PERFORMANCE

The Actor's Fund Arts Center
Ballet 5: 8

The Stor(ies) of You and Me

"Ballet 5:8 presents The Stor(ies) of You and Me, five works that explore love, the power of words, unexpected joy, perspectives, and the stories of everyday people."

See the artistic director talk about the performance...

RECITAL

Carnegie Hall
Mitsuko Uchida - Piano

• Mozart - Piano Sonata in C Major, K. 545
• Schumann - Kreisleriana
• Jörg Widmann - Sonatina facile (NY Premiere, co-commissioned by Carnegie Hall)
• Schumann - Fantasy in C Major

"A delicate Mozart sonata, romantic fire and divine repose from Schumann, and a new Jörg Widmann work commissioned by Carnegie Hall spotlight Mitsuko Uchida’s tremendous versatility. Mozart’s C-Major Sonata features the gentle “In an 18th-Century Drawing Room” theme and remains one of the composer's most beloved sonatas. An eon from Mozart’s mannered work is Schumann’s tumultuous music; Clara Wieck once said to her future husband, “Sometimes your music actually frightens me.” She might have been speaking of Schumann's Kreisleriana, his wildly inventive set of character pieces inspired by a character from ETA Hoffmann’s works. A passionate love letter to Clara, Schumann pours his devotion into every phrase of the Fantasy in C Major."

RECITAL

Marble Lunchtime Organ Concert
Bryan Dunnewald - Organ

"BRYAN DUNNEWALD, of Arvada, Colorado, is a student in the studio of Alan Morrison at the
Curtis Institute of Music, where he pursues a Bachelor’s degree in organ performance. In May 2014, he graduated from Interlochen Arts Academy, receiving the Academy’s highest awards in the arts, academics, citizenship and character. Bryan is a composer, having written works for ensembles and soloists alike; he also enjoys improvisation, and has accompanied dance classes (entirely improvised) for the Interlochen Dance Company. Bryan is the 2013 recipient of the first prize, high school division, and the hymn-playing award at the national Albert Schweitzer Organ Festival Competition. He has performed solo concerts in many states and venues, from the Washington National Cathedral to the Mormon Tabernacle, and the 2016 Organ Historical Society national convention. Along with solo performances, Bryan enjoys collaborating with other artists and ensembles, recently performing with the Philadelphia Orchestra, the Curtis Symphony Orchestra at Carnegie Hall, and being featured on National Public Radio in concert with the Colorado Symphony. His teachers include Alan Morrison, Thomas Bara, Steve Larson, Dr. Martha Sandford-Heyns and Dr. Joseph Galema."

SERVICE

Marble Collegiate Church
Timothy Cardinal Dolan

Evening Prayers for Christian Unity

Timothy Cardinal Dolan, Archbishop of New York

Join us for this very special, historic Worship service when Timothy Cardinal Dolan, the Roman Catholic Archbishop of NY, preaches in one of the oldest Protestant churches in America!

THEATER

Skirball Center for the Performing Arts
National Theater Live: Amadeus

"Lucian Msamati (Luther, Game of Thrones, NT Live: The Comedy of Errors) plays Salieri in Peter Shaffer’s iconic play, broadcast live from the National Theatre, and with live orchestral accompaniment by Southbank Sinfonia.

Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart, a rowdy young prodigy, arrives in Vienna, the music capital of the world – and he’s determined to make a splash. Awestruck by his genius, court composer Antonio Salieri has the power to promote his talent or destroy his name. Seized by obsessive jealousy he begins a war with Mozart, with music, and ultimately, with God.

After winning multiple Olivier and Tony Awards when it had its premiere at the National Theatre in 1979, Amadeus was adapted into an Academy Award-winning film."

RECITAL

Marble Collegiate Church
Noontime Organ Concerts

Matthew Smith - Organ

RECITAL

Dedication to Slava: 90th Birthday Anniversary of Mstislav Rostropovich
Yosif Feigelson - Cello

LECTURE

One Day University
5,000 Years of History


9:30 AM - 10:45 AM

A Surprising Look at Ancient Egypt: Drama, Spectacle, and Remarkable Characters

Kara Cooney / UCLA

Why is ancient Egypt so compelling to us today? Why do we care so much about the gold, the pyramids, the hieroglyphic script, the mummies, and the extraordinary leaders like Nefertiti, Ramses, and Hatshepsut, people who flourished so many thousands of years ago? As a UCLA Professor and Egyptologist, Kara Cooney has devoted over two decades of her life to the study of this ancient place, and will unravel why we care and what this unending fascination says about us.

