LINCOLN CENTER

Jazz at Lincoln Center
The Music of Cole Porter

The Appel Room in the Time Warner Center is a special place on this Earth.  It is the best of venues with the best of talents.  It is a treat to attend a performance there.

"Michael Feinstein focuses on the genius of Cole Porter, who, he notes, "was in that rare echelon of songwriters who supplied both words and music." Feinstein himself is ideally suited to interpret Porter's archly comic, ambiguous, pointed lyrics, and to execute his memorable melodies, several dozen of which have inspired generations of jazzfolk to improvise at the highest level. "Mr. Porter didn't go out and get loaded because of an arrangement somebody else made of his music," Feinstein quotes Frank Sinatra. "It made no difference to him, as long as the song was done in its entirety." Marilyn Maye, Denzal Sinclair,Kate Davis, and Vince Giordano and the Nighthawks join Feinstein to bring Porter's music to life."

 

 



 

CONCERT

Morgan Library and Museum
Orchestra of St. Lukes

 

Outside the Bachs

Albinoni, Concerto à cinque in B flat Major, Op. 9, No. 11

Alessandro Scarlatti, Sinfonia No. 2 in D Major

Leclair, Sonata in C Major, Op. 9, No. 8

Vivaldi, Trio Sonata in D minor, Op. 1, No. 12 (Variations on "La Folia")

Rameau, Deuxième concert in G Major ("La Laborde") from Pièces de clavecin en concerts

Corelli, Sonata a Quattro in D Major, WoO 4

 

 

 

 

The performance space at The Morgan is wonderful; great acoustics, great sight lines, and comfortable theater.  The seats are fully lined with upholstery with padded armrests.

 

 

Tonight, it was a ten minute walk from 32nd Street and 6th Avenue, across 5th Avenue and the Empire State building to Madison Avenue, and then up Madison to 37th Street.

 



 



MOTHER'S DAY

We had lunch and spent the day at Battery Park.  Every New Yorker was out enjoying the sun and great weather.



CONNECTICUT/CABARET ADVENTURE

We enjoyed a 4 day driving adventure through, into, and around Connecticut.

We picked up our rent car around noon on 34th between 8th & 9th.  That's the way we now get a car.  We drove straight along the Connecticut coast line with a destination of Mystic, CT.  Along the way we made two diversions, Greenwich and New Haven.

Greenwich is right at the New York/Connecticut line and is a very pretty city.  Our second diversion was into New Haven so we could see Yale University.  As you can imagine, Yale is impressive and beautiful.

Our destination was the Inn at Stonington which is in the Village of Stonington in the area known as Mystic, CT.

www.innatstonington.com

The Inn is beautiful, looks quite old, but is, in fact, only several years old.  Behind the Inn is a restaurant named Swooner's.  We ate there our first night there which was also the restaurant's second night of full service.  It was quite good.

This is the street in Stonington with shops.  Slow, pleasant experience.  Much different from NYC!

The second evening we ate at Noah's restaurant.  Again, authentic and good.

http://noahsfinefood.com/new/

Our first full day into the trip we drove to Watch Hill near Westerly, Rhode Island to have lunch at Ocean House.  Excessive and really nice! It is a WOW! place.

http://www.oceanhouseri.com/

The ride to and from Ocean House continued to show us more of the Connecticut and Rhode Island seashore and neighborhoods.

The only fixed time for our second full day was to be at the Connecticut Cabaret in Berlin, CT in time for an 8:00 PM show.  With that much freedom we headed out to see as much as possible.  We made our lunch goal for Finz restaurant in Salem, Massachusetts at noon.  To get to Salem we drove through Providence, RI and the campus of Brown University, downtown Boston, and then up to Salem, MA.  Salem has the greatest concentration of 17th and 18th century domestic structures anywhere in America.  It is a beautiful little town.

http://hipfinz.com/

Following lunch we headed down the road to Hartford, CT and then to Middletown to see the campus of Wesleyan University.  It was another beautiful campus.

Finally, it was time for the big show at Connecticut Cabaret!  The show we went to see was The Great American Trailer Park, The Musical.  It was a hoot!  The cast and the musicians were all professionally trained and were quite good.  We laughed and had a great time.

http://ctcabaret.com/

The next morning we made the two and one half hour drive back to the center of Manhattan.  The drive home was almost completely on parkways and was really pretty. We enjoyed a great trip and have a much better understanding of New England life, architecture, food, and geography.  Well worth it!

 

DAY OFF & MUSEUM

Madison Square Park and Metropolitan Museum of Art

 

Yesterday was a relaxing day that included resting, sunning, walking, and eating.  Carolyn wanted me to take some pictures of the cherry blossoms at Madison Square Park.

 

I exercised, rested on the terrace, walked to Madison Square, ate a Lamb Gyro, took the pictures, and walked home.

 

Today Carolyn and I rode the bus to the Metropolitan Museum of Art to see a Members Preview of Charles James: Beyond Fashion.  Amazingly, as we crossed the street to enter the museum a voice behind us said, "I know the two of you."

 

That changed everything.  We enjoyed lunch and enjoyed spending time with a dear friend.

 

 

The view from our building's upper, high terrace.

 

 

 

Cherry blossoms at Madison Square Park.  Just behind the tree in buildings lining the north side of the park is where Chelsea Clinton lives.

 

The buildings on the east side of the park house 11 Madison, just declared the 4th best restaurant in the world and the highest ranking restaurant in the USA.

 

One of the buildings lining the south side of the park houses the condominium that Rupert Murdock just bought for 47 milliion.



 

 

 

 

From the roof terrace of the Metropolitan Museum.  Spring is finally arriving in New York City.

 



 

 

 

MUSEUM

Museum of the City of New York

http://www.mcny.org/

We rode the subway to 125th and Lenox where we ate at Red Rooster.  From there we walked to Central Park and the City Musueum of New York at 5th and and 104th.  Following that we walked down 5th to 59th where we caught the subway and rode home.  A good 3.5 mile walk!

It is finally Spring and the city is filled with tulips of every size, variety, and color.  It's really nice.

 

 

 

LECTURE

New York Public Library
William Shakespeare - From Stratford-on-Avon to the New York Public Library

Several of us were given the opportunity to actually hold and turn the pages of an old, authentic folio of Shakespeare works and engravings.  Quite an experience when its role in Western Civilization is considered.

"Discover the world of William Shakespeare at the NYPL on his celebrated birthday. Ponder textual problems in the quartos and folios.  Explore illustrated editions of the plays and poems.  Experience Shakespearean research through 21st century databases.  After the lecture, twenty members of the audience (drawn by lot) are invited to view the Shakespearean holdings, including the First Folio, in the Library's Berg Collection of English and American Literature.

Robert Armitage is the Humanities Bibliographer at the Stephen A. Schwarzman Building, NYPL.  His popular lectures on the Library’s collections include Elusive Jane [Austen], Out of the Blacking Factory [Dickens], Subversive Shaw, and others."