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Saturday, December 31, 2022, 9:00 PM – 11:59 PM
MUSIC
Flying Lotus
SATURDAY, DECEMBER 31, 2022
9:00 PM
Webster Hall
125 East 11th Street, NoHo, Manhattan
Dynamic pricing
TICKETS + INFORMATION
If you’re going to venture out in public on New Year’s Eve, it might as well be for someone as great as Flying Lotus, whose sonic imagination and formal rigor make his electronic post-hip hop some of the most compelling music out there. (Also, his grandmother co-wrote “Love Hangover” and his great-aunt was none other than Alice Coltrane.) That the copious supporting acts include the more songform-oriented Matthew Dear, well worth seeing by himself, makes this even more of a reason to consider venturing out in public on New Year’s Eve.
MAKE A NIGHT OF IT: Thai at Soothr (which as far as I can tell is serving its usual menu on this otherwise hellish ripoff-laden night).
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Friday, December 30, 2022, 10:00 PM – 11:59 PM
MUSIC
LP Giobbi
FRIDAY, DECEMBER 30, 2022
10:00 PM
Superior Ingredients
74 Wythe Avenue, Williamsburg, Brooklyn
$50
TICKETS + INFORMATION
People make a lot of LP Giobbi’s jazz piano training. But believe me, her Femme House is pure pop.
MAKE A NIGHT OF IT: Let’s hope Michael Solomonov’s K’Far Bakery is better than Lazer Wolf upstairs.
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Friday, December 30, 2022, 10:00 PM – 11:59 PM
MUSIC
Teksupport: Detroit Love
FRIDAY, DECEMBER 30, 2022
10:00 PM
99 Scott
99 Scott Avenue, Bushwick, Brooklyn
$77.77-$107.64
TICKETS + INFORMATION
Detroit Techno, some of the best and most important music of the late 20th Century. Among tonight’s performers are Carl Craig, an originator, and Moodymann and Stacey Pullen, two stars of the following generation. Wow.
MAKE A NIGHT OF IT: Surprise yourself by liking mead, at Honey’s.
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Friday, December 30, 2022, 7:30 PM – 11:59 PM
MUSIC
Tom Rainey Trio
FRIDAY, DECEMBER 30, 2022
7:30 PM
DiMenna Center
450 West 37th Street, Hell’s Kitchen, Manhattan
$20
TICKETS + INFORMATION
That Tom Rainey is a truly excellent avant-jazz drummer can’t be gainsaid. But look at the rest of this trio: saxophonist Ingrid Laubrock (it’s a lucky drummer who’s married to such a great horn player!) and guitarist Mary Halvorson, who at this point must be counted one of the best musicians on the planet.
MAKE A NIGHT OF IT: Excellent Spanish at Casa Dani. It’s a mystery to me why this place hasn’t caught on more than it has.
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Friday, December 30, 2022, 7:00 PM – 11:59 PM
DANCE
30-30-30
FRIDAY, DECEMBER 30, 2022
7:00 PM
Dixon Place
161A Chrystie Street, Lower East Side, Manhattan
$30-$90
TICKETS + INFORMATION
Thirty dance companies present pieces each lasting three minutes.
MAKE A NIGHT OF IT: The new Bowery Congee Village Dim Sum House for . . . oh, you know.
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Thursday, December 29, 2022, 10:00 PM – 11:59 PM
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Thursday, December 29, 2022, 8:00 PM – 11:59 PM
MUSIC
Dana Lynn & Kyle Sanna
THURSDAY, DECEMBER 29, 2022
8:00 PM
Barbès
376 9th Street, Park Slope, Brooklyn
$15
TICKETS + INFORMATION
Trad Irish goes mod, and thinks about the environment.
MAKE A NIGHT OF IT: Better-than-Neighborhood Mexican at Fonda.
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Thursday, December 29, 2022, 7:30 PM – 11:59 PM
MUSIC
George Clinton & Parliament Funkadelic
THURSDAY, DECEMBER 29, 2022
7:30 PM
Sony Hall
235 West 46th Street, Midtown, Manhattan
$49.50-$100 advance; $60-$110 day of
TICKETS + INFORMATION
I’m not even going to try to convey the sheer awesomeness of George Clinton and P-Funk. Are they as awesome as back in the day? Of course not — but they’re not just playing their oldies, either.
MAKE A NIGHT OF IT: For some reason, I am currently obsessed with Singapore/Malaysian food. And for people like me, there’s the Urban Hawker food hall.
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Thursday, December 29, 2022, 7:00 PM – 11:59 PM
MUSIC
Borscht Beat: Kleztronica
THURSDAY, DECEMBER 29, 2022
7:00 PM
Yiddish New York
Trans-Pecos
915 Wyckoff Avenue, Ridgewood, Queens
$10
TICKETS + INFORMATION
Just what it sounds like.
MAKE A NIGHT OF IT: Before the show, gorge on Bosnian at Bosna Express.
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Wednesday, December 28, 2022, 6:00 PM – 11:59 PM
MUSIC
Mat Manieri Trio
WEDNESDAY, DECEMBER 28, 2022
6:00 PM
Barbès In Person & Live Stream
376 9th Street, Park Slope, Brooklyn
$15
TICKETS + INFORMATION
Jazz violist (how many of those can you name off the top of your head?) Mat Manieri is conistently interesting. Put him along with bassist Brandon Lopez and a cellist and the interest is compounded.
MAKE A NIGHT OF IT: I’m still waiting for someone to try Mikhuy Peruvian and let me know how it is.
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Wed, Dec 28, 2022, 2:00 PM – Sun, Jan 1, 2023, 11:59 PM
PERFORMANCE
Circus Abyssinia: Tulu
WEDNESDAY – SUNDAY, DECEMBER 28, 2022 - JANUARY 1, 2023
2:00 & 7:00 PM WEDNESDAY – FRIDAY
12:00 PM SATURDAY & SUNDAY
5:00 PM SUNDAY
New Victory Theater
209 West 42nd Street, Midtown, Manhattan
$27-$68.50
TICKETS + INFORMATION
Circus! From Ethiopia! Honoring Olympic track and field great — the first African gold medalist ever — Daratu Tulu (who could run amazingly fast but probably couldn’t do the stuff these folks do)!
MAKE A NIGHT OF IT: Well I mean OF COURSE you’re going to walk over to Queen of Sheba, right?
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Tue, Dec 27, 2022, 8:00 PM – Sun, Jan 1, 2023, 11:59 PM
MUSIC
Chris Potter Quartet
TUESDAY – SUNDAY, DECEMBER 27, 2022 – JANUARY 1, 2023
8:00 & 10:00 PM TUESDAY – FRIDAY & SUNDAY
9:00 & 11:00 PM SATURDAY
Village Vanguard
178 7th Avenue South, West Village, Manhattan
$40
TICKETS + INFORMATION
Chris Potter is a good solid forceful-but-focused sax player. His quartet is sterling.
MAKE A NIGHT OF IT: Through Friday, really delicious — and really interesting — Southern Indian at Semma. Don’t even THINK of eating out on Saturday, and Sunday’s pretty gone.
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Tue, Dec 27, 2022, 7:00 PM – Fri, Dec 30, 2022, 11:59 PM
THEATER
Drew Peterson: Inertia
TUESDAY – FRIDAY, DECEMBER 27 – 30, 2022
7:00 PM TUESDAY – FRIDAY
2:00 PM THURSDAY & FRIDAY
New Ohio Theatre
154 Christopher Street, West Village, Manhattan
$20; $15 per ticket orders of 3 or more
TICKETS + INFORMATION
A “family” show, sure — but one that looks inviting even to us non-breeders. It encompasses a balloon, a bear suit, Kandinsky at the opera, and a high school football game. Epic theatre: it’s not just for Commies any more.
MAKE A NIGHT OF IT: Serviceable Southwestern at Cowgirl.
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Tuesday, December 27, 2022, 7:00 PM – 11:59 PM
MUSIC
Inner Explorations: Frank London & Marilyn Lerner: Neshoma Quartet/Anthony Coleman & Delfina Cheb: Play Gebertig
TUESDAY, DECEMBER 27, 2020
7:00 PM
Yiddish New York
Museum of Jewish Heritage In Person & Live Steam
36 Battery Place, Battery Park City, Manhattan
$20.00
TICKETS + INFORMATION
Two acts that inflect avant-jazz with Klezmer (or maybe the other way around): trumpeter Frank London (a great great musician) and pianist Marilyn Lerner instrumentally; pianist Anthony Coleman (another great great musician) and vocalist Delflina Cheb by revisiting the songs of Mordechai Gebertig, a Polish carpenter whose songs attained worldwide fame years after he was murdered in the Holocaust.
MAKE A NIGHT OF IT: In person, speaking of the Holocaust, enjoy the delicious food of the country that murdered my own famly, Austria, at Schilling. Streaming at home, have an Aperol Schvitz: pour 2 oz. each of seltzer and Prosecco, 1-1/2 oz. Manischewitz Concord Grape Wine, 3/4 oz. Aperol, and 1/2 tablespoon lime juice into a wine glass. Stir. Add ice. Garnish with an orange slice.
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Tuesday, December 27, 2022, 7:00 PM – 11:59 PM
MUSIC / PERFORMANCE
Taylor Mac feat. Queen Esther & Ben Arthur: Podcast Taping
TUESDAY, DECEMBER 27, 2021
7:00 PM
The Porch
750A St. Nicholas Avenue, Hamilton Heights, Manhattan
Free
TICKETS + INFORMATION
Genius performance artist Taylor Mac tells stories, and songwriters Queen Esther and Ben Arthur turn them into songs.
MAKE A NIGHT OF IT: So the venue, The Porch, is what used to be called a Bar & Grill with food by one of New York City’s best pitmasters, Matt Fischer. Unfortunately, I’ve heard disappointing things about it. This is a good chance to see for yourself.
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Tue, Dec 27, 2022, 10:00 AM – Sun, Jan 1, 2023, 11:59 PM
MUSIC / PERFORMANCE
Gelsey Bell & Joseph White: Meander
TUESDAY – SATURDAY, DECEMBER 27 – 31, 2022 (ongoing)
10:00 AM – 3:00 PM
Brooklyn Botanic Garden
150 Eastern Parkway, across the street from Prospect Heights, Brooklyn
Pay what you wish
TICKETS + INFORMATION
Having created a wonderful sound walk through Green-Wood Cemetery, the dream team of Gelsey Bell and Joe White do the same for the Brooklyn Botanic Garden (one of my favorite places on earth, if you want to know). The soundtrack is available on the BBG website.
MAKE A NIGHT OF IT: New Orleans at Lowerline.
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Mon, Dec 26, 2022, 4:30 PM – Sun, Jan 1, 2023, 11:59 PM
PERFORMANCE
Lightscape
MONDAY – SUNDAY, DECEMBER 26, 2026 – JANUARY 1, 2023 (continuing through JANUARY 8)
4:30 – 9:00 PM
Brooklyn Botanic Garden
990 Washington Avenue, across the street from Crown Heights, Brooklyn
$45 adult; $24 children 3-12; free babies 0-2
TICKETS + INFORMATION
Because this is Brooklyn, what you’d normally expect to be a corny set of light sculptures strewn throughout the Garden actually turns out to be kind of great.
MAKE A NIGHT OF IT: The Guadalajaran Tortas Ahogadas are unbelievably good at Cruz del Sur.
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Mon, Dec 26, 2022, 12:00 PM – Sun, Jan 1, 2023, 11:59 PM
MUSIC / PERFORMANCE
Julian Rosefeldt: EUPHORIA
MONDAY – SUNDAY, DECEMBER 26, 2022 – JANUARY 1, 2023 (continuing through JANUARY 8)
12:00 – 8:00 PM MONDAY – THURSDAY
12:00 – 10:00 PM FRIDAY
12:00 – 4:00 PM SATURDAY
11:00 AM – 7:00 PM SUNDAY
Park Avenue Armory
643 Park Avenue, Upper East Side, Manhattan
$18
TICKETS + INFORMATION
A film installation (you enter when you want; an entire loop takes about 2 hours) involving chorus, a phalanx of famous jazz drummers, and philosophical and social ruminations — in surround.
MAKE A NIGHT OF IT: Back to Donahue’s Steak House (not really a steakhouse) for more Mad Men larping. If you go early, you might want to skip a Martini — unimaginable as that might be.
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Mon, Dec 26, 2022, 8:00 AM – Sun, Jan 1, 2023, 11:59 PM
MUSIC / PERFORMANCE
Gelsey Bell feat. Joseph White: Cairns
MONDAY – SUNDAY, DECEMBER 26, 2022 – JANUARY 1, 2023 (ongoing)
8:00 AM – 5:00 PM
#stillHERE IRL
Green-Wood Cemetery, Sunset Park Entrance
35th Street at 4th Avenue, Greenwood Heights, Brooklyn
$7 or more for soundtrack
TICKETS + INFORMATION
One of the first shows during Quarantine that you could actually Go Out! to back in the days of The Lockdown (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 (whose terrific new album you really ought to hear). 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, Dec 26, 2022, 6:00 AM – Sun, Jan 1, 2023, 11:59 PM
MUSIC / PERFORMANCE
Ellen Reid: SOUNDWALK
MONDAY – SUNDAY, DECEMBER 26, 2022 – JANUARY 1, 2023 (ongoing)
6:00 AM – 1:00 AM
New York Philharmonic
Central Park, Manhattan
Free (registration required)
TICKETS + INFORMATION
The New York Phil hops aboard the walk-around-the-landscaped-space-with-soundtrack train. 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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Friday, December 23, 2022, 8:00 PM – 11:30 PM
MUSIC
Cordeone
FRIDAY, DECEMBER 23, 2022
8:00 PM
Barbès
376 9th Street, Park Slope, Brooklyn
$15
TICKETS + INFORMATION
Accordion! From Portugal!
MAKE A NIGHT OF IT: I wish there were a Portuguese restaurant nearby I could send you to. Absent that, I’m stuck with recommending boring but not unsound neighborhood Italian at Bar Toto.
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Thu, Dec 22, 2022, 7:30 PM – Fri, Dec 23, 2022, 11:59 PM
MUSIC
Jazz Gallery All-Stars
THURSDAY & FRIDAY, DECEMBER 22 & 23, 2022
7:30 & 9:30 PM
The Jazz Gallery In Person & FRIDAY Live Stream
1158 Broadway (entrance on West 27th Street), NoMad, Manhattan
$35-$45 in person; $20 live stream
TICKETS + INFORMATION
They’re not kidding about “all-stars”: Joel Ross on vibes, Fabian Almazan on piano, Morgan Guerin on drums — and that’s just three of them.
MAKE A NIGHT OF IT: In person, if I were you, I’d go to Mark Strausman’s Mark’s Off Madison and have the brisket and latkes. Streaming at home, try my current cocktail obsession, a Honeymoon (I’m repeating it cuz I’m obsessed): pour 2 oz. Laird’s Bonded Apple Brandy or Calvados and 1/2 oz. each of Bénédictine, Curaçao, and lemon juice into an ice-filled cocktail shaker. Shake. Strain into a chilled Martini glass or coupe. No garnish is called for, but I always end up shaving in a lemon twist.
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Thursday, December 22, 2022, 7:00 PM – 11:59 PM
MUSIC / PERFORMANCE
Alicia Svigals & Donald Sosin: Man Without a World
THURSDAY, DECEMBER 22, 2020
7:00 PM
Museum of Jewish Heritage
36 Battery Place, Battery Park City, Manhattan
$22.85
TICKETS + INFORMATION
Another of epic fiddler Alicia Svigals — one of the great musicians of our time, as I never tire of saying — and pianist Donald Sosin’s live Klezmer-inflected accompaniments to a Jewish-themed silent film. This one has a meta twist, though: although the film appears for all the world to be an example of early Soviet cinema, it was made in California (by Eleanor Antin, no less) in the ‘90s.
MAKE A NIGHT OF IT: Not much open down there after the show. But before, while we’re talking about early-20th Century European Jews, you can go to Schilling and enjoy the delicious food of the the country that murdered the entire Central European branch of my family, Austria (no hard feelings guys) (really).
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Thursday, December 22, 2022, 6:00 PM – 11:59 PM
MUSIC
Sonelius Smith & Adam Kahan: The Eulipion Project
THURSDAY, DECEMBER 22, 2022
6:00 PM
Barbès
376 9th Street, Park Slope, Brooklyn
$20
TICKETS + INFORMATION
Sonelius Smith is a Hard Bop-into-Nu Thing pianist who played with like everyone in New York in the ‘70s and ‘80s. Now he’s back.
MAKE A NIGHT OF IT: Getting kind of cold to eat outdoors at Runner Up, but they were saying last year how they were gonna upgrade their heating system, so maybe.
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Wednesday, December 21, 2022, 8:00 PM – 11:59 PM
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Wednesday, December 21, 2022, 7:30 PM – 11:59 PM
OPERA
John Adams: El Niño: The Nativity Reconsidered
WEDNESDAY, DECEMBER 21, 2022
7:30 PM
AMOC
Cathedral of St. John the Divine
1047 Amsterdam Avenue, Morningside Heights, Manhattan
$5-$45
TICKETS + INFORMATION
This chamber version of John Adams’s Latinx-focused Nativity oratorio, with the diffuse book winnowed down by Julia Bullock (who will also grace us with her fabulous singing, as will the also fabulous Anthony Roth Constanzo and Devóne Tines), can’t be called a reduction: everyone who’s seen it seems to agree it’s better than the sprawling original.
MAKE A NIGHT OF IT: It’s hard to look at its menu without yawning, but Marlow Bistro is fine.
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Wed, Dec 21, 2022, 7:00 PM – Sat, Dec 24, 2022, 11:59 PM
PERFORMANCE
Circus Abyssinia: Tulu
WEDNESDAY – SATURDAY, DECEMBER 21 – 24, 2022 (continuing through JANUARY 1)
7:00 PM WEDNESDAY – FRIDAY
2:00 PM FRIDAY
12:00 PM SATURDAY
New Victory Theater
209 West 42nd Street, Midtown, Manhattan
$27-$68.50
TICKETS + INFORMATION
Circus! From Ethiopia! Honoring Olympic track and field great — the first African gold medalist ever — Daratu Tulu (who could run amazingly fast but probably couldn’t do the stuff these folks do)!
MAKE A NIGHT OF IT: Well I mean OF COURSE you’re going to walk over to Queen of Sheba, right?
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Wednesday, December 21, 2022, 6:00 PM – 11:59 PM
MUSIC
Phill Niblock: 6 Hours of Music & Film
WEDNESDAY, DECEMBER 21, 2022
6:00 PM
Roulette In Person & Live Stream
509 Atlantic Avenue (entrance on Third Avenue), Boerum Hill, Brooklyn
$25 advance ; $30 door; $20 students/seniors at door
TICKETS + INFORMATION
Phill Niblock presents his annual (with an obvious hiatus) Solstice concert, in which his droney music with accompanying visuals charts the annual movement of our planet (and ourselves).
MAKE A NIGHT OF IT: In person, a new bar around the corner from Roulette! The Little Pig. Streaming at home, have a Milk & Honey: pour 1-1/2 oz. Bénédictine into a goblet. Top with 4-6 oz. cold milk. Add ice. Stir. Garnish with an orange slice and a cinnamon stick.