This remarkable new class will examine how Egypt is utterly unique on this planet, a protected realm full of riches beyond reckoning and agricultural resources that allowed an unassailable divine kingship to develop. We will examine the spectacle of monumental statuary, of pyramids, of coffins made of hundreds of pounds of solid gold, and of granite and sandstone pillared halls – the supports of a totalitarian regime with a veritable God-King at the helm. We will ask why the ancient Egyptians preserved so many bodies, carefully embalming the wealthy and elite into mummies, while preserving so little of the private information from their minds. Ancient Egypt remains for us a place of mystery, fascination, and contradictions, but if we pierce the carefully woven veil before our eyes, we can also see the humanity of these extraordinary people.

Kara Cooney is an Egyptologist and Professor at UCLA. In 2002, she was Kress Fellow at the National Gallery of Art and worked on the Cairo Museum exhibition "Quest for Immortality: Treasures of Ancient Egypt." In 2005, she acted as fellow curator for Tutankhamun and the Golden Age of the Pharaohs at the LA County Museum of Art. She also worked on two Discovery Channel documentary series: "Out of Egypt" and "Egypt's Lost Queen."

11:00 AM - 12:15 PM

Music as a Mirror of History: 300 Years in 60 Minutes

Robert Greenberg / UC Berkeley / SF Performances

This presentation examines Western music as an artistic phenomenon that mirrors the social, political, spiritual and economic realities of its time. As such, the ongoing changes in musical style evident in Western music during the last millennia are a function of large-scale societal change and are not due to any particular composer's "creative muse." Starting with the music of Johann Sebastian Bach and the intellectual and spiritual climate of the High Baroque (ca. 1720), this program will observe the changes wrought by Enlightenment society on the music of the Classical Era (ca. 1780) as manifested in the work of Wolfgang Gottlieb Mozart. This class will observe the impact of the Age of Revolution and Napoleon through a lens provided by the radical and experimental music of Ludwig van Beethoven (ca. 1810).

Other topics to be explored include the nature and conception of "the composer", Beethoven's gastro-intestinal problems (not pretty, but relevant), architecture and landscape design in the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries, and the applicability of the concept of "music as a mirror" to American popular music of the 1950s and 1960s.

Robert Greenberg has composed over fifty works for a wide variety of instrumental and vocal ensembles. He has received numerous honors, including being designated an official "Steinway Artist," three Nicola de Lorenzo Composition Prizes and three Meet-The-Composer Grants. Notable commissions have been received from the Koussevitzky Foundation in the Library of Congress, the Alexander String Quartet, the San Francisco Contemporary Music Players, San Francisco Performances, and the XTET ensemble. He has served on the faculties of the University of California at Berkeley, California State University East Bay, and the San Francisco Conservatory of Music, where he chaired the Department of Music History and Literature and served as the Director of the Adult Extension Division. The Bangor Daily News referred to Greenberg as 'the Elvis of music appreciation.'"

12:15 PM - 1:30 PM

Lunch Break

1 hour and 15 minute / Lunch Break




1:30 PM - 2:45 PM

WWII: Surprising Stories You Never Learned in History Class

Robert Watson / Lynn University

World War II is arguably the most tragic episode in human history. The six year war began in Europe but soon spread to all corners of the globe with countless men, women, and children affected by the struggle. Millions were killed on the battlefield, in the air, and on the sea. And as everyone knows, an estimated 6 million Jews were killed by the Nazi's in accordance with Hitler's master plan to exterminate their entire race.

The chronology is well known, but during a war this complex and lengthy, there are many surprising and sometimes shocking incidents that occurred that are less well known - especially during the final chaotic days of the conflict. This lecture will explore the desperate and bizarre actions of the Nazis at the end of the war and the challenges confronting the allies in rescuing Holocaust prisoners, as well as the difficulties historians face in uncovering and making sense of such stories and the role of government in declassifying war documents.

