Friends — hello!
Greetings from my parents’ backyard deck in southern California. I’m not quite on vacation — there’s still lots of work to do at The Met — but it always heals me to take meetings in the sun, eat farmers market stone fruit with every meal, squeeze my parents and brother and grandparents, and meander through the kind of life-affirming friend catch-ups that fill my heart with light. (My thighs got soooo sunburned yesterday in the backyard of one of LA’s best dance critics as we yapped for more than seven consecutive hours. I correctly decided that was more important than sending this month’s missive on time.)
I couldn’t imagine living in Los Angeles permanently — not least because I hate driving — but it always makes me a little sad when I arrive home and feel that latent New York stress unwind from my knotty shoulders. I’ve chosen to make my career in a place that romanticizes the level of hustle on which I thrive, but the pace can be ruinous. You never realize just how fast you’re moving until you slam into a brick wall, as I discovered during an April-May marathon that walloped me like never before.
But alas, New York holds the most robust arts scene in which I have the right to live and work. My week in LA is mercifully devoid of concerts — summer pickings are slim in this town, save for a few short festivals and the LA Phil’s outdoor Hollywood Bowl season, whose classical offerings begin in earnest next week. And even then, with all the love and respect and gratitude to my hometown band, the music at the Bowl always takes a backseat to the venue’s lazy-summer-night vibes. (But it’s your choice of picnic that ultimately makes or breaks the evening. Bay Cities sandwiches never fail — although apparently they had a recent run-in with the health department? Ew…)
Theoretically, the NYC arts scene decamps each summer to the Berkshires and beyond. But in practice, that’s just not true, as I first discovered during my fifty-concert review summer in 2019. It’s easy to be in the concert hall every night during the off-season.
Sure, NYC has its share of vibes-first performances. I enjoyed the NY Phil’s Central Park residency for the opportunity to picnic with my coworkers, not necessarily for Gustavo Dudamel’s ragged reading of Tchaikovsky’s Fourth Symphony — in that setting, how could one expect perfection? I frankly hated the saccharine, Disney-fied trumpet concerto of renowned trumpeter Arturo Sandoval, who once proudly admitted to a room full of music critics that his compositional process consists of recording his piano improvisations and “sending them to his guy” for orchestration.
But the summer music scene in New York has been evolving. Case in point: I found myself at Lincoln Center’s largely-free, all-cheap Summer for the City festival four times last week. The New York Times had a conniption when the newly revamped festival, a more pluralistic replacement for the longstanding Mostly Mozart Festival, was announced in 2022 — and admittedly, I’ve been disappointed by the last few summers’ slates, which seemed to lack overarching identity or throughline.
Something changed this summer — in short, the Lincoln Center executives chose their curators well. The ensembles tapped to build their own series have steeped themselves in the New York arts scene. They’ve made long-term investments in NYC audiences, learning how to package their sometimes-arcane art forms to bridge the perilous gap between novice and connoisseur. The schedule is full of excitement, of celebration, of curiosity. Even the gaudy disco ball which adorns the street-facing plaza feels more welcome, less a gimmick and than a playful reminder that summer isn’t so buttoned-up.
I’ve invested the most time in the Run AMOC* Festival, a three-week bonanza organized by the American Modern Opera Company (AMOC*). They began with a four-day run of George Lewis’ Comet/Poppea, an overstimulating, simultaneous interweaving of excerpts from Claudio Monteverdi’s 1643 L’incoronazione di Poppea with a new work based on W. E. B. DuBois’ short sci-fi story The Comet. The circular stage rotated constantly throughout the 90-minute production; audiences sat in stadium seats on opposite sides, one half of the crowd viewing what the other half couldn’t. My mush-brain couldn’t keep up with two plots, two sets, two casts of characters — but Lewis wrote one wild, emotionally charged harpsichord cadenza which sticks in my mind thanks to a fiery rendition by my friend Elliot Figg.
A couple days later, Sandbox Percussion and AMOC* gave a mesmerizing pass at Dutch minimalist Simeon Ten Holt’s Canto Ostinato, a winding journey that perches upon smooth, yet uneven groups of five notes. Despite its obvious kinship with ubiquitous evening-length works of American minimalism (*ahem* Music for 18 Musicians), the piece rarely gets played stateside. It’s an esoteric favorite of mine, intriguing in its open-ended instrumentation and structure, soothing in its zen flow. The sextet’s transitions were perfectly unified, caressed without losing any steam — and I was so locked into the group’s focus that I barely glanced at the lackluster wall projections, whose thin white lines paraded with uncanny-valley motion that almost evoked VeggieTales.