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Wednesday, December 21, 2022, 4:47 PM – 11:59 PM
MUSIC
Georg Friedreich Haas: Solstices
WEDNESDAY, DECEMBER 21, 2022
4:47 & 7:30 PM
DiMenna Center
450 West 37th Street, Hell’s Kitchen, Manhattan
Free 4:47 PM show; $22.85 7:30 PM show; $12.24 students 7:30 PM show
TICKETS + INFORMATION
Another Georg Friedrich Haas play-in-the-dark piece: an amazing, transfixing experience, if you haven’t had it yet. While the previous ones were for string quartet, this is for 10 players — so maintaining ensemble in pitch black with no way to see the other players should be even more impossible (the Talea Ensemble can pull it off!). The 4:47 PM performance marks the exact time of this winter’s Solstice!
MAKE A NIGHT OF IT: Go from the depths of dark Winter to sunny Spain at Casa Dani.
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Tue, Dec 20, 2022, 10:00 PM – Sat, Dec 24, 2022, 11:59 PM
MUSIC / PERFORMANCE
Gelsey Bell & Joseph White: Meander
TUESDAY – SATURDAY, DECEMBER 20 – 24, 2022 (ongoing)
10:00 AM – 3:00 PM
Brooklyn Botanic Garden
150 Eastern Parkway, across the street from Prospect Heights, Brooklyn
Pay what you wish
TICKETS + INFORMATION
Having created a wonderful sound walk through Green-Wood Cemetery, the dream team of Gelsey Bell and Joe White do the same for the Brooklyn Botanic Garden (one of my favorite places on earth, if you want to know). The soundtrack is available on the BBG website.
MAKE A NIGHT OF IT: New Orleans at Lowerline.
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Tue, Dec 20, 2022, 8:00 PM – Sun, Dec 25, 2022, 11:59 PM
MUSIC
Kenny Barron Quintet
TUESDAY – SUNDAY, DECEMBER 20 – 25, 2022
8:00 & 10:00 PM
Village Vanguard
178 7th Avenue South, West Village, Manhattan
$40
TICKETS + INFORMATION
This week’s Kenny Barron Quintet features Dayna Stephens on sax. He should rough things up just the right way.
MAKE A NIGHT OF IT: Through Saturday, really delicious — and really interesting — Southern Indian at Semma. Sunday, I guess you have to go to Chinatown.
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Tue, Dec 20, 2022, 7:30 PM – Thu, Dec 22, 2022, 11:59 PM
THEATER
Krymov Lab NYC: Eugene Onegin (In Our Own Words)/AMERICANS: 2 Hems & 1/4 O’Neill
TUESDAY – THURSDAY, DECEMBER 20 – 22, 2022
7:30 PM TUESDAY – THURSDAY
3:00 PM WEDNESDAY
La MaMa
66 East 4th Street, East Village, Manhattan
$25; $20 students/seniors; $10 first 10 tickets to each performance; $35 both shows
TICKETS + INFORMATION
An ex-Russian director gets used to his new emigrée status in New York. One show recalls a production of Oneginhe did in Moscow, examining what it means to be Russian. The other mashes up two Hemingway pieces with a brief (THANK GOD) O’Neill excerpt, beginning to explore the literature of his new home.
MAKE A NIGHT OF IT: After seeing these, you’ll probably want to go to the Ukrainian East Village Restaurant to cleanse yourself.
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Tuesday, December 20, 2022, 7:00 PM – 11:59 PM
MUSIC
A Fundraiser for the American Society of Suicide Prevention
TUESDAY, DECEMBER 20, 2022
7:00 PM
Union Pool
484 Union Avenue, Williamsburg, Brooklyn
$18.54
TICKETS + INFORMATION
Most of the bill for this show is either too country/folkie or too jammy. But Sunwatchers does that jammy stuff right: expansively and ebulliently. And Ryley Walker is actually good when he does folkie — and just astonishing when he plugs in his guitar and jams.
MAKE A NIGHT OF IT: Peruvian at Llama Inn. Classic Brooklyn Red Sauce at Bamonte’s.
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Tue, Dec 20, 2022, 7:00 PM – Fri, Dec 23, 2022, 11:59 PM
PERFORMANCE / MUSIC
Justin Vivian Bond: Oh Mary, It’s Christmas!
TUESDAY – FRIDAY, DECEMBER 20 – 23, 2022
7:00 PM
Joe’s Pub, Public Theater
425 Lafayette Street, NoHo, Manhattan
$55
TICKETS + INFORMATION
What need be said?
MAKE A NIGHT OF IT: Fun Taiwanese at 886.
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Tue, Dec 20, 2022, 7:00 PM – Thu, Dec 22, 2022, 11:59 PM
DANCE / THEATER / PERFORMANCE
John Kelly: Underneath the Skin
TUESDAY – THURSDAY, DECEMBER 20 – 22, 2022
7:00 PM
La MaMa
66 East 4th Street, East Village, Manhattan
$30; $25 students/seniors; $10 first 10 tickets to each performance
TICKETS + INFORMATION
Performance icon John Kelly’s exploration of the life and implications of Samuel Seward: tatoo artist, gay pornographer, sexual frontiersman.
MAKE A NIGHT OF IT: Go to Buenos Aires and either cheer with the soccer-mad crowd or console them, depending. (UPDATE: CELEBRATE!!!!!!!!!!!)
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Mon, Dec 19, 2022, 4:30 PM – Sat, Dec 24, 2022, 11:59 PM
PERFORMANCE
Lightscape
MONDAY – SATURDAY, DECEMBER 19 – 24, 2022 (continuing through JANUARY 8)
4:30 – 8:45 PM MONDAY – FRIDAY
4:30 – 7:15 FRIDAY
Brooklyn Botanic Garden
990 Washington Avenue, across the street from Crown Heights, Brooklyn
$45 adult; $24 children 3-12; free babies 0-2
TICKETS + INFORMATION
Because this is Brooklyn, what you’d normally expect to be a corny set of light sculptures strewn throughout the Garden actually turns out to be kind of great.
MAKE A NIGHT OF IT: The Guadalajaran Tortas Ahogadas are unbelievably good at Cruz del Sur.
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Monday, December 19, 2022, 3:30 PM – 4:30 PM
MUSIC
Infrequent Seams Festival: Ghost Ensemble, Either/Or, 4tet2duos, Drew Wesely & Eli Wallace
MONDAY, DECEMBER 19, 2022
8:00 PM
Roulette In Person & Live Stream
509 Atlantic Avenue (entrance on Third Avenue), Boerum Hill, Brooklyn
$25 advance in person; $30 door in person; $20 students/seniors at door in person; free live stream
TICKETS + INFORMATION
An evening of experimental classical or classical-adjacent music by a bunch of people who are REALLY good. A cornucopia: very highly recommended.
MAKE A NIGHT OF IT: In person, nice enough bistro at Bacchus. Streaming at home, have a Storm King (a drink that originated at the nearby Grand Army Bar, as it happens) (I keep repeating this cuz it’s so good — and season-appropriate): pour 2 oz. blended Scotch, 1/2 oz. Nocino (meaning, walnut liqueur), and 1/4 oz. Bénédictine, with 3 dashes of Angotastura 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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Mon, Dec 19, 2022, 12:00 PM – Sat, Dec 24, 2022, 11:59 PM
MUSIC / PERFORMANCE
Julian Rosefeldt: EUPHORIA
MONDAY – SATURDAY, DECEMBER 19 – 24, 2022 (continuing through JANUARY 8)
12:00 – 8:00 PM MONDAY – THURSDAY
12:00 – 10:00 PM FRIDAY
11:00 – 4:00 PM SATURDAY
Park Avenue Armory
643 Park Avenue, Upper East Side, Manhattan
$18
TICKETS + INFORMATION
A film installation (you enter when you want; an entire loop takes about 2 hours) involving chorus, a phalanx of famous jazz drummers, and philosophical and social ruminations — in surround.
MAKE A NIGHT OF IT: Back to Donahue’s Steak House (not really a steakhouse) for more Mad Men larping. If you go early, you might want to skip a Martini — unimaginable as that might be.
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Mon, Dec 19, 2022, 8:00 AM – Sun, Dec 25, 2022, 11:59 PM
MUSIC / PERFORMANCE
Gelsey Bell feat. Joseph White: Cairns
MONDAY – SUNDAY, DECEMBER 19 – 25, 2022 (ongoing)
8:00 AM – 5:00 PM
#stillHERE IRL
Green-Wood Cemetery, Sunset Park Entrance
35th Street at 4th Avenue, Greenwood Heights, Brooklyn
$7 or more for soundtrack
TICKETS + INFORMATION
One of the first shows during Quarantine that you could actually Go Out! to back in the days of The Lockdown (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 (whose terrific new album you really ought to hear). 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, Dec 19, 2022, 6:00 AM – Sun, Dec 25, 2022, 7:00 PM
MUSIC / PERFORMANCE
Ellen Reid: SOUNDWALK
MONDAY – SUNDAY, DECEMBER 19 – 25, 2022 (ongoing)
6:00 AM – 1:00 AM
New York Philharmonic
Central Park, Manhattan
Free (registration required)
TICKETS + INFORMATION
The New York Phil hops aboard the walk-around-the-landscaped-space-with-soundtrack train. 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, December 18, 2022, 5:45 PM – 11:59 PM
MUSIC
Phil Kline: Unsilent Night
SUNDAY, DECEMBER 18, 2022
5:45 PM
Underneath the Arch, Washington Square Park
Greenwich Village, Manhattan
Free
TICKETS + INFORMATION
Composer Phil Kline revives his annual Christmas event where a bunch of people with boomboxes playing a pre-downloaded track (Kline will lend a few boomboxes from his vintage collection, but participants are encouraged to bring their own — or you can use a cell phone) march from Washington Square to Tompkins Square, blasting away.
MAKE A NIGHT OF IT: Argentine Italian (and, one assumes, complete soccer mania) at Da Radda.
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Saturday, December 17, 2022, 10:00 PM – 11:59 PM
MUSIC
Flex: KeiyaA
SATURDAY, DECEMBER 17, 2022
10:00 PM
Paragon
990 Broadway, Bed-Stuy, Brooklyn
Free-$25
TICKETS + INFORMATION
KeiyaA’s Alt R&B is about as good as it gets.
MAKE A NIGHT OF IT: Cool Vietnamese at Little Mo.
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Saturday, December 17, 2022, 8:00 PM – 11:59 PM
MUSIC
Simon Hanes: Tsons of Tsunami
SATURDAY, DECEMBER 17, 2022
8:00 PM
Barbès
376 9th Street, Park Slope, Brooklyn
$20
TICKETS + INFORMATION
Tredici Bacci capo Simon Hanes brings a skewed pop/Alt Classical sensibility to everything he does. This is his “chill wave surf band” — but a surf band comprising bass, drums, vibraphone, french horn, and baritone guitar.
MAKE A NIGHT OF IT: Yet another chance to fail to get into unapologetic Indian sensation Masalawala & Sons.
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Saturday, December 17, 2022, 8:00 PM – 11:59 PM
MUSIC
SUNN O)))’s Shoshin Duo/Leila Bordreuil/High Command
SATURDAY, DECEMBER 17, 2022
8:00 PM
Pioneer Works
159 Pioneer Street, Red Hook, Brooklyn
$48.63-$458.63 advance; $53.76 day of
TICKETS + INFORMATION
Guitar band SUNN O))) are LOUD — even if it’s only two of them. Guitar band High Command are also loud (if not as loud as SUNN O)))). Cellist/sonic explorer Leila Bordreuil isn’t that loud — but she might as well be.
MAKE A NIGHT OF IT: Korean-inflected pub grub at The Good Fork Pub.
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Sat, Dec 17, 2022, 8:00 PM – Sun, Dec 18, 2022, 11:59 PM
MUSIC
Mary Halvorson: Amaryllis & Belladonna
SATURDAY & SUNDAY, DECEMBER 17 & 18, 2022
8:00 PM SATURDAY
3:00 PM SUNDAY
Peak Performances
Alexander Kasser Theater, Montclair State University
1 Normal Avenue, Montclair, New Jersey
$40-$50
TICKETS + INFORMATION
When Greatest Jazz Guitarist Mary Halvorson’s paired records Amaryllis and Belladonna came out earlier this year, I was sure they were going to be Album Of The Year. Well, then Beyoncé released Renaissance, so there went that. But being best after Renaissance is no small thing. Amaryllis and Belladonna are two sets of pieces, one set with a fabulous jazz ensemble and the other with the Mivos Quartet. You really can’t believe how great this music is. For these shows, a new visual staging has been devised.
MAKE A NIGHT OF IT: It’s not that there’s only one good restaurant in Montclair — there are lots — but that there’s only one within walking distance of Montclair State: New American treat Turtle & The Wolf.
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Saturday, December 17, 2022, 7:00 PM – 11:59 PM
MUSIC
Kalbells/Erica Eso
SATURDAY, DECEMBER 17, 2022
7:00 PM
Public Records
233 Butler Street, Gowanus, Brooklyn
$23.69
TICKETS + INFORMATION
Kalbells’ sunny synth-pop isn’t as weird as they think it is — but it’s very winning. If you REALLY want winning though, check out Erica Eso’s insinuating R&B dream pop — which isn’t as avant-garde as they think it is.
MAKE A NIGHT OF IT: The Middle American food boom continues apace at Ruthie’s.
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Saturday, December 17, 2022, 3:00 PM – 11:59 PM
MUSIC
Transatlantic Trance Map
SATURDAY, DECEMBER 17, 2022
3:00 PM
Roulette In Person & Live Stream
509 Atlantic Avenue (entrance on Third Avenue), Boerum Hill, Brooklyn
$25 advance ; $30 door; $20 students/seniors at door
TICKETS + INFORMATION
A bunch of New York experimental musicians — major ones, like Ned Rothenberg, Ikue Mori, and Craig Taborn — collaborate virtually with a bunch of like-minded musicians in The Hot Tin in Faversham, UK — such as Evan Parker and Peter Evans (wait he’s from here!). As you might expect, each of the two venues will have a screen showing what’s simultaneously happening in the other one.
MAKE A NIGHT OF IT: In person, coffee and stuff at the lively Squarrel Cafe (should somebody tell them?). Streaming at home, have a Blenheim: pour 1-1/2 oz. Brandy, 1 oz. yellow Chartreuse, and 1/2 oz. each of Dubonnet Rouge, Kina l’Aero d’Or or Cocchi Americano, and orange juice into an ice-filled cocktail shaler. Shake. Strain into a chilled pony glass. Garnish with a lemon twist.
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Fri, Dec 16, 2022, 10:30 PM – Sat, Dec 17, 2022, 11:59 PM
THEATER
NY Neo-Futurists: The Infinite Wrench
FRIDAY & SATURDAY, DECEMBER 16 & 17, 2022 (ongoing)
10:30 PM
Kraine Theater
85 East 4th Street, East Village, Manhattan
$20; $10 students
TICKETS + INFORMATION
Theater for people who think they don’t like theater. Thirty short plays crammed into an hour, semi-improvised, semi-not, non-illusionistic, spur-of-the-moment, real (whatever that means).
MAKE A NIGHT OF IT: I dunno why, but it seems like you’d go to Phebe’s.
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Friday, December 16, 2022, 10:00 PM – 11:59 PM
MUSIC
Honey Dijon: Presents New York, New York
FRIDAY, DECEMBER 16, 2022
10:00 PM
Knockdown Center
52-19 Flushing Avenue, Maspeth, Queens
$48.16
TICKETS + INFORMATION
The beats on Honey Dijon’s new album, Black Girl Magic, are so winning, and the mood so uplifting, that you want to dance around your apartment. Imagine it on a dancefloor. All club music is her domain.
MAKE A NIGHT OF IT: Local-grain Italian out of the oven at Faro.
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Fri, Dec 16, 2022, 8:00 PM – Sun, Dec 18, 2022, 11:59 PM
MUSIC
P.I.T. Anarcho-Holiday Blast
FRIDAY – SUNDAY, DECEMBER 16 – 18, 2022
8:00 PM
P.I.T.
411 South 5th Street, Williamsburg, Brooklyn
Ticket price TBD
TICKETS + INFORMATION
A three-night holiday blast. And when you realize that Thursday features the expansively ecstatically eclectcic Sunwatchers, Friday features Commie No-Wave neo-Jug Band The Scene Is Now, and Saturday features deathless Queercore ragers God Is My Co-Pilot . . . well, those are some three nights.
MAKE A NIGHT OF IT: Pizza.
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Fri, Dec 16, 2022, 8:00 PM – Sun, Dec 18, 2022, 11:59 PM
THEATER
SITI Company: A Christmas Carol
FRIDAY – SUNDAY, DECEMBER 16 – 18, 2022
8:00 PM FRIDAY
6:00 PM SATURDAY
2:00 PM SUNDAY
Fisher Center, Bard College
60 Manor Avenue, Red Hook, Dutchess County
$29.50-$69.50
TICKETS + INFORMATION
Ann Bogart’s SITI Company, in their last production ever, goes out not with a band but a benediction.
MAKE A NIGHT OF IT: A very long time ago, I saw Stiller and Meara eating at the Red Hook Diner. Too late for you, though.
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Fri, Dec 16, 2022, 8:00 PM – Sat, Dec 17, 2022, 11:59 PM
MUSIC
LCD Sound System
TUESDAY – WEDNESDAY & FRIDAY – SATURDAY, DECEMBER 13 – 14 & 16 – 17, 2022
8:00 PM
Brooklyn Steel
319 Frost Street, Williamsburg, Brooklyn
Dynamic Pricing: I honestly have no idea
TICKETS + INFORMATION
LCD Sound System — still somewhat cool, if not absolutely encapsulating the moment as in their heyday — make another attempt at a late Fall month-long residency, after last year’s failed for reasons you may remember.
MAKE A NIGHT OF IT: James Murphy would want you to go spend more money on him at his (great) wine bar The Four Horsemen.
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Fri, Dec 16, 2022, 8:00 PM – Sat, Dec 17, 2022, 11:59 PM
MUSIC
The Stone at Shift: Ikue Mori
FRIDAY & SATURDAY, DECEMBER 16 & 17, 2022
8:00 & 9:30 PM
Shift
411 Kent Avenue, Williamsburg, Brooklyn
$15 per set
TICKETS + INFORMATION
The Stone moves out of Mannes during the strike. Tonight condenses the planned resident of Genius electronic musician Ikue Mori into four sets, all of them featuring collaborating musicians you want to hear.
MAKE A NIGHT OF IT: Waterfront sea food at Sea Wolf Waterfront.
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Friday, December 16, 2022, 7:30 PM – 11:59 PM
MUSIC
Sylvan Winds: Chants de Noel
FRIDAY, DECEMBER 16, 2022
7:30 PM
Church of Notre Dame
405 West 114th Street, Morningside Heights, Manhattan
$20; $15 students/seniors in advance
TICKETS + INFORMATION
An absolutely delightful program of French wind music, from carol arrangements to Rameau to Bizet to Les Six. Enchanting.
MAKE A NIGHT OF IT: Ageless Greek spot the Symposium.
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Fri, Dec 16, 2022, 7:30 PM – Sun, Dec 18, 2022, 11:59 PM
DANCE
Streb: Falling Forward, Again
FRIDAY – SUNDAY, DECEMBER 16 – 18, 2022
7:30 PM FRIDAY
5:00 PM SATURDAY
3:00 PM SUNDAY
SLAM
51 North 1st Street, Williamsburg, Brooklyn
$25-$50
TICKETS + INFORMATION
Elizabeth Streb’s highly highly physical dance gets old once you’ve seen it a few times. But the first time: boy is it something.