Robert Watson is a Professor of American Studies at Lynn University. A frequent media commentator, he has been interviewed by CNN, MSNBC, "Time," "USA Today," "The New York Times," and the BBC and others, and has appeared on C-SPAN's "Book TV," "Hardball with Chris Matthews," and "The Daily Show with Jon Stewart." He has received multiple Professor of the Year awards at Lynn and other universities, published 40 books on topics in history and politics, and his book "America's First Crisis" won the book of the year award in history at the Independent Publishers' awards.

3:00 PM - 4:15 PM

America's New Era: The Rise of Radicalization and the Psychology of Terrorism

James Forest / University of Massachusetts Lowell

Terrorism is a complex, multifaceted human behavior that is influenced by a combination of personal grievances, ideas and surrounding contexts. An individual's perceptions and beliefs about the world are at the core of most terrorist activity, and this leads to the study of radicalization - the ways in which a terrorist group influences people and convinces them to support their strategy and tactics. A person can become radicalized through a variety of dynamic interactions with a terrorist group's ideology, which typically emphasizes a need for changes in policy, regime, territory, religion, and so forth—changes that they believe cannot be achieved without the use of violence.

This course will explore the research on how people are influenced and motivated toward committing (or supporting) acts of terrorism, and the contexts in which radicalization has been most likely. By the end of the course, you will better understand the spectrum of political and revolutionary ideologies that have fueled terrorism in recent decades, the reasons why terrorist ideologies resonate among certain communities or individuals, what psychology has found about personal attributes that contribute to terrorism, the relationship between terrorist radicalization and the media, and implications of this discussion for countering terrorist radicalization in our communities.

James Forest is a Professor in the School of Criminology and Justice Studies at the University of Massachusetts Lowell. He was selected by the Center for American Progress and Foreign Policy as one of "America's most esteemed terrorism and national security experts." He is also Senior Fellow at U.S. Joint Special Operations University as well as a Visiting Professor at the Fletcher School of Law and Diplomacy at Tufts University. Professor Forest has published 20 books and dozens of articles on his work, and he has testified before Congressional hearings, served as an expert witness for terrorism-related court cases, and has been interviewed by many television, newspaper, and radio journalists in the U.S. and other countries.

CONCERT

St. Thomas Church
The Saint Thomas Choir of Men and Boys
New York Baroque
Daniel Hyde - Conductor

Featured Performers:
Lawrence Jones, Evangelist
Sarah Brailey & Clara Rottsolk, Sopranos
Eric Brenner, Countertenor
Mark Bleeke, Tenor
Daniel Moore, Bass

Haydn - Symphony No 49, 'Passion Symphony'
C. P. E. Bach - Klopstocks Morgengesang Am Schöpfungsfeste (Klopstock's Morning Song of Creation)
C. P. E. Bach - Saint John Passion (1772)

"C.P.E. Bach followed in his father’s footsteps as a prolific composer of vocal and instrumental music. Dating from his years in Hamburg, the St. John Passion sets music not only by C.P.E., but also incorporates some movements from his godfather Telemann and his father’s own setting of the same Gospel narrative. Klopstock’s Morning Song of Creation has resonances with Haydn’s oratorio, not least in its opening sunrise. And in keeping with the season of Passiontide, we open with Haydn’s lesser-known Passion Symphony no. 49."

“Emanuel is known for bridging the gap between the baroque and classical eras, and [St. John Passion] indicates why. It sounds like something his dad might have written, but a mellowed-out version, eschewing knotted lines in favour of elegant simplicity.”

TOUR

Municipal Art Society
Tour34: Empire to Penn

"The Municipal Art Society of New York and the 34th Street Partnership are proud to present Tour34: Empire to Penn , a walking tour of the revitalized 34th Street District. From railroads to retail, hotels to newspapers, and sidewalks to skyscrapers, expertly trained docents lead you on an exploration of the history and unfolding future of this bustling hub of transportation and commerce. Tour-goers learn firsthand the latest plans to reimagine this historic neighborhood, with ideas for transforming Penn Station to meet the needs of a rapidly expanding West Side."

This is our neighborhood!

