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.

RECITAL

Morgan Library and Museum
George London Foundation Recital

Paul Appleby - Tenor
Sarah Mesko - Mezzo-soprano
Ken Noda - Piano

The power and beauty of these voices is astounding.  To hear these world class artists at the prime of their game in a relative intimate venue is a treat.

"Pairs of stellar opera singers, many of whom were winners of a George London prize early in their careers, or recent George London Award recipients, perform in this annual series of recitals. A reception with the artists follows the recital.

Paul Appleby will be seen in the 2016–2017 season as Don Ottavio in Don Giovanni (Metropolitan Opera) and as Benedict in Berlioz’s Beatrice et Benedict (Glyndebourne Opera), and Sarah Mesko will be featured as Second Lady in Die Zauberflöte(Metropolitan Opera). The program will include works by Poulenc, Britten, Berlioz, and Brahms."

ART EXHIBITION

The Armory Show 2017

“A TOP DRAW FOR HEAVY-HITTING COLLECTORS, GALLERISTS, CELEBRITIES AND ART LOVERS”

— New York Times




The Armory Show is New York’s premier art fair and a definitive cultural destination for discovering and collecting the world’s most important 20th and 21st century artworks. Staged on Piers 92 & 94, one of the city’s industrial gems, the fair features presentations by leading international galleries, innovative artist commissions and dynamic public programs. Since its founding in 1994, The Armory Show has served as a nexus for the international art world, inspiring dialogue, discovery and patronage in the visual arts.

The Armory Show was founded by four New York gallerists – Colin de Land, Pat Hearn, Matthew Marks and Paul Morris – who sought a platform to present and promote new voices in the visual arts. In its 23 years, The Armory Show has stayed firm to its mission while establishing itself as an unmissable art event set in the heart of New York City and welcoming over 65,000 visitors annually.

FAIR DESIGN

Since 2012, Bade Stageberg Cox has transformed Piers 92 and 94 in Manhattan into an annual, temporary metropolis of contemporary and modern art – prioritizing clear and generous circulation, innovative and practical furnishings and a large public lounge space that is a welcome respite from the fair's activities.

The Armory Show 2017 brings together over 200 of the most influential galleries from 30 countries around the world. Five distinct exhibitor sections guide visitors through nearly two centuries of art history, from established masters of the early 20th century to the next generation of emerging artists.

GALLERIES

The core section of The Armory Show, Galleries features outstanding 20th and 21st century artworks presented by leading international galleries. Visitors are invited to discover thousands of artworks spanning movements, mediums and cultures.

INSIGHTS

Dedicated exclusively to 20th century artworks, Insights emphasizes solo-artist, dual-artist and thematic presentations. This section highlights canonical works of modernism and the post-war era as well as overlooked artistic gems and rediscoveries.

PRESENTS

Presents is a platform for young galleries no more than ten years old to showcase recent work from emerging artists. Solo-artist and dual-artist presentations spotlight the next generation of artistic talents, which visitors can discover in this in-depth and intimate setting.

FOCUS

Focus realizes the vision of an annually appointed curator through a selection of new or rarely seen work by today’s most relevant and compelling artists. This year, 12 solo-artist presentations have been organized specifically for The Armory Show under the direction of Jarrett Gregory. Titled What Is To Be Done?, this year’s Focus section includes a diverse group of artists grappling with some of the world’s most pressing social and political issues.

PLATFORM

Debuting in 2017, Platform stages large-scale artworks, installations and site-specific commissions across Piers 92 & 94. Artists and galleries are invited by an appointed curator to realize ambitious projects that activate the fair’s unique industrial space. The 2017 edition of Platform, entitled An Incident and curated by Eric Shiner, features 14 internationally acclaimed artists.