MAKE A NIGHT OF IT: Go to the new Williamsburg Roberta’s and remember when Roberta’s used to be cool — and extraordinarily good.
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Fri, Dec 16, 2022, 7:30 PM – Sun, Dec 18, 2022, 11:59 PM
THEATER
Jaime Lozano: Desaparecidas
FRIDAY – SUNDAY, DECEMBER 16 – 18, 2022
7:30 PM FRIDAY & SATURDAY
2:00 PM SUNDAY
JACK
20 Putnam Avenue, Clinton Hill, Brooklyn
$20
TICKETS + INFORMATION
A “state fair-concert musical” (that sounds cheery) about the disappearances of hundreds of women and girls from Juarez (oops). Composer Jaime Lozano is someone you should be watching.
MAKE A NIGHT OF IT: For God’s sake get to Elevated Rochester Vernacular Brooklyn Hots before it closes at the end of the month!
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Friday, December 16, 2022, 7:30 PM – 11:59 PM
MUSIC
Matt McBane & Sandbox Percussion: Bathymetry
FRIDAY, DECEMBER 16, 2022
7:30 PM
National Sawdust
80 North 6th Street, Williamsburg, Brooklyn
$25
TICKETS + INFORMATION
The recording of Matt McBane’s Bathymetrythat the composer recently released with Sandbox Percussion, featuring analogue synth, percussion quartet, and found instruments, is just great: not so much a melding of avant-pop and Alt Classical as a demonstration of how little difference there is. It’ll be wonderful to hear it live.
MAKE A NIGHT OF IT: Very good French bistro at Le Crocodile.
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Fri, Dec 16, 2022, 7:00 PM – Sun, Dec 18, 2022, 11:59 PM
PERFORMANCE
Circus Abyssinia: Tulu
FRIDAY – SUNDAY, DECEMBER 16 - 18, 2022 (continuing through JANUARY 1)
7:00 PM FRIDAY & SATURDAY
2:00 PM SATURDAY
12:00 & 5:00 PM SUNDAY
New Victory Theater
209 West 42nd Street, Midtown, Manhattan
$27-$68.50
TICKETS + INFORMATION
Circus! From Ethiopia! Honoring Olympic track and field great — the first African gold medalist ever — Daratu Tulu (who could run amazingly fast but probably couldn’t do the stuff these folks do)!
MAKE A NIGHT OF IT: Well I mean OF COURSE you’re going to walk over to Queen of Sheba, right?
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Fri, Dec 16, 2022, 7:00 PM – Sun, Dec 18, 2022, 11:59 PM
PERFORMANCE / MUSIC
Justin Vivian Bond: Oh Mary, It’s Christmas!
FRIDAY – SUNDAY, DECEMBER 16 – 18, 2022 (continuing through DECEMBER 23)
7:00 PM
Joe’s Pub, Public Theater
425 Lafayette Street, NoHo, Manhattan
$55
TICKETS + INFORMATION
What need be said?
MAKE A NIGHT OF IT: Fun Taiwanese at 886.
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Fri, Dec 16, 2022, 7:00 PM – Sat, Dec 17, 2022, 11:59 PM
MUSIC / PERFORMANCE
Catalyst Quartet feat. Machine Dazzle: Bassline Fabulous
FRIDAY & SATURDAY, DECEMBER 16 & 17, 2022
7:00 PM
Metropolitan Museum of Art
1000 Fifth Avenue, Upper East Side, Manhattan
$130
TICKETS + INFORMATION
Only a mind as intensely rigorous but endlessly inventive as J.S. Bach’s could have created The Goldberg Variations, where the ground bass always stays the same and everything else . . . doesn’t. The Catalyst Quartet will play them here in the well-received string-quartet arrangement they made a few years ago. Now I know people who incorrectly think the Goldbergs are boring: as one wag of my acquaintance put it, “if the Goldbergs were written (as is widely believed) to cure some courtier’s insomnia, they sure must have done the trick!” Well, those benighted souls should be kept occupied by an accompanying performance-installation by the fabulous star-in-his-own-right Machine Dazzle, who for years has been Taylor Mac’s genius costume/visuals designer.
MAKE A NIGHT OF IT: Keep the fabulousness going at Jeremy’s cocktail bar.
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Thu, Dec 15, 2022, 8:30 PM – Sun, Dec 18, 2022, 11:59 PM
THEATER
Krymov Lab NYC: Eugene Onegin (In Our Own Words)/AMERICANS: 2 Hems & 1/4 O’Neill
MONDAY & THURSDAY – SUNDAY, DECEMBER 12 & 15 – 18, 2022
7:30 PM MONDAY & SUNDAY
8:30 THURSDAY – SATURDAY
3:00 PM SUNDAY
La MaMa
66 East 4th Street, East Village, Manhattan
$25; $20 students/seniors; $10 first 10 tickets to each performance; $35 both shows
TICKETS + INFORMATION
An exiled Russian director gets used to his new emigrée status in New York with two pieces in rep. One show recalls a production of Oneginhe did in Moscow, examining what it means to be Russian. The other mashes up two Hemingway pieces with a brief (THANK GOD) O’Neill excerpt, beginning to explore the literature of his new home.
MAKE A NIGHT OF IT: Great ramen at Minca.
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Thursday, December 15, 2022, 8:00 PM – 11:59 PM
MUSIC
Algiers
THURSDAY, DECEMBER 15, 2022
8:00 PM
National Sawdust
80 North 6th Street, Williamsburg, Brooklyn
$20
TICKETS + INFORMATION
A lot of people do that rock band-rap thing, but Algiers does it best. Maybe a clue is provided by the staggering list of guest artists collaborating with them tonight, including DeForrest Brown, Jr. and Dreamcrusher.
MAKE A NIGHT OF IT: Hatch Chili on everything at Santa Fe BK (it’s always the pro play to order the chilis “Christmas” — both red ones and green ones — but this time of year it’s practically obligatory!).
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Thursday, December 15, 2022, 8:00 PM – 11:59 PM
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Thu, Dec 15, 2022, 8:00 PM – Sun, Dec 18, 2022, 11:59 PM
PERFORMANCE
Erik Ehn: The Weak and the Strong
THURSDAY – SUNDAY, DECEMBER 15 – 18, 2022
8:00 PM THURSDAY – SATURDAY
4:00 PM SUNDAY
La MaMa
66 East 4th Street, East Village, Manhattan
$30; $25 students/seniors; $10 first 10 tickets to each show
TICKETS + INFORMATION
A dramatized exploration (by means of the story of an old rodeo rider, of all things) of issues raised by Paul’s letters to the Romans and the Hebrews, concerning why we’re compelled not to do what we would to and to do what we wouldn’t. Performances are preceded and succeeded by related installand and “happenings”.
MAKE A NIGHT OF IT: Mexican insect cuisines at The Black Ant.
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Thursday, December 15, 2022, 8:00 PM – 11:59 PM
MUSIC
Bergamot Quartet & Eli Greenhoe
THURSDAY, DECEMBER 15, 2022
8:00 PM
The Owl Music Parlor
497 Rogers Avenue, Prospect Lefferts Gardens, Brooklyn
$12
TICKETS + INFORMATION
The questing Bergamot Quartet is always worth hearing. So if they’re collaborating with composer/singer-songwriter Eli Greenhoe, I’m ready to try it.
MAKE A NIGHT OF IT: Wonderful Roman trattoria Camillo.
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Thursday, December 15, 2022, 8:00 PM – 11:59 PM
MUSIC
Florist/Mirah
THURSDAY, DECEMBER 15, 2022
8:00 PM
Pioneer Works
159 Pioneer Street, Red Hook, Brooklyn
$20 advance; $30 day of
TICKETS + INFORMATION
Florist isn’t just ambient-popmeister Emily Sprague under a different name, at least not any more: it’s a band (especially now that all its original members have regrouped), much more song-form than Sprague solo — but with enough intriguing sonics thrown in to keep things interestingly off-kilter. Singer-songwriter Mirah has almost enough intriguing sonices thrown in.
MAKE A NIGHT OF IT: Tacos at the San Pedro Inn.
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Thursday, December 15, 2022, 7:30 PM – 11:59 PM
MUSIC
Liebman, Sorey, Rudolph Trio: “New Now” Album Release
THURSDAY, DECEMBER 15, 2022
7:30 & 9:30 PM
The Jazz Gallery In Person & Live Stream
1158 Broadway (entrance on West 27th Street), NoMad, Manhattan
$30-$40 in person; $20 live stream
TICKETS + INFORMATION
Dave Liebman — post-Coltrane (mainly soprano-) saxophonist, Miles Davis sideman, NYC jazz community leader — and two contrasting percussionists, Tyshawn Sorey — the best percussionist in current jazz, as well as one of the best composers in current classical (if that’s any different) — and Adam Rudolph — a World musician who never seems appropriative (or unstylish). Now THIS should be interesting.
MAKE A NIGHT OF IT: In person, Italian-Ashkenazi mashup at Mark Strausman’s Mark’s Off Madison. Streaming at home, try my current cocktail obsession, a Honeymoon: pour 2 oz. Laird’s Bonded Apple Brandy or Calvados and 1/2 oz. each of Bénédictine, Curaçao, and lemon juice into an ice-filled cocktail shaker. Shake. Strain into a chilled Martini glass or coupe. No garnish is called for, but I always end up shaving in a lemon twist.
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Thu, Dec 15, 2022, 7:30 PM – Fri, Dec 16, 2022, 11:59 PM
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Thursday, December 15, 2022, 7:30 PM – 11:59 PM
DANCE
LayeRhythm (On The Move): STASIS
THURSDAY, DECEMBER 20, 2022
7:30 PM
Works and Process
Clark Studio Theater, Juilliard School
165 West 65th Street, Upper West Side, Manhattan
Pay What You Choose
TICKETS + INFORMATION
Vernacular dance styles, choreographed and improvised (excitingly).
MAKE A NIGHT OF IT: Oysters and a Martini, then a Cadillac Burger, at P.J. Clarke’s!
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Thursday, December 15, 2022, 7:30 PM – 11:59 PM
MUSIC
Feldman: For John Cage
THURSDAY, DECEMBER 15, 2022
7:30 PM
The Jewish Museum
1109 5th Avenue, Upper East Side, Manhattan
$22; $15 students/seniors
TICKETS + INFORMATION
In conjunction with its indispensable New York 1962-64 exhibition (Ground Zero for post-modern art as we know it, the place where we still live), the Jewish Museum presents a better-late-than-never tribute to the immediately preceding period. The transfixing Morton Feldman might have written his violin and piano piece For John Cage in 1982, but it commemorates a great friendship that harkens back to 1950, when the two met for the first time in the lobby of Carnegie Hall when they were both walking out on a Rachmaninoff performance by the New York Philharmonic.
MAKE A NIGHT OF IT: Neighborhood bistro at Pascalou. (Table d’Hôte is better, but it closes too early.)
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Thu, Dec 15, 2022, 7:00 PM – Sun, Dec 18, 2022, 11:59 PM
DANCE / THEATER / PERFORMANCE
John Kelly: Underneath the Skin
THURSDAY – SUNDAY, DECEMBER 15 – 18, 2022
7:00 PM THURSDAY – SATURDAY
2:00 PM SUNDAY
La MaMa
66 East 4th Street, East Village, Manhattan
$30; $25 students/seniors; $10 first 10 tickets to each performance
TICKETS + INFORMATION
Performance icon John Kelly’s exploration of the life and implications of Samuel Seward: tatoo artist, gay pornographer, sexual frontiersman.
MAKE A NIGHT OF IT: Go to Buenos Aires and either cheer with the soccer-mad crowd or console them, depending (things are looking pretty great so far).
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Thursday, December 15, 2022, 7:00 PM – 11:59 PM
OPERA
Kevin Puts: The Hours
THURSDAY, DECEMBER 15, 2022
7:00 PM
Metropolitan Opera
30 Lincoln Center Plaza, Upper West Side, Manhattan
$49.50-$497.50
TICKETS + INFORMATION
Kevin Puts had a tremendous success ten years ago with Silent Night, an opera about the World War I Christmas Truce. If it was too conventional for me, what do I know, I’m only The Compiler? So now The Met has commissioned him to write an opera of the movie of Michael Cunningham’s novel (taking off from Mrs. Dalloway). And instead of the star trio of Meryl Streep, Julianne Moore, and Nicole Kidman, we get the opera equivalent: Renée Fleming, Joyce DiDonato, and Kelli O’Hara. OK, I have a bad feeling about this. But what do I know? I’m only The Compiler. Of course, you can’t buy tickets to this anyway.
MAKE A NIGHT OF IT: Both P.J. Clarke’s and Cafe Fiorello are supposed to be open after this show.
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Wed, Dec 14, 2022, 8:30 PM – Sat, Dec 17, 2022, 11:59 PM
PERFORMANCE
The Institute of Useless Actitivy: THIS and THAT
WEDNESDAY – SATURDAY, DECEMBER 14 – 17, 2022
8:30 PM
HERE
145 6th Avenue (entrance on Dominick Street), Soho, Manhattan
$20; first 10 tickets to each show $10
TICKETS + INFORMATION
Having had a massive hit (for this kind of thing) at the tiny Chocolate Factory in LIC, The Institute of Useless Activity brings their cosmic stageshow to Here. It’s hard to describe beyond to say that its two guys using technology and stagecraft to mess with your head. And the first half or so of its hour-long run time is just magic. After that, when it devolves into a long series of hand-shadow puppets, things get old — at least if you’re as jaded as I am (or maybe I should say, as weed-averse). But people LOVE this — and that first half is pure magic.
MAKE A NIGHT OF IT: Sicilian at Piccolo Cucina Osteria.
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Wednesday, December 14, 2022, 8:00 PM – 11:59 PM
MUSIC
Nick Dunston: Spider Season
WEDNESDAY, DECEMBER 14, 2022
8:00 PM
Roulette
509 Atlantic Avenue (entrance on Third Avenue), Boerum Hill, Brooklyn
$25 advance; $30 door; $20 students/seniors at door
TICKETS + INFORMATION
Ubiquitous bassist/composer Nick Dunston hits what may be a new height with this fascinating and unique trio filled out by Kalia Vandever, the most compelling new trombonist we’ve had in years, and DoYeon Kim, one of that bunch of avant-Korean performers who are keeping life so interesting in New York right now. Sounds like absolutely nothing else!
MAKE A NIGHT OF IT: A new bar around the corner from Roulette! The Little Pig.
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Wednesday, December 14, 2022, 8:00 PM – 11:59 PM
MUSIC
Shoko Nagai & Satoshi Takeishi/Phillip Greenlief, Angelica Sanchez & Tom Rainey
WEDNESDAY, DECEMBER 14, 2022
8:00 PM
Shift
411 Kent Avenue, Williamsburg, Brooklyn
$15
TICKETS + INFORMATION
Jazz from the very fringe to towards the fringe.
MAKE A NIGHT OF IT: Mexican party at Aldama.
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Wednesday, December 14, 2022, 8:00 PM – 11:59 PM
PERFORMANCE
Miranda Heyman: bb brecht’s Holiday Yuletide Spectacular
WEDNESDAY, DECEMBER 14, 2022
8:00 PM
Dixon Place
161A Chrystie Street, Lower East Side, Manhattan
$15
TICKETS + INFORMATION
Queer Black mulitmedia hilarious cabaret.
MAKE A NIGHT OF IT: The new Bowery Congee Dim Sum House for . . . oh, you know.
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Wed, Dec 14, 2022, 7:30 PM – Sat, Dec 17, 2022, 11:59 PM
DANCE
Tere O’Connor: Rivulets
WEDNESDAY – SATURDAY, DECEMBER 14 – 17, 2022
7:30 PM
Baryshnikov Arts Center
450 West 37th Street, Hell’s Kitchen, Manhattan
$25
TICKETS + INFORMATION
Choreographer Tere O’Connor makes a whole lot out of very little: his career has been an exploration of how to get maximal impact from minimal means.
MAKE A NIGHT OF IT: I’m not gonna stop pushing Central Asian powerhouse Farida until each and every one of you has gone there.
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Wed, Dec 14, 2022, 7:00 PM – Sat, Dec 17, 2022, 11:59 PM
DANCE
Ivy Baldwin: Folds
WEDNESDAY – SATURDAY, DECEMBER 14 – 17, 2022
7:00 PM
Chocolate Factory
38-33 24th Street, Long Island City, Queens
$20
TICKETS + INFORMATION
Ivy Baldwin is just what the Chocolate Factory is about (and just what this List is about): challenging work that doesn’t forget to be fun.
MAKE A NIGHT OF IT: Fall really is the best time at the wonderful Québécois bistro M. Wells.
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Wed, Dec 14, 2022, 7:00 PM – Sun, Dec 18, 2022, 11:59 PM
THEATER
ONEOFUS: Dick Rivington & The Cat
WEDNESDAY – SUNDAY, DECEMBER 14 – 18, 2022
7:00 PM WEDNESDAY – FRIDAY
4:00 PM SATURDAY & SUNDAY
Abrons Arts Center
466 Grand Street, Lower East Side, Manhattan
$44
TICKETS + INFORMATION
Julie Atlas Muz and Mat Fraser, legends in their own right, finally get to continue their program of bringing the Christmas Panto tradition to their Lower East Side neighborhood. These shows are uproriously funny, incredibly fun, totally endearing — and, in the end, rather uplifting. (Oh no they’re not!) (Oh yes they are!)
MAKE A NIGHT OF IT: Wednesday through Friday, OF COURSE you’re going to Ernesto’s for great Basque. Saturday and Sunday, daytime Malaysian at Kopitiam.
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Wednesday, December 14, 2022, 6:30 PM – 11:59 PM
MUSIC
Anthony Roth Costanzo: Everlasting Light
WEDNESDAY, DECEMBER 14, 2022
6:30 PM
Temple Emannu-El In Person & Live Stream
1 East 65th Street, Upper East Side, Manhattan
Free
TICKETS + INFORMATION
Counter-tenor Anthony Roth Costanzo curates a Chanukah concert featuring the radiant soprano Angel Blue. You expect stuff from Handel’s Judas Maccabeus. Maybe you don’t expect a new piece by Carlos Simon for Costanzo and the Brooklyn Youth Chorus — but you’re gonna get it. Musical accompaniment by The Knights.
MAKE A NIGHT OF IT: In person, go to The Viand for the best turkey club you’ve ever had. The rice pudding is good, too. Streaming at home, have an Aperol Schvitz: pour 2 oz. each of seltzer and dry sparkling wine, 1-1/2 oz. Manischewitz Concord Grape Wine, 3/4 oz. Aperol, and 1/2 tablespoon lime juice into a wine glass. Stir. Add ice. Garnish with an orange slice.
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Tue, Dec 13, 2022, 8:00 PM – Sun, Dec 18, 2022, 11:59 PM
THEATER
Bailey Williams: EVENTS
TUESDAY – SUNDAY, DECEMBER 13 – 18, 2022
8:00 PM TUESDAY – SATURDAY
2:00 PM SUNDAY
The Brick
579 Metropolitan Avenue, Williamsburg, Brooklyn
$15-$40
TICKETS + INFORMATION
It has to do with itching. And eggs.