RECITAL

Merkin Hall
Young Concert Artists

Dasol Kim - Piano

LINCOLN CENTER

David Geffen Hall
New York Philharmonic

Alan Gilbert - Conductor
Yo-Yo Ma - Cello

John Adams - The Chairman Dances (Foxtrot for Orchestra)
Esa-Pekka Salonen - Cello Concerto (New York Premiere–New York Philharmonic Co-Commission with the Chicago Symphony Orchestra, the Barbican Centre, and Elbphilharmonie Hamburg)
Berlioz - Symphonie fantastique

Yo-Yo Ma joins forces with Alan Gilbert and the Philharmonic for the New York Premiere of a Cello Concerto by Composer-in-Residence Esa-Pekka Salonen, whose music has been described as “exquisite” and “thrilling” by The New York Times. Berlioz’s passion-inspired blockbuster Symphonie fantastique dazzles with a palette of amazing orchestral colors and effects.

https://www.nytimes.com/2017/03/16/arts/music/review-yo-yo-ma-esa-pekka-salonen-cello-concerto-new-york-philharmonic.html

New Concerto, New Leader: A Big Day at the New York Philharmonic

By ANTHONY TOMMASINI•MARCH 16, 2017

Standing, from left, Esa-Pekka Salonen, Yo-Yo Ma and Alan Gilbert at David Geffen Hall. Mr. Salonen’s Cello Concerto had its New York premiere the same day it was announced that Deborah Borda would become the president and chief executive at the Philharmonic. Julieta Cervantes for The New York Times

Wednesday was a big day for the New York Philharmonic, both onstage and in its offices.

An exciting new work was introduced at David Geffen Hall that evening when Yo-Yo Ma and the Philharmonic, led by Alan Gilbert, performed Esa-Pekka Salonen’s restive, cosmic and formidably difficult new Cello Concerto.

That triumph was preceded by a potentially game-changing development for the institution, announced earlier that same day: Deborah Borda, the visionary president and chief executive of the Los Angeles Philharmonic, will be taking on these same dual roles at the New York Philharmonic in September. She was in the audience for Wednesday’s concert, though understandably Ms. Borda is hesitant to say anything yet about her specific plans.

During her 17-year tenure in Los Angeles, Ms. Borda turned that Philharmonic into America’s most dynamic and successful orchestra. She hired Gustavo Dudamel, when he was still in his 20s and little-known, as music director and helped him become a charismatic new face of classical music and a fearless artistic leader. She ushered the orchestra into Disney Concert Hall, one of the world’s coolest places for music. She has fostered outreach to Los Angeles residents and stoked curiosity for contemporary music among audiences.

Ms. Borda tried mightily to do such things as the administrative leader of the New York Philharmonic in the 1990s but met resistance from the traditionalist maestro Kurt Masur, then its music director, and a timid board. She returns to New York at a time when the Philharmonic, despite Mr. Gilbert’s admirable innovations, seems directionless; she also must grapple with a chronic budget deficit.

I have questioned whether the powerhouse conductor Jaap van Zweden, who will succeed Mr. Gilbert as music director in 2018, is the right choice for the Philharmonic at this time. That he strongly pressed Ms. Borda to join him in New York is the most encouraging indicator so far of his artistic ambitions. In a recent interview, he commended her for knowing “how to reach the public, how to make a connection with the city.” These are promising comments.

On Wednesday, the concert featured a program that, in a way, reflected the influence Ms. Borda has had on the field of classical music. Mr. Salonen would not be the composer and conductor the world now values so highly were it not for his 17 momentous years as music director of the Los Angeles Philharmonic, the last nine on Ms. Borda’s watch. (He left the post in 2009.) Mr. Gilbert preceded the new Salonen concerto with a zesty account of John Adams’s percolating “The Chairman Dances, Foxtrot for Orchestra” and, after intermission, led an arresting performance of Berlioz’s head-trip “Symphonie fantastique.” This is just the kind of programmatic mixing Ms. Borda has encouraged orchestras to undertake.

Mr. Salonen and Mr. Ma first cooked up this cello concerto during informal chats. The composer led the premiere of the piece on March 9 with the Chicago Symphony Orchestra but turned over the baton to Mr. Gilbert for the New York premiere.

Speaking to the audience on Wednesday, Mr. Salonen shared his “internal narration” for this 38-minute piece, while inviting listeners to ignore it. His intriguing personal title for the first movement is “Chaos to line.” The orchestra begins with a mysterious swirl of oscillating figures, as a heaving bass line trolls in the low strings and brass. The cello emerges from the restless mists playing fragments that want to coalesce into a line, but seem held back by enshrouding strings.

