One Day University
The Remarkable Genius of Albert Einstein: His Life and Universe
"Einstein’s name is synonymous with genius. His wild-haired, thoughtful-eyed face has become an icon of modern science. His ideas changed the way we see the universe, the meaning of truth, and the very limits of human knowledge. This course will examine how Einstein’s youthful philosophical questioning led to a revolution in science. We will discuss his creation of special and general relativity, and particularly how these epochal theories emerged from his seemingly simple questions about how we experience the world. His preference for easily-visualizable thought experiments means we will be able to engage deeply with the science with very little mathematics. Einstein also pioneered quantum mechanics, only to reject its strange consequences and eventually devote his life to overturning it through a unified field theory."
"Einstein’s elevation to worldwide fame was closely tied to political and social developments such as World War I, Zionism, and the rise of the Nazis. As he became an incarnation of genius, people sought out his views on everything from world peace to the nature of God – and his opinions often had surprising links to his scientific work. The picture of Einstein we end up with is a figure somehow both revolutionary and deeply traditional, emblematic of the modern age and also profoundly uncomfortable with it."
"Matthew Stanley teaches the history and philosophy of science at NYU. He holds degrees in astronomy, religion, physics, and the history of science and is interested in the connections between science and the wider culture. He is the author of "Practical Mystic: Religion, Science, and A. S. Eddington" which examines how scientists reconcile their religious beliefs and professional lives. He has held fellowships at the Institute for Advanced Study, the British Academy, and the Max Planck Institute. Professor Stanley was awarded a 2014-2015 Gallatin Dean's Award for Excellence in Teaching."
Monday, June 19, 2017
THEATER
Lunt-Fontane Theater
Charlie and the Chocolate Factory
ROALD DAHL’s most treasured tale has arrived in the land where sweet dreams come true: Broadway. Starring two-time Tony Award® winner CHRISTIAN BORLE and directed by three-time Tony Award-winning director JACK O’BRIEN, this new musical features the beloved songs from the original film, including “Pure Imagination” and “The Candy Man,” alongside a brand new score from the songwriters of Hairspray, MARC SHAIMAN and SCOTT WITTMAN, a book from DAVID GREIG and choreography from JOSHUA BERGASSE.
Willy Wonka, world famous inventor of the Everlasting Gobstopper, has just made an astonishing announcement. His marvelous—and mysterious—factory is opening its gates…to a lucky few. That includes young Charlie Bucket, whose life definitely needs sweetening. He and four other golden ticket winners will embark on a mesmerizing, life-changing journey through Wonka’s wondrous world. Get ready for chocolate waterfalls, exquisitely nutty squirrels and the great glass elevator, all to be revealed by Wonka’s army of curious Oompa-Loompas.
Wednesday, June 14, 2017
THEATER
The Duke Theater
The Government Inspector
"All politics are local. Gogol's deeply silly satire of small-town corruption offers a riotous portrait of rampaging self-destruction. When the crooked leadership of a provincial village discovers that an undercover inspector is coming to root out their commonplace corruption, the town weaves a web of bribery, lies, and utter madness. This New York premiere of acclaimed playwright Jeffrey Hatcher's (Stage Beauty) adaptation offers a hilarious reminder of the terrifying timelessness of bureaucracy and buffoonery."
ABOUT THE PLAYWRIGHTS
Nikolai Gogol was born on April Fool’s Day in 1809 in the Ukraine, then part of Russia. His classmates at school, observing his various physical and social peculiarities, nicknamed him ‘‘the mysterious dwarf.’’ In 1828, Gogol arrived in Saint Petersburg, obtaining a low-level, low-paying post in the government bureaucracy. After an equally unrewarding stint at a second government post, Gogol began teaching at a girl’s boarding school in 1831. Evenings on a Farm Near Dikanka, Gogol’s two-volume collection of stories, derived from Ukrainian folklore, was published in 1831 and 1832 and was instantly well received, gaining Gogol the attention of Aleksandr Pushkin, Russia’s leading literary figure, who provided him with the idea for the plot of The Government Inspector. In 1834, Gogol began a position at Saint Petersburg University. Gogol quickly proved himself a resounding failure, and left this post after only one year. During that year, Gogol published two books of short stories, Mirgorod and Arabesques; a collection of essays; as well as two plays, Marriage and The Government Inspector. The Government Inspector was brought to the attention of the Tsar, who liked it so much that he requested the first theatrical production (1836). Gogol, reacting to heavy criticism by the government officials his play lampooned, declared that ‘‘everyone is against me’’ and left Russia. He spent the next twelve years in self-imposed exile. After Pushkin died in 1837, Gogol inherited the mantle as the leading Russian writer of the day. Gogol’s literary masterpiece Dead Souls and the first edition of his collected works were published in 1842. In 1848, he returned to Russia, settling in Moscow. In 1852, Gogol died, age 42, as the result of an extreme religious fast and absurdly bad doctoring.