MAKE A NIGHT OF IT: Excellent Roman pinsa at Montesacro.
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Tue, Dec 13, 2022, 8:00 PM – Wed, Dec 14, 2022, 11:59 PM
MUSIC
LCD Sound System
TUESDAY – WEDNESDAY & FRIDAY – SATURDAY, DECEMBER 13 – 14 & 16 – 17, 2022
8:00 PM
Brooklyn Steel
319 Frost Street, Williamsburg, Brooklyn
Dynamic Pricing: I honestly have no idea
TICKETS + INFORMATION
LCD Sound System — still somewhat cool, if not absolutely encapsulating the moment as in their heyday — make another attempt at a late Fall month-long residency, after last year’s failed for reasons you may remember.
MAKE A NIGHT OF IT: James Murphy would want you to go spend more money on him at his (great) wine bar The Four Horsemen.
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Tue, Dec 13, 2022, 8:00 PM – Sun, Dec 18, 2022, 11:59 PM
MUSIC
Kenny Barron Quintet
TUESDAY – SUNDAY, DECEMBER 13 – 18, 2022
8:00 & 10:00 PM
Village Vanguard
178 7th Avenue South, West Village, Manhattan
$40
TICKETS + INFORMATION
This isn’t really the kind of music we usually List, but it’s too good pass up. Kenny Barron — the most elegant active pianist in all of jazz, a player who seemingly never puts a finger wrong — has assembled a quintet fronted by Immanuel Wilkins, an acute mainstream altoist who could have been born to be with Barron, and Steve Nelson, who’s been New York’s utility vibesman for so long he gets taken shamefully for granted. Slick in the BEST way.
MAKE A NIGHT OF IT: Now that the Vin Sur Vignt wine bar has moved to more spacious quarters across the street, it’s less cute. But I’ll bet it’s still pretty good. (And it’s even than closer than before to the Vanguard.)
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Tuesday, December 13, 2022, 8:00 PM – 11:59 PM
MUSIC
Ned Rothenberg feat. Mary Halvorson, Sylvie Courvoisier & Tomas Fujiwara: Crossings Four
TUESDAY, DECEMBER 13, 2022
8:00 PM
Roulette In Person & Live Stream
509 Atlantic Avenue (entrance on Third Avenue), Boerum Hill, Brooklyn
$25 advance in person; $30 door in person; $20 students/seniors at door in person; free live stream
TICKETS + INFORMATION
You see who’s in this band and you think, it must be amazing. And it is. Complex, surprising, textured, open-ended but not formless.
MAKE A NIGHT OF IT: In person, nice enough bistro at Bacchus. Streaming at home, have a Storm King (a drink that originated at the nearby Grand Army Bar, as it happens): pour 2 oz. blended Scotch, 1/2 oz. Nocino (meaning, walnut liqueur), and 1/4 oz. Bénédictine, with 3 dashes of Angotastura 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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Tue, Dec 13, 2022, 7:30 PM – Sat, Dec 17, 2022, 11:59 PM
DANCE
Gibney Company: YAG 2022
TUESDAY – SATURDAY, DECEMBER 13 – 17, 2022
7:30 PM THURSDAY – SATURDAY
2:00 PM SATURDAY
New York Live Arts
219 West 19th Street, Chelsea, Manhattan
$75 Tuesday; $35 thereafter
TICKETS + INFORMATION
A piece by Ohad Naharin, the progenitor of the Israeli Gaga movement language: direct, visceral, with a strong underlying theoretical foundation — what once seemed really great about Israel.
MAKE A NIGHT IN IT: The Lobby Bar at the Hotel Chelsea will make it a night and a half.
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Tuesday, December 13, 2022, 7:30 PM – 11:59 PM
PERFORMANCE
Bindlestiff Family Cirkus: Open Stage Variety Show
TUESDAY, DECEMBER 13, 2022
7:30 PM
Voorhees Theater, New York City College of Technology
165 Jay Street, Downtown, Brooklyn
$15
TICKETS + INFORMATION
The Bindlestiff Family Cirkus throws open the stage to whatever variety acts dare to appear. I can’t tell you how much fun these can be.
MAKE A NIGHT OF IT: Speaking of fun, the West African party never stops at Amaranchi.
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Tue, Dec 13, 2022, 7:00 PM – Sat, Dec 17, 2022, 11:59 PM
MUSIC
New York Philharmonic: Handel’s “Messiah”
TUESDAY – SATURDAY, DECEMBER 13 – 17, 2022
7:00 PM TUESDAY – THURSDAY & SATURDAY
2:00 PM FRIDAY
David Geffen Hall, Lincoln Center
10 Lincoln Center Plaza, Upper West Side, Manhattan
$58.50-$249.50
TICKETS + INFORMATION
I know, big-band Handel on modern instruments: what could be more overblown and banal? But get one of the very best HIP conductors on the planet, Masaki Suzuki, to lead, and suddenly things get interesting.
MAKE A NIGHT OF IT: Kwame Onwuachi’s in-house Afro-Caribbean restaurant Tatiana (not to be confused with the one in Brighton Beach) isn’t open late enough for post-concert dining — a scandal if you ask me (maybe you can eat and drink and then concentrate hard on music for two hours, but I sure can’t) (to me, this is emblematic of Lincoln Center’s inability to conceive of the classical music segment of its audience as comprising anything other than the suburban and the decrepit). For an urbane experience, go to Bar Boulud after the show and eat and drink to your heart’s content.
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Tuesday, December 13, 2022, 7:00 PM – 11:59 PM
MUSIC
Ryan Sawyer-Nate Wooley-Lester St. Louis Trio/Cecilia Lopez-Joe Moffett Duo/Chuck Bettis
TUESDAY, DECEMBER 13, 2022
7:00 PM
Union Pool
484 Union Avenue, Williamsburg, Brooklyn
$20.18
TICKETS + INFORMATION
Take several of the most interesting, challenging improvising musicians in New York and put them all one on stage (albeit not at the same time) and what’ll happen? Who can tell?
MAKE A NIGHT OF IT: Classic Brooklyn Red Sauce at Bamonte’s.
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Tue, Dec 13, 2022, 4:30 PM – Sun, Dec 18, 2022, 11:59 PM
PERFORMANCE
Lightscape
TUESDAY – SUNDAY, DECEMBER 13 – 18, 2022 (continuing through JANUARY 8)
4:30 – 8:45 PM
Brooklyn Botanic Garden
990 Washington Avenue, across the street from Crown Heights, Brooklyn
$45 adult; $24 children 3-12; free babies 0-2
TICKETS + INFORMATION
Because this is Brooklyn, what you’d normally expect to be a corny set of light sculptures strewn throughout the Garden actually turns out to be kind of great.
MAKE A NIGHT OF IT: The Guadalajaran Tortas Ahogadas are unbelievably good at Cruz del Sur.
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Tue, Dec 13, 2022, 10:00 AM – Sun, Dec 18, 2022, 11:59 AM
MUSIC / PERFORMANCE
Gelsey Bell & Joseph White: Meander
TUESDAY – SUNDAY, DECEMBER 13 – 18, 2022 (ongoing)
10:00 AM – 3:00 PM
Brooklyn Botanic Garden
150 Eastern Parkway, across the street from Prospect Heights, Brooklyn
$18; $12 students/seniors; free children under 12
TICKETS + INFORMATION
Having created a wonderful sound walk through Green-Wood Cemetery, the dream team of Gelsey Bell and Joe White do the same for the Brooklyn Botanic Garden (one of my favorite places on earth, if you want to know). The soundtrack is available on the BBG website.
MAKE A NIGHT OF IT: New Orleans at Lowerline.
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Monday, December 12, 2022, 8:00 PM – 11:59 PM
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Monday, December 12, 2022, 7:30 PM – 11:59 PM
THEATER
Krymov Lab NYC: Eugene Onegin (In Our Own Words)/AMERICANS: 2 Hems & 1/4 O’Neill
MONDAY & THURSDAY – SUNDAY, DECEMBER 12 & 15 – 18, 2022
7:30 PM MONDAY & SUNDAY
8:30 THURSDAY – SATURDAY
3:00 PM SUNDAY
La MaMa
66 East 4th Street, East Village, Manhattan
$25; $20 students/seniors; $10 first 10 tickets to each performance; $35 both shows
TICKETS + INFORMATION
An exiled Russian director gets used to his new emigrée status in New York with two pieces in rep. One show recalls a production of Oneginhe did in Moscow, examining what it means to be Russian. The other mashes up two Hemingway pieces with a brief (THANK GOD) O’Neill excerpt, beginning to explore the literature of his new home.
MAKE A NIGHT OF IT: Great ramen at Minca.
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Monday, December 12, 2022, 7:30 PM – 11:59 PM
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Monday, December 12, 2022, 7:30 PM – 11:59 PM
MUSIC
Music Mondays: The Hands Free feat. Alicia Hall Moran
MONDAY, DECEMBER 12, 2022
7:30 PM
Advent Lutheran Church
2504 Broadway, Upper West Side, Manhattan
Free
TICKETS + INFORMATION
You might think that I just spend my time following Caroline Shaw around, and maybe I do. This is her (a misstatement: it’s a band) all-star classical/folk/jazz band, made even starrier by having the fantastic mezzo Alicia Hall Moran sit in. I can’t imagine why you would skip this.
MAKE A NIGHT OF IT: Surprisingly good Kosher barbecue at Izzy’s Smokehouse.
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Monday, December 12, 2022, 7:00 PM – 11:59 PM
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Monday, December 12, 2022, 7:00 PM – 11:59 PM
MUSIC
New York New Music Ensemble: BioDiversity
MONDAY, DECEMBER 12, 2022
7:00 PM
87 Eldridge
87 Eldridge Street, Lower East Side, Manhattan
$20; $10 students/seniors
TICKETS + INFORMATION
Go for the title electroacoustic piece by Christopher Biggs, but stay for the Katherine Balch, Liza Lim, and (harkening back to the early days of electronic music), Mario Davidowsky.
MAKE A NIGHT OF IT: Go to Scarr’s Pizza and wait on line for (I’m gonna say it) the best slice pizza in New York.
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Mon, Dec 12, 2022, 12:00 PM – Sun, Dec 18, 2022, 11:59 PM
MUSIC / PERFORMANCE
Julian Rosefeldt: EUPHORIA
MONDAY – SUNDAY, DECEMBER 12 – 18, 2022 (continuing through JANUARY 8)
12:00 – 8:00 PM MONDAY – THURSDAY
12:00 – 10:00 PM FRIDAY & SATURDAY
11:00 – 3:00 PM SUNDAY
Park Avenue Armory
643 Park Avenue, Upper East Side, Manhattan
$18
TICKETS + INFORMATION
A film installation (you enter when you want; an entire loop takes about 2 hours) involving chorus, a phalanx of famous jazz drummers, and philosophical and social ruminations — in surround.
MAKE A NIGHT OF IT: Back to Donahue’s Steak House (not really a steakhouse) for more Mad Men larping. If you go early, you might want to skip a Martini — unimaginable as that might be.
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Mon, Dec 12, 2022, 8:00 AM – Sun, Dec 18, 2022, 11:59 PM
MUSIC / PERFORMANCE
Gelsey Bell feat. Joseph White: Cairns
MONDAY – SUNDAY, DECEMBER 12 – 18, 2022 (ongoing)
8:00 AM – 5:00 PM
#stillHERE IRL
Green-Wood Cemetery, Sunset Park Entrance
35th Street at 4th Avenue, Greenwood Heights, Brooklyn
$7 or more for soundtrack
TICKETS + INFORMATION
One of the first shows during Quarantine that you could actually Go Out! to back in the days of The Lockdown (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 (whose terrific new album you really ought to hear). 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, Dec 12, 2022, 6:00 AM – Sun, Dec 18, 2022, 11:59 AM
MUSIC / PERFORMANCE
Ellen Reid: SOUNDWALK
MONDAY – SUNDAY, DECEMBER 12 – 18, 2022 (ongoing)
6:00 AM – 1:00 AM
New York Philharmonic
Central Park, Manhattan
Free (registration required)
TICKETS + INFORMATION
The New York Phil hops aboard the walk-around-the-landscaped-space-with-soundtrack train. 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, December 11, 2022, 8:00 PM – 11:59 PM
MUSIC
Third Eye Orchestra: 15th Anniversary Concert
SUNDAY, DECEMBER 11, 2022
8:00 PM
Roulette In Person & Live Stream
509 Atlantic Avenue (entrance on Third Avenue), Boerum Hill, Brooklyn
$25 advance in person; $30 door in person; $20 student/seniors at door in person; free live stream
TICKETS + INFORMATION
Hans Tammen leads the orchestra in a long-form piece that is touted as showing the influences of Ives, Stockhausen, Steve Coleman, and Earle Brown. Those are some good influences.
MAKE A NIGHT OF IT: In person, outstanding Palestinian at AlBadawi. Streaming at home, have an Old Pepper: pour 2-1/4 oz. Bourbon, 3/4 oz. lemon juice, and 1/2 oz. each Cholula and Simple Syrup, with 1 dash of Worcecestershire sauce, into an ice-filled cocktail shaker. Shake. Strain into a chilled Martini glass or coupe. Garnish with cracked black pepper.
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Sunday, December 11, 2022, 8:00 PM – 11:59 PM
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Sunday, December 11, 2022, 7:30 PM – 11:59 PM
DANCE
Doron Perk & Nat Wilson: you can stop looking now AND 3.5 scenes of insanity
SUNDAY, DECEMBER 11, 2022
7:30 PM
Dixon Place
161A Chrystie Street, Lower East Side, Manhattan
$15 advance; $20 door; $10 students/seniors
TICKETS + INFORMATION
Brand new dance from a brand new company.
MAKE A NIGHT OF IT: OK neo-Red Sauce at Sauce.
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Sunday, December 11, 2022, 5:00 PM – 11:59 PM
MUSIC
Bridget Kibbey & The Calidore String Quartet: The Sacred and the Profane
SUNDAY, DECEMBER 11, 2022
5:00 PM
Our Saviour’s Atonement Lutheran Church
178 Bennett Avenue, Washington Heights, Manhattan
Free
TICKETS + INFORMATION
Swirling Art Nouveau music from France’s Belle Époque, composed by two good friends, Debussy and Caplet.
MAKE A NIGHT OF IT: No one has ever left La Cabaña Salvadoreña hungry.
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Sunday, December 11, 2022, 2:00 PM – 11:59 PM
MUSIC
Trio Mediæval
SUNDAY, DECEMBER 11, 2022
2:00 & 4:00 PM
Fuentidueña Chapel, The Cloisters
99 Margaret Corbin Drive, Fort Tryon Park, Manhattan
$75
TICKETS + INFORMATION
The eclectic Medieval-minded vocal ensemble Trio Mediæval does Holiday music.
MAKE A NIGHT OF IT: Elsa la Reina del Chicharron towers over all other Dominican restaurants in the City to an extent that’s almost shocking. You will not believe how good this food is.
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Sunday, December 11, 2022, 12:00 PM – 11:59 PM
PERFORMANCE
R&R Productions: Peter Pans3xual
THURSDAY & SUNDAY, DECEMBER 8 & 11, 2022 (continuing through DECEMBER 12)
9:30 PM THURSDAY
12:00 PM SUNDAY
Don’t Tell Mama
343 West 46th Street, Hell’s Kitchen, Manhattan
$30
TICKETS + INFORMATION
Another attempt to transplant Christmas Panto to New York. This one looks a lot gayer than Julie Atlas Muz and Mat Fraser’s downtown at Abrons (well I mean Pantos always had cross-dressing!). And probably not as uplifting.
MAKE A NIGHT OF IT: There’s a $20 minimum at the venue. But I’d advise you to drink it and grab something solid across the street at Dim Sum Palace.
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Saturday, December 10, 2022, 8:00 PM – 11:59 PM
MUSIC
Sanda Weigl: The Commie Girl
SATURDAY, DECEMBER 10, 2022
8:00 PM
Barbès
376 9th Street, Park Slope, Brooklyn
$20
TICKETS + INFORMATION
Sanda Weigl tells the story of her life in 15 songs. But it’s a really interesting story. Born in Romania to German parents, she became the lead singer of the most popular rock band in East Germany (what could that have sounded like, I wonder?) (actually with the internet you don’t have to wonder — although that appears to have been before Weigl joined) — until being thrown into a forced labor camp after expressing her opposition to Russia’s invasion of Czechoslovakia, and then expelled from the country. In the West, she has made herself known as an admiring but ironic outside singer of Roma music (kind of what the Rolling Stones are to American R&B) and also of the cabaret that is her birthright as a relation of Bertolt Brecht. This should be good.
MAKE A NIGHT OF IT: Another chance to fail to get into unapologetic Indian sensation Masalawala & Sons.
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Saturday, December 10, 2022, 7:30 PM – 11:59 PM
MUSIC
Molly Thompson: Shadows of Corinth
SATURDAY, DECEMBER 10, 2022
7:30 PM
the cell theatre
338 West 23rd Street, Chelsea, Manhattan
Price unspecified
TICKETS + INFORMATION
A bunch of New York’s best are-they-classical-or-are-they-pop musicians get together to perform an is-it-pop-or-is-it-classical song cycle by (and with) singer-songwriter Molly Thompson.
MAKE A NIGHT OF IT: I'm going to keep sending you to Qanoon: their home-style Palestinian is SO good.
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Saturday, December 10, 2022, 7:30 PM – 11:59 PM
MUSIC
Tallis Scholars: Hymns to the Virgin
SATURDAY, DECEMBER 10, 2022
7:30 PM
Church of St. Mary the Virgin
145 West 46th Street, Midtown, Manhattan
$40-$50; $30-$37 students & under 25; $34-$42 seniors
TICKETS + INFORMATION
Since the Tallis Scholars revolutionized the performance of Renaissance vocal polyphony several decades ago, we’ve learned that there are other, more emotionally gripping ways to perform this amazing repertoire. But there are none more beautiful. Tonight’s program features hymns to this smokey church’s dedicatee, ranging from Josquin to Pārt.
MAKE A NIGHT OF IT: Pioneering (the uncharitable would say superseded) Piemontese at Barbetta.
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Saturday, December 10, 2022, 7:00 PM – 11:59 PM
MUSIC
S.E.M. Ensemble: The Return of the Annual Christmas Concert
SATURDAY, DECEMBER 10, 2022
7:00 PM
Paula Cooper Gallery
534 West 21st Street, Chelsea, Manhattan
$15 advance; $20 door
TICKETS + INFORMATION
An hour of Peter Kotik’s six-hour Gertrude Stein setting. And pieces by three of this List’s very favorite composers: Cage, Oliveros, and Rameau. God bless us, every one!
MAKE A NIGHT OF IT: Pretentious pseudo-clubby pizza at Mel’s.
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Saturday, December 10, 2022, 7:00 PM – 11:59 PM
MUSIC
Photay & Carlos Niño
SATURDAY, DECEMBER 10, 2022
7:00 PM
Public Records
233 Butler Street, Gowanus, Brooklyn
$23.69
TICKETS + INFORMATION
Electronic music leaning toward New Age.
MAKE A NIGHT OF IT: Good, fresh Korean at Insa (as always, forego the barbecue and east in the lounge/bar room, which is much nicer than the drab and noisy dining room).