Finally, a searching cello line breaks loose, sounding like intense yet wayward thoughts unfolding in endless phrases. Mr. Ma’s warm, dusky playing of this lyrical stretch was wondrously cushioned by the orchestra’s harmonically ambiguous atmospherics.

In the second movement, a series of sound “clouds,” as Mr. Salonen calls them, swell and subside. Though these musical clouds may seem motionless on the surface, they are built from teeming matrices of overlapping riffs and figures. At a crucial moment (just one of several such episodes), Mr. Ma played high, exquisitely soft phrases as live tape loops echoed his cello through speakers in the hall, like sonic shadows.

In the final movement the cello, now frustrated, demands attention. The music turns kinetic and insistent, with interplay between the cello bongos and congas, deceptively charming music that is actually anxious. Soon, the cello declares battle on the orchestra, breaking into raucous, vehement bursts of sputtering, manic phrases. Here it is a cello concerto equivalent to the “Sacrificial Dance” from Stravinsky’s “The Rite of Spring.”

Mr. Ma played spectacularly; the Philharmonic musicians sounded inspired under Mr. Gilbert’s masterly conducting.

THEATER

Theater for a New Audience
The Skin of Our Teeth - Thornton Wilder

Directed by ARIN ARBUS

“HEARTFELT…VALIANT…MOVING…RESONANT…exceedingly whimsical and disturbingly familiar…with an air of ramshackle spontaneity…a celebratory glow pervades this millennia-spanning portrait of a single family’s survival against the odds.” – Ben Brantley, The New York Times

“’The Skin of Our Teeth’ is a masterpiece…This production triumphantly re-establishes ‘Skin’ as one of the finest American plays of the 20th century…Go to Brooklyn and see it now, and let your heart be lifted up.” – Terry Teachout, The Wall Street Journal

“A big, important American play has been reawakened for a historical moment that desperately needs it…Wilder’s text demands a directorial one-two punch–a joyous spirit that can sustain the superficial brightness while keeping a firm grasp on its dark underpinnings. Arin Arbus’s production gets more of both than I’ve experienced in any previous staging.”

– Michael Feingold, The Village Voice

“A fantastic production” – Jesse David Fox, New York Magazine/Vulture

“It’s a treat to see this seminal work on its feet.” – Adam Feldman, Time Out New York 

“Anyone who hasn’t seen this show yet should not waste a moment to see it done with verve and determination…A fascinating and moving presentation by Arin Arbus.” – Michael Giltz, The Huffington Post

Thornton Wilder won three Pulitzers — the only author to win for a novel, The Bridge of San Luis Rey, and two plays, Our Town and The Skin of Our Teeth, which was written just before America entered WWII. The play is about fortitude and the fate of humanity, both at the moment Wilder wrote it and this moment now and at millions of earlier moments over thousands of years. And in a thousand years, if people are still on earth, the play will be about them too.

The Skin of Our Teeth takes place in a prehistoric world and the New Jersey suburbs. The Antrobus family–George and Maggie, their children, Gladys and Henry, and Sabina, a maid who is also George’s mistress–survive the Ice Age, the Flood, and war. Combining tragedy with comedy, wit, intelligence, imagination, and scenic surprise, the play, as Francis Fergusson wrote, is a “marriage of Plato and Groucho Marx.”

https://www.wsj.com/articles/the-skin-of-our-teeth-review-the-underknown-masterpiece-1489098663

‘The Skin of Our Teeth’ Review: The Underknown Masterpiece

Travel through the eons with a 5,000-year-old family in Thornton Wilder’s rarely staged historical pageant-cum-knockabout comedy.

By

Terry Teachout                              

      

•March 9, 2017 5:31 p.m. ET     

Brooklyn, N.Y.

Thornton Wilder’s “The Skin of Our Teeth” is the Great White Whale of American theater, a masterpiece that nobody has seen. That’s not strictly true, of course: It still gets done by amateur troupes, and ambitious regional companies also take it on from time to time. But “The Skin of Our Teeth,” which was first performed on Broadway in a 1942 production directed by Elia Kazan and starring Tallulah Bankhead, Montgomery Clift and Fredric March, calls for a cast of 30, thus making it prohibitively costly to produce commercially today. It hasn’t been seen on Broadway since a 1975 revival that closed after seven performances. The last full-scale New York production, a poorly received Shakespeare in the Park version, took place 19 years ago.

