Kenka seems sufficiently flash to follow this show (and sometimes they have bull penis).
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Tuesday, October 19, 2021, 8:00 PM – 9:00 PM
-
Tue, Oct 19, 2021, 8:00 PM – Sun, Oct 24, 2021, 4:00 PM
Fall for Dance
PERFORMANCE
TUESDAY – SUNDAY, OCTOBER 19 – 24, 2021
8:00 PM TUESDAY – SATURDAY
3:00 PM SUNDAY
New York City Center
130 West 56th Street, Midtown, Manhattan
$15
https://www.nycitycenter.org/pdps/fallfordance
City Center's Fall for Dance is too diffuse: when this List calls for an end to genre, it doesn't mean an end to taste. But at $15 per show, who's gonna complain?
MAKE A NIGHT OF IT: I am pleased to send you to Iris, whose excellent and inventive Greek-with-a-touch-of-Turkish food almost makes you remember why people once got excited about Chef John Fraser. (Be sure to have at least one Mastic Martini.)
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Tue, Oct 19, 2021, 7:30 PM – Sun, Oct 24, 2021, 3:00 PM
Lucinda Childs: Dance
DANCE
TUESDAY – SUNDAY, OCTOBER 19 – 24, 2021
7:30 PM TUESDAY & WEDNESDAY
8:00 PM FRIDAY & SATURDAY
2:00 PM SATURDAY & SUNDAY
The Joyce Theater
175 Eighth Avenue, Chelsea, Manhattan
$10-$71
https://www.joyce.org/performances/lucinda-childs-dance
The premiere of this piece — dance by Childs to music by Glass with decor by LeWitt — at BAM in 1979 was a big deal (Glass was still an underground figure then, remember): this was where Minimalism went BIG. Now this Minimalist masterpiece still packs a punch, but in a different way: in the initial production, the dancers danced along with a film of themselves dancing. Now, the dancers dance along with that same film of their 1979 predecessors. The differences in style and physique over those years is striking and, especially for those of us who knew the original dancers, the effect is poignant. But even if — maybe especially if — you've never seen this piece and perhaps are even unfamiliar with the Minimalist idiom, you really ought to see this.
MAKE A NIGHT OF IT: Bathtub Gin may be an imitiation Serious Cocktail Bar. But it isn't a terrible imitation.
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Tuesday, October 19, 2021, 7:00 PM – 8:00 PM
Ewan / Smith / Walter // Bootleg / Shiarashi / Dahl
MUSIC
TUESDAY, OCTOBER 19, 2021
7:00 PM
Mama Tried
787 3rd Avenue, Sunset Park, Brooklyn
Free but expect a hat to be passed around
https://mamatriedbk.com/upcoming-events/ewen-smith-walter
Wait, I didn't realize the "Walter" in Ewan/Smith/Walter was Weasel Walter, the noisiest drummer (and guitarist/bassist/reedman/whatever he can make noise on) around. This turns out to be some show.
MAKE A NIGHT OF IT: You're listening to free music in a bar. With food.
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Tuesday, October 19, 2021, 7:00 PM – 8:00 PM
Octopus: Dozie Kanu
PERFORMANCE / DANCE
TUESDAY, OCTOBER 19, 2021
7:00 PM
Performance Space New York In Person & Online
150 First Avenue, East Village, Manhattan
$10 in person; free online
https://performancespacenewyork.org/shows/octopus-doziekanu/
Design star Dozie Kanu curates a night of . . . whatever Dozie Kanu wants.
MAKE A NIGHT OF IT: Live, get your momo working (and have other Tibetan treats as well) at Jackson Heights refugee Lhasa Tibetan Restaurant. Streaming at home, have a Chapman: pour 1 oz. each of Fanta, Sprite, and orange juice, and 1/4 oz. Grenadine (extra points if you use Ribena Black Currant Syrup) (MANY extra points if you make some Zobo [hibiscus] Syrup), with 2 or 3 dashes of Angostura bitters, into a glass over ice. Stir. Garnish with lemon and lime slices. (Let me be honest: the traditional Nigerian drink isn't alcoholic. But if you think there's ANY WAY IN HELL I'm not spiking this with 1-1/2 oz. Gin you're crazy.)
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Tue, Oct 19, 2021, 10:00 AM – Sun, Oct 24, 2021, 4:30 PM
-
Mon, Oct 18, 2021, 10:00 AM – Sun, Oct 24, 2021, 10:00 PM
Honk NYC!
MUSIC
MONDAY – SUNDAY, OCTOBER 18 – 24, 2021
Various Times
Various locations in Manhattan & Brooklyn/Online
Free
https://www.honknyc.com/honk-nyc-2021-festival
Street bands of various stripes parading all around!
MAKE A NIGHT OF IT: The in-person stuff is all over the place. For the online stuff, have yourself an Birrificio del Ducato Brett Peat Daydream beer. I did last thing last night — and I was happier for it.
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Mon, Oct 18, 2021, 8:00 AM – Sun, Oct 24, 2021, 6:00 PM
Gelsey Bell feat. Joseph White: Cairns
MUSIC / PERFORMANCE
MONDAY – SUNDAY, OCTOBER 18 – 24, 2021 (ongoing)
8:00 AM – 6:00 PM
#stillHERE IRL
Green-Wood Cemetery, Sunset Park Entrance
35th Street at 4th Avenue, Greenwood Heights, Brooklyn
$7 or more for soundtrack
https://here.org/shows/cairns/
One of the first shows during Quarantine that you could actually Go Out! to (although it's not quite "live"). Gelsey Bell, that vocal star of NYC Alt Classical, has conceived of a piece that walks you around Green-Wood Cemetery (starting at the Sunset Park Entrance). You download the soundtrack on your phone beforehand (the Times complains about how hard it is to download from Bandcamp to an iPhone — trust me: if I can figure out how to do it, anyone can). Bell wrote the text and narrates, with a co-composing assist from the inimitable Joe White. The Cemetery itself will do the performing. (You can also listen to the soundtrack at home and pretend you're walking around the Cemetery.)
MAKE A NIGHT OF IT: The Sunset Park entrance is only a short walk from Hometown BBQ Industry City (if you go over the weekend, you can get the fabulous pastrami).
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Mon, Oct 18, 2021, 6:00 AM – Sun, Oct 24, 2021, 10:00 PM
Stephanie Fleischmann, Christina Campanella & Mallory Catlett: The Visitation
PERFORMANCE
MONDAY – SUNDAY, OCTOBER 18 – 24, 2021 (ongoing)
6:00 AM – 10:00 PM
HERE Arts Center Presentation
Jackie Robinson Park
Between Edgecombe & Bradhurst Aves. & 145 – 155 Sts., Sugar Hill, Manhattan
Pay what you wish
https://here.org/shows/the-visitation/
Another sound walk (I LOVE these!), this one set to avant-pop you access through Soundcloud.
MAKE A NIGHT OF IT: Good beer, epic burgers at Harlem Public.
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Mon, Oct 18, 2021, 6:00 AM – Sun, Oct 24, 2021, 1:00 AM
Ellen Reid: SOUNDWALK
MUSIC / PERFORMANCE
MONDAY – SUNDAY, OCTOBER 18 – 24, 2021 (ongoing)
6:00 AM – 1:00 AM
New York Philharmonic
Central Park
59th Street – 110th Street/Central Park West – 5th Avenue, Manhattan
Free (registration required)
https://www.ellenreidsoundwalk.com/new-york-philharmonic
The New York Phil hops aboard the walk-around-the-landscaped-space-with-soundtrack train (see below). The highly allusive soundtrack was put together by Ellen Reid, who is one of the more soundscapey (and certainly one of the best) of today's many excellent young composers. This walk isn't guided: you download an app that triggers sounds sent to your earphones from various cells around the Park as you wander. So you can do it over many times. (Speaking of wandering around Central Park, here's something that I, for one, never knew.)
MAKE A NIGHT OF IT: Delicious pan-African at Teranga.
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Sunday, October 17, 2021, 8:00 PM – 9:00 PM
Shamir
MUSIC
SUNDAY, OCTOBER 17, 2021
8:00 PM
The Sultan Room
234 Starr Street, Bushwick, Brooklyn
$15
https://thesultanroom.com/events/#event=172466179987
Shamir started out as affectingly off-kilter Nu R&B — and then got weirder and weirder (and better and better).
MAKE A NIGHT OF IT: Venezuelan loaded hot dogs and other street food — this stuff is GREAT — at Santa Salsa.
-
Sunday, October 17, 2021, 7:30 PM – 8:30 PM
-
Sunday, October 17, 2021, 3:00 PM – 4:00 PM
-
Saturday, October 16, 2021, 8:00 PM – 9:00 PM
Third Rail Projects: Return the Moon
THEATER
SATURDAY, OCTOBER 16, 2021 (continuing through OCTOBER 24)
8:00 PM
Zoom
$15-$67
https://thirdrailprojects.com/return-the-moon#returnthemoon
Third Rail Projects, specialists in immersive theater presentations, goes Zoom. This piece recounts the old legend of how the Moon was lost and found (you've seen theatrical treatments before).
MAKE A NIGHT OF IT: Moon Dance: pour 2 oz. Corn Whisky, 1/2 oz. each of Cocchi Americano and dry Vermouth, and 1/4 oz. each of Green Chartreuse and Maraschino liqueur, with 1 dash of orange bitters, into an ice-filled cocktail shaker. Stir. Strain into a chilled Martini glass or coupe. Garnish with an orange twist.
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Saturday, October 16, 2021, 7:00 PM – 8:00 PM
Terence Blanchard: Fire Shut Up in My Bones
OPERA
WEDNESDAY & SATURDAY, OCTOBER 13 & 16, 2021 (continuing through OCTOBER 23)
7:00 PM WEDNESDAY
1:00 PM SATURDAY
Metropolitan Opera
30 Lincoln Center Plaza, Upper West Side, Manhattan
$37-$460
https://www.metopera.org/season/2021-22-season/fire-shut-up-in-my-bones/
This is a triumph in all sorts of ways — and a disappointment in just about none. One star-making performance. Two star-confirming ones. A great piece: one of the three best American operas of this Century so far. With an extraordinary libretto. Go: you've got to.
MAKE A NIGHT OF IT: No place nearby open afterward. If you're able to stay awake for a two-hour-forty-minute piece after eating, I'll note that Boulud Sud has reopened for dinner beforehand.
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Sat, Oct 16, 2021, 10:00 AM – Sun, Oct 17, 2021, 11:00 PM
John Luther Adams: Veils and Vesper
MUSIC / PERFORMANCE
SATURDAY & SUNDAY, OCTOBER 16 & 17, 2021 (continuing through OCTOBER 24)
All Day
Winter Garden, Brookfield Place
230 Vesey Street, Brookfield Place, Manhattan
Free
https://bfplny.com/newsoundslive
An installation by John Luther Adams, who here combines his usual nature illumination with rigorous mathematics. The pro move, however, is to go next Thursday (10/21) or Friday (10/22) nights, when, respectively, the Ekmeles vocal ensemble and the JACK Quartet will provide live accompaniment.