Thursday, June 8, 2017
LINCOLN CENTER
David Geffen Hall
New York Philharmonic
Alan Gilbert Season Finale: A Concert for Unity
Mahler - Symphony No. 7
Kinan Azmeh - Ibn Arabi Postlude
Edward Perez - The Latina 6/8 Suite
“Music has a unique capacity to connect people’s hearts and souls. I wanted these final concerts to call attention to the ways in which music can unite people across borders and spread a message of harmony and shared humanity.” — Alan Gilbert
Relive the Alan Gilbert era, a period marked by warmth and chemistry, expectation and excitement, through video, slideshows, and audio at this celebratory website.
Alan Gilbert and the New York Philharmonic believe in the power of music to heal, build bridges, and unite across borders. From the free performance of Mahler’s Resurrection Symphony on the tenth anniversary of 9/11 and performing at the United Nations this past December to historic tours and deep international partnerships, the Orchestra and Alan Gilbert have long used music to make the world a better place.
In his final subscription program, Alan Gilbert will lead the New York Philharmonic joined by musicians from orchestras around the world in concerts showcasing the universal language of music.
Alan Gilbert Season Finale: A Concert for Unity, June 8–10, will feature Gilbert conducting the Orchestra and musicians the Philharmonic has invited from orchestras in Australia, Brazil, China, Cuba, Czech Republic, France, Germany, Iran, Iraq, Israel, Japan, Lebanon, Mexico, Russia, South Africa, South Korea, Turkey, Venezuela, the United Kingdom, and the United States in Mahler’s Symphony No. 7.
Yo-Yo Ma who shares a deep commitment to musical humanism, will appear as special guest artists.
The concerts will launch a new initiative to be led by Alan Gilbert following his tenure as Philharmonic Music Director in which musicians from around the world will come together to perform music at critical times in support of peace, development, and human rights.
Alan Gilbert - Conductor and violin
Yo-Yo Ma - Cello
Anthony McGill - Clarinet
Cristina Pato - Galician bagpipes and piano
Johnny Gandelsman - Violin
Cynthia Phelps - Viola
Carter Brey - Cello
Edward Perez - Bass
Shane Shanahan - Percussion
Christopher S. Lamb - Percussion
Daniel Druckman - Percussion
Yo Yo Ma playing in the back of the cello section!
The New York Philharmonic is already a full-sized orchestra. For this evening's concert, though, there were guests from other orchestras from around the world. The stage was full of musicians!
Review: Alan Gilbert Leaves the Philharmonic, Violin in Hand
By ZACHARY WOOLFE
Alan Gilbert, center, playing violin on Thursday night, joined by Johnny Gandelsman and Cristina Pato.Ian Douglas for The New York Times
Alan Gilbert is stepping down, at 50, as music director of the New York Philharmonic, leaving an elder statesman’s post without actually being an elder statesman. His final program at David Geffen Hall, “A Concert for Unity,” is a pitch for gray-haired, cultural ambassadorhood from a man who’s still quite young.
The conceit is multicultural. Combining a few Philharmonic musicians — including Mr. Gilbert on violin — with Yo-Yo Ma and members of his Silk Road Ensemble, the program’s first half on Thursday consisted of a piece by a Syrian composer and a suite inspired by traditional Spanish dances. Then, for Mahler’s Seventh Symphony, musicians from orchestras around the world were invited to join the band. (The concert on Saturday will include only the symphony.)
This was intended as a preview of an international, Gilbert-led Unity Orchestra that could, he writes in a program note, be “deployed as a diplomatic tool” by the United Nations. The all-hands-on-deck symbolism is sweet, though it’s long past time to stop saying, as Mr. Gilbert did in remarks on Thursday, that music makes the world a better place. (Any political persuasion can claim “Nessun dorma” as a theme song. Music doesn’t make the world better; people do.)
And the event was in keeping with the American tendency to look abroad for bridge-building opportunities, when there remains plenty of work to do at home. Before positioning itself as a leader in cross-cultural outreach, the Philharmonic might, for starters, seat a second African-American member.
It also might have sought more stimulating music for its brief jam session with the Silk Road Ensemble. Kinan Azmeh’s “Ibn Arabi Postlude” was six languid minutes; Edward Perez’s cloying Spanish arrangements, “Latina 6/8 Suite,” got a dose of aggressive merriment from Cristina Pato’s Galician bagpipes.