I strayed from the AMOC* Festival for a solo set of electronically-processed voice by Lisel, one stage alias for the Los Angeles-based experimental composer Eliza Bagg. Her medieval-inspired compositions were full of velvety, resonant overtone stacks, with lower frequencies that shook my organs. She performed in the “underground” stage, fashioned out of a parking lot entrance — and though Lisel’s text was a bit muddy, the walls’ indiscriminate amplification largely played to her advantage.
And then: Eastman. I’m an unabashed lover of Julius Eastman’s radical, ecstatic, emotional, life-affirming (I know I already used that adjective earlier, my life is feeling very affirmed of late!) works. I’ve written at length about the ways in which LA-based new music ensemble Wild Up rewired my brain with an Eastman weekend in 2022 — and I was thrilled that AMOC* complemented their tight squad with several Wild Up players for their own mini Eastman festival, curated by star cellist Seth Parker Woods.
A chunky, two-and-a-half-hour program of Eastman obscure and known opened the weekend. Gay Guerrilla, one of the composer’s most popular works, ascended into a climax whose emotion radiated into every crevice of David Geffen Hall. The obscure, almost antiphonal Trumpet, a seven-trumpet work reconstructed with the help of a single photograph, heralded the program; the gossamer tones of Hail Mary hung placidly in the air as baritone Davóne Tines intoned his prayer. Had I not flown out the next day, I would have joined for the culminating event, a plaza concert that morphed into a silent disco after sunset.
Friends, I’d urge you to find yourselves at Lincoln Center before the summer festival is over in August. For the first time since I’ve lived in NYC, it feels like the place to see and be seen — perhaps the only free-and-cheap space for which that’s true, at least above 14th Street. The AMOC* Festival still has a couple more weeks, followed by the Festival Orchestra of Lincoln Center’s three week season, and then a three-day bonanza celebrating the twentieth anniversary of string quartet Brooklyn Rider.
In the meantime, stay cool! Wishing you a summer full of frozen [m/c]ocktails, air conditioning, and adventures. As I always say: live, laugh, languish!
What’s On
Note: All performances are in the evening unless otherwise noted.
Run AMOC* Festival: Zarabanda Variations (FREE)
Wed Jul 2 (afternoon and evening) | David Rubenstein Atrium (Lincoln Center)
Run AMOC* Festival: Edinburgh Rollick (FREE)
Thu Jul 3 | The Underground at Jaffe Drive (Lincoln Center)
Jazz Underground: Savannah Harris (FREE)
Sun Jul 6 (early eve) | The Underground at Jaffe Drive (Lincoln Center)
Carnegie Hall Citywide: Toomai String Quintet (FREE)
Wed Jul 9 (early eve) | Madison Square Park
Run AMOC* Festival: Dance in the Park (FREE)
Wed Jul 9 (two performances) | Hearst Plaza (Lincoln Center)
The Stone Residencies: Matana Roberts I
Wed Jul 9 | The Stone at The New School
Run AMOC* Festival: Music for New Bodies (PAY WHAT YOU WISH)
Thu Jul 10 | David Geffen Hall
Run AMOC* Festival: Dance in the Park (FREE)
Thu Jul 10 (two performances) | Hearst Plaza (Lincoln Center)
The Stone Residencies: Matana Roberts II
Thu Jul 10 | The Stone at The New School
Carnegie Hall Citywide: The Knights with Julien Labro (FREE)
Fri Jul 11 | Bryant Park
Run AMOC* Festival: Music for New Bodies (PAY WHAT YOU WISH)
Fri Jul 11 | David Geffen Hall
Ralph Alessi and Ether