MAKE A NIGHT OF IT: A legendary Tuscan butcher goes global fast casual (can't beat Global Capitalism) (although some of us are trying) at Cicci di Carne.
-
Fri, Oct 15, 2021, 8:00 PM – Sat, Oct 16, 2021, 9:00 PM
-
Friday, October 15, 2021, 5:00 PM – 6:00 PM
ETHEL and Friends: Balcony Bar from Home
MUSIC
FRIDAY, OCTOBER 15, 2021 (weekly)
5:00 PM
Metropolitan Museum of Art
Facebook
Free
https://www.metmuseum.org/events/programs/met-live-arts/ethel-online
The fab alt string quartet ETHEL brings its weekly recitals in the Met Balcony Bar home (theirs and yours). Expect old and new music, and surprise guests (from still more homes).
MAKE A NIGHT OF IT: Amber Negroni: pour 1/2 oz. each of Gin and Braulio Amaro, and 1 oz. each of Lillet Blanc (with the usual preferred substitutions, especially Tempus Fugit Kino l'Áero d'Or) and lemon juice, with 3 dashes of Bitterman's Burlesque Bitters, into an ice-filled cocktail shaker. Shake. Strain into a chilled Martini glass or coupe. Garnish with a rosemary sprig.
-
Thu, Oct 14, 2021, 8:00 PM – Sat, Oct 16, 2021, 9:00 PM
-
Thu, Oct 14, 2021, 8:00 PM – Sat, Oct 16, 2021, 9:00 PM
-
Thursday, October 14, 2021, 7:30 PM – 8:30 PM
Xenia Rubinos: Una Rosa
MUSIC
THURSDAY, OCTOBER 14, 2021
7:30 PM
Public Records, Sound Room
233 Butler Street, Gowanus, Brooklyn
Free
https://dice.fm/event/o5xma-xenia-rubinos-pres-una-rosa-14th-oct-public-records-new-york-tickets
Is Xenia Rubinos's music electronic, Latin, jazz, or avant-classical? While you're worrying about that, I'll be enjoying the grooves and the vocal arrangements — and the incredibly original thinking. Tonight's show features a long-form video of Rubinos's new album, culminating in a live set.
MAKE A NIGHT OF IT: Fresh clean delicious Korean at Insa (it's much more pleasant if you forgo the barbecue and eat in the Lounge).
-
Thu, Oct 14, 2021, 7:30 PM – Sun, Oct 17, 2021, 4:00 PM
-
Thursday, October 14, 2021, 7:30 PM – 9:30 PM
-
Thu, Oct 14, 2021, 5:00 PM – Sun, Oct 17, 2021, 8:00 PM
Assemble
THEATER / PERFORMANCE
THURSDAY – SUNDAY, OCTOBER 14 – 17, 2021 (continuing through NOVEMBER 5)
5:00, 5:20, 5:40, 6:00, 6:20, 6:40 & 7:00 THURSDAY & FRIDAY
4:00, 4:20, 4:40, 5:00, 5:20, 5:40, 6:00, 6:20, 6:40 & 7:00 PM SATURDAY & SUNDAY
Secret Location (disclosed upon ticket purchase), Brooklyn
$40; $30 students/artists/unemployed
https://www.projectassemble.org/
A return of the immersive theatrical experience in which audience members, having downloaded an app that will guide them and provide content, wander around a disused Brooklyn store experiencing an early middle age reconsideration of life choices (the creators of this piece couldn't have anticipated how reflective of the zeitgeist it would turn out to be).
MAKE A NIGHT OF IT: How would I know? The location's a SECRET!
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Thu, Oct 14, 2021, 10:00 AM – Sun, Oct 17, 2021, 11:00 PM
Performa 2021 Biennial
THEATER
THURSDAY – SUNDAY, OCTOBER 14 – 17, 2021 (continuing through OCTOBER 30)
VARIOUS TIMES
Various Street Locations, New York City
Free (R.S.V.P. required)
https://www.performa2021.org/
Performa's biennial selection of performance pieces this year takes to the streets (for reasons you can guess).
MAKE A NIGHT OF IT: Again, these pieces are all over the place.
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Wed, Oct 13, 2021, 8:00 PM – Thu, Oct 14, 2021, 9:00 PM
Zenon TeaVee: Zenon with a Z
PERFORMANCE
WEDNESDAY & THURSDAY, OCTOBER 13 & 14, 2021
8:00 PM
The Brick
579 Metropolitan Avenue, Williamsburg, Brooklyn
$20
https://www.bricktheater.com/event/zenon-with-a-z/2021-10-13/
Drag! Self-realization!
MAKE A NIGHT OF IT: Thank you Hanon for serving such great udon — and for serving them till a reasonable hour.
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Wednesday, October 13, 2021, 8:00 PM – 9:00 PM
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Wed, Oct 13, 2021, 8:00 PM – Sat, Oct 16, 2021, 9:00 PM
Fall for Dance
PERFORMANCE
WEDNESDAY – SATURDAY, OCTOBER 13 – 16, 2021 (continuing through OCTOBER 24)
8:00 PM
New York City Center
130 West 56th Street, Midtown, Manhattan
$15
https://www.nycitycenter.org/pdps/fallfordance
City Center's Fall for Dance is too diffuse: when this List calls for an end to genre, it doesn't mean an end to taste. But at $15 per show, who's gonna complain? Wednesday's and Thursday's program features a new (to New York) piece by King Of The World Kyle Abraham.
MAKE A NIGHT OF IT: I am pleased to send you to Iris, whose excellent and inventive Greek-with-a-touch-of-Turkish food almost makes you remember why people once got excited about Chef John Fraser. (Be sure to have at least one Mastic Martini.)
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Wednesday, October 13, 2021, 7:00 PM – 8:00 PM
-
Wednesday, October 13, 2021, 7:00 PM – 10:00 PM
Carol Szymanski & jaimie branch: The Phonemophonic Alphabet Brass Band
MUSIC / PERFORMANCE
WEDNESDAY, OCTOBER 13, 2021
7:00 PM & 9:00 PM
Artists Studio
Park Avenue Armory, Veterans Room
643 Park Avenue, Upper East Side, Manhattan
$45
https://www.armoryonpark.org/programs_events/detail/artists_studio_szymanski_branch
Punk/free/hip-hop (that doesn't begin to describe this music) trumpeter jaimie branch leads a large brass ensemble around a set of sculptures by Carol Szymanski that make brass instruments look like letters of the alphabet. Maybe they can even be played. This is going to be much better than those last sentences make it sound.
MAKE A NIGHT OF IT: I know I know: you're sick of hearing about Donahue's Steak House (not really a steakhouse). But where do you want me to send you? The Lounge at Daniel?
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Wed, Oct 13, 2021, 7:00 PM – Sun, Oct 17, 2021, 5:00 PM
Puppet Festival
THEATER / PERFORMANCE
WEDNESDAY – SUNDAY, OCTOBER 13 – 17, 2021 (continuing through OCTOBER 24)
7:00 & 8:30 PM WEDNESDAY – FRIDAY
2:00, 7:00 & 8:30 PM SATURDAY
2:00 & 4:00 PM SUNDAY
La MaMa
66 East 4th Street, East Village, Manhattan
$25 per show; $20 per show students/seniors
$150 7-show Full Festival package
$110 5-show package
$65 3-show package
$45 2-show package
https://www.lamama.org/shows/puppet-series-2021
Puppets! (You might [or might not] be wondering why this List is so partial to puppet theater. Well, I'll tell you: puppet theater generally calls for the abandonment of the kind of naturalism and straightforward narrative that this List abjures in theater.) (Of course, when puppet theater tries for naturalism and straightforward narrative, it's even more intolerable than when human theater does. But that won't be a problem in this Festival.) Note that the wide-ranging Puppet Slam is on Wednesday (7:00 PM), Thursday (8:30 PM), and Friday (8:30 PM).
MAKE A NIGHT OF IT: You no longer have to go to New Jersey for good fried fish from The Chippery chain. Who says life doesn't get better?
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Wednesday, October 13, 2021, 1:00 PM – 1:59 PM
Terence Blanchard: Fire Shut Up in My Bones
OPERA
WEDNESDAY & SATURDAY, OCTOBER 13 & 16, 2021 (continuing through OCTOBER 23)
7:00 PM WEDNESDAY
1:00 PM SATURDAY
Metropolitan Opera
30 Lincoln Center Plaza, Upper West Side, Manhattan
$37-$460
https://www.metopera.org/season/2021-22-season/fire-shut-up-in-my-bones/
This is a triumph in all sorts of ways — and a disappointment in just about none. One star-making performance. Two star-confirming ones. A great piece: one of the three best American operas of this Century so far. With an extraordinary libretto. Go: you've got to.
MAKE A NIGHT OF IT: No place nearby open afterward. If you're able to stay awake for a two-hour-forty-minute piece after eating, I'll note that Boulud Sud has reopened for dinner beforehand.
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Wednesday, October 13, 2021, 12:00 PM – 1:00 PM
Annea Lockwood: Piano Transplants — Piano Burning / Piano Garden / Piano Drowning
MUSIC
WEDNESDAY, OCTOBER 13, 2021
12:00 PM
ISSUE Project Room Stream
Free
https://issueprojectroom.org/event/annea-lockwood-piano-transplants-piano-burning-piano-garden-piano-drowning
A set of videos culled from a few performances each of three pieces in which (as you can tell from the titles) composer/sonic explorer Annea Lockwood has pianos put in situations of varying levels of precariousness.
MAKE A NIGHT OF IT: So the Tequila Sunrise is really a Prohibition-Era cocktail? REALLY? Pour 2-1/2 oz. chilled Blanco Tequila and 4 oz. orange juice into a chilled Old Fashioned glass. Slowly dribble in 1 teaspoon Grenadine (you want it to slowly sink to the bottom, forming the famous bottom red layer that melts into the orange above it). Garnish with an orange wheel.
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Wed, Oct 13, 2021, 12:00 PM – Sun, Oct 17, 2021, 7:00 PM
Susanne Sachesse feat. XIU XIU: I WAS A FORMALIST PENSIONER. AN ANTIOPERA
PERFORMANCE / OPERA
WEDNESDAY – SUNDAY, OCTOBER 13 – 17, 2021
12:00, 12:30, 1:00, 2:00, 2:30, 3:00, 3:30, 4:00, 4:30, 5:00, 5:30, 6:00 & 6:30 PM
Participant Inc.