As for the Mahler symphony, its first movement was Mr. Gilbert at his best: tense and taut without exaggeration, its episodes unified — but not flattened — into an organic journey. But that journey didn’t continue: This ended up a healthy-minded, sincere, rather defanged Seventh. The mood was more candied than mysterious in the second-movement “night music,” its lilting cello section feeling genuinely nostalgic rather than tangily sardonic.
Mr. Gilbert emphasized gentleness wherever possible — and sometimes where you wouldn’t think it possible, as in the third-movement scherzo, a ghostly dance that was here neither ghostly nor dancey. So the serenading fourth movement wasn’t able to function as a respite, and the sudden blaze of the finale was anticlimactic: grounded and surprisingly intimate, but not exhilarating.
The playing throughout was shining, powerful and agile — Mr. Gilbert has been a responsible steward of the orchestra’s sound — but there was an all-too-characteristic lack of vividness, of character, of accruing drama. For me, the most memorable aspects of his tenure have been the initiatives and out-of-the-box events, the spectacles and feats of organizing, rather than the actual music-making.
For eight years, Mr. Gilbert has worked diligently and creatively to puncture the mystique that still surrounds symphony orchestras and their conductors. Under him, the Philharmonic felt more experimental and ad hoc, as if a staid Victorian mansion had been kitted out with funky furniture.
The thing about furniture, though, is that it’s easily removed. While the orchestra will now have as its chief executive Deborah Borda, a progressive visionary, its next music director, Jaap van Zweden, has cultivated the old-school fearsome-maestro persona that Mr. Gilbert wisely eschewed.
If he rejected that persona, though, which one did he embrace? When I look back on the Philharmonic’s Alan Gilbert era, I think I’ll remember a passing few seconds from Thursday’s concert.
It wasn’t a dramatic moment. There wasn’t even music playing. It came between the two short works in the first half. Mr. Gilbert and other musicians had stayed onstage while chairs and music stands were rearranged and latecomers seated.
Without thousands of eyes focused on him, Mr. Gilbert held his violin casually. He chatted with Cynthia Phelps, the Philharmonic’s principal violist. He looked over his music. He tuned his instrument.
He seemed not like a man holding one of the major — not to say mythical — positions of its kind in the world, but like just another working musician, surrounded by colleagues, playing a gig.
Wednesday, June 7, 2017
LINCOLN CENTER
Jazz at Lincoln Center
Michael Feinstein: Ella On My Mind
"In Michael Feinstein's final Jazz & Popular Song concert of the season, the multi-platinum selling interpreter of American song will perform classics made famous by Ella Fitzgerald. The "First Lady of Song" was a particularly well-rounded musician, an impeccable singer and endlessly influential improviser. Drawing broadly across the Great American Songbook, she shaped definitive versions of countless tunes written by top composers like Irving Berlin and the Gershwins. Feinstein possesses an incomparable knowledge of this musical canon and an expert ability to interpret its greatest icons. His masterful knowledge combined with Ella's timeless repertoire and the swinging Tedd Firth Big Band will make for an exquisite evening in the unparalleled setting of The Appel Room. Special guest vocalists include the Grammy and Tony Award-winning Jessie Mueller (currently starring in the critically acclaimed Waitress on Broadway; Beautiful: The Carole King Musical); Vuyo Sotashe, a Jazz at Lincoln Center favorite and 2015 finalist in the Thelonious Monk International Jazz Vocal Competition; and Nicole Henry – “this generation’s First Lady of Jazz.” (Huffington Post)"
The Metropolitan Museum of Art
Caravaggio's Last Two Paintings
"The Martyrdom of Saint Ursula, Caravaggio's (1571–1610) last painting, is on exceptional loan from the Banca Intesa Sanpaolo in Naples and presented with The Met's The Denial of Saint Peter, also created by the artist in the last months of his life. Commissioned by the Genoese patrician Marcantonio Doria two months before the artist's death in July 1610, Caravaggio painted The Martyrdom of Saint Ursula in an unprecedented minimalist style; its interpretation of the tragic event that is its subject, combined with the abbreviated manner of painting, has only one parallel: The Denial of Saint Peter.
These two extraordinary paintings have not been reunited since a 2004 exhibition in London and Naples devoted to Caravaggio's late work. Since then, there has been a great deal of information discovered about Caravaggio's last years. This exhibition offers a rare opportunity to see these two pictures side by side and to examine the novelty of Caravaggio's late style, in which the emphasis is less on the naturalistic depiction of the figures than on their psychological presence. In these two works, Caravaggio poignantly probes a dark world burdened by guilt and doom, suggesting to some scholars an intersection with his biography and his sense of the tragedy of life."