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Saturday, December 10, 2022, 7:00 PM – 11:59 PM
MUSIC
Crossing Boundaries Vol. 16: FOCUSING ON HER
SATURDAY, DECEMBER 10, 2022
7:00 PM
Tenri Cultural Institute
43A West 13th Street, Greenwich Village, Manhattan
$10-$50
TICKETS + INFORMATION
Three progressive female Asian musicians — Amirtha Kidambi, Yoko Reikano Kimura, and gamin — whose music all references their various traditions, play music with visuals, all addressing trauma.
MAKE A NIGHT OF IT: The broth is particularly rich at E.A.K. Ramen.
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Saturday, December 10, 2022, 4:30 PM – 11:59 PM
MUSIC
Samora Pinderhughes: Rituals for Abolition
SATURDAY, DECEMBER 10, 2022
4:30 PM
The Kitchen @ Westbeth
163 Bank Street, West Village, Manhattan
$5-$25
TICKETS + INFORMATION
In conjunction with (indeed within) an exhibition he has up at The Kitchen @ Westbeth, multidisciplinary artist/musical performer Samora Pinderhughes gives the first of a three-show series of thematically related concerts. I should be enthusiastic about a performer/artist who seamlessly interweaves visuals in various media and vernacular-inflected music. But I find the music to be so much droopy draggy singer-songwriter “self-expression”. Oh well.
MAKE A NIGHT OF IT: Know anyone who’s been to the new Barbuto yet?
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Sat, Dec 10, 2022, 3:00 PM – Sun, Dec 11, 2022, 11:59 PM
DANCE / PERFORMANCE
Moriah Evans: Remains Persist
SATURDAY & SUNDAY, DECEMBER 10 & 11, 2022 (continuing through DECEMBER 18)
3:00 PM
Performance Space New York
150 First Avenue, East Village, Manhattan
$15-$25
TICKETS + INFORMATION
Another ritualistic attempt to effect healing through ritualistic audience-participation dance and performance. I remember when the avant-garde used to be scabrous.
MAKE A NIGHT OF IT: After this, I can only think of the Variety Burger at Hearth.
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Saturday, December 10, 2022, 3:00 PM – 11:59 PM
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Saturday, December 10, 2022, 1:00 PM – 11:59 PM
OPERA
Kevin Puts: The Hours
WEDNESDAY & SATURDAY, DECEMBER 7 & 10, 2022 (continuing through DECEMBER 15)
7:30 PM WEDNESDAY
1:00 PM SATURDAY
Metropolitan Opera
30 Lincoln Center Plaza, Upper West Side, Manhattan
$49.50-$497.50
TICKETS + INFORMATION
Kevin Puts had a tremendous success ten years ago with Silent Night, an opera about the World War I Christmas Truce. If it was too conventional for me, what do I know, I’m only The Compiler? So now The Met has commissioned him to write an opera of the movie of Michael Cunningham’s novel (taking off from Mrs. Dalloway). And instead of the star trio of Meryl Streep, Julianne Moore, and Nicole Kidman, we get the opera equivalent: Renée Fleming, Joyce DiDonato, and Kelli O’Hara. OK, I have a bad feeling about this. But what do I know? I’m only The Compiler.
MAKE A NIGHT OF IT: Both P.J. Clarke’s and Cafe Fiorello are supposed to be open after the evening shows. The Saturday matinée poses no problem.
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Sat, Dec 10, 2022, 1:00 PM – Sun, Dec 11, 2022, 11:59 PM
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Fri, Dec 9, 2022, 11:59 PM – Sun, Dec 11, 2022, 12:59 AM
THEATER
Jaime Lozano: Desaparecidas
FRIDAY – SUNDAY, DECEMBER 9 – 11, 2022 (continuing through DECEMBER 18)
7:30 PM FRIDAY & SATURDAY
2:00 PM SUNDAY
JACK
20 Putnam Avenue, Clinton Hill, Brooklyn
$20
TICKETS + INFORMATION
A “state fair-concert musical” (that sounds cheery) about the disappearances of hundreds of women and girls from Juarez (oops). Composer Jaime Lozano is someone you should be watching.
MAKE A NIGHT OF IT: Outrageously good pub grub at Meckelberg’s.
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Fri, Dec 9, 2022, 10:30 PM – Sat, Dec 10, 2022, 11:59 PM
THEATER
NY Neo-Futurists: The Infinite Wrench
FRIDAY & SATURDAY, DECEMBER 9 & 10, 2022 (ongoing)
10:30 PM
Kraine Theater
85 East 4th Street, East Village, Manhattan
$20; $10 students
TICKETS + INFORMATION
Theater for people who think they don’t like theater. Thirty short plays crammed into an hour, semi-improvised, semi-not, non-illusionistic, spur-of-the-moment, real (whatever that means).
MAKE A NIGHT OF IT: I dunno why, but it seems like you’d go to Phebe’s.
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Friday, December 9, 2022, 8:00 PM – 11:59 PM
MUSIC
Talib Kweli/Madlib
FRIDAY, DECEMBER 9, 2022
8:00 PM
Brooklyn Bowl
61 Wythe Avenue, Williamsburg, Brooklyn
$33.42
TICKETS + INFORMATION
Conscious rap and . . . unconscious rap? I know: perilously close to an oldies show — but what oldies! Talib Kweli, as has been his recent wont, will play with a band. Madlib will play with your head.
MAKE A NIGHT OF IT: No reason not to eat and drink — and bowl! — at the venue.
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Fri, Dec 9, 2022, 8:00 PM – Sat, Dec 10, 2022, 11:59 PM
MUSIC
Catalytic Sound at Shift
FRIDAY & SATURDAY, DECEMBER 9 & 10, 2022
8:00 PM
Shift
411 Kent Avenue, Williamsburg, Brooklyn
$25
TICKETS + INFORMATION
Two star-studded nights of experimental music (including some people who already played here Thursday night). If you count musicians who get Listed a lot as stars.
MAKE A NIGHT OF IT: Good cocktails, great interior, and snacky seafood at Deux Chats.
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Fri, Dec 9, 2022, 8:00 PM – Sun, Dec 11, 2022, 11:59 PM
MUSIC
LCD Sound System
TUESDAY – WEDNESDAY & FRIDAY – SUNDAY, DECEMBER 6 – 7 & 9 – 11, 2022 (continuing through DECEMBER 17)
8:00 PM
Brooklyn Steel
319 Frost Street, Williamsburg, Brooklyn
Dynamic Pricing: I honestly have no idea
TICKETS + INFORMATION
LCD Sound System — still somewhat cool, if not absolutely encapsulating the moment as in their heyday — make another attempt at a late Fall month-long residency, after last year’s failed for reasons you may remember.
MAKE A NIGHT OF IT: James Murphy would want you to go spend more money on him at his (great) wine bar The Four Horsemen.
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Friday, December 9, 2022, 8:00 PM – 11:59 PM
MUSIC
Dave Douglas Quintet
FRIDAY, DECEMBER 9, 2022
8:00 PM
The Owl Music Parlor
497 Rogers Avenue, Prospect Lefferts Gardens, Brooklyn
$20
TICKETS + INFORMATION
Dave Douglas is one of the best mainstream trumpeters out there, and his quintet is pure gold. Then, for a second set, they’ll support . . . Oren Bloedow??????????
MAKE A NIGHT OF IT: Wonderful Roman trattoria Camillo.
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Friday, December 9, 2022, 7:30 PM – 11:59 PM
MUSIC
International Contemporary Ensemble
FRIDAY, DECEMBER 9, 2022
7:30 PM
The Doxsee @ Target Margin Theater
232 52nd Street, Sunset Park, Brooklyn
Free
TICKETS + INFORMATION
A new piano quintet by Josh Modney (which will sound as much like old piano quintets as you’d expect). Various solo and duo and group improvisations.
MAKE A NIGHT OF IT: Sichuan at Chuan Tian Xia.
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Friday, December 9, 2022, 7:30 PM – 11:59 PM
MUSIC
Isabel Leonard & Pablo Sainz-Villegas
FRIDAY, DECEMBER 9, 2022
7:30 PM
Alice Tully Hall
1941 Broadway, Upper West Side, Manhattan
$30-$75
TICKETS + INFORMATION
Mezzo Isabel Leonard’s recital with ace Spanish guitarist Pablo Sainz-Villegas might seem a little mainstream for this List, but actually it’s just the kind of blending of classical and pop/vernacular that we advocate here. So you get some opera arias and Albèñez and Tárrega, but you also get Falla and Lorca (yes, he wrote songs, too!) channelling Spanish popular forms, and some Tango and bittersweet old Mexican pop. Should be a fairly enchanting evening, actually.
MAKE A NIGHT OF IT: The closest thing to Spanish anywhere near theree is the Pan-Mediterranean Boulud Sud.
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Friday, December 9, 2022, 7:30 PM – 11:59 PM
PERFORMANCE
Puppet BloK
FRIDAY, DECEMBER 9, 2022 (also DECEMBER 12, 15 & 16)
7:30 PM
Dixon Place
161A Chrystie Street, Lower East Side, Manhattan
$17 advance; $20 door; $12 students/seniors advance; $15 students/seniors at door; $28 any 2 shows; $42 all 4 shows
TICKETS + INFORMATION
Puppets!
MAKE A NIGHT OF IT: The new Bowery Congee Dim Sum House for . . . oh, you know.
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Friday, December 9, 2022, 7:30 PM – 11:59 PM
MUSIC
Patricia Brennan: “More Touch” Album Release Show
FRIDAY, DECEMBER 9, 2022
7:30 & 9:30 PM
The Jazz Gallery In Person & Live Stream
1158 Broadway (entrance on West 27th Street), NoMad, Manhattan
$30-$40 in person; $20 live stream
TICKETS + INFORMATION
Vibist Patricia Brennan makes fascinating, utterly distinct music, drawing on her indigenous Veracruzan roots but not in any folkloric way.
MAKE A NIGHT OF IT: In person, José Andés cocktails and bar snacks at the sky-high Nubeluz. Streaming at home, have a Veracruz: pour 1-1/2 oz. Gin, 1/2 oz. lemon juice, and 1/3 oz. each of Absinthe and Simple Syrup, with 1 dash of Angostura and bitters, into an ice-filled cocktail shaker. Shake. Strain into a chilled Martini glass or coupe. Garnish with a lemon twist.
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Fri, Dec 9, 2022, 7:30 PM – Sun, Dec 11, 2022, 11:59 PM
DANCE
Streb: Falling Forward, Again
FRIDAY – SUNDAY, DECEMBER 9 – 11, 2022 (continuing through DECEMBER 18)
7:30 PM FRIDAY
5:00 PM SATURDAY
3:00 PM SUNDAY
SLAM
51 North 1st Street, Williamsburg, Brooklyn
$25-$50
TICKETS + INFORMATION
Elizabeth Streb’s highly highly physical dance gets old once you’ve seen it a few times. But the first time: boy is it something.
MAKE A NIGHT OF IT: Go to the new Williamsburg Roberta’s and remember when Roberta’s used to be cool — and extraordinarily good.
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Friday, December 9, 2022, 7:30 PM – 11:59 PM
MUSIC
Miró Quartet
FRIDAY, DECEMBER 9, 2022
7:30 PM
Weill Recital Hall, Carnegie Hall
154 West 57th Street, Midtown, Manhattan
$74
TICKETS + INFORMATION
A new piece by Caroline Shaw!
MAKE A NIGHT OF IT: Gabriel’s lost a lot of its charm when it moved to its new Central Park South location. But they can still fix a proper Martini, I’ll tell you that.
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Friday, December 9, 2022, 7:00 PM – 11:59 PM
MUSIC
Kalia Vandever Quartet/Holland Andrews
FRIDAY, DECEMBER 9, 2022
7:00 PM
Public Records
233 Butler Street, Gowanus, Brooklyn
$23.69
TICKETS + INFORMATION
Trombonist Kalia Vandever is quite simply one of the most exciting young instrumentalists in jazz: you can just tell she’s destined for great things. Holland Andrews is a vocalist/performance artist immune to genre boundaries.
MAKE A NIGHT OF IT: The Middle American food boom continues apace at Ruthie’s.
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Friday, December 9, 2022, 7:00 PM – 11:59 PM
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Fri, Dec 9, 2022, 7:00 PM – Sun, Dec 11, 2022, 11:59 PM
PERFORMANCE
Circus Abyssinia: Tulu
FRIDAY – SUNDAY, DECEMBER 9 - 11, 2022 (continuing through JANUARY 1)
7:00 PM FRIDAY & SATURDAY
2:00 PM SATURDAY
12:00 & 5:00 PM SUNDAY
New Victory Theater
209 West 42nd Street, Midtown, Manhattan
$27-$68.50
TICKETS + INFORMATION
Circus! From Ethiopia! Honoring Olympic track and field great — the first African gold medalist ever — Daratu Tulu (who could run amazingly fast but probably couldn’t do the stuff these folks do)!
MAKE A NIGHT OF IT: Well I mean OF COURSE you’re going to walk over to Queen of Sheba, right?
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Friday, December 9, 2022, 7:00 PM – 11:59 PM
MUSIC
David Taylor: ‘Tis Joy for Bass Trombone
FRIDAY, DECEMBER 9, 2022
7:00 PM
Bargemusic
1 Water Street, Fulton Ferry Landing, Brooklyn
$35
TICKETS + INFORMATION
If you want to hear Fred Rzewski on the bass trombone, here’s your chance.
MAKE A NIGHT OF IT: Before, world famous ramen at Tsuta. After, Dominican barbecue at Bark, on the roof of the Time Out Market.
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Friday, December 9, 2022, 4:00 PM – 11:59 PM
MUSIC
Juilliard415: The Splendor of Dresden
SUNDAY, DECEMBER 11, 2022
4:00 PM
Music Before 1800
Corpus Christi Church
529 West 121st Street, Mornigside Heights, Manhattan
$10-$55; $5 students
TICKETS + INFORMATION
In the 18th Century, composers came from all over Europe (many from the East) to write for the world-famous Dresden court orchestra (still great now!). Here’s some of what they wrote.
MAKE A NIGHT OF IT: Eritrean at Massawa.
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Thursday, December 8, 2022, 9:30 PM – 11:59 PM
PERFORMANCE
R&R Productions: Peter Pans3xual
THURSDAY & SUNDAY, DECEMBER 8 & 11, 2022 (continuing through DECEMBER 12)
9:30 PM THURSDAY
12:00 PM SUNDAY
Don’t Tell Mama
343 West 46th Street, Hell’s Kitchen, Manhattan
$30
TICKETS + INFORMATION
Another attempt to transplant Christmas Panto to New York. This one looks a lot gayer than Julie Atlas Muz and Mat Fraser’s downtown at Abrons (well I mean Pantos always had cross-dressing!). And probably not as uplifting.
MAKE A NIGHT OF IT: There’s a $20 minimum at the venue. But I’d advise you to drink it and grab something solid across the street at Dim Sum Palace.
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Thu, Dec 8, 2022, 9:00 PM – Sat, Dec 10, 2022, 11:59 PM
THEATER
Sim Yan Ying “YY”: Where Are You? (New York)
THURSDAY – SATURDAY, DECEMBER 8 – 10, 2022
9:00 PM THURSDAY & SATURDAY
7:00 PM FRIDAY
Mabou Mines SUITE/Space 2022
150 First Avenue, East Village, Manhattan
$15-$25
TICKETS + INFORMATION
An exploration of grief — and its creators promise it’s gonna cut.
MAKE A NIGHT OF IT: Eclectic Chinese at uluh.
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Thu, Dec 8, 2022, 8:00 PM – Sat, Dec 10, 2022, 11:59 PM
DANCE
Raja Feather Kelly: Ugly Pt. 3: BLUE
THURSDAY – SATURDAY, DECEMBER 8 – 10, 2022
8:00 PM THURSDAY & FRIDAY
7:00 & 9:30 PM SATURDAY
JACK @ The Chelsea Factory
547 West 26th Street, Chelsea, Manhattan
$20-$30
TICKETS + INFORMATION
Raja Feather Kelly: engaging, thought-provoking, appealing emotionally as well as intellectually, as unsparing of himself as he is of social constructs. The series of which this is the latest part, examining and exploring the role the media have played in shaping Kelly’s own self-perception as a Queer Black man, might be the work Kelly was born to do.
MAKE A NIGHT OF IT: Overrated Middle Eastern at Shukette.
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Thu, Dec 8, 2022, 8:00 PM – Sun, Dec 11, 2022, 11:59 PM
PERFORMANCE
Erik Ehn: The Weak and the Strong
THURSDAY – SUNDAY, DECEMBER 8 – 11, 2022 (continuing through DECEMBER 18)
8:00 PM THURSDAY – SATURDAY
4:00 PM SUNDAY
La MaMa
66 East 4th Street, East Village, Manhattan
$30; $25 students/seniors; $10 first 10 tickets to each show
TICKETS + INFORMATION
A dramatized exploration (by means of the story of an old rodeo rider, of all things) of issues raised by Paul’s letters to the Romans and the Hebrews, concerning why we’re compelled not to do what we would to and to do what we wouldn’t. Performances are preceded and succeeded by related installand and “happenings”.
MAKE A NIGHT OF IT: Mexican insect cuisines at The Black Ant.
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Thursday, December 8, 2022, 8:00 PM – 11:59 PM
MUSIC
Mary Margaret O’Hara & Jim White/Rena Anwake
THURSDAY, DECEMBER 8, 2022
8:00 PM
ISSUE Project Room @ First Unitarian Congregational Society
116 Pierrepont Street, Brooklyn Heights, Brooklyn
$30
TICKETS + INFORMATION
Did Mary Margaret O’Hara (yeah, she’s Catherine O’Hara’s sister) really release the excellent Miss Americain 1988? Makes sense, though, as that was when you could still do New Wavey rock music and not sound camp. She’s really more torch, though. Rena Anakwe is a multi-disciplinary artist concerned healing.
MAKE A NIGHT OF IT: It is so nice that there’s now a place in Brooklyn Heights that can be recommended without qualification: the absolutely wonderful Inga’s Bar.
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Thursday, December 8, 2022, 8:00 PM – 11:59 PM
MUSIC
The Stone at Shift
THURSDAY, DECEMBER 8, 2022
8:00 PM
Shift
411 Kent Avenue, Williamsburg, Brooklyn
$15 per set
TICKETS + INFORMATION
The Stone moves out of Mannes during the strike. Here’s a quintet and a trio. And the the quintet comprises Ikue Mori, Zeena Parkins, Shayna Dunkelman, Nava Dunkelman, and William Winant! And the trio, Ava Mendoza, Ches Smith, and Winant again!
MAKE A NIGHT OF IT: Mexican party at Aldama.
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Thu, Dec 8, 2022, 7:30 PM – Fri, Dec 9, 2022, 11:59 PM
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Thursday, December 8, 2022, 7:30 PM – 11:59 PM
MUSIC
Sarah Davachi: Long Gradus
THURSDAY, DECEMBER 8, 2022
7:30 PM
Qubit @ St. Agnes Roman Catholic Church
533 Sackett Street, Gowanus, Brooklyn
$20; $12 students/seniors/artists
TICKETS + INFORMATION
The compellingly droney Sarah Davachi presents the local premiere of a brass quartet. There are also pieces by Cat Lamb (a bit more meditative than Davachi) and Alvin Lucier (a bit more theoretically complex).
MAKE A NIGHT OF IT: Pleasant bistro at Bar Bête.