For all these reasons, Theatre for a New Audience’s Brooklyn revival would be a major event even if it weren’t any good—and it is, praise be, quite extraordinarily good. Directed by Arin Arbus in a lively, imaginative manner that is faithful both to the spirit and the letter of Wilder’s text, this production triumphantly re-establishes “The Skin of Our Teeth” as one of the finest American plays of the 20th century, a modern classic that ought to be seen as often as “Our Town.” It’s unlikely that any other revival of the season will be as consequential.

More than most plays, you have to see “The Skin of Our Teeth” to appreciate its virtues. On paper it can sound twee, a historical pageant disguised as a “You Can’t Take It With You”-type knockabout comedy featuring the Antrobuses, a seemingly ordinary middle-class family whose members aren’t quite so ordinary as they seem. It emerges that Mr. Antrobus (David Rasche) is, among other things, the inventor of the alphabet and the wheel; that he, his wife (Kecia Lewis), his two children (Kimber Monroe and Reynaldo Piniella) and their maid (Mary Wiseman) are all 5,000 years old, more or less; and that the first act takes place during the Ice Age, which is why the Antrobus’s pets are a mammoth and a dinosaur. In the second act, they cope with the Great Flood, while the third picks up their story immediately after World War II.

What on earth (so to speak) is going on here? “The Skin of Our Teeth” was first performed at a time when America was fighting a war whose outcome was still far from certain. Wilder sought to remind his viewers that humankind has survived unimaginable horrors throughout its long, bloody history, and will—or, rather, can—continue to prevail so long as it can muster the courage to push back against the darkness. The words he puts in Mr. Antrobus’s mouth in the final scene leave no doubt of his purpose: “I know that every good and excellent thing in the world stands moment by moment on the razor-edge of danger and must be fought for—whether it’s a field, or a home, or a country.”

If that speech sounds the least little bit preachy…well, it is. But Wilder took care to steer clear of sermonizing elsewhere by making most of “The Skin of Our Teeth” a wonderfully fanciful romp, a theatrical mixtape into which snippets of “Finnegans Wake” and the Book of Genesis, as well as a dollop of “Our Town,” are spliced. Wilder himself called it a “tragicomedy,” but the tragedy’s outcome, as Sabina, the sexy maid first played by Bankhead, explains at evening’s end, depends on us: “You go home. The end of this play isn’t written yet.”

It wouldn’t be hard—especially now—to superimpose an up-to-the-second High Directorial Concept (#resist, anyone?) on Wilder’s near-childlike optimism. To her infinite credit, Ms. Arbus declines the invitation. Instead, she turns her cast loose on Riccardo Hernandez’s wide-open set, most of which amounts to a giant gable and two walls, and encourages them to speak Wilder’s lines with an energy and simplicity of intent that are unspoiled by gratuitous cleverness. The effect is joyously festive, and when the time comes at last for the cast to modulate into a key of high seriousness, you find yourself filled with hope. I do wish that César Alvarez, the show’s music director, hadn’t inserted a mawkish original song called “Home Alone” just before the final lines of the play: It’s a mistake, and a bad one, but far from fatal. Save for this one false move, Ms. Arbus’s staging is successful in every way.

The ever-excellent Mr. Rasche and his colleagues all give outstanding performances that serve the play admirably. That said, if one or more of them were to be replaced by actors with star power—I’m thinking of Nathan Lane, perhaps with Nina Arianda as Sabina—then it might be possible to move this revival to Broadway. That’s where it belongs, just as “The Skin of Our Teeth” belonged there in 1942. Don’t count on any such miracle, though: Go to Brooklyn and see it now, and let your heart be lifted up.

—Mr. Teachout, the Journal’s drama critic, is the author, most recently, of “Satchmo at the Waldorf.” Write to him at tteachout@wsj.com.

Tonight's moon from our apartment...

he Bridge of San Luis Rey, and two plays, Our Town and The Skin of Our Teeth, which was written just before America entered WWII. The play is about fortitude and the fate of humanity, both at the moment Wilder wrote it and this moment now and at millions of earlier moments over thousands of years. And in a thousand years, if people are still on earth, the play will be about them too.

The Skin of Our Teeth takes place in a prehistoric world and the New Jersey suburbs. The Antrobus family–George and Maggie, their children, Gladys and Henry, and Sabina, a maid who is also George’s mistress–survive the Ice Age, the Flood, and war. Combining tragedy with comedy, wit, intelligence, imagination, and scenic surprise, the play, as Francis Fergusson wrote, is a “marriage of Plato and Groucho Marx.” 