253 East Houston Street, Lower East Side, Manhattan
Free (by appointment)
http://participantinc.org/seasons/season-19/i-was-a-formalist-pensioner-an-antiopera
It was hard to be a non-realist in the GDR.
MAKE A NIGHT OF IT: Of course I'm going to send you to Katz's. It's my nature.
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Tue, Oct 12, 2021, 8:30 PM – Sat, Oct 16, 2021, 9:30 PM
Laurie Anderson: Kludge
MUSIC / PERFORMANCE
TUESDAY – SATURDAY, OCTOBER 12 – 16, 2021
8:00 PM
Joe's Pub, Public Theater
426 Lafayette Street, NoHo, Manhattan
$10 Tuesday; $40 rest of run
https://publictheater.org/productions/joes-pub/2021/l/kludge-curated-by-laurie-anderson-feat.-anne-carson-arto-lindsay-rubin-kodheli--lafcadio-cass/
Laurie Anderson curates a series of, well, we have to call them variety shows, featuring musical performances and spoken word. Among those performing are Anne Carson, Arto Lindsay, and Beauty Pill (a good Modern Rock band that I would have sworn had broken up). Saturday has the fullest line-up.
MAKE A NIGHT OF IT: Not only is the sake bar Decibel still cool as shit, but it's open after these shows (not sure if that includes their kitchen, though).
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Tuesday, October 12, 2021, 8:00 PM – 9:00 PM
Steph Richards: Supersense / Sounds for Butch & Dino
MUSIC
TUESDAY, OCTOBER 12, 2021
8:00 PM
Roulette In Person & Live Stream
509 Atlantic Avenue, Boerum HIll, Brooklyn
$20 advance in person; $25 door
Live Stream free
https://roulette.org/event/steph-richards-supersense-and-sounds-for-butch-dino/
Trumpeter-about-town Steph Richards (a really great player) does the live version of her sniff-and-sound piece, where the music is complemented by a series of abstract scents on a scratch pad supplied to the audience. (I actually didn't find that the scents added much when I sniffed them along with the recording of this piece — but YMMV.) (The music was great regardless.) Also, a conduction piece.
MAKE A NIGHT OF IT: I first met Steph when we were both reaching for the same item on a food tray at a post-performance reception some years ago (those who know me will be astonished to learn that I let Steph take it). So you KNOW I'm going to recommend someplace good for after the show, if you go in person: Kind of Soul around the corner. Those streaming at home might have a Vieux Carée: pour 3/4 oz. each of Rye, Cognac, and Bénédictine, with 2 dashes each of Angostura and Peychaud's bitters, into an ice-filled cocktail shaker. Stir. Strain into an Old Fashioned glass over ice. Garnish with a cocktail cherry.
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Tue, Oct 12, 2021, 8:00 PM – Sat, Oct 16, 2021, 4:00 PM
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Tue, Oct 12, 2021, 7:30 PM – Sun, Oct 17, 2021, 3:30 PM
Tiago Rodrigues: By Heart
THEATER
TUESDAY – SUNDAY, OCTOBER 12 – 17, 2021
7:30 PM TUESDAY – SATURDAY
3:00 PM SUNDAY
BAM Fisher
321 Ashland Place, Fort Greene, Brooklyn
$35
https://www.bam.org/by-heart
Years before he took over European theater (well, at least the Avignon Festival), the Portuguese theater-maker Tiago Rodrigues created an international hit in memory of his grandmother, who in her declining days asked him to help her select a text to memorize as she could no longer read, in which Rodrigues teaches 10 audience members a poem to memorize, while reflecting on literature and other matters.
MAKE A NIGHT OF IT: The excellent Bar Goto Niban will still be open after this lengthy performance ends!
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Tuesday, October 12, 2021, 7:30 PM – 8:30 PM
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Tuesday, October 12, 2021, 7:30 PM – 8:30 PM
Erin Ellen Kelly feat. Qasim Naqvi: Moist Hearts' Mosaic Prayer
DANCE
TUESDAY, OCTOBER 12, 2021
7:30 PM
25 Kent
25 Kent Avenue, Williamsburg, Brooklyn
Free
Erin Ellen Kelly likes to move around in rough outdoor spaces. Unfortunately, one of her favorite rough outdoor spaces, on the Williamsburg riverfront, is now part of a big development. Kelly will no doubt find use for these new surroundings. It sure doesn't hurt that she's accompanied by percussion/electronics master Qasim Naqvi.
MAKE A NIGHT OF IT: Friends who didn't make it to Le Crocodile during its brief tenure before Lockdown are now being overjoyed to discover just how good its bistro/cuisine bourgeois is.
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Tuesday, October 12, 2021, 7:00 PM – 8:00 PM
Richard Danielpour: An American Mosaic
MUSIC
TUESDAY, OCTOBER 12, 2021
7:00 PM
Simone Dinnerstein
Pop Ups from the Morningside Campus
Miller Theater Stream
Free
https://www.millertheatre.com/events/simone-dinnerstein-2-live-from-columbia
Having spent a lot time during The Quarantine listening to pianist Simone Dinnerstein play Bach, composer Richard Danielpour decided to write a long-form solo piece for her, using Bachian and non-Bachian devices to commemorate people affected by The Pandemic. Dinnerstein played it last month at various locations inside Green-Wood Cemetery; tonight she plays it in a reading room in Butler Library.
MAKE A NIGHT OF IT: Lion's Tale: pour 2 oz. Bourbon, 1/2 oz. each of Allspice/Pimento Dram and lime juice, and 1 teaspoon Simple Syrup, with 1 dash of Angostura bitters, into an ice-filled cocktail shaker. Shake. Strain into a chilled Martini glass or coupe. Express an orange peel into the drink and discard the rind.
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Tuesday, October 12, 2021, 7:00 PM – 8:00 PM
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Tuesday, October 12, 2021, 6:30 PM – 7:30 PM
Performa Radio: The City Speaks
MUSIC / PERFORMANCE
TUESDAY, OCTOBER 12, 2021
6:30 PM
Performa 2021 Biennial Live Stream
Free
https://www.performa2021.org/live
The Performa performance art biennial kicks off with an online telethon, featuring among many others such key New York figures as alt/experimental guitar legend (and List college friend) Lee Ranaldo and sonic explorer (and also — this really kills me personally — a really good writer) Alan Licht.
MAKE A NIGHT OF IT: Hemingway Daiquiri: pour 2 oz. light Rum, 1/2 oz. each of Maraschino liqueur and grapefruit juice, 3/4 oz. lime juice, and 1/4 oz. Simple Syrup into an ice-filled cocktail shaker. Shake. Strain into a chilled Martini glass or coupe. Garnish with a lime wheel.
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Tue, Oct 12, 2021, 10:00 AM – Sun, Oct 17, 2021, 4:30 PM
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Monday, October 11, 2021, 7:30 PM – 8:30 PM
The Westerlies feat. Conrad Tao
MUSIC
MONDAY, OCTOBER 11, 2021
7:30 PM
Music Mondays
Advent Lutheran Church
2504 Broadway, Upper West Side, Manhattan
Free (reservations available)
https://www.musicmondays.org/october-2021
A concert asking the musical question: is even Conrad Tao worth sitting through the annoyingly NPR-ish brass quartet The Westerlies for? That said, every composer of pre-composed music on this program is beyond terrific. As for the improvisational portions of the program, Tao's improvisations with Charmaine Lee at Merkin/Kaufman last month were great — but Lee is hardly annoyingly NPR-ish.
MAKE A NIGHT OF IT: In a city rife with Dominican spots, the Malecon chain are some of the best. And their supernal stewed goat is a Monday special!
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Mon, Oct 11, 2021, 8:00 AM – Sun, Oct 17, 2021, 6:00 PM
Gelsey Bell feat. Joseph White: Cairns
MUSIC / PERFORMANCE
MONDAY – SUNDAY, OCTOBER 11 – 17, 2021 (ongoing)
8:00 AM – 6:00 PM
#stillHERE IRL
Green-Wood Cemetery, Sunset Park Entrance
35th Street at 4th Avenue, Greenwood Heights, Brooklyn
$7 or more for soundtrack
https://here.org/shows/cairns/
One of the first shows during Quarantine that you could actually Go Out! to (although it's not quite "live"). Gelsey Bell, that vocal star of NYC Alt Classical, has conceived of a piece that walks you around Green-Wood Cemetery (starting at the Sunset Park Entrance). You download the soundtrack on your phone beforehand (the Times complains about how hard it is to download from Bandcamp to an iPhone — trust me: if I can figure out how to do it, anyone can). Bell wrote the text and narrates, with a co-composing assist from the inimitable Joe White. The Cemetery itself will do the performing. (You can also listen to the soundtrack at home and pretend you're walking around the Cemetery.)
MAKE A NIGHT OF IT: The Sunset Park entrance is only a short walk from Hometown BBQ Industry City (if you go over the weekend, you can get the fabulous pastrami).
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Mon, Oct 11, 2021, 6:00 AM – Sun, Oct 17, 2021, 10:00 PM
Stephanie Fleischmann, Christina Campanella & Mallory Catlett: The Visitation
PERFORMANCE
MONDAY – SUNDAY, OCTOBER 11 – 17, 2021 (ongoing)
6:00 AM – 10:00 PM
HERE Arts Center Presentation
Jackie Robinson Park
Between Edgecombe & Bradhurst Aves. & 145 – 155 Sts., Sugar Hill, Manhattan
Pay what you wish
https://here.org/shows/the-visitation/
Another sound walk (I LOVE these!), this one set to avant-pop you access through Soundcloud.
MAKE A NIGHT OF IT: Good beer, epic burgers at Harlem Public.
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Mon, Oct 11, 2021, 6:00 AM – Sun, Oct 17, 2021, 1:00 AM
Ellen Reid: SOUNDWALK
MUSIC / PERFORMANCE
MONDAY – SUNDAY, OCTOBER 11 – 17, 2021 (ongoing)
6:00 AM – 1:00 AM
New York Philharmonic
Central Park
59th Street – 110th Street/Central Park West – 5th Avenue, Manhattan
Free (registration required)
https://www.ellenreidsoundwalk.com/new-york-philharmonic
The New York Phil hops aboard the walk-around-the-landscaped-space-with-soundtrack train (see below). The highly allusive soundtrack was put together by Ellen Reid, who is one of the more soundscapey (and certainly one of the best) of today's many excellent young composers. This walk isn't guided: you download an app that triggers sounds sent to your earphones from various cells around the Park as you wander. So you can do it over many times. (Speaking of wandering around Central Park, here's something that I, for one, never knew.)
MAKE A NIGHT OF IT: Delicious pan-African at Teranga.