"According to legend, Saint Ursula traveled with eleven thousand virgins to Cologne, where the chief of the Huns besieging the city fell in love with her. When she rejected his advances, he killed her with an arrow. In this haunting depiction, Caravaggio places the two figures improbably close to each other, maximizing the contrast between their expressions: Ursula’s perplexed gaze at the agent of her martyrdom; the tyrant’s conflicted reactions of rage and guilt. Caravaggio includes himself as a spectator, straining for a glimpse, while another figure thrusts his hand forward in an abortive effort to prevent the saint’s execution. The exaggerated contrasts between dark and light seem not merely a dramatic device but a symbolic allusion to sin and redemption, death and life."
"Standing before a fireplace, the apostle Peter is accused of being a follower of Jesus. The pointing finger of the soldier and the two fingers of the woman allude to the three accusations recounted in the Bible as well as to Peter's three denials. The composition is reduced to essentials. Just as in The Martyrdom of Saint Ursula the Hun chief wears a piece of near-contemporary armor, so in The Denial of Saint Peter the soldier's helmet is taken from a precise model of the early sixteenth century, thus breaking down the fiction of an imagined past. Note the similar gestures of Ursula and Peter."
Christian Tetzlaff - Violin
Anne Sofie von Otter - Mezzo-Soprano
"Mahler and Sibelius drew inspiration from nature, and the myths and poetry of their homelands. Mahler’s Kindertotenlieder is a melancholy but piercingly beautiful song cycle set to texts by Friedrich Rückert. There are brooding qualities in Sibelius’s innovative one-movement Symphony No. 7, but the work also boasts elemental power and stunning orchestration. The power of his Violin Concerto is derived from the tremendous technical demands made of the soloist. From its opening measures, the soloist is engaged, playing the opening theme and one of the most stunning cadenzas in all of music."
GUSTAV MAHLER Blumine
Blumine began its life as a movement of Mahler’s now-lost suite of incidental music Der Trompeter von Säkkingen, which the composer wrote for a dramatic poem by Joseph Victor von Scheffel; it was later repurposed as the second movement of his Symphony No. 1 before being jettisoned during a subsequent revision. Blumine was only rediscovered in 1966, and has since begun receiving occasional performances as a stand-alone concert piece.
JEAN SIBELIUS Violin Concerto in D Minor, Op. 47
The shimmering, mysterious opening of Sibelius’s Violin Concerto marks the beginning of the new symphonic world the Finnish composer was to continue exploring the rest of his career. Composed concurrently with the Valse triste and just after the Second Symphony—in which Sibelius made dramatic formal and expressive advances over his traditional, late-Romantic First—the Violin Concerto features the same combination of warm lyricism and icy grandeur that came to characterize Sibelius’s mature works.
GUSTAV MAHLER Kindertotenlieder
In Mahler’s life and work, superstition and premonition are striking and abundant, as is the composer’s preoccupation with death. This ever-present sense of mortality is made painfully explicit in the Kindertotenlieder (Songs on the Death of Children), and, sadly, the songs would also eventually come to be revealed as tragic premonitions of the composer’s own grief. Perhaps the most remarkable thing about the Kindertotenlieder is their tranquility: The songs capture not the hysterical panic and agony of the initial loss, but the constant struggle against the paralyzing undertow that follows, always threatening new submersions in grief.
JEAN SIBELIUS Symphony No. 7 in C Major, Op. 105
Especially influential to contemporary music composition is Sibelius’s ability to build epic structures from tiny motifs, a technique that began with Beethoven but reached an apotheosis in Sibelius’s final symphony, the Seventh. In this single-movement symphony, everything evolves from a few thematic scraps, building through what musicologists view as hidden fragments of traditional symphonic form toward a final upward sweep. The hymn-like motifs, shivering strings, ambiguous wind chords, and ephemeral dances sound like procedures from earlier Sibelius symphonies that have been miraculously distilled.
Friday, June 2, 2017
FERRY EXCURSION
Rockaway
NYC Ferry Transit
We had the day to leave our apartment in the middle of Midtown NYC and travel to the barrier island and beach of Rockaway. We rode the R train to the bottom of Manhattan, walked to the South Street Seaport, and boarded the ferry for the 1 hour ride to Rockaway.
We ate lunch outdoors at Rockaway, shrimp and beer, and then rode the A and D trains for one hour as we returned to Manhattan.
Leaving the East River and its bridges as we passed between Brooklyn and Governor's Island.
Leaving the southern tip of Manhattan.
Going under the Verrazano Bridge between Brooklyn on the left and /Staten Island on the right. By passing under this bridge we are leaving the harbor of New York City and entering the North Atlantic.
Brooklyn is now on the right and Staten Island to the left. The World Trade Center is just seen on the far right of the horizon.