CONCERT

Carnegie Hall
Champagne for Gypsies: Bregović & His Wedding and Funeral Band

We attended a Bregović concert at Lincoln Center a year ago and were literally blown away. The music swings back and forth between funeral music chanted by monks to wild gypsy music for weddings in which they're all drinking strong spirits.

The audience came knowing what was about to happen. It was the only concert we've been to in Geffen Hall that was like an outdoor rock concert. Wild!

Some wedding music...

Here's a little funeral music...

"Many musicians would be content with only a fragment of Goran Bregović's success. Contemporary composer, traditional musician, or celebrated rock star, he encompasses them all, combining such varying interests to create music that is both universal and unmistakably his own.

Bregović's artistic adventures began in the 1960s at a music college in Sarajevo, where he learned to play the violin and became acquainted with counterpoint and harmony. But rock 'n' roll was everywhere. While continuing his studies in philosophy and sociology, he formed the rock group Bijelo Dugme (White Button). Their first album was an immediate success, igniting a career that lasted 14 years and producing 12 albums.

At the end of the '80s, filmmaker Emir Kusturica--a fan of Bregović's work--convinced him to take part in his next project. Writing music for Kusturica's Time of the Gypsiesallowed Bregović to sharpen his sense of musical dramaturgy, working with the Gypsy music that fascinated him. For Arizona Dream, the pair traveled to the US, where Kusturica filmed Faye Dunaway, Jerry Lewis, and Johnny Depp, and Bregović wrote for Iggy Pop.

In Patrice Chéreau's La Reine Margot (1994), Bregović's music lit a sparkle in the eye of French actress Isabelle Adjani by way of the voice of Israeli singer Ofra Haza. The following year, while war ravaged their country, Bregović and Kusturica collaborated one last time on Underground, winner of the Palme d'Or at the Cannes Festival. For this film, Bregović called on Šaban Bajramović, known as "The Gypsy Sinatra," and Cape Verdean diva Cesária Évora.

After writing for films, Bregović returned to live performance. His Wedding and Funeral Band mixes Gypsy musicians on wind instruments with percussionists and Bulgarian polyphony. Dressed in white, seated between his amplifier and computer, an electric guitar in his hand, he conducts this motley group that varies in size according to the occasion. For nearly 20 years, they have been roaming the world on an unending tour that so far totals some 1,500 shows.

When he is not on stage, Bregović composes pieces that have become part of the contemporary music scene: My Heart Has Become Tolerant, an oratorio about the three monotheistic religions; Goran Bregović's Karmen with a Happy End, a Gypsy opera (with a wink and a nod to Bizet); Margot, Diary of an Unhappy Queen, a monologue for an actress and big band; and his symphony, Three Letters from Sarajevo. His capacity to understand and assimilate vastly varied musical styles allows him to incorporate traditional Corsican, Georgian, or Bulgarian chants into his music, as well as elements of techno culture.

In 2015, Goran Bregović was named a Chevalier of France's Ordre des Arts et des Lettres. His boundless talent continues to attract first-class artists from around the globe, including George Dalaras, Kayah, Sezen Aksu, Scott Walker, and the Gypsy Kings."

RECITAL

The Morgan Library and Museum
Young Concert Artists

Aleksey Semenenko - Violin
Inna Firsova - Piano

Beethoven - Sonata for Piano and Violin in A Major, Op.12
Tchaikovsky - Sérénade mélancolique, Op. 26
Franck - Sonata for Violin and Piano in A Major
Henryk Wieniawski - Polonaise de concert in D Major, Op.4

Here is a video of the artist...

RECITAL

St. John the Devine
Monday 1:00 PM Recitals

Today was a day of walking and seeing things in a different neighborhood.

We started by attending the regular Monday recital of the organ at St. John the Devine.

The reverberation is 6 to 8 seconds in the cathedral depending on the temperature and humidity.  I counted a 6 minute reverb several times.today.

We then walked through the beautiful campus of Columbia University, past Union Seminary , to Riverside Church.

From there we went to Grant's Tomb. 

From there we walked back to Broadway past Manhattan School of Music where we caught the bus and rode home.  A beautiful day, beautiful weather, with lots of walking.