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Sunday, October 10, 2021, 8:00 PM – 9:00 PM
Third Rail Projects: Return the Moon
THEATER
SUNDAY, OCTOBER 10, 2021 (continuing through OCTOBER 24)
8:00 PM
Zoom
$15-$67
https://thirdrailprojects.com/return-the-moon#returnthemoon
Third Rail Projects, specialists in immersive theater presentations, goes Zoom. This piece recounts the old legend of how the Moon was lost and found (you've seen theatrical treatments before).
MAKE A NIGHT OF IT: Moon Dance: pour 2 oz. Corn Whisky, 1/2 oz. each of Cocchi Americano and dry Vermouth, and 1/4 oz. each of Green Chartreuse and Maraschino liqueur, with 1 dash of orange bitters, into an ice-filled cocktail shaker. Stir. Strain into a chilled Martini glass or coupe. Garnish with an orange twist.
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Sunday, October 10, 2021, 8:00 PM – 9:00 PM
Out of Caution: The Next Generation
THEATER / PERFORMANCE / MUSIC
SUNDAY, OCTOBER 10, 2021
8:00 PM
The Brick Live Stream
Twitch
Free
https://www.bricktheater.com/event/ooctng-episode-6-season-finale-covids/
Crazed diverse performances.
MAKE A NIGHT OF IT: Trinidad Sour: pour 1/2 oz. Rye, 3/4 oz. lemon juice, 1 oz. Orgeat, and 1-1/2 oz. Angostura bitters (NOT a typo) into an ice-filled cocktail shaker. Shake. Strain into a chilled Nick & Nora glass. Garnish with a lemon twist.
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Sunday, October 10, 2021, 7:00 PM – 8:00 PM
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Saturday, October 9, 2021, 10:00 PM – 11:00 PM
tINI
MUSIC
SATURDAY, OCTOBER 9, 2021
10:00 PM
Resolute
Location disclosed upon ticketing, Brooklyn
$40
https://shotgun.live/events/re-solute-w-t-ini-rasho
When it comes to current international Electronic Dance Music, tINI is about as good as it gets.
MAKE A NIGHT OF IT: Even if I knew where this was (heh), I wouldn't tell you in print, would I?
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Saturday, October 9, 2021, 7:00 PM – 8:00 PM
-
Saturday, October 9, 2021, 4:00 PM – 5:00 PM
Opera on Tap: Operacades
OPERA
SATURDAY, OCTOBER 9, 2021
4:00 PM
Outside Barbès
376 9th Street, Park Slope, Brooklyn
Free
https://www.facebook.com/events/378832287169208
The Zoltar opera machine stops in front of Barbès.
MAKE A NIGHT OF IT: See if you can snag a table at Park Slope's hottest restaurant (and believe it or not, that isn't the faint praise it sounds like) Runner Up.
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Saturday, October 9, 2021, 4:00 PM – 5:00 PM
-
Saturday, October 9, 2021, 3:00 PM – 7:00 PM
Suzi Takahashi: The Story Box
PERFORMANCE
SATURDAY, OCTOBER 9, 2021
3:00 & 6:00 PM
Brooklyn Army Terminal
80 58th Street, Sunset Park, Brooklyn
Free
https://here.org/shows/the-story-box/
Audiences get to experience Japanese-American interment! This will be presented each succeeding Saturday in a different borough.
MAKE A NIGHT OF IT: Mexican on acid at La Snackeria.
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Friday, October 8, 2021, 10:00 PM – 11:00 PM
-
Friday, October 8, 2021, 8:30 PM – 9:30 PM
-
Friday, October 8, 2021, 8:00 PM – 9:00 PM
Downtown Variety: Mexico Edition
PERFORMANCE / DANCE / MUSIC
FRIDAY, OCTOBER 8, 2021
8:00 PM
La MaMa/CultureHub In Person & Live Stream
CultureHub NYC Studio
47 Great Jones Street, NoHo, Manhattan
$10 in person
Free live stream
https://www.culturehub.org/events/downtown-variety-21
You just imagine how fab Mexico City's alt arts scene is. (Note that the in-person show is a remote feed from CDMX viewed in a theater with an audience.)
MAKE A NIGHT OF IT: In "person", might as well go to faux CDMX café Atla (even if its guiding chef has left) (and the story doesn't end there, if you're interested). Streaming at home, have a Batanga: Salt the rim of a Collins glass. Pour 2 oz. Reposado Tequila and the juice of half a lime over ice. Top with Mexican Coke. Stir with the knife you used to cut the lime.
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Friday, October 8, 2021, 7:30 PM – 8:30 PM
Carsie Blanton
MUSIC
FRIDAY, OCTOBER 8, 2021
7:30 PM
(Le) Poisson Rouge
158 Bleecker Street, Greenwich Village, Manhattan
$15-$18
https://lpr.com/lpr_events/carsie-blanton/
Carsie Blanton does the kind of catchy '20s/'30s throwback jazz-pop that I might enjoy listening to, but doesn't fit on this List. She's getting Listed nonetheless, because she's written a quatrain that encapsulates not only my own personal love life, but my entire personal social life: "We tried to chat/But it was too scary/You're just a Democrat/I'm a revolutionary." (Come with me, Carsie, and we'll make little Kropotkins together!) (I'm allowed to say something like that cuz most of her songs are about sex.)
MAKE A NIGHT OF IT: Extremely enticing homestyle Thai (from a very well-regarded pop-up/delivery chef) at the brand-new Thaimee Love.
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Friday, October 8, 2021, 7:30 PM – 8:30 PM
Undoing Language: Early Performance Works of Brian O'Doherty
PERFORMANCE
FRIDAY, OCTOBER 8, 2021
7:30 PM
The Kitchen
512 West 19th Street, Chelsea, Manhattan
$15
https://ci.ovationtix.com/35572/production/1081504
I think of Brian O'Doherty as a critic. Arts administrators probably think of him as an arts administrator. And then there are his novels. But he also did influential performance pieces (very language-focused [even if it's negation], as befits an Irish writer). A star-studded bunch of performers (star-studded here, anyway) give new life to some of his early pieces, from the late '60s/early '70s.
MAKE A NIGHT OF IT: It would be so easy to recommend a place right near The Kitchen if only Cookshop were good.
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Friday, October 8, 2021, 7:30 PM – 10:30 PM
Melissa Aldana: Visions
MUSIC
FRIDAY & SATURDAY, OCTOBER 8 & 9, 2021
7:30 & 9:30 PM
Jazz Gallery In Person & (Saturday) Live Stream
1160 Broadway, NoMad, Manhattan
$30-$40 in person
$20 Saturday live stream
FRIDAY: https://www.jazzgallery.org/calendar/melissa-aldana-1
SATURDAY: https://www.jazzgallery.org/calendar/melissa-aldana-2
Visions, saxophonist Melissa Aldana's set of compositions for jazz quartet drawing on the life and work of Frida Kahlo, was strikingly good. So this live traversal is kind of a big deal.
MAKE A NIGHT OF IT: In person, elegant Mod Chinese-Korean at Joomak Banjum. Streaming at home, have a Tom Cat: pour 12 oz. each of Old Tom Gin and Mezcal, and 3/4 oz. each of Fino or Manzanillo Sherry and sweet Vermouth, with 2 dashes each of Orange bitters and either Lemon or Grapefruit bitters, into an ice-filled cocktail shaker. Shake (oddly). Strain into a chilled Martini glass or coupe over some ice (oddly). Garnish with grapefruit slices.
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Friday, October 8, 2021, 7:00 PM – 8:00 PM
Terence Blanchard: Fire Shut Up in My Bones
OPERA
MONDAY & FRIDAY, OCTOBER 4 & 8, 2021 (continuing through OCTOBER 16)
7:30 PM MONDAY
7:00 PM FRIDAY
Metropolitan Opera
30 Lincoln Center Plaza, Upper West Side, Manhattan
$37-$460
https://www.metopera.org/season/2021-22-season/fire-shut-up-in-my-bones/
Can Mainstream Jazz trumpeter Terence Blanchard write opera? Most people who saw this treatment of Charles M. Blow's memoir at Saint Louis a couple of years ago seemed to think so. A more interesting question is whether Yanick Nézet-Séguin can conduct jazz-based music. We'll see (I guess he did a good enough job with Bernstein's showbizzy Mass — but that's such a heaping pile of turds that it might be hard to judge by).
MAKE A NIGHT OF IT: No place nearby open afterward. If you're able to stay awake for a two-hour-forty-minute piece after eating, I'll note that Boulud Sud has reopened for dinner beforehand.
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Fri, Oct 8, 2021, 6:00 PM – Sat, Oct 9, 2021, 7:00 PM
-
Friday, October 8, 2021, 5:00 PM – 6:00 PM
ETHEL and Friends: Balcony Bar from Home
MUSIC
FRIDAY, OCTOBER 8, 2021 (weekly)
5:00 PM
Metropolitan Museum of Art
Facebook
Free
https://www.metmuseum.org/events/programs/met-live-arts/ethel-online
The fab alt string quartet ETHEL brings its weekly recitals in the Met Balcony Bar home (theirs and yours). Expect old and new music, and surprise guests (from still more homes).
MAKE A NIGHT OF IT: Amber Negroni: pour 1/2 oz. each of Gin and Braulio Amaro, and 1 oz. each of Lillet Blanc (with the usual preferred substitutions, especially Tempus Fugit Kino l'Áero d'Or) and lemon juice, with 3 dashes of Bitterman's Burlesque Bitters, into an ice-filled cocktail shaker. Shake. Strain into a chilled Martini glass or coupe. Garnish with a rosemary sprig.
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Thursday, October 7, 2021, 8:00 PM – 9:00 PM
-
Thursday, October 7, 2021, 8:00 PM – 9:00 PM
Aaron Siegel: Rainbird
OPERA
THURSDAY, OCTOBER 7, 2021
8:00 PM
Experiments in Opera / Restless NY
Roulette In Person & Live Stream
509 Atlantic Avenue, Boerum HIll, Brooklyn
$20 advance in person; $25 door
Live Stream free
https://roulette.org/event/experiments-in-opera-and-restless-nyc-present-rainbird/
Aaron Siegel's marvelous and ultimately quite moving opera on Janet Frame finally gets a full airing. The cast consists of people who get mentioned here a lot.
MAKE A NIGHT OF IT: In person, plausible bistro at Bacchus. Live streaming at home, have a Godfather, one of the few decent cocktails to come out of the '70s: pour 1-1/2 oz. Scotch and 1/2 oz. Amaretto into an Old Fashioned glass over ice. Stir.
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Thu, Oct 7, 2021, 7:30 PM – Sun, Oct 10, 2021, 4:00 PM
Aya Ogawa: The Nosebleed
THEATER
THURSDAY – SUNDAY, OCTOBER 7 – 10, 2021
7:30 PM THURSDAY – SATURDAY
3:00 PM SATURDAY & SUNDAY
Chocolate Factory at the Japan Society
333 East 47th Street, Turtle Bay, Manhattan
$30; $25 people with disabilities
https://www.japansociety.org/arts-and-culture/performances/nosebleed
Aya Ogowa presents a bitter but comic and ultimately sympathetic absurdist exploration of intergenerational problems when your father is a Japanese corporate businessman and you're a bohemian Japanese-American artist.