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Thu, Dec 8, 2022, 7:30 PM – Sat, Dec 10, 2022, 11:59 PM
DANCE
Stephen Petronio Company: Bloodlines/Bloodlines(future)
THURSDAY – SATURDAY, DECEMBER 8 – 10, 2022
7:30 PM
Danspace Project
St. Mark’s Church-in-the-Bowery
131 East 10th Street, East Village, Manhattan
$20
TICKETS + INFORMATION
Stephen Petronio supplements his Bloodlines series of old stuff by now-established choreographers (tonight himself and Steve Paxton) with some very new stuff by some very new choreographers.
MAKE A NIGHT OF IT: Time to show some solidarity at Vaselka again.
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Thursday, December 8, 2022, 7:30 PM – 11:59 PM
MUSIC
Joy Guidry
THURSDAY, DECEMBER 8, 2022
7:30 & 9:30 PM
The Jazz Gallery
1158 Broadway (entrance on West 27th Street), NoMad, Manhattan
$20-$30
TICKETS + INFORMATION
Despite the venue’s name, don’t expect bassoonist Joy Guidry’s music to sound like jazz. This is experimental music, not only embracing liminality but taking joy in it.
MAKE A NIGHT OF IT: Subscriber GW (a bassoonist herself) says the DC original of José Andrés’s Medditerranean Zaytinya is her favorite restaurant. Maybe she’s right (I mean I’m sure she’s right it’s her favorite restaurant.)
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Thursday, December 8, 2022, 7:30 PM – 11:59 PM
MUSIC
Chamber Music Society of Lincoln Center: New Milestones: Interval
THURSDAY, DECEMBER 8, 2022
7:30 PM
Rose Studio, Juilliard School, Lincoln Center In Person & Live Stream
165 West 65th Street, Upper West Side, Manhattan
$38 in person; free live stream
TICKETS + INFORMATION
Christopher Cerrone. Hannah Kendall. Gity Razaz. Zosha Di Castri. More. Just go already.
MAKE A NIGHT OF IT: In person, this show should let out early enough to permit you to try Afro-Carribean Tatiana in David Geffen Hall! Streaming at home, have a Poet’s Dream: pour 2 oz. Gin, 3/4 oz. dry Vermouth, and 1/4 oz. Bénédictine, with 2 dashes of orange bitters, into an ice-filled cocktail shaker. Stir. Strain into a chilled Martini glass or coupe. Garnish with a lemon twist.
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Thursday, December 8, 2022, 7:30 PM – 11:59 PM
MUSIC
Bang on a Can Presents: RAJAS
THURSDAY, DECEMBER 8, 2022
7:30 PM
The Jewish Museum
1109 5th Avenue, Upper East Side, Manhattan
$22; $15 students/seniors
TICKETS + INFORMATION
Rajna Swaminathan, a multidisciplinary artist who wields a mean mrudangam, has assembled a disparate group of improvisors to make music of quiet intensity.
MAKE A NIGHT OF IT: Neighborhood bistro at Pascalou. (Table d’Hôte is better, but it closes too early.)
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Thursday, December 8, 2022, 7:30 PM – 11:59 PM
MUSIC
Diana Barco
THURSDAY, DECEMBER 8, 2022
7:30 PM
David Rubenstein Atrium, Lincoln Center
61 West 62nd Street, Upper West Side, Manhattan
Free
TICKETS + INFORMATION
Diana Burco brings her pop-vallenato (and her accordion) from Colombia, raising the question: why is their folk-pop so much better than ours?
MAKE A NIGHT OF IT: You can whine that Rosa Mexicano isn’t nearly as good as it used to be, and I’ll whine right along with you. But it isn’t affirmatively bad.
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Thu, Dec 8, 2022, 7:00 PM – Sun, Dec 11, 2022, 11:59 PM
DANCE / THEATER / PERFORMANCE
John Kelly: Underneath the Skin
THURSDAY – SUNDAY, DECEMBER 8 – 10, 2022 (continuing through DECEMBER 18)
7:00 PM THURSDAY – SATURDAY
2:00 PM SUNDAY
La MaMa
66 East 4th Street, East Village, Manhattan
$30; $25 students/seniors; $10 first 10 tickets to each performance
TICKETS + INFORMATION
Performance icon John Kelly’s exploration of the life and implications of Samuel Seward: tatoo artist, gay pornographer, sexual frontiersman.
MAKE A NIGHT OF IT: Go to Buenos Aires and either cheer with the soccer-mad crowd or console them, depending.
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Thursday, December 8, 2022, 7:00 PM – 11:59 PM
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Thu, Dec 8, 2022, 7:00 PM – Sat, Dec 10, 2022, 11:59 PM
THEATER
Shantelle Courvoisier Jackson: American Ghoul
THURSDAY – SATURDAY, DECEMBER 8 – 10, 2022
7:00 PM THURSDAY & SATURDAY
9:00 PM FRIDAY
Mabou Mines SUITE/Space 2022
150 First Avenue, East Village, Manhattan
$15-$25
TICKETS + INFORMATION
It’s about collective repression — but I’m betting it’ll be pretty exciting.
MAKE A NIGHT OF IT: Hot Portuguese chicken at Frangos Peri Peri.
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Thu, Dec 8, 2022, 4:30 PM – Sun, Dec 11, 2022, 11:59 PM
PERFORMANCE
Lightscape
THURSDAY – SUNDAY, DECEMBER 8 – 11, 2022 (continuing through JANUARY 8)
4:30 – 8:45 PM
Brooklyn Botanic Garden
990 Washington Avenue, across the street from Crown Heights, Brooklyn
$45 adult; $24 children 3-12; free babies 0-2
TICKETS + INFORMATION
Because this is Brooklyn, what you’d normally expect to be a corny set of light sculptures strewn throughout the Garden actually turns out to be kind of great.
MAKE A NIGHT OF IT: The Guadalajaran Tortas Ahogadas are unbelievably good at Cruz del Sur.
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Wed, Dec 7, 2022, 8:30 PM – Sat, Dec 10, 2022, 11:59 PM
PERFORMANCE
The Institute of Useless Actitivy: THIS and THAT
WEDNESDAY – SATURDAY, DECEMBER 7 – 10, 2022 (continuing through DECEMBER 17)
8:30 PM
HERE
145 6th Avenue (entrance on Dominick Street), Soho, Manhattan
$20; first 10 tickets to each show $10
TICKETS + INFORMATION
Having had a massive hit (for this kind of thing) at the tiny Chocolate Factory in LIC, The Institute of Useless Activity brings their cosmic stageshow to Here. It’s hard to describe beyond to say that its two guys using technology and stagecraft to mess with your head. And the first half or so of its hour-long run time is just magic. After that, when it devolves into a long series of hand-shadow puppets, things get old — at least if you’re as jaded as I am (or maybe I should say, as weed-averse). But people LOVE this — and that first half is pure magic.
MAKE A NIGHT OF IT: Sicilian at Piccolo Cucina Osteria.
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Wednesday, December 7, 2022, 8:00 PM – 11:59 PM
MUSIC
Chris LaButti/Alan Courtis & Loren Connors
WEDNESDAY, DECEMBER 7, 2022
8:00 PM
Shift
411 Kent Avenue, Williamsburg, Brooklyn
$15 per set
TICKETS + INFORMATION
An especially interesting night, even for the Shift series — especially if you like guitar. Chris LaButti constructs drones and noisy soundscapes with this guitar and other sonic materials. But the real interest tonight is the duo of Alain Courtis and Loren Connors. Connors is the space-blues guitarist, absolutely incomparable. He is also a Parkinsons sufferer — and he is joined by the Argentine guitarist/sound artist/composer Alan Courtis. Courtis is, among many things, a teacher of music to the developmentally disabled — best known for the legendary Argentine experimental band Reynols, beloved by both Sonic Youth and Pauline Oliveros, which he formed many years ago with student Miguel Tomasín, a drummer with Downs Syndrome whom you might have seen profiled in The Times last week.
MAKE A NIGHT OF IT: Incredibly fun Brazilian at Miss Favela.
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Wednesday, December 7, 2022, 8:00 PM – 11:59 PM
MUSIC
The Andy Statman Trio
WEDNESDAY, DECEMBER 7, 2022
8:00 PM
Barbès In Person & Live Stream
376 9th Street, Park Slope, Brooklyn
$20
TICKETS + INFORMATION
Andy Statman, a Klezmer musician playing avant-jazz (and Klezmer).
MAKE A NIGHT OF IT: In person, Modern Mexican at Fonda.
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Wednesday, December 7, 2022, 7:30 PM – 11:59 PM
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Wed, Dec 7, 2022, 7:30 PM – Sat, Dec 10, 2022, 11:59 PM
DANCE
Tere O’Connor: Rivulets
WEDNESDAY – SATURDAY, DECEMBER 7 – 10, 2022 (continuing through DECEMBER 17)
7:30 PM
Baryshnikov Arts Center
450 West 37th Street, Hell’s Kitchen, Manhattan
$25
TICKETS + INFORMATION
Choreographer Tere O’Connor makes a whole lot out of very little: his career has been an exploration of how to get maximal impact from minimal means.
MAKE A NIGHT OF IT: I’m not gonna stop pushing Central Asian powerhouse Farida until each and every one of you has gone there.
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Wednesday, December 7, 2022, 7:30 PM – 11:59 PM
OPERA
Kevin Puts: The Hours
WEDNESDAY & SATURDAY, DECEMBER 7 & 10, 2022 (continuing through DECEMBER 15)
7:30 PM WEDNESDAY
1:00 PM SATURDAY
Metropolitan Opera
30 Lincoln Center Plaza, Upper West Side, Manhattan
$49.50-$497.50
TICKETS + INFORMATION
Kevin Puts had a tremendous success ten years ago with Silent Night, an opera about the World War I Christmas Truce. If it was too conventional for me, what do I know, I’m only The Compiler? So now The Met has commissioned him to write an opera of the movie of Michael Cunningham’s novel (taking off from Mrs. Dalloway). And instead of the star trio of Meryl Streep, Julianne Moore, and Nicole Kidman, we get the opera equivalent: Renée Fleming, Joyce DiDonato, and Kelli O’Hara. OK, I have a bad feeling about this. But what do I know? I’m only The Compiler.
MAKE A NIGHT OF IT: Both P.J. Clarke’s and Cafe Fiorello are supposed to be open after the evening shows. The Saturday matinée poses no problem.
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Wed, Dec 7, 2022, 7:00 PM – Sun, Dec 11, 2022, 11:59 PM
THEATER
ONEOFUS: Dick Rivington & The Cat
WEDNESDAY – SUNDAY, DECEMBER 7 – 11, 2022 (continuing through DECEMBER 18)
7:00 PM WEDNESDAY – FRIDAY
4:00 PM SATURDAY & SUNDAY
Abrons Arts Center
466 Grand Street, Lower East Side, Manhattan
$36
TICKETS + INFORMATION
Julie Atlas Muz and Mat Fraser, legends in their own right, finally get to continue their program of bringing the Christmas Panto tradition to their Lower East Side neighborhood. These shows are uproriously funny, incredibly fun, totally endearing — and, in the end, rather uplifting. (Oh no they’re not!) (Oh yes they are!)
MAKE A NIGHT OF IT: Wednesday through Friday, OF COURSE you’re going to Ernesto’s for great Basque. Saturday and Sunday, daytime Malaysian at Kopitiam.
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Wednesday, December 7, 2022, 7:00 PM – 11:59 PM
MUSIC
Gauci Music: Improvised Music At The Main Drag
WEDNESDAY, DECEMBER 7, 2022
7:00 PM
Main Drag Music
50 South First Street, Williamsburg, Brooklyn
$20
TICKETS + INFORMATION
If you knew that Elliot Sharp and William Parker were going to be somewhere (playing), you’d want to be there, too, right?
MAKE A NIGHT OF IT: Outrageously good pub grub at Meckelburg’s.
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Wed, Dec 7, 2022, 7:00 PM – Sat, Dec 10, 2022, 11:59 PM
DANCE
Ivy Baldwin: Folds
WEDNESDAY – SATURDAY, DECEMBER 7 – 10, 2022 (continuing through DECEMBER 17)
7:00 PM
Chocolate Factory
38-33 24th Street, Long Island City, Queens
$20
TICKETS + INFORMATION
Ivy Baldwin is just what the Chocolate Factory is about (and just what this List is about): challenging work that doesn’t forget to be fun.
MAKE A NIGHT OF IT: Fall really is the best time at the wonderful Québécois bistro M. Wells.
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Tue, Dec 6, 2022, 8:00 PM – Wed, Dec 7, 2022, 11:59 PM
MUSIC
LCD Sound System
TUESDAY – WEDNESDAY & FRIDAY – SUNDAY, DECEMBER 6 – 7 & 9 – 11, 2022 (continuing through DECEMBER 17)
8:00 PM
Brooklyn Steel
319 Frost Street, Williamsburg, Brooklyn
Dynamic Pricing: I honestly have no idea
TICKETS + INFORMATION
LCD Sound System — still somewhat cool, if not absolutely encapsulating the moment as in their heyday — make another attempt at a late Fall month-long residency, after last year’s failed for reasons you may remember.
MAKE A NIGHT OF IT: James Murphy would want you to go spend more money on him at his (great) wine bar The Four Horsemen.
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Tue, Dec 6, 2022, 8:00 PM – Thu, Dec 8, 2022, 11:59 PM
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Tuesday, December 6, 2022, 7:00 PM – 11:59 PM
MUSIC
Chamber Music Society of Lincoln Center feat. Anthony Roth Costanzo: Handel and Vivaldi
TUESDAY, DECEMBER 6, 2022
7:00 PM
Alice Tully Hall
1941 Broadway, Upper West Side, Manhattan
$83-$137
TICKETS + INFORMATION
The prospect of Handel and especially Vivaldi being played on modern instruments is not very appealing. The prospect of Handel being sung by countertenor Anthony Roth Costanzo is very appealing indeed.
MAKE A NIGHT OF IT: More-than-adequate bistro at Bar Boulud.
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Tue, Dec 6, 2022, 10:00 AM – Sun, Dec 11, 2022, 11:59 PM
MUSIC / PERFORMANCE
Gelsey Bell & Joseph White: Meander
TUESDAY – SUNDAY, DECEMBER 6 – 11, 2022 (ongoing)
10:00 AM – 3:00 PM
Brooklyn Botanic Garden
150 Eastern Parkway, across the street from Prospect Heights, Brooklyn
$18; $12 students/seniors; free children under 12
TICKETS + INFORMATION
Having created a wonderful sound walk through Green-Wood Cemetery, the dream team of Gelsey Bell and Joe White do the same for the Brooklyn Botanic Garden (one of my favorite places on earth, if you want to know). The soundtrack is available on the BBG website.
MAKE A NIGHT OF IT: New Orleans at Lowerline.
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Mon, Dec 5, 2022, 9:00 PM – Tue, Dec 6, 2022, 11:59 PM
DANCE / THEATER / PERFORMANCE
Glenn Potter-Takata: Yonsei F*ck F*ck
MONDAY & TUESDAY, DECEMBER 5 & 6, 2022
9:00 PM
Mabou Mines SUITE/Space 2022
150 First Avenue, East Village, Manhattan
$15-$25
TICKETS + INFORMATION
So here’s the premise for this piece told through mutated Butoh ritualistic forms: in some alternative universe, the cultural erasure stemming from Japanese-American internment during WWII has been overcorrected, so that the detritus of Japanese popular culture has assumed the cultural significance of Buddhas and Bodhisattvas. Wait, are you saying that didn’t actually happen?
MAKE A NIGHT OF IT: Especially hearty ramen at Misoya.
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Mon, Dec 5, 2022, 8:00 PM – Tue, Dec 6, 2022, 11:59 PM
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Mon, Dec 5, 2022, 8:00 PM – Sat, Dec 10, 2022, 11:59 PM
THEATER
Bailey Williams: EVENTS
MONDAY – SATURDAY, DECEMBER 5 – 10, 2022 (continuing through DECEMBER 18)
8:00 PM
The Brick
579 Metropolitan Avenue, Williamsburg, Brooklyn
$15-$40
TICKETS + INFORMATION
It has to do with itching. And eggs.
MAKE A NIGHT OF IT: Excellent Roman pinsa at Montesacro.
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Monday, December 5, 2022, 7:00 PM – 11:59 PM
MUSIC
Ilsusha & Gocha Tsinadze
MONDAY, DECEMBER 5, 2022
7:00 PM
Barbès
376 9th Street, Park Slope, Brooklyn
$15
TICKETS + INFORMATION
Modern Georgian!
MAKE A NIGHT OF IT: I only wish there were some Georgian restaurant nearby to send you to. Instead I’ll ask you to try Mikhuy Peruvian and let me know how it is.
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Mon, Dec 5, 2022, 7:00 PM – Wed, Dec 7, 2022, 11:59 PM
MUSIC / DANCE / PERFORMANCE
Mary Prescott: Tida
MONDAY – WEDNESDAY, DECEMBER 5 – 7, 2022
7:00 PM
Mabou Mines SUITE/Space 2022
150 First Avenue, East Village, Manhattan
$15-$25
TICKETS + INFORMATION
Mary Prescott — whose music is engaging without being cliched — examines her mother’s experience as a Thai immigrant raising biracial children in the American Midwest.
MAKE A NIGHT OF IT: My friends are still raving about the Southern Thai at MayRee.
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Mon, Dec 5, 2022, 12:00 PM – Sun, Dec 11, 2022, 11:59 PM
MUSIC / PERFORMANCE
Julian Rosefeldt: EUPHORIA
MONDAY – SUNDAY, DECEMBER 5 – 11, 2022 (continuing through JANUARY 8)
12:00 – 8:00 PM MONDAY – THURSDAY
12:00 – 10:00 PM FRIDAY & SATURDAY
11:00 – 3:00 PM SUNDAY
Park Avenue Armory
643 Park Avenue, Upper East Side, Manhattan
$18
TICKETS + INFORMATION
A film installation (you enter when you want; an entire loop takes about 2 hours) involving chorus, a phalanx of famous jazz drummers, and philosophical and social ruminations — in surround.
MAKE A NIGHT OF IT: Back to Donahue’s Steak House (not really a steakhouse) for more Mad Men larping. If you go early, you might want to skip a Martini — unimaginable as that might be.
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Mon, Dec 5, 2022, 8:00 AM – Sun, Dec 11, 2022, 11:59 PM
MUSIC / PERFORMANCE
Gelsey Bell feat. Joseph White: Cairns
MONDAY – SUNDAY, DECEMBER 5 – 11, 2022 (ongoing)
8:00 AM – 5:00 PM
#stillHERE IRL
Green-Wood Cemetery, Sunset Park Entrance
35th Street at 4th Avenue, Greenwood Heights, Brooklyn
$7 or more for soundtrack
TICKETS + INFORMATION
One of the first shows during Quarantine that you could actually Go Out! to back in the days of The Lockdown (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 (whose terrific new album you really ought to hear). 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, Dec 5, 2022, 6:00 AM – Sun, Dec 11, 2022, 11:59 PM
MUSIC / PERFORMANCE
Ellen Reid: SOUNDWALK
MONDAY – SUNDAY, DECEMBER 5 – 11, 2022 (ongoing)
6:00 AM – 1:00 AM
New York Philharmonic
Central Park, Manhattan
Free (registration required)
TICKETS + INFORMATION
The New York Phil hops aboard the walk-around-the-landscaped-space-with-soundtrack train. 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, December 4, 2022, 8:30 PM – 11:59 PM
MUSIC
William Hooker, Adam Lane & Hans Tammen
SUNDAY, DECEMBER 4, 2022
8:30 PM
Scholes Street Studio
375 Lorimer Street, Williamsburg, Brooklyn
Price Unspecified
TICKETS + INFORMATION
Any chance to hear Free drummer William Hooker is worth taking.
