Peter Martin News

The annual Emory Jazz Fest returns February 6-8 with performances, public master classes and an open rehearsal.

There's still time to buy good tickets to see ON KENTUCKY AVENUE on Superbowl Sunday, Feb. 2, at 3 PM at Stage 72/Triad, 152 West 72nd Street in Manhattan and get home and watch the Superbowl on TV in the comfort of your home at 6 PM!

Ballet NY presents its 2014 Season, including In the Garden of Souls, the company premieres of Kinderszenen, Dreams, and excerpts from Urban Study, from April 15-17, 2014 at the Ailey Citigroup Theater, 405 West 55th Street, NYC (at Ninth Avenue). All performances are at 7:30pm. Tickets are $26 ($16 for students and seniors) and are available at www.smarttix.com or by phone at 212-868-4444.

Nearly 31 years have passed since George Balanchine, the prolific and pioneering 20th century choreographer, died on April 30th 1983. Yet the New York City Ballet, the company he co-founded with Lincoln Kirstein 80 years ago, continues to revere and remember him with equal parts fondness and awe. That legacy of love and respect for Mr. B was especially evident on January 25th 2014, the 4th annual celebration of "Saturday at the Ballet with George" in honor of his birthday. He was actually born on January 22nd 1904 but scheduling the event on a Saturday allows for a daylong series of workshops and performances, all of them affordable and some of them free.

In order to avoid conflict with the Super Bowl on Sunday evening, February 2, the producers of ON KENTUCKY AVENUE, the musical revue based loosely on fact and mostly fiction about the people and performers who took the stage and filled the tables at the majestic Club Harlem 'on Kentucky Avenue' in the north section of Atlantic City from the 1930s until the late 1980s, has changed its three performance schedule at STAGE 72/THE TRIAD, 158 West 72nd Street. The new schedule is as follows: Sunday, Feb, 2, at 3PM, Monday, Feb, 3 at 7pm and Sunday, Feb. 16, at 3 PM. The shows are being presented as part of Black History Month celebration.

Hubbard Street Dance Chicago, under the artistic leadership of Glenn Edgerton, will present its first-ever mixed repertory program devoted to the work of a single choreographer during the Spring Series, March 13-16, 2014. This engagement's four works by Sarabande (1990), for an all-male ensemble and set to Bach's second partita for solo violin with electronically manipulated live vocals; and Falling Angels (1989), for a cast of eight women and set to part one of Steve Reich's phased-percussion composition, Drumming, to be performed live by Third Coast Percussion, Ensemble- in-Residence at the University of Notre Dame's DeBartolo Performing Arts Center.

The annual Emory Jazz Fest returns February 6-8 with performances, public master classes and an open rehearsal.

Celebrity Series of Boston will present Newport Jazz Festival: NOW 60, on Thursday, February 13, 2014, at 8pm at Berklee Performance Center, 136 Massachusetts Avenue Boston. Sponsored by Donna and Mike Egan. Media partner is Boston Public Radio 89.7 WGBH.

This month, New York's funniest show Celebrity Autobiography welcomes to the cast music icon Debbie Harry, The View's Sherri Shepherd, and actor Ralph Macchio. The first show took place last night, January 13, and the next is set for this Friday, January 17 at 9pm at Stage 72 (158 West 72nd Street). Tickets are $60, $45 and $35 and can be purchased online at www.SmartTix.com or by phone at 212.868.4444. Check out a look back at last night's performance below!

Brooklyn Center for the Performing Arts at Brooklyn College's 2013-14 season continues with The Beauty of Ballet, a free lecture demonstration presented by the School of American Ballet (SAB), on Saturday, March 8 at 2pm. This event is free, with no ticket or reservation required.

Lee Nolting, artistic director of COCAdance, has mentored dozens of promising young students during her 35 years at COCA, with many going on to earn top spots at world-renowned dance companies. Among her former students is Antonio Douthit-Boyd, 32, a principal dancer with the acclaimed Alvin Ailey American Dance Theater, which has performed for more than 23 million people worldwide. When Nolting receives an Excellence in the Arts award at the 2014 St. Louis Arts Awards on January 20, Douthit-Boyd will perform in a swirling ballet duet in tribute to her. His dance partner will be Alicia Graf Mack, a nationally recognized dance professional and Alvin Ailey principal dancer who at one time taught alongside Nolting at COCA.