MAKE A NIGHT OF IT: Oh man am I looking forward to returning to hidden basement izakaya Sakagura — even if its menu, like so many places', is a shadow of its former self.
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Thursday, October 7, 2021, 7:30 PM – 10:30 PM
Micah Thomas
MUSIC
THURSDAY, OCTOBER 7, 2021
7:30 & 9:30 PM
Jazz Gallery In Person & Live Stream
1160 Broadway, NoMad, Manhattan
$15-$25 in person
$20 live stream
https://www.jazzgallery.org/calendar/micah-thomas
Micah Thomas, a dynamic pianist, leads a trio.
MAKE A NIGHT OF IT: In person, offal-heavy Korean barbecue at Jongro Gopchang. Streaming at home, time to fall back (see what I did?) into a Boulevardier: pour 1-1/2 oz. Bourbon and 1 oz. each of sweet Vermouth and Campari into an ice-filled cocktail shaker. Stir. Strain into a chilled Martini glass or coupe. Garnish with an orange twist.
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Thursday, October 7, 2021, 7:00 PM – 8:00 PM
Jessie Cox: Black as a Hack for Cyborgification
MUSIC
THURSDAY, OCTOBER 7, 2021
7:00 PM
International Contemporary Ensemble In Person & Live Stream
Target Margin Theater
232 52nd Street, Sunset Park, Brooklyn
Free (registration required)
https://www.eventbrite.com/e/targetmargin7-tickets-173770230437
The exciting composer Jessie Cox takes you on a journey among the planets.
MAKE A NIGHT OF IT: In person, Taiwanese snacks at Taiwan Station. Streaming at home, have a Jolly Roger: pour 1 oz. aged Rum, 1/2 oz. Reposado Tequila, 3/4 oz. sweet Vermouth, 1/4 oz. Fernet, 3/4 oz. lemon juice, and 1/2 oz. Simple Syrup into an ice-filled cocktail shaker. Shake. Add 1 oz. sparkling Wine. Strain into a Collins glass over ice. Express a lemon peel into the drink and garnish with the rind, together with a mint sprig.
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Thu, Oct 7, 2021, 7:00 PM – Sun, Oct 10, 2021, 4:00 PM
Puppet Festival
THEATER / PERFORMANCE
THURSDAY – SUNDAY, OCTOBER 7 – 10, 2021 (continuing through OCTOBER 24)
7:00 & 8:30 PM THURSDAY – SATURDAY
2:00 & 4:00 PM SUNDAY
La MaMa
66 East 4th Street, East Village, Manhattan
$25 per show; $20 per show students/seniors
$150 7-show Full Festival package
$110 5-show package
$65 3-show package
$45 2-show package
https://www.lamama.org/shows/puppet-series-2021
Puppets! (You might [or might not] be wondering why this List is so partial to puppet theater. Well, I'll tell you: puppet theater generally calls for the abandonment of the kind of naturalism and straightforward narrative that this List abjures in theater.) (Of course, when puppet theater tries for naturalism and straightforward narrative, it's even more intolerable than when human theater does. But that won't be a problem in this Festival.)
MAKE A NIGHT OF IT: You no longer have to go to New Jersey for good fried fish from The Chippery chain. Who says life doesn't get better?
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Thu, Oct 7, 2021, 5:00 PM – Sun, Oct 10, 2021, 8:00 PM
Assemble
THEATER / PERFORMANCE
THURSDAY – SUNDAY, OCTOBER 7 – 10, 2021 (continuing through NOVEMBER 5)
5:00, 5:20, 5:40, 6:00, 6:20, 6:40 & 7:00 THURSDAY & FRIDAY
4:00, 4:20, 4:40, 5:00, 5:20, 5:40, 6:00, 6:20, 6:40 & 7:00 PM SATURDAY & SUNDAY
Secret Location (disclosed upon ticket purchase), Brooklyn
$40; $30 students/artists/unemployed
https://www.projectassemble.org/
A return of the immersive theatrical experience in which audience members, having downloaded an app that will guide them and provide content, wander around a disused Brooklyn store experiencing an early middle age reconsideration of life choices (the creators of this piece couldn't have anticipated how reflective of the zeitgeist it would turn out to be).
MAKE A NIGHT OF IT: How would I know? The location's a SECRET!
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Thu, Oct 7, 2021, 8:00 AM – Sun, Oct 10, 2021, 6:00 PM
Kamala Sankaram: The Last Stand
OPERA
THURSDAY – SUNDAY, OCTOBER 7 – 10, 2021
8:00 AM – 6:00 PM
Near the Music Pagoda, Prospect Park, Brooklyn
Free
https://creativetime.org/the-last-stand-kamala-sankaram/
The long life of a tree is explored through arranged recorded natural sounds played by and around actual trees. Kamala Sankaram is one of the best opera composers around.
MAKE A NIGHT OF IT: Really delicious all-day Guatemalan Fusion sandwiches and stews at Ix.
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Wed, Oct 6, 2021, 8:00 PM – Sun, Oct 10, 2021, 3:00 PM
-
Wednesday, October 6, 2021, 8:00 PM – 9:00 PM
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Wednesday, October 6, 2021, 7:30 PM – 8:30 PM
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Wed, Oct 6, 2021, 7:00 PM – Sat, Oct 9, 2021, 8:00 PM
Xandra Nur Clark: Polylogues
PERFORMANCE
WEDNESDAY – SATURDAY, OCTOBER 6 – 9, 2021
7:00 PM
HERE
145 6th Avenue (entrance on Dominick Street), Hudson Square, Manhattan
$30 Wednesday – Saturday; $40 Sunday
https://here.org/shows/polylogues/
An exploration of monogamy through anonymous interviews.
MAKE A NIGHT OF IT: Betcha didn't know that longtime Village bistro Le Sirène has opened a Soho/Hudson Square branch.
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Wed, Oct 6, 2021, 6:00 PM – Fri, Oct 8, 2021, 8:00 PM
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Wed, Oct 6, 2021, 12:00 PM – Sun, Oct 10, 2021, 6:30 PM
Susanne Sachesse feat. XIU XIU: I WAS A FORMALIST PENSIONER. AN ANTIOPERA
PERFORMANCE / OPERA
WEDNESDAY – SUNDAY, OCTOBER 6 – 10, 2021 (continuing through OCTOBER 17)
12:00, 12:30, 1:00, 2:00, 2:30, 3:00, 3:30, 4:00, 4:30, 5:00, 5:30, 6:00 & 6:30 PM
Participant Inc.
253 East Houston Street, Lower East Side, Manhattan
Free (by appointment)
http://participantinc.org/seasons/season-19/i-was-a-formalist-pensioner-an-antiopera
It was hard to be a non-realist in the GDR.
MAKE A NIGHT OF IT: Of course I'm going to send you to Katz's. It's my nature.
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Tuesday, October 5, 2021, 8:00 PM – 9:00 PM
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Tuesday, October 5, 2021, 8:00 PM – 9:00 PM
Gabriel Zucker's The Delegation: Leftover Beats from the Edge of Time
MUSIC
TUESDAY, OCTOBER 5, 2021
8:00 PM
Roulette In Person & Live Stream
509 Atlantic Avenue, Boerum HIll, Brooklyn
$20 advance in person; $25 door
Live Stream free
https://roulette.org/event/gabriel-zuckers-the-delegation-leftover-beats-from-the-edges-of-time/
It's a little embarrassing to say this about the son of college friends, but Gabriel Zucker has to be one of the most fascinating young composer/bandleaders in jazz-based classical-aligned music. Tonight he presents a new long-form piece, with dance and video accompaniment. Zucker's music is mandatory listening.
MAKE A NIGHT OF IT: In person, food purportedly reflective of Brooklyn cultures but it looks like nice versions of the same old stuff to me at the restaurant in the new Brooklyn Ace Hotel, As You Are. Live streaming at home, have a High Fashion: pour 2 oz. Gin and 1-1/4 oz. each of Saint-Germain and grapefruit juice, with 2 dashes of Rhubarb bitters, into a rocks glass over ice. Stir. Garnish with a grapefruit twist.
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Tue, Oct 5, 2021, 7:00 PM – Sun, Oct 10, 2021, 4:00 PM
Antoinette Chinonye Nwandu: Pass Over
THEATER
TUESDAY – SUNDAY, OCTOBER 5 – 10, 2021
7:00 PM TUESDAY – THURSDAY
8:00 FRIDAY & SATURDAY
2:00 PM WEDNESDAY
3:00 PM SUNDAY
August Wilson Theater
245 West 52nd Street, Midtown, Manhattan
$39-$199
https://www.passoverbroadway.com/
I've been resisting Listing this since it opened on Broadway (and didn't List it when it was at Lincoln Center either). Too issue-oriented, I thought. But if a play can address social issues without being social realist, instead rooting itself in Beckett — and be given on Broadway — then attention must be paid.
MAKE A NIGHT OF IT: I have never had a bad time at the Russian Samovar.
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Tuesday, October 5, 2021, 7:00 PM – 8:00 PM
Los Aliens
MUSIC
TUESDAY, OCTOBER 5, 2021
7:00 PM
Barbès In Person & Live Stream
376 9th Street, Park Slope, Brooklyn
$15 suggested donation
https://www.viewcy.com/e/los_aliens
We know Ricardo Gallo as an exceptionally incisive jazz pianist and composer. But here he gets on the synth and assembles a sharp band to experiment with the grooves of his native Colombia.
MAKE A NIGHT OF IT: Colombia in Park Slope. Duh. Streaming at home, the whole point of Colombian cocktails is the fabulous fruit they have there — the best anywhere, if you ask me — that you can't get here. So I guess I'll just have to advise you to have an Antioqueño Aguardiente straight up (not for the faint of heart).
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Tue, Oct 5, 2021, 10:00 AM – Sun, Oct 10, 2021, 4:30 PM
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Monday, October 4, 2021, 7:30 PM – 8:30 PM
Terence Blanchard: Fire Shut Up in My Bones
OPERA
MONDAY & FRIDAY, OCTOBER 4 & 8, 2021 (continuing through OCTOBER 16)
7:30 PM MONDAY
7:00 PM FRIDAY
Metropolitan Opera
30 Lincoln Center Plaza, Upper West Side, Manhattan
$37-$460
https://www.metopera.org/season/2021-22-season/fire-shut-up-in-my-bones/
Can Mainstream Jazz trumpeter Terence Blanchard write opera? Most people who saw this treatment of Charles M. Blow's memoir at Saint Louis a couple of years ago seemed to think so. A more interesting question is whether Yanick Nézet-Séguin can conduct jazz-based music. We'll see (I guess he did a good enough job with Bernstein's showbizzy Mass — but that's such a heaping pile of turds that it might be hard to judge by).