Fri Jul 11 (two sets) | The Jazz Gallery
The Stone Residencies: Matana Roberts III
Fri Jul 11 | The Stone at The New School
Washington Heights Chamber Orchestra: Summer Picnic Concert (FREE)
Sat Jul 12 (matinee) | Bennett Park
Run AMOC* Festival: The Cello Player (FREE)
Sat Jul 12 | Hearst Plaza (Lincoln Center)
The Stone Residencies: Matana Roberts IV
Sat Jul 12 | The Stone at The New School
Orchestra of St. Luke’s & Stella Chen, violin
Sun Jul 13 (matinee) | Caramoor Center for Music the Arts (Westchester)
Bargemusic: Ursula Oppens plays Rzewski’s “The People United” (FREE)
Sun Jul 13 (matinee) | Brooklyn Bridge Park Boathouse
Jazz Underground: Kalia Vandever (FREE)
Sun Jul 13 (early eve) | The Underground at Jaffe Drive (Lincoln Center)
Run AMOC* Festival: Rome is Falling (PAY WHAT YOU WISH)
Sun Jul 13 | Alice Tully Hall
Carnegie Hall Citywide: Ziggy and Miles (FREE)
Wed Jul 16 (early eve) | Bryant Park
Run AMOC* Festival: the echoing of tenses (PAY WHAT YOU WISH)
Wed Jul 16 | Alice Tully Hall
The Stone Residencies: Matt Mitchell I
Wed Jul 16 | The Stone at The New School
Marcus Gilmore
Thu Jul 17 (two sets) | The Jazz Gallery
The Stone Residencies: Matt Mitchell II
Thu Jul 17 | The Stone at The New School
Marcus Gilmore
Fri Jul 18 (two sets) | The Jazz Gallery
The Stone Residencies: Matt Mitchell III
Fri Jul 18 | The Stone at The New School
Summer for the City: Liniker (FREE)
Sat Jul 19 | Damrosch Park (Lincoln Center)
The Stone Residencies: Matt Mitchell IV
Sat Jul 19 | The Stone at The New School
George Li, piano
Sat July 19 (early eve) | Caramoor Center for Music and the Arts (Westchester)
Teatro Nuovo: Verdi’s Macbeth (Original Verison)
Sat Jul 19 | Kasser Theater, Montclair State University (NJ)
Teatro Nuovo: Bellini’s La Sonnambula
Sun Jul 20 (matinee) | Kasser Theater, Montclair State University (NJ)
Death of Classical: Versailles in Printemps — The Affair of the Poisons
Mon Jul 21 | Printemps New York
Festival Orchestra of Lincoln Center: Folklore and Legends (PAY WHAT YOU WISH)
Tue Jul 22 | David Geffen Hall
Nosky’s Baroque Band (FREE)
Tue Jul 22 | Naumburg Bandshell, Central Park
Carnegie Hall Citywide: Catalyst Quartet (FREE)
Wed Jul 23 (early evening) | Madison Square Park
Teatro Nuovo: Verdi’s Macbeth (Original Verison)
Wed Jul 23 | New York City Center
Waitress: The Musical (in American Sign Language by Deaf Broadway) (FREE)
Wed Jul 23 | Damrosch Park (Lincoln Center)
Death of Classical: Versailles Royal Opera Orchestra
Wed Jul 23 | L’Alliance
Festival Orchestra of Lincoln Center: Folklore and Legends (PAY WHAT YOU WISH)
Wed Jul 23 | David Geffen Hall
Teatro Nuovo: Bellini’s La Sonnambula
Thu Jul 24 | New York City Center
Carnegie Hall Citywide: Cécile McLorin Salvant (FREE)
Fri Jul 25 | Bryant Park
Festival Orchestra of Lincoln Center: Timeless Transformations (PAY WHAT YOU WISH)
Fri Jul 25 | David Geffen Hall
Chamber Music Society of Lincoln Center: Viano Quartet
Sat Jul 26 (early evening) | Alice Tully Hall
Festival Orchestra of Lincoln Center: Timeless Transformations (PAY WHAT YOU WISH)
Sat Jul 26 | David Geffen Hall
Festival Orchestra of Lincoln Center: The Beethoven Effect (PAY WHAT YOU WISH)
Tue Jul 29 | David Geffen Hall
Festival Orchestra of Lincoln Center: The Beethoven Effect (PAY WHAT YOU WISH)
Wed Jul 30 | David Geffen Hall
The Stone Residencies: Nicole Mitchell I
Wed Jul 30 | The Stone at The New School
The Stone Residencies: Nicole Mitchell II
Thu Jul 31 | The Stone at The New School