The Contrast - 2006 - Off-Broadway Articles Page 8

Monday, October 27 at 9:00 pm there will be a special performance at State 72 / The Triad, 158 West 72 Street (just off Broadway). Written and performed by Jon Peterson, "He Wrote Good Songs" is the story of Anthony Newley, the legendary British actor, singer, song-writer, director.

From turbulent, agitated and ominous to lyrical and tender—it's a passionate journey the audience won't soon forget when Pacific Symphony and guest pianist Haochen Zhang deliver Mozart's Piano Concerto No. 20 in all its glory. Following Zhang's BBC Proms debut, The Telegraph (United Kingdom) called the international piano sensation “one of those hot young Chinese virtuosi everyone's talking about.” Led by Bulgarian-born guest conductor Rossen Milanov, the orchestra then performs a work by Brahms, as the composer steps out of Beethoven's shadow with his rich, ingenious Second Symphony. The cheery and almost pastoral mood of the piece often invites comparisons with Beethoven's Sixth Symphony. Rounding out the versatile program is Thomas Adès' “Three