MAKE A NIGHT OF IT: No place nearby open afterward. If you're able to stay awake for a two-hour-forty-minute piece after eating, I'll note that Boulud Sud has reopened for dinner beforehand.
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Mon, Oct 4, 2021, 7:30 PM – Sat, Oct 9, 2021, 9:00 PM
Bill T. Jones / Arnie Zane Company: Deep Blue Sea
DANCE
MONDAY – SATURDAY, OCTOBER 4 – 9, 2021
7:30 PM MONDAY – THURSDAY
8:00 PM FRIDAY & SATURDAY
Wade Thompson Drill Hall, Park Avenue Armory
643 Park Avenue, Upper East Side, Manhattan
$40-$125
https://www.armoryonpark.org/programs_events/detail/deep_blue_sea
Thanks to the Quarantine, this spectacular Bill T. Jones piece has been a long time coming — and now it's here! The Drill Hall should be made even more overwhelming than its usual overwhelming self by a visual environment (we used to call them "sets") by Elizabeth Diller. The electronic soundscape and score (by Nick Hallett, Hprizm the High Priest of the Antipop Consortium, Rena Anakwe, and Holland Andrews, no less) uses texts by Martin Luther King, Jr. and Herman Melville. Like one of its sources, Moby Dick, this piece is (a) too long, (b) too sprawling, (c) too capacious, (d) too uneven, and (e) absolutely stunning. It virtually demands to be experienced.
MAKE A NIGHT OF IT: I cannot tell you how much I'm looking forward to sitting at the bar of Donahue's Steak House again.
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Mon, Oct 4, 2021, 8:00 AM – Sun, Oct 10, 2021, 7:00 PM
Gelsey Bell feat. Joseph White: Cairns
MUSIC / PERFORMANCE
MONDAY – SUNDAY, OCTOBER 4 – 10, 2021 (ongoing)
8:00 AM – 7:00 PM
#stillHERE IRL
Green-Wood Cemetery, Sunset Park Entrance
35th Street at 4th Avenue, Greenwood Heights, Brooklyn
$7 or more for soundtrack
https://here.org/shows/cairns/
One of the first shows during Quarantine that you could actually Go Out! to (although it's not quite "live"). Gelsey Bell, that vocal star of NYC Alt Classical, has conceived of a piece that walks you around Green-Wood Cemetery (starting at the Sunset Park Entrance). You download the soundtrack on your phone beforehand (the Times complains about how hard it is to download from Bandcamp to an iPhone — trust me: if I can figure out how to do it, anyone can). Bell wrote the text and narrates, with a co-composing assist from the inimitable Joe White. The Cemetery itself will do the performing. (You can also listen to the soundtrack at home and pretend you're walking around the Cemetery.)
MAKE A NIGHT OF IT: The Sunset Park entrance is only a short walk from Hometown BBQ Industry City (if you go over the weekend, you can get the fabulous pastrami).
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Mon, Oct 4, 2021, 6:00 AM – Sun, Oct 10, 2021, 11:00 PM
Stephanie Fleischmann, Christina Campanella & Mallory Catlett: The Visitation
PERFORMANCE
MONDAY – SUNDAY, OCTOBER 4 – 10, 2021 (ongoing)
6:00 AM – 10:00 PM
HERE Arts Center Presentation
Jackie Robinson Park
Between Edgecombe & Bradhurst Aves. & 145 – 155 Sts., Sugar Hill, Manhattan
Pay what you wish
https://here.org/shows/the-visitation/
Another sound walk (I LOVE these!), this one set to avant-pop you access through Soundcloud.
MAKE A NIGHT OF IT: Good beer, epic burgers at Harlem Public.
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Mon, Oct 4, 2021, 6:00 AM – Sun, Oct 10, 2021, 1:00 AM
Ellen Reid: SOUNDWALK
MUSIC / PERFORMANCE
MONDAY – SUNDAY, OCTOBER 4 – 10, 2021 (ongoing)
6:00 AM – 1:00 AM
New York Philharmonic
Central Park
59th Street – 110th Street/Central Park West – 5th Avenue, Manhattan
Free (registration required)
https://www.ellenreidsoundwalk.com/new-york-philharmonic
The New York Phil hops aboard the walk-around-the-landscaped-space-with-soundtrack train (see below). The highly allusive soundtrack was put together by Ellen Reid, who is one of the more soundscapey (and certainly one of the best) of today's many excellent young composers. This walk isn't guided: you download an app that triggers sounds sent to your earphones from various cells around the Park as you wander. So you can do it over many times. (Speaking of wandering around Central Park, here's something that I, for one, never knew.)
MAKE A NIGHT OF IT: Delicious pan-African at Teranga.
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Sunday, October 3, 2021, 5:00 PM – 6:00 PM
AUNTS: Triple Threat
PERFORMANCE
SUNDAY, OCTOBER 3, 2021
5:00 PM
Outside the Chocolate Factory
38-33 24th Street, Long Island City, Queens
Free
https://nyuskirball.org/events/aunts-2/
Freewheeling street performance and partying — and a chance to see at least the outside of the NEW Chocolate Factory Theater (no longer in a onetime chocolate factory — but hey The Kitchen is no longer in a kitchen)!
MAKE A NIGHT OF IT: Very nice Brazilian at Beija Flor.
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Sunday, October 3, 2021, 4:00 PM – 5:00 PM
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Sunday, October 3, 2021, 3:00 PM – 4:00 PM
Mark Morris Dance Group: Words / Quad / Water
DANCE
SUNDAY, OCTOBER 3, 2021
3:00 PM
Queens Botanical Garden
43-50 Main Street, Flushing, Queens
Free
https://markmorrisdancegroup.org/event/queens-10-03-21/
A brand new piece on Handel (it's called Water — wanna guess what the music is?): this is vintage Morris. An older piece on Mendelssohn: this is same old same old Morris — better than most people's prime. And a dance setting of Beckett that's actually rather astonishing.
MAKE A NIGHT OF IT: Great Shanghainese at Kung Fu Xiao Long Bao.
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Sunday, October 3, 2021, 2:30 PM – 4:30 PM
C4: Joy
MUSIC
SUNDAY, OCTOBER 3, 2021
2:30 & 4:00 PM
In Person & Live Stream
St. John's in the Village
218 West 11th Street, West Village, Manhattan
$12
http://www.c4ensemble.org/2021-fall-concert.html
Members of the excellent Choral Composer/Conductor Collective are so tech-savvy (I'm trying very hard not to say nerdy) that I'll bet they're a little disappointed to be abandoning their attempt to completely conquer latency and returning to live performance. BUT ONLY A LITTLE. And there's still the live stream. I feel constrained to note that there's some Julius Eastman on the program.
MAKE A NIGHT OF IT: In person, Tuscan at Fiaschetteria Pistoia. Streaming at home, have a Last Word: pour 3/4 oz. each of Gin, green Chartreuse, Maraschino liqueur, and lime juice into an ice-filled cocktail shaker. Shake. Strain into a chilled Martini glass or coupe. Garnish with a lime twist.
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Sunday, October 3, 2021, 12:00 PM – 1:00 PM
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Saturday, October 2, 2021, 7:30 PM – 10:00 PM
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Saturday, October 2, 2021, 6:00 PM – 7:00 PM
Lary 7
MUSIC
SATURDAY, OCTOBER 2, 2021
6:00 PM
Blank Forms
468 Grand Avenue, Clinton Hill, Brooklyn
$20
https://blankforms.org/events/lary-7/
Sound artist Lary 7 will do his fascinating exploratory stuff.
MAKE A NIGHT OF IT: The rotisserie chicken at The Fly might not be that exciting (cuz, like, rotisserie chicken). But the extremely well-selected Natural wine list sure is.
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Saturday, October 2, 2021, 5:30 PM – 6:30 PM
Bindlestiff Family Cirkus: A Night of Variety
PERFORMANCE
SATURDAY, OCTOBER 2, 2021
5:30 PM
Flatbead Follies
5th Avenue btw. 10th & 11th Streets, Park Slope, Brooklyn
Free
http://bindlestiff.org/flatbed-follies/
Music and variety acts, culminating in silent movie screenings starting at 8 PM.
MAKE A NIGHT OF IT: Colombia in Park Slope. Cuz I like what I like.
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Saturday, October 2, 2021, 3:00 PM – 6:00 PM
Suzi Takahashi: The Story Box
PERFORMANCE
SATURDAY, OCTOBER 2, 2021 (continuing at different locations each SATURDAY through OCTOBER 9)
3:00 & 6:00 PM
Court Square Park
Court Square & Jackson Avenue, Long Island City, Queens
Free
https://here.org/shows/the-story-box/
Audiences get to experience Japanese-American interment! This will be presented each succeeding Saturday in a different borough.
MAKE A NIGHT OF IT: Before each show and after the early one, go to Brooks 1890 and wish the food lived up to the fantastic ambiance. After the late show, go to Quebeçoise outpost M. Wells and make yourself very very happy.
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Saturday, October 2, 2021, 2:00 PM – 3:00 PM
Phillip Golub: Filters: loops for piano and mixed ensemble
MUSIC
SATURDAY, OCTOBER 2, 2021
2:00 PM
St. Ann & The Holy Trinity Church
157 Montague Street, Brooklyn Heights, Brooklyn
Free
https://www.facebook.com/events/4321646217891596
Composer/pianist Phillip Golub gives the long-delayed (guess why?) premiere of his durational (four-hour) piece (you can come and go as you please) for himself and a mixed ensemble. Expect to be hypnotized.
MAKE A NIGHT OF IT: Queen Restaurant for classic high-class Brooklyn Red Sauce.
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Sat, Oct 2, 2021, 1:30 PM – Sun, Oct 3, 2021, 2:30 PM
In Gardens 2021
MUSIC
SATURDAY & SUNDAY, OCTOBER 2 & 3, 2021
1:30 PM
Children's Magical Garden
129 Stanton Street, Lower East Side, Manhattan
Free
https://www.artsforart.org/ingardens.html
Another couple of afternoons of Free Jazz in a garden. On Saturday, the trio opening at 1:30 PM features Cuban great Francisco Mela on drums and the fabulous New Yorker-from-Haiti Anaïs Maviel on vocals (don't know reedsman Daro Behroozi, but anyone playing in that company's bound to be good). Later on in the afternoon, we see the titanic bassist William Parker playing in trombonist Steve Swell's quartet at 4:00 PM. On Sunday, futuristic trombonist Ayumi Ishito plays with reed master Daniel Carter and a theremin(!). Later on, you'll have to listen past spoken word to hear great bassists Luke Stewart (at 3:30 PM) and, again, Parker (at 4:00 PM).