MAKE A NIGHT OF IT: Good Peruvian at Warique Garden.
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Sunday, December 4, 2022, 8:00 PM – 11:59 PM
MUSIC
gamin: Nong
SUNDAY, DECEMBER 4, 2022
8:00 PM
Roulette In Person & Live Stream
509 Atlantic Avenue (entrance on Third Avenue), Boerum Hill, Brooklyn
$25 advance in person; $30 door in person; $20 student/seniors at door in person; free live stream
TICKETS + INFORMATION
Avant-Korean reeds player gamin has quietly established herself over the last few years as one of the most consistently interesting musicians in New York. And this is one of her most expansive programs yet, involving at various points a string quartet and electronics.
MAKE A NIGHT OF IT: In person, outstanding Palestinian at AlBadawi. Streaming at home, have a Bamboo: pour 1-1/2 oz. each of dry Vermouth and Sherry (I prefer Fino in this), with 2 dashes of Angostura bitters, into an ice-filled cocktail shaker. Stir. Strain into a chilled Martini glass or coupe. Express a lemon twist in to the drink and use as garnish. Also garnish with an olive.
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Sunday, December 4, 2022, 7:30 PM – 11:59 PM
MUSIC
An Orchestral Tribute to The Notorious B.I.G.
SUNDAY, DECEMBER 4, 2022
7:30 PM
David Geffen Hall, Lincoln Center
10 Lincoln Center Plaza, Upper West Side, Manhattan
$105
TICKETS + INFORMATION
God only knows what this orchestral tribute to the great Brooklyn rapper — I mean really great — will be like. Well, God and the people who saw this show over the Summer when it was given outside for free.
MAKE A NIGHT OF IT: Biggie himself would have gone back to Clinton Hill for a T-Bone steak, cheese eggs, and Welch’s grape at the Country House Diner. But we’ll stay in this area for a Cadillac Burger at P.J. Clarke’s, of which I’m sure Mr. Wallace would have fully approved.
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Sunday, December 4, 2022, 7:00 PM – 11:59 PM
DANCE / THEATER / PERFORMANCE
Glenn Potter-Takata: Yonsei F*ck F*ck
SUNDAY, DECEMBER 4, 2022 (continuing through DECEMBER 6)
7:00 PM
Mabou Mines SUITE/Space 2022
150 First Avenue, East Village, Manhattan
$15-$25
TICKETS + INFORMATION
So here’s the premise for this piece told through mutated Butoh ritualistic forms: in some alternative universe, the cultural erasure stemming from Japanese-American internment during WWII has been overcorrected, so that the detritus of Japanese popular culture has assumed the cultural significance of Buddhas and Bodhisattvas. Wait, are you saying that didn’t actually happen?
MAKE A NIGHT OF IT: Especially hearty ramen at Misoya.
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Sunday, December 4, 2022, 7:00 PM – 11:59 PM
MUSIC
Slow Spaces Collective feat. Benoît Pioulard, BlankFor.ms, Chet Doxas, Hotel Neon, Lowercase Noises, Micah Frank, Slow Meadow
SUNDAY, DECEMBER 4, 2022
7:00 PM
Public Records
233 Butler Street, Gowanus, Brooklyn
$23.69
TICKETS + INFORMATION
A few hours of spacey music — including by the Abbess Hildegard (that’s what we all called her before she was promoted to Saint). That’s just what this List is about!
MAKE A NIGHT OF IT: Nice Korean at Insa (as always, stay out of the ugly noisy dining room and opt for the plush bar/lounge).
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Sunday, December 4, 2022, 5:00 PM – 11:59 PM
MUSIC
Chamber Music Society of Lincoln Center feat. Anthony Roth Costanzo: Handel and Vivaldi
SUNDAY, DECEMBER 4, 2022
5:00 PM
Alice Tully Hall
1941 Broadway, Upper West Side, Manhattan
$172-$226
TICKETS + INFORMATION
The prospect of Handel and especially Vivaldi on modern instruments is not very appealing. The prospect of Handel sung by countertenor Anthony Roth Costanzo is very appealing indeed.
MAKE A NIGHT OF IT: French sandwiches and snacks at Épicere Boulud.
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Sunday, December 4, 2022, 3:00 PM – 11:59 PM
MUSIC
Ras Moshe: Music Now!
SUNDAY, DECEMBER 4, 2022
3:00 PM
Scholes Street Studio
375 Lorimer Street, Williamsburg, Brooklyn
$10
TICKETS + INFORMATION
Saxophonist Ras Moshe is free in more ways than the usual. He assembles a massive list of fellow explorers he’s worked with over the years. And BANG.
MAKE A NIGHT OF IT: Light Taiwanese at Win Son Bakery.
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Sunday, December 4, 2022, 3:00 PM – 11:59 PM
OPERA
Kevin Puts: The Hours
MONDAY, THURSDAY & SUNDAY, NOVEMBER 28 & DECEMBER 1 & 4, 2022 (continuing through DECEMBER 15)
8:00 PM MONDAY
7:00 PM THURSDAY
3:00 PM SUNDAY
Metropolitan Opera
30 Lincoln Center Plaza, Upper West Side, Manhattan
$49.50-$497.50
TICKETS + INFORMATION
Kevin Puts had a tremendous success ten years ago with Silent Night, an opera about the World War I Christmas Truce. If it was too conventional for me, what do I know, I’m only The Compiler? So now The Met has commissioned him to write an opera of the movie of Michael Cunningham’s novel (taking off from Mrs. Dalloway). And instead of the star trio of Meryl Streep, Julianne Moore, and Nicole Kidman, we get the opera equivalent: Renée Fleming, Joyce DiDonato, and Kelli O’Hara. OK, I have a bad feeling about this. But what do I know? I’m only The Compiler.
MAKE A NIGHT OF IT: Both P.J. Clarke’s and Cafe Fiorello are supposed to be open after the evening shows (although of the two only P.J. Clarke’s is actually good). The Sunday matinée poses no problem.
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Sunday, December 4, 2022, 2:00 PM – 11:59 PM
MUSIC
JIJI
SUNDAY, DECEMBER 4, 2022
2:00 PM
East Meadow Public Library In Person & Live Stream
1886 Front Street, East Meadow, Nassau County
Free
TICKETS + INFORMATION
JIJI is a stunningly good classical guitarist. But what’s really great about her is the reach of her repertoire (she plays electric, too).
MAKE A NIGHT OF IT: In person, before the show, Mexican at Margaritas Cafe. After, it may well be worth sticking around for a visit to Garden Social Beer Garden & Kitchen. Streaming at home, have an Abbey Cocktail: pour 1-1/2 oz. Gin and 3/4 oz. Tempus Fugit Kina l’Aero d’Or (or Cocchi Americano) (or — not as good — Lillet Blanc) and orange juice, with two dashes of orange bitters, into an ice-filled cocktail shaker. Shake. Strain into a chilled Martini glass or coupe. Garnish with a cocktail cherry.
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Sunday, December 4, 2022, 2:00 PM – 11:59 PM
MUSIC
Michael Hearst: The Unusual, Extraordinary, Curious, and Unconventional Songbook
SUNDAY, DECEMBER 4, 2022
2:00 PM
Barbès
376 9th Street, Park Slope, Brooklyn
$15
TICKETS + INFORMATION
Michael Hearst bills himself as writing children’s music. But what he really writes is semi-classical chamber pop of enormous charm and appeal.
MAKE A NIGHT OF IT: It’s the weekend: you can be at Reyes Deli & Grocery when they serve their barbacoa and goat stew tacos and their tamales!
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Saturday, December 3, 2022, 10:30 PM – 11:59 PM
MUSIC
TAK Ensemble
SATURDAY, DECEMBER 3, 2022
10:30 PM
Kravis Nightcap
Kenneth C. Griffin Sidewalk Studio, David Geffen Hall
10 Lincoln Center Plaza, Upper West Side, Manhattan
$35
TICKETS + INFORMATION
The TAK Ensemble doing a new piece by Tyshawn Sorey! What are you waiting for?
MAKE A NIGHT OF IT: P.J. Clarke’s claim they will still be open after this show. Do they mean it? Only one way to find out (unfortunately).
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Saturday, December 3, 2022, 10:00 PM – 11:59 PM
MUSIC
Juan Atkins
SATURDAY, DECEMBER 3, 2022
10:00 PM
H0L0
1090 Wyckoff Avenue, Ridgewood, Queens
$25; $80 for 4 people
TICKETS + INFORMATION
Respect: one of the Techno ancestors — a person whose influence on late 20th Century music is incalculable — returns to New York.
MAKE A NIGHT OF IT: The Nepalese-New York fusion you didn’t know you wanted at While in Kathmandu.
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Saturday, December 3, 2022, 8:00 PM – 11:59 PM
PERFORMANCE
Kiki & Herb: Do You Hear What We Hear?
SATURDAY, DECEMBER 3, 2022
8:00 PM
Beacon Theater
2124 Broadway, Upper West Side, Manhattan
$61-$153
TICKETS + INFORMATION
Things tend to get worse. But the resumption of Kiki & Herb’s Christmas shows, after a long hiatus during which it appeared they’d never do them again: that’s a change for the better! I will poison their resumed professional relationship by asking in particular: could Justin Vivian Bond be any more awesome?
MAKE A NIGHT OF IT: Georgian fave Chama Mama has opened an UWS branch!
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Saturday, December 3, 2022, 8:00 PM – 11:59 PM
MUSIC
Anthony Coleman/Whit Dickey feat. Tony Malaby, Matthew Shipp & Brandon Lopez: “Root Perspectives” Record Release
SATURDAY, DECEMBER 3, 2022
8:00 PM
Shift
411 Kent Avenue, Williamsburg, Brooklyn
$15
TICKETS + INFORMATION
Anthony Coleman, whose activities range from avant-jazz to avant-Jew, plays what looks like it’ll be a solo set. Free Jazz drummer Whit Dickey comes with a band (supporting a new album) that you might notice is spectacular.
MAKE A NIGHT OF IT: Incredibly fun Brazilian at Miss Favela.
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Saturday, December 3, 2022, 8:00 PM – 11:59 PM
MUSIC
Opera on Tap: New Brew: The Fairytale Show!
SATURDAY, DECEMBER 3, 2022
8:00 PM
Barbès
376 9th Street, Park Slope, Brooklyn
$20
TICKETS + INFORMATION
New and recent songs addressing or growing out of fantasy and fairy tails.
MAKE A NIGHT OF IT: Here’s a fairly tale: you can go to Indian sensation Masalawala & Sons and actually get in!
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Saturday, December 3, 2022, 7:30 PM – 11:59 PM
MUSIC
Henry Threadgill & Zooid feat. International Contemporary Ensemble: Pathways
SATURDAY, DECEMBER 3, 2022
7:30 PM
Skirball Center, NYU
566 Laguardia Place, Greenwich Village, Manhattan
$25
TICKETS + INFORMATION
Composer/reedsman Henry Threadgill is another person who has a very strong claim to Greatest Currently Active American Musician. His works come out of (and strongly grasp) the Jazz Tradition, but they are at a point of personal distinctiveness and technical accomplishment (always kept rough) that demand to be considered free of bounds of genre. With the nonpareil International Contemporary Ensemble joining in, this new long-form piece should be compelling indeed.
MAKE A NIGHT OF IT: Marc Forgione (feat. father Larry Forgione)’s new Italian venture at One Fifth looks pretty boring. But I’ll bet there’s no way it’s bad.
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Saturday, December 3, 2022, 7:30 PM – 11:59 PM
MUSIC
Pas Musique: Cluttered Tables
SATURDAY, DECEMBER 3, 2022
7:30 PM
Hart Bar
538 Hart Street, Bushwick, Brooklyn
$10
TICKETS + INFORMATION
Something billed as “a night of synths, wires, and barely tolerable people” (they forgot to mention the visuals)? Count me in!
MAKE A NIGHT OF IT: I very strongly recommend the cocktails at the venue, the Hart Bar. For something more solid, cool VIetnamese at Little Mo.
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Saturday, December 3, 2022, 7:30 PM – 11:59 PM
OPERA
Lully: Idylle sur la Pais/Charpentier: La Fête de Rueil
SATURDAY, DECEMBER 3, 2022
7:30 PM
Boston Early Music Festival
Morgan Library
225 Madison Avenue, Murray Hill, Manhattan
$65
TICKETS + INFORMATION
Pastorales by the two best theatrical composers of the French Baroque. If this isn’t absolutely delightful, I’ll eat my tricorne.
MAKE A NIGHT OF IT: TV (television, not transvestite) ramen at Momosan.
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Saturday, December 3, 2022, 7:30 PM – 11:59 PM
MUSIC
Margaret Leng Tan
SATURDAY, DECEMBER 3, 2022
7:30 PM
National Sawdust
80 North 6th Street, Williamsburg, Brooklyn
$25
TICKETS + INFORMATION
Toy piano goddess Margaret Leng Tan (she plays other kinds of piano, too) pays tribute to the late composer George Crumb — who wrote some really great piano music — and his late pianist wife, Elizabeth May Brown. There’ll also be some Hans Otte, a Minimalist we should be hearing a whole lot more of than we do.
MAKE A NIGHT OF IT: Very good French bistro at Le Crocodile.
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Saturday, December 3, 2022, 7:30 PM – 11:59 PM
MUSIC
Kaitlyn Aurelia Smith/Rachika Nayar
SATURDAY, DECEMBER 3, 2022
7:30 PM
Elsewhere
599 Johnson Avenue, Bushwick, Brooklyn
$22
TICKETS + INFORMATION
Kaitlyn Aurelia Smith is a huge personal favorite of this List, with her personal distinctive synth sound that radiates wholeness. Rachika Nayar has turned to a style that creates cascades of syntheseized sound that are nearly overwhelming.
MAKE A NIGHT OF IT: All the mead you want at Honey’s.
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Saturday, December 3, 2022, 7:00 PM – 11:59 PM
MUSIC
Spectral: Resina & Aho Ssan/Kamran Sadeghi
SATURDAY, DECEMBER 3, 2022
7:00 PM
Public Records
233 Butler Street, Gowanus, Brooklyn
Free-$20.80
TICKETS + INFORMATION
If you missed the Polish-French electronics duo of Resina and Aho Ssan at Lincoln Center a few nights ago, here’s your chance to hear them in more congenial surroundings.
MAKE A NIGHT OF IT: Chicago Italian Beef at Bobbi’s Italian Beef.
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Sat, Dec 3, 2022, 2:00 PM – Sun, Dec 4, 2022, 11:59 PM
PERFORMANCE
R&R Productions: Peter Pans3xual
SATURDAY & SUNDAY, DECEMBER 3 & 4, 2022 (continuing through DECEMEBER 12)
2:00 PM SATURDAY
12:00 PM SUNDAY
Don’t Tell Mama
343 West 46th Street, Hell’s Kitchen, Manhattan
$30
TICKETS + INFORMATION
Another attempt to transplant Christmas Panto to New York. This one looks a lot gayer than Julie Atlas Muz and Mat Fraser’s downtown at Abrons (well I mean Pantos always had cross-dressing!). And probably not as uplifiting.
MAKE A NIGHT OF IT: There’s a $20 minimum at the venue. But I’d advise you to drink it and grab something solid across the street at Dim Sum Palace.
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Fri, Dec 2, 2022, 10:30 PM – Sat, Dec 3, 2022, 11:59 PM
THEATER
NY Neo-Futurists: The Infinite Wrench
FRIDAY & SATURDAY, DECEMBER 2 & 3, 2022 (ongoing)
10:30 PM
Kraine Theater
85 East 4th Street, East Village, Manhattan
$20; $10 students
TICKETS + INFORMATION
Theater for people who think they don’t like theater. Thirty short plays crammed into an hour, semi-improvised, semi-not, non-illusionistic, spur-of-the-moment, real (whatever that means).
MAKE A NIGHT OF IT: I dunno why, but it seems like you’d go to Phebe’s.
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Fri, Dec 2, 2022, 8:00 PM – Sun, Dec 4, 2022, 11:59 PM
MUSIC
LCD Sound System
TUESDAY – WEDNESDAY & FRIDAY – SUNDAY, NOVEMBER 29 – 30 & DECEMBER 2 – 4, 2022 (continuing through DECEMBER 17)
8:00 PM
Brooklyn Steel
319 Frost Street, Williamsburg, Brooklyn
Dynamic Pricing: I honestly have no idea
TICKETS + INFORMATION
LCD Sound System — still somewhat cool, if not absolutely encapsulating the moment as in their heyday — make another attempt at a late Fall month-long residency, after last year’s failed for reasons you may remember.
MAKE A NIGHT OF IT: James Murphy would want you to go spend more money on him at his (great) wine bar The Four Horsemen.
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Fri, Dec 2, 2022, 8:00 PM – Sun, Dec 4, 2022, 11:59 PM
PERFORMANCE
ABCirque: Was Me, Is Me
FRIDAY – SUNDAY, DECEMBER 2 – 4, 2022
8:00 PM FRIDAY & SATURDAY
8:30 PM SUNDAY
The Muse
350 Moffat Street, Bushwick, Brooklyn
$30 advance; $40 door
TICKETS + INFORMATION
Women’s life experiences, explored through circus/physical theater.
MAKE A NIGHT OF IT: Witching Hour: an actually good bar.
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Fri, Dec 2, 2022, 7:30 PM – Sun, Dec 4, 2022, 11:59 PM
THEATER
Jaime Lozano: Desaparecidas
FRIDAY – SUNDAY, DECEMBER 2 – 4, 2022 (continuing through DECEMBER 18)
7:30 PM FRIDAY & SATURDAY
2:00 PM SUNDAY
JACK
20 Putnam Avenue, Clinton Hill, Brooklyn
$20
TICKETS + INFORMATION
A “state fair-concert musical” (that sounds cheery) about the disappearances of hundreds of women and girls from Juarez (oops). Composer Jaime Lozano is someone you should be watching.
MAKE A NIGHT OF IT: Outrageously good pub grub at Meckelberg’s.
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Fri, Dec 2, 2022, 7:30 PM – Sat, Dec 3, 2022, 11:59 PM
MUSIC
Caroline Davis & Play Beings
FRIDAY & SATURDAY, DECEMBER 2 & 3, 2022
7:30 & 9:30 PM
The Jazz Gallery In Person & SATURDAY Live Stream
1158 Broadway (entrance on West 27th Street), NoMad, Manhattan
$30-$40 in person; $20 live stream
TICKETS + INFORMATION
I’ve been crazy about the music of alto saxophonist Caroline Davis since I heard her last album, Alula. This is someone who is very attuned to contemporary electronic textures of the more expansive type. Intriguingly, her terrific band tonight includes a coder.
MAKE A NIGHT OF IT: In person, José Andés Mediterranean at Zaytinya. Streaming at home, have a Vieux Carré: pour 3/4 oz. each of Rye, Cognac, and sweet Vermouth, and 1/2 oz. Bénédictine, with 2 dashes each of Angostura and Peychaud’s bitters, into an ice-filled cocktail shaker. Strain into an Old Fashioned glass over ice. Garnish with a cocktail cherry (some people use a lemon twist, but we know better than that).