In January, New York's funniest show Celebrity Autobiography will welcome to the cast two-time Tony Award-winner Matthew Broderick, music icon Debbie Harry, The View's Sherri Shepherd, actor Ralph Macchio, and four-time Oscar-nominated actress Marsha Mason, with two shows on Monday, January 13 at 9pm and Friday, January 17 at 9pm at Stage 72 (158 West 72nd Street). Tickets are $60, $45 and $35 and can be purchased online at www.SmartTix.com or by phone at 212.868.4444.

ON KENTUCKY AVENUE, a musical revue based loosely on fact and mostly fiction about the people and performers who took the stage and filled the tables at the majestic Club Harlem 'on Kentucky Avenue' in the north section of Atlantic City from the 1930s until the late 1980s, will make its NYC commercial stage debut at STAGE72/THE TRIAD, 158 West 72nd Street, on Sunday, February 2, with performances at 3pm and 7pm and Monday, February 3 at 7pm in honor of Black History Month.

In celebration of the 60th anniversary of the world-renowned Newport Jazz Festival (August 1-3, 2014), clarinetist/saxophonist Anat Cohen, vocalist/pianist Karrin Allyson, bassists Larry Grenadier and Ben Allison, pianist Peter Martin, guitarist Mark Whitfield, trumpeter Randy Brecker, and drummer Clarence Penn embark on the 17-city 'Newport Jazz Festival: Now 60' Tour, February 8 - March 30, 2014, with more dates during June, July and August in North America and Europe.

Two months before the world premiere of Charles Wuorinen's much-anticipated opera Brokeback Mountain at Teatro Real in Madrid (January 28-February 11), the Morgan Library & Museum celebrates one of America's greatest contemporary composers with a 75th birthday tribute concert: CHARLES WUORINEN: Virtuoso Works for Solo Piano & String Quartet, tonight, November 20, 2013 at 7:30pm.

AOL On Originals, AOL's premium video platform, launched its newest documentary series, city.ballet, today, offering a rare behind-the-scenes look at the day-to-day lives of the elite roster of artists who perform with the New York City Ballet.

What is Jazz? Steeped in the American heritage, this original art form has seized artists' imaginations through the years. Locally, jazz legends have passed through Philadelphia's storied history of jazz clubs and smoky bars to perform this great American art form since its birth. Today, the genre continues as a reincarnation of a legendary past and a creative canvas for young and established artists to take it into daring, uncharted territories.

Composer-conductor Esa-Pekka Salonen will return to the New York Philharmonic to lead the New York Concert Premiere of his Violin Concerto, featuring Leila Josefowicz as soloist in her Philharmonic subscription debut; Ravel's Mother Goose Suite; and Sibelius's Symphony No. 5, tonight, October 30, 2013, at 7:30 p.m.; Thursday, October 31 at 7:30 p.m.; Friday, November 1 at 11:00 a.m.; Saturday, November 2 at 8:00 p.m.; and Tuesday, November 5 at 7:30 p.m.

I have always told my ballet students that because the art form is kept alive by each new generation of dancers, we must be as proficient in historical styles as we are in contemporary techniques. The important works of the past cannot be hung on museum walls the way the paintings of the masters are. Instead, we have to recreate what came before us or else the ballets will be lost. Years ago when I made that speech, I was referring to the centuries-old ballet classics. Yet on the afternoon of October 13th 2013, when the New York City Ballet offered a mixed bill of Balanchine's iconic 'black and white' ballets at the Koch Theater, I was reminded that now the dance gems of the 20th Century

Obie Award-winning playwright/performer David Drake, who most recently headlined an all-star ensemble benefit of his landmark show The Night Larry Kramer Kissed Me for Broadway Cares/Equity Fights AIDS last spring, returns to the New York stage with TAWNY, TELL ME TRUE. Written by and starring Drake, this drag tragicomedy with music will be directed by Robert La Fosse (Tony Award nominee for Jerome Robbins' Broadway) featuring musical direction by Lance Cruce (Joan River's longtime pianist, Karen Finley's Make Love), original music by Trevor Kuprel, and video by Ned Stresen Reuter. Performances begin October 19th at The Laurie Beechman Theatre.