MAKE A NIGHT OF IT: Before and early on, the best appetizing in the entire world at Russ & Daughters Cafe. Later and afterward, good modish Russian at Tzarevna.
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Saturday, October 2, 2021, 11:30 AM – 12:30 PM
Bindlestiff Family Cirkus: Prof. Palshikar's Wonders of Asia
PERFORMANCE
SATURDAY, OCTOBER 2, 2021
11:30 AM
Flatbead Follies
34th Avenue btw. 73rd & 74th Streets, Jackson Heights, Queens
Free
http://bindlestiff.org/flatbed-follies/
A celebration of Asian magic and street performance (and if you saw any of the Indian magic acts on Bindlestiff's online variety shows during The Quarantine, you know that Indian magic shows are The Shit). The variety acts start at 1:00 PM; before that, from 11:30 AM, are music and street performances.
MAKE A NIGHT OF IT: Yeah, the Jackson Diner (an Indian restaurant, if you don't know) (it used to be Southern Indian, but now it kind of skews Northern) isn't the all-City powerhouse it once was. But how could you not go before or after this?
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Fri, Oct 1, 2021, 8:00 PM – Sun, Oct 3, 2021, 4:00 PM
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Fri, Oct 1, 2021, 7:30 PM – Sat, Oct 2, 2021, 8:30 PM
Maggie Moore & Elizabeth Ziff: The Songs of STARPATH
MUSIC / THEATER
FRIDAY & SATURDAY, OCTOBER 1 & 2, 2021
7:30 PM
Dixon Place
161A Chrystie Street, Lower East Side, Manhattan
$20; $15 students/seniors
http://dixonplace.org/performances/songs-of-starpath/
Two aging folksingers who don't know they're has-beens. (Fortunately, Maggie Moore and Elizabeth Ziff are far from has-beens themselves.)
MAKE A NIGHT OF IT: Let's go back to Spicy Village for some BIg Tray Chicken!
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Friday, October 1, 2021, 7:30 PM – 10:30 PM
-
Friday, October 1, 2021, 7:30 PM – 8:30 PM
loadbang: Premieres Vol. 17
MUSIC
FRIDAY, OCTOBER 1, 2021
7:30 PM
In Person & Live Stream
OPERA America National Opera Center
330 Seventh Avenue, Garment District, Manhattan
$20 in person; $10 students/seniors in person
$20 suggested donation live stream
IN PERSON: https://www.eventbrite.com/e/loadbang-presents-premieres-vol-17-tickets-168676579189
LIVE STREAM: https://www.loadbang.com/prem-17-stream.html
The exciting brass/wind/voice quartet loadbang presents an evening of new commissions.
MAKE A NIGHT OF IT: In person, B&B Restaurant Corp.'s West-African-with-some-West-Indian-ringers-thrown-in buffet has been reduced, post-Quarantine, from being staggering in its range of offerings to being merely impressive. The quality of the food, for what you pay for it, remains stunning. I'd almost be afraid to find a better food deal in New York. Streaming at home, have a Diamondback: pour 1-1/2 oz. Rye and 3/4 oz. each of Laird's Bonded Apple Brandy and green Chartreuse into an ice-filled cocktail shaker. Stir. Strain into a chilled Martini glass or coupe. Garnish with a cocktail cherry.
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Friday, October 1, 2021, 7:30 PM – 8:30 PM
Terence Blanchard: Fire Shut Up in My Bones
OPERA
MONDAY & FRIDAY, SEPTEMBER 27 & OCTOBER 1, 2021 (continuing through OCTOBER 16)
6:30 PM MONDAY
7:30 PM FRIDAY
Metropolitan Opera
30 Lincoln Center Plaza, Upper West Side, Manhattan
MONDAY: $130-$500
FRIDAY: $37-$460
https://www.metopera.org/season/2021-22-season/fire-shut-up-in-my-bones/
Can Mainstream Jazz trumpeter Terence Blanchard write opera? Most people who saw this treatment of Charles M. Blow's memoir at Saint Louis a couple of years ago seemed to think so. A more interesting question is whether Yanick Nézet-Séguin can conduct jazz-based music. We'll see (I guess he did a good enough job with Bernstein's showbizzy Mass — but that's such a heaping pile of turds that it might be hard to judge by).
MAKE A NIGHT OF IT: No place nearby open afterward. If you're able to stay awake for a two-hour-forty-minute piece after eating, I'll note that Boulud Sud has reopened for dinner beforehand.
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Fri, Oct 1, 2021, 7:30 PM – Sun, Oct 3, 2021, 4:00 PM
Aya Ogawa: The Nosebleed
THEATER
FRIDAY – SUNDAY, OCTOBER 1 – 3, 2021 (continuing through OCTOBER 10)
FRIDAY - SATURDAY 7:30PM
SUNDAY 3PM
Chocolate Factory at the Japan Society
333 East 47th Street, Turtle Bay, Manhattan
$30; $25 people with disabilities
https://www.japansociety.org/arts-and-culture/performances/nosebleed
Aya Ogowa presents a bitter but comic and ultimately sympathetic absurdist exploration of intergenerational problems when your father is a Japanese corporate businessman and you're a bohemian Japanese-American artist.
MAKE A NIGHT OF IT: Oh man am I looking forward to returning to hidden basement izakaya Sakagura — even if its menu, like so many places', is a shadow of its former self.
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Friday, October 1, 2021, 7:30 PM – 8:30 PM
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Friday, October 1, 2021, 7:00 PM – 8:00 PM
Austria and Science
MUSIC
FRIDAY, OCTOBER 1, 2021
7:00 PM
Austrian Cultural Foundation In Person & Live Stream
11 East 52nd Street, Upper East Side, Manhattan
Free (R.S.V.P. required for in person attendence)
https://acfny.org/event/compcord-entertaining-science/
A scientific lecture about facial recognition technology, and then responding music played by trumpet, drums, and string quartet. New Yorkers will want to know that drums are played by Jonathan Kane, and among the composers are Dave Soldier and Gene Pritsker.
MAKE A NIGHT OF IT: In person, The Grill has reopened. Will the joke seem as funny as in Before Times? Streaming from home, have a Left Hand: pour 1-1/2 oz. Bourbon and 3/4 oz. each of sweet Vermouth and Campari, with 2 dashes of Chocolate bitters, into an ice-filled cocktail shaker. Stir. Strain into a chilled Martini glass or coupe. Garnish with a cocktail cherry.
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Friday, October 1, 2021, 5:00 PM – 6:00 PM
ETHEL and Friends: Balcony Bar from Home
MUSIC
FRIDAY, OCTOBER 1, 2021 (weekly)
5:00 PM
Metropolitan Museum of Art
Facebook
Free
https://www.metmuseum.org/events/programs/met-live-arts/ethel-online
The fab alt string quartet ETHEL brings its weekly recitals in the Met Balcony Bar home (theirs and yours). Expect old and new music, and surprise guests (from still more homes).
MAKE A NIGHT OF IT: Amber Negroni: pour 1/2 oz. each of Gin and Braulio Amaro, and 1 oz. each of Lillet Blanc (with the usual preferred substitutions, especially Tempus Fugit Kino l'Áero d'Or) and lemon juice, with 3 dashes of Bitterman's Burlesque Bitters, into an ice-filled cocktail shaker. Shake. Strain into a chilled Martini glass or coupe. Garnish with a rosemary sprig.
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Friday, October 1, 2021, 1:00 PM – 2:00 PM
Phonofemme 2021: Phonofemme Vienna & Experimental Intermedia New York
MUSIC
FRIDAY, OCTOBER 1, 2021
1:00 PM
Austrian Cultural Forum Live Stream
Free
https://acfny.org/event/virtual-performance-phonofemme-2021/
The Viennese biennale featuring women in sound art and experimental music takes to the internet, with an assist from New York's Experimental Intermedia. There appear to be some non-women on the program.
MAKE A NIGHT OF IT: Kaiserspritzer: pour 3 oz. Grüner Veltliner and 1 oz. Saint-Germain or Elderflower Syrup into a Collins glass over ice. Top with club soda. Stir gently.
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Friday, October 1, 2021, 12:00 PM – 1:00 PM
Robert Black: First Fridays
MUSIC
FRIDAY, OCTOBER 1, 2021
12:00 PM
Bang on a Can Live Stream
Free ($10-$250 donation requested)
https://live.bangonacan.org/black/
Usually the master double bassist Robert Black devotes these recitals to expanding the famously meager repertoire for his instrument. But this month he revisits works by giants of 20th Century Countercultural Classical (these people were before "Alt").
MAKE A NIGHT OF IT: The Three-Martini Lunch is dead. But you can revive it: pour 2 oz. Gin and 1 oz. dry Vermouth into an ice-filled cocktail shaker. Stir. Garnish with a lemon twist or an olive. (For three Martinis, do it thrice.)
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Thu, Sep 30, 2021, 7:00 PM – Sat, Oct 2, 2021, 9:30 PM
AZUNA: 100 Keyboards
MUSIC
THURSDAY – SATURDAY, SEPTEMBER 30 – OCTOBER 2, 2021
7:00 PM THURSDAY
5:30 & 9:00 PM FRIDAY & SATURDAY
BAM Fisher
321 Ashland Place, Fort Greene, Brooklyn
$25
https://www.bam.org/100-keyboards
Sound artist AZUNA has created a soundscape where single notes on a toy piano aggregate into something rather grand.
MAKE A NIGHT OF IT: Superb Japanese bar snacks and supersuperb Japanese-inflected cocktails at Kenta Goto's Bar Goto Niban.
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Thu, Sep 30, 2021, 8:00 AM – Sun, Oct 3, 2021, 6:00 PM
Kamala Sankaram: The Last Stand
OPERA
THURSDAY – SUNDAY, SEPTEMBER 30 – OCTOBER 3, 2021 (continuing through OCTOBER 10)
8:00 AM – 6:00 PM
Near the Music Pagoda, Prospect Park, Brooklyn
Free
https://creativetime.org/the-last-stand-kamala-sankaram/
The long life of a tree is explored through arranged recorded natural sounds played by and around actual trees. Kamala Sankaram is one of the best opera composers around.
MAKE A NIGHT OF IT: Really delicious all-day Guatemalan Fusion sandwiches and stews at Ix.
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Wed, Sep 29, 2021, 8:30 PM – Sun, Oct 3, 2021, 7:00 PM
Puppet Festival
THEATER / PERFORMANCE
WEDNESDAY – SUNDAY, SEPTEMBER 29 – OCTOBER 3, 2021
8:30 PM WEDNESDAY – SATURDAY
7:00 PM THURSDAY – SATURDAY
2:00 & 6:00 PM SUNDAY
La MaMa
66 East 4th Street, East Village, Manhattan
$25 per show; $20 per show students/seniors
$150 7-show Full Festival package
$110 5-show package
$65 3-show package
$45 2-show package
https://www.lamama.org/shows/puppet-series-2021
Puppets! (You might [or might not] be wondering why this List is so partial to puppet theater. Well, I'll tell you: puppet theater generally calls for the abandonment of the kind of naturalism and straightforward narrative that this List abjures in theater.) (Of course, when puppet theater tries for naturalism and straightforward narrative, it's even more intolerable than when human theater does. But that won't be a problem in this Festival.)
MAKE A NIGHT OF IT: You no longer have to go to New Jersey for good fried fish from The Chippery chain. Who says life doesn't get better?
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Wed, Sep 29, 2021, 8:00 PM – Sun, Oct 3, 2021, 4:00 PM
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Wed, Sep 29, 2021, 7:30 PM – Sat, Oct 2, 2021, 8:30 PM
HOLDTIGHT: What Keeps You Going?
DANCE
WEDNESDAY – SATURDAY, SEPTEMBER 29 – OCTOBER 2, 2021
7:30 PM
the cell
338 West 23rd Street, Chelsea, Manhattan
$50-$90
https://www.thecelltheatre.org/holdtight
What would it feel like to exist in the past, present, and future at the same time? HOLDTIGHT takes you to three floors of the venue's space to find out.
MAKE A NIGHT OF IT: I'm going to keep sending you to Qanoon for its wonderful home-style Palestinian. If the Musakhan isn't the best chicken dish in New York right now, it's got to be Top 3.
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Wed, Sep 29, 2021, 7:00 PM – Sun, Oct 3, 2021, 3:00 PM
Xandra Nur Clark: Polylogues
PERFORMANCE
WEDNESDAY – SUNDAY, SEPTEMBER 29 – OCTOBER 3, 2021 (continuing through OCTOBER 9)
7:00 PM WEDNESDAY – SATURDAY
2:00 PM SUNDAY
HERE
145 6th Avenue (entrance on Dominick Street), Hudson Square, Manhattan
$30 Wednesday – Saturday; $40 Sunday
https://here.org/shows/polylogues/
An exploration of monogamy through anonymous interviews.
MAKE A NIGHT OF IT: Betcha didn't know that longtime Village bistro Le Sirène has opened a Soho / Hudson Square branch.
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Wed, Sep 29, 2021, 12:00 PM – Sun, Oct 3, 2021, 6:30 PM
Susanne Sachesse feat. XIU XIU: I WAS A FORMALIST PENSIONER. AN ANTIOPERA
PERFORMANCE / OPERA
WEDNESDAY – SUNDAY, SEPTEMBER 29 – OCTOBER 3, 2021 (continuing through OCTOBER 17)
12:00, 12:30, 1:00, 2:00, 2:30, 3:00, 3:30, 4:00, 4:30, 5:00, 5:30, 6:00 & 6:30 PM
Participant Inc.
253 East Houston Street, Lower East Side, Manhattan
Free (by appointment)
http://participantinc.org/seasons/season-19/i-was-a-formalist-pensioner-an-antiopera
It was hard to be a non-realist in the GDR.
MAKE A NIGHT OF IT: Of course I'm going to send you to Katz's. It's my nature.
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Wed, Sep 29, 2021, 12:00 PM – Sun, Oct 3, 2021, 6:30 PM
Moses Sumney: technophenomena
PERFORMANCE
WEDNESDAY – SUNDAY, SEPTEMBER 29 – OCTOBER 3, 2021
12:00 – 6:30 PM
Pioneer Works at Red Hook Lab
133 Imlay Street, Red Hook, Brooklyn
$10 suggested donation (reservation required)
https://pioneerworks.org/exhibitions/moses-sumney-technoechophenomena
The terrific Ghanian-American singer-songwriter Moses Sumney presents an experiential multi-media installation that is manipulated by the viewer's own movements.
MAKE A NIGHT OF IT: One of the founding parents of the NYC Lobster Roll Trend several years ago, the Red Hook Lobster Pound.
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Tue, Sep 28, 2021, 7:30 PM – Sun, Oct 3, 2021, 3:30 PM
Bill T. Jones / Arnie Zane Company: Deep Blue Sea
DANCE
TUESDAY – SUNDAY, SEPTEMBER 28 – OCTOBER 3, 2021 (continuing through OCTOBER 9)
7:30 PM TUESDAY – THURSDAY
8:00 PM FRIDAY & SATURDAY
3:00 PM SUNDAY
Wade Thompson Drill Hall, Park Avenue Armory
643 Park Avenue, Upper East Side, Manhattan
$40-$125
https://www.armoryonpark.org/programs_events/detail/deep_blue_sea
Thanks to the Quarantine, this spectacular Bill T. Jones piece has been a long time coming — and now it's here! The Drill Hall should be made even more overwhelming than its usual overwhelming self by a visual environment (we used to call them "sets") by Elizabeth Diller. The electronic soundscape and score (by Nick Hallett, Hprizm the High Priest of the Antipop Consortium, Rena Anakwe, and Holland Andrews, no less) uses texts by Martin Luther King, Jr. and Herman Melville. I don't see how you could not go to this.
MAKE A NIGHT OF IT: I cannot tell you how much I'm looking forward to sitting at the bar of Donahue's Steak House again.
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Tue, Sep 28, 2021, 7:30 PM – Sun, Oct 3, 2021, 5:30 PM
Justin Vivian Bond & Anthony Roth Costanzo: Only an Octave Apart
MUSIC / THEATER / PERFORMANCE
TUESDAY – SUNDAY, SEPTEMBER 28 – OCTOBER 3, 2021
7:30 PM TUESDAY – SATURDAY
5:00 PM SUNDAY
St. Ann's Warehouse
45 Water Street, DUMBO, Brooklyn
$44-$74 in person; $30 9/26 live stream
https://stannswarehouse.org/show/only-an-octave-apart/
Glitter and be gay with one of our leading countertenors and one of our leading dragaret performers. Musical direction by Doveman, to make it curiouser.
MAKE A NIGHT OF IT: In person, Gran Eléctrica has such a great room and attractive crowd, you wish the good Mexican food were a tiny bit better. For the live stream, one feels constrained to recommend a Pink Lady: pour 1-1/2 oz. Gin, and 1/2 oz. each of Laird's Bonded Apple Brandy, lemon juice, and Grenadine, with 1 egg white, into a cocktail shaker WITHOUT ICE. Dry shake. Add ice. Shake. Strain into a chilled Martini glass or coupe. Garnish with a cocktail cherry.
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Tue, Sep 28, 2021, 7:00 PM – Sun, Oct 3, 2021, 3:30 PM
Antoinette Chinonye Nwandu: Pass Over
THEATER
TUESDAY – SUNDAY, SEPTEMBER 28 – OCTOBER 3, 2021 (continuing through OCTOBER 10)
7:00 PM TUESDAY – THURSDAY
8:00 FRIDAY & SATURDAY
2:00 PM WEDNESDAY
3:00 PM SUNDAY
August Wilson Theater
245 West 52nd Street, Midtown, Manhattan
$39-$199
https://www.passoverbroadway.com/
I've been resisting Listing this since it opened on Broadway (and didn't List it when it was at Lincoln Center either). Too issue-oriented, I thought. But if a play can address social issues without being social realist, instead rooting itself in Beckett — and be given on Broadway — then attention must be paid.
MAKE A NIGHT OF IT: I have never had a bad time at the Russian Samovar.
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Tue, Sep 28, 2021, 10:00 AM – Sun, Oct 3, 2021, 4:30 PM
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Mon, Sep 27, 2021, 8:00 AM – Sun, Oct 3, 2021, 7:00 PM
Gelsey Bell feat. Joseph White: Cairns
MUSIC / PERFORMANCE
MONDAY – SUNDAY, SEPTEMBER 27 – OCTOBER 3, 2021 (ongoing)
8:00 AM – 7:00 PM
#stillHERE IRL
Green-Wood Cemetery, Sunset Park Entrance
35th Street at 4th Avenue, Greenwood Heights, Brooklyn
$7 or more for soundtrack
https://here.org/shows/cairns/
One of the first shows during Quarantine that you could actually Go Out! to (although it's not quite "live"). Gelsey Bell, that vocal star of NYC Alt Classical, has conceived of a piece that walks you around Green-Wood Cemetery (starting at the Sunset Park Entrance). You download the soundtrack on your phone beforehand (the Times complains about how hard it is to download from Bandcamp to an iPhone — trust me: if I can figure out how to do it, anyone can). Bell wrote the text and narrates, with a co-composing assist from the inimitable Joe White. The Cemetery itself will do the performing. (You can also listen to the soundtrack at home and pretend you're walking around the Cemetery.)
MAKE A NIGHT OF IT: The Sunset Park entrance is only a short walk from Hometown BBQ Industry City (if you go over the weekend, you can get the fabulous pastrami).
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Mon, Sep 27, 2021, 6:30 AM – Sun, Oct 3, 2021, 1:00 AM
Ellen Reid: SOUNDWALK
MUSIC / PERFORMANCE
MONDAY – SUNDAY, SEPTEMBER 27 – OCTOBER 3, 2021 (ongoing)
6:00 AM – 1:00 AM
New York Philharmonic
Central Park
59th Street – 110th Street/Central Park West – 5th Avenue, Manhattan
Free (registration required)
https://www.ellenreidsoundwalk.com/new-york-philharmonic
The New York Phil hops aboard the walk-around-the-landscaped-space-with-soundtrack train (see below). The highly allusive soundtrack was put together by Ellen Reid, who is one of the more soundscapey (and certainly one of the best) of today's many excellent young composers. This walk isn't guided: you download an app that triggers sounds sent to your earphones from various cells around the Park as you wander. So you can do it over many times. (Speaking of wandering around Central Park, here's something that I, for one, never knew.)
MAKE A NIGHT OF IT: Delicious pan-African at Teranga.
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Mon, Sep 27, 2021, 6:00 AM – Sun, Oct 3, 2021, 10:00 PM
Stephanie Fleischmann, Christina Campanella & Mallory Catlett: The Visitation
PERFORMANCE
MONDAY – SUNDAY, SEPTEMBER 27 – OCTOBER 3, 2021 (ongoing)
6:00 AM – 10:00 PM
HERE Arts Center Presentation
Jackie Robinson Park
Between Edgecombe & Bradhurst Aves. & 145 – 155 Sts., Sugar Hill, Manhattan
Pay what you wish
https://here.org/shows/the-visitation/
Another sound walk (I LOVE these!), this one set to avant-pop you access through Soundcloud.
MAKE A NIGHT OF IT: Good beer, epic burgers at Harlem Public.