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Friday, December 2, 2022, 7:30 PM – 11:59 PM
MUSIC
Nicolás Jaar: Weavings
FRIDAY, DECEMBER 2, 2022
7:30 PM
Unsound Festival
Alice Tully Hall
1941 Broadway, Upper West Side, Manhattan
$30-$75
TICKETS + INFORMATION
This piece started out as a Pandemic-era online collaboration, where experimental artists throughout the world weaved in an out of the structure created by stone electronics genius Nicolás Jaar. Now he takes it to the stage — with a panoply of local and international experimental stars joining him live.
MAKE A NIGHT OF IT: Pan-Mediterranean at Boulud Sud.
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Friday, December 2, 2022, 7:30 PM – 11:59 PM
MUSIC
Brooklyn Art Song Society: The World at War: Hollywooder Liederbuch
FRIDAY, DECEMBER 2, 2022
7:30 PM
First Unitarian Church of Brooklyn
119 Pierrepont Street, Brooklyn Heights, Brooklyn
$35
TICKETS + INFORMATION
This List will always be good for a recommendation of the work of two displacedGermanCommiesstuck in L.A.
MAKE A NIGHT OF IT: So by far the best restaurant in Brooklyn Heights, Inga’s Bar.
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Friday, December 2, 2022, 7:30 PM – 11:59 PM
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Thursday, December 1, 2022, 8:00 PM – 11:59 PM
MUSIC
Sydney Spann & Kiera Mulhern
THURSDAY, DECEMBER 1, 2022
8:00 PM
ISSUE Project Room @ MITU580
580 Sackett Street, Gowanus, Brooklyn
Free ($10 suggested donation)
TICKETS + INFORMATION
Sound artist/musicians Sydney Spann and Kiera Mulhern — both of whose sensibilities are informed by their work as nannies — present field recordings from the Battery Park CIty ferry dock, sounds generated by themselves, and electronics.
MAKE A NIGHT OF IT: Hard not to send you down the block for vaguely Mediterranish food from the big oven at Victor.
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Thursday, December 1, 2022, 8:00 PM – 11:59 PM
MUSIC
Hélène Grimaud
THURSDAY, DECEMBER 1, 2022
8:00 PM
Carnegie Hall
881 Seventh Avenue, Midtown, Manhattan
$23-$99
TICKETS + INFORMATION
The incisive pianist (and wolf whisperer) Hélène Grimaud throws a bunch of Satie and Valentin Silvestrov (lots of him around tonight) into the mix along with the Chopin and Debussy and (if she must) Schumann.
MAKE A NIGHT OF IT: Unlikely (but deserving) hotspot Russian Samovar (after tonight’s Silvestrov I feel constrained to observe that this onetime dissident den is on the right side of the Ukrainian conflict).
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Thu, Dec 1, 2022, 8:00 PM – Sat, Dec 3, 2022, 11:59 PM
DANCE
Sally Silvers: Pandora’s New Cake Stain
THURSDAY – SATURDAY, DECEMBER 1 – 3, 2022
8:00 PM
Roulette
509 Atlantic Avenue (entrance on Third Avenue), Boerum Hill, Brooklyn
$25 advance ; $30 door; $20 students/seniors at door
TICKETS + INFORMATION
Choreographer Sally Silvers revisits her 1986 breakthrough (THIS piece of the ‘80s is worth revisiting!), a take on (or rather a takeoff from) Berg-out-of-Wendekind’s Lulu. Don’t expect anything too close. Do expect something pretty fabulous.
MAKE A NIGHT OF IT: Excellent cocktails, and really quite good seafood, at Grand Army Bar.
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Thu, Dec 1, 2022, 8:00 PM – Sat, Dec 3, 2022, 11:59 PM
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Thursday, December 1, 2022, 7:30 PM – 11:59 PM
MUSIC
J’Nai Bridges
THURSDAY, DECEMBER 1, 2022
7:30 PM
92nd Street Y In Person & Live Stream
1395 Lexington Avenue, Upper East Side, Manhattan
$35-$50 in person; $20 age 40 and under in person; $25 live stream
TICKETS + INFORMATION
Mezzo J’Nai Bridges is a fabulous singer. Aided by pianist Mark Markham and the Catalyst Quartet, she sings some new Carlos Simon (what a powerful composer!) and new and newish Jimmy López (whose opera Bel Canto — Bridges was great in it — was maybe a little lush for my taste but you can’t deny its quality). But for once it’s the old stuff that’s of most interest here: Falla’s delightful Seven Popular Spanish Songs and John Carter’s Cantata. Cantata is amazing: Carter published only that one single work, but that spiritual-based composition is so good, so fine you’d wish you could hear it like daily.
MAKE A NIGHT OF IT: In person, hugely enjoyable South African wine and food at Kaia Wine Bar. Streaming at home, have a Boulevardier: pour 1 oz. each of Bourbon, sweet Vermouth, and Campari into an ice-filled cocktail shaker. Stir. Strain into a chilled Martini glass or coupe (you can also drink it over ice in an Old Fashioned glass). Garnish with a lemon twist.
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Thursday, December 1, 2022, 7:30 PM – 11:59 PM
MUSIC
Resina & Aho Ssan: Ego Death/Antonina Nowacka
THURSDAY, DECEMBER 1, 2022
7:30 PM
Unsound Festival
David Rubenstein Atrium, Lincoln Center
61 West 62nd Street, Upper West Side, Manhattan
Free
TICKETS + INFORMATION
It only figures that a great Polish experimental music festival would showcase some experimental musicians from Poland (and a non-Polish friend).
MAKE A NIGHT OF IT: You can whine that Rosa Mexicano isn’t nearly as good as it used to be, and I’ll whine right along with you. But it isn’t affirmatively bad.
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Thursday, December 1, 2022, 7:30 PM – 11:59 PM
MUSIC
Boris Berman: Works by Valentin Silvestrov
THURSDAY, DECEMBER 1, 2022
7:30 PM
Baryshnikov Arts Center
450 West 37th Street, Hell’s Kitchen, Manhattan
$25
TICKETS + INFORMATION
The Ukrainian Valentin Silvestrov — whose music radiates serene calm (admittedly subject to agitation) in the midst of God knows what — was one of the world’s most undernoticed great composers. Until now. I doubt he thinks it’s worth it. The excellent ex-Russian pianist Boris Berman — the kind of Russian pianist who has a brain as well as fingers — will show you why should have been loving Silvestrov all along.
MAKE A NIGHT OF IT: I’m not gonna stop pushing Central Asian powerhouse Farida until each and every one of you has gone there.
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Thu, Dec 1, 2022, 7:30 PM – Sat, Dec 3, 2022, 11:59 PM
DANCE
Emmanuel Gat: LOVETRAIN2020
THURSDAY – SATURDAY, DECEMBER 1 – 3, 2022
7:30 PM
BAM Opera House
30 Lafayette Avenue, Fort Greene, Brooklyn
$34-$95
TICKETS + INFORMATION
Why anyone would want to relive the ‘80s is beyond me. (Or, for that matter, 2020.) But if you do, here’s your chance.
MAKE A NIGHT OF IT: Oma Grassa pizza is on fire (I mean not literally).
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Thursday, December 1, 2022, 7:00 PM – 11:59 PM
DANCE
Neilma Sydney Dance Theater: In the Valley Pools our Sorrow
THURSDAY, DECEMBER 1, 2022
7:00 PM
Octopus
Performance Space New York
150 1st Avenue, East Village, Manhattan
$15
TICKETS + INFORMATION
Clubs as communal spaces of care, emotion, and expression. I’m ancient, but I remember when clubbing used to be fun.
MAKE A NIGHT OF IT: Go to Hearth and have a Variety Burger. You’ll feel better.
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Thu, Dec 1, 2022, 7:00 PM – Sun, Dec 4, 2022, 11:59 PM
DANCE / THEATER / PERFORMANCE
John Kelly: Underneath the Skin
THURSDAY – SUNDAY, DECEMBER 1 – 4, 2022 (continuing through DECEMBER 18)
7:00 PM THURSDAY – SATURDAY
2:00 PM SUNDAY
La MaMa
66 East 4th Street, East Village, Manhattan
$30; $25 students/seniors; $10 first 10 tickets to each performance
TICKETS + INFORMATION
Performance icon John Kelly’s exploration of the life and implications of Samuel Seward: tatoo artist, gay pornographer, sexual frontiersman.
MAKE A NIGHT OF IT: Go to Buenos Aires and either cheer with the soccer-mad clientele or console them, depending (it’s been a roller coaster ride so far).
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Thursday, December 1, 2022, 7:00 PM – 11:59 PM
OPERA
Kevin Puts: The Hours
MONDAY, THURSDAY & SUNDAY, NOVEMBER 28 & DECEMBER 1 & 4, 2022 (continuing through DECEMBER 15)
8:00 PM MONDAY
7:00 PM THURSDAY
3:00 PM SUNDAY
Metropolitan Opera
30 Lincoln Center Plaza, Upper West Side, Manhattan
$49.50-$497.50
TICKETS + INFORMATION
Kevin Puts had a tremendous success ten years ago with Silent Night, an opera about the World War I Christmas Truce. If it was too conventional for me, what do I know, I’m only The Compiler? So now The Met has commissioned him to write an opera of the movie of Michael Cunningham’s novel (taking off from Mrs. Dalloway). And instead of the star trio of Meryl Streep, Julianne Moore, and Nicole Kidman, we get the opera equivalent: Renée Fleming, Joyce DiDonato, and Kelli O’Hara. OK, I have a bad feeling about this. But what do I know? I’m only The Compiler.
MAKE A NIGHT OF IT: Both P.J. Clarke’s and Cafe Fiorello are supposed to be open after the evening shows (although of the two only P.J. Clarke’s is actually good). The Sunday matinée poses no problem.
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Thursday, December 1, 2022, 6:00 PM – 11:59 PM
MUSIC
Sonelius Smith & Adam Kahan: The Eulipion Project
THURSDAY, DECEMBER 1, 2022
6:00 PM
Barbès
376 9th Street, Park Slope, Brooklyn
$20
TICKETS + INFORMATION
Sonelius Smith is a Hard Bop-into-Nu Thing pianist who played with like everyone in New York in the ‘70s and ‘80s. Now he’s back.
MAKE A NIGHT OF IT: Getting kind of cold to eat outdoors at Runner Up, but they were saying last year how they were gonna upgrade their heating system, so maybe.
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Wed, Nov 30, 2022, 8:30 PM – Sat, Dec 3, 2022, 11:59 PM
PERFORMANCE
The Institute of Useless Activity: THIS and THAT
WEDNESDAY – SATURDAY, NOVEMBER 30 – DECEMBER 3, 2022 (continuing through DECEMBER 17)
8:30 PM
HERE
145 6th Avenue (entrance on Dominick Street), Soho, Manhattan
$20; first 10 tickets to each show $10
TICKETS + INFORMATION
Having had a massive hit (for this kind of thing) at the tiny Chocolate Factory in LIC, The Institute of Useless Activity brings their cosmic stageshow to HERE. It’s hard to describe beyond saying that it’s two guys using technology and stagecraft to mess with your head. And the first half or so of its hour-long run time is just magic. After that, when it devolves into a long series of hand-shadow puppets, things get old — at least if you’re as jaded as I am (or maybe that should be, as weed-averse). But people LOVE this — and that first half is pure magic.
MAKE A NIGHT OF IT: Sicilian at Piccolo Cucina Osteria.
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Wed, Nov 30, 2022, 8:30 PM – Sat, Dec 3, 2022, 11:59 PM
MUSIC
The Stone Residencies: Rebekah Heller
WEDNESDAY – SATURDAY, NOVEMBER 30 – DECEMBER 3, 2022
8:30 PM
The Stone
Glass Box Theater, The New School
55 West 13th Street, Greenwich Village, Manhattan
$20
TICKETS + INFORMATION
Bassoonist Rebekah Heller — a fabulous musician — gets the week-long spotlight for different ensembles and contexts.
MAKE A NIGHT OF IT: It’ll be nice to go back to the comfortable Emilia-Romagnan food at Da Andrea (do yourself a favor and start with the Tigelle Modenesi con Prosciutto).
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Wed, Nov 30, 2022, 8:00 PM – Sat, Dec 3, 2022, 11:59 PM
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Wed, Nov 30, 2022, 8:00 PM – Sat, Dec 3, 2022, 11:59 PM
PERFORMANCE
Torn Out Theater: Peep/Show the Body
WEDNESDAY – SATURDAY, NOVEMBER 30 – DECEMBER 4, 2022
8:00 PM
SMUSH Gallery In Person & Live Stream (Live Stream every night; FRIDAY Live Stream ONLY)
340 Summit Avenue, Journal Square, Jersey City, New Jersey
$3-$500 (sliding scale: you get the same seats for $3 as for $500); $40 total Champagne Room for up to 4 people
TICKETS + INFORMATION
”Part memoirish performance art, part sleazy dance show, part bitingly sarcastic monologue, part chronic illness outreach, this new, original work is interactive when you want it to be, surreal, irreverent, wise, and intentionally crass,” they say. And it somehow has something to do with The Pandemic.
MAKE A NIGHT OF IT: In person, hot dogs topped with an awesome Greek meat sauce that is somehow called chili at Boulevard Drinks. Streaming at home, have a Peep Show (duh): pour 1/3 oz. each of Dubonnet Rouge, Brandy, and Absinthe, and 3/4 oz. lime juice, into an ice-filled cocktail shaker. Shake. Strain into a chilled Martini glass or coupe.
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Wed, Nov 30, 2022, 7:00 PM – Sun, Dec 4, 2022, 11:59 PM
THEATER
ONEOFUS: Dick Rivington & The Cat
WEDNESDAY – SUNDAY, NOVEMBER 30 – DECEMBER 4, 2022 (continuing through DECEMBER 18)
7:00 PM WEDNESDAY – FRIDAY
4:00 PM SATURDAY & SUNDAY
Abrons Arts Center
466 Grand Street, Lower East Side, Manhattan
$26
TICKETS + INFORMATION
Julie Atlas Muz and Mat Fraser, legends in their own right, finally get to continue their program of bringing the Christmas Panto tradition to their Lower East Side neighborhood. These shows are uproriously funny, incredibly fun, totally endearing — and, in the end, rather uplifting. (Oh no they’re not!) (Oh yes they are!)
MAKE A NIGHT OF IT: Wednesday through Friday, OF COURSE you’re going to Ernesto’s for great Basque. Saturday and Sunday, daytime Malaysian at Kopitiam.
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Tue, Nov 29, 2022, 7:30 PM – Sun, Dec 4, 2022, 11:59 PM
THEATER
Gina Moxley: The Patient Gloria
TUESDAY – SUNDAY, NOVEMBER 29 – DECEMBER 4, 2022
7:30 PM TUESDAY – SUNDAY
2:00 PM SATURDAY & SUNDAY
St. Ann’s Warehouse
45 Water Street, DUMBO, Brooklyn
$49-$64
TICKETS + INFORMATION
In 1964, an American patient found her therapy sessions being aired, without her consent, as documentaries (you can still see them on YouTube). This satirical fantasia is a comic revenge fantasy. This Irish production got goodnotices at the Edinburgh Fringe — but to me it seems to mainly raise the question why people think that using Punk Rock in current theater productions makes them any more relevant or of the moment than using Rudy Vallée-style crooning would have made a theatrical production in the Punk ‘70s.
MAKE A NIGHT OF IT: Everyday but Thursday, world-renowned ramen at Tsuta (their website doesn’t tell you, but their Brooklyn location is at 22 Old Fulton Street). Otherwise, Vietnamese bistro at Em Vietnamese Bistro.
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Tue, Nov 29, 2022, 7:00 PM – Thu, Dec 1, 2022, 11:59 PM
PERFORMANCE
Penny Arcade: The Art of Becoming
TUESDAY – THURSDAY, NOVEMBER 29 – DECEMBER 1, 2022
7:00 PM
Joe’s Pub, Public Theater
425 Lafayette Street, NoHo, Manhattan
$25
TICKETS + INFORMATION
Instead of portraying other people, in this show performance legend Penny Arcade portrays herself — from 1967 through 1973.
MAKE A NIGHT OF IT: Kenka, an izakaya as colorful as Penny Arcade.
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Tue, Nov 29, 2022, 12:00 PM – Sun, Dec 4, 2022, 11:59 PM
MUSIC
Julian Rosefeldt: EUPHORIA
TUESDAY – SUNDAY, NOVEMBER 29 – DECEMBER 4, 2022 (continuing through JANUARY 8)
1200 – 8:00 PM TUESDAY – THURSDAY
12:00 – 10:00 PM FRIDAY & SATURDAY
11:00 – 7:00 PM SUNDAY
Park Avenue Armory
643 Park Avenue, Upper East Side, Manhattan
$18
TICKETS + INFORMATION
A film installation (you enter when you want; an entire loop takes about 2 hours) involving chorus, a phalanx of famous jazz drummers, and philosophical and social ruminations — in surround.
MAKE A NIGHT OF IT: Back to Donahue’s Steak House (not really a steakhouse) for more Mad Men larping. If you go early, you might want to skip a Martini — unimaginable as that might be at Donahue’s.
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Tue, Nov 29, 2022, 10:00 AM – Sun, Dec 4, 2022, 11:59 PM
MUSIC / PERFORMANCE
Gelsey Bell & Joseph White: Meander
TUESDAY – SUNDAY, NOVEMBER 29 – DECEMBER 4, 2022 (ongoing)
10:00 AM – 3:00 PM
Brooklyn Botanic Garden
150 Eastern Parkway, across the street from Prospect Heights, Brooklyn
$18; $12 students/seniors; free children under 12
TICKETS + INFORMATION
Having created a wonderful sound walk through Green-Wood Cemetery, the dream team of Gelsey Bell and Joe White do the same for the Brooklyn Botanic Garden (one of my favorite places on earth, if you want to know). The soundtrack is available on the BBG website.
MAKE A NIGHT OF IT: New Orleans at Lowerline.
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Mon, Nov 28, 2022, 8:00 AM – Sun, Dec 4, 2022, 11:59 AM
MUSIC / PERFORMANCE
Gelsey Bell feat. Joseph White: Cairns
MONDAY – SUNDAY, NOVEMBER 28 – DECEMBER 4, 2022 (ongoing)
8:00 AM – 5:00 PM
#stillHERE IRL
Green-Wood Cemetery, Sunset Park Entrance
35th Street at 4th Avenue, Greenwood Heights, Brooklyn
$7 or more for soundtrack
TICKETS + INFORMATION
One of the first shows during Quarantine that you could actually Go Out! to back in the days of The Lockdown (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 (whose terrific new album you really ought to hear). 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, Nov 28, 2022, 6:00 AM – Sun, Dec 4, 2022, 11:59 PM
MUSIC / PERFORMANCE
Ellen Reid: SOUNDWALK
MONDAY – SUNDAY, NOVEMBER 28 – DECEMBER 4, 2022 (ongoing)
6:00 AM – 1:00 AM
New York Philharmonic
Central Park, Manhattan
Free (registration required)
TICKETS + INFORMATION
The New York Phil hops aboard the walk-around-the-landscaped-space-with-soundtrack train. 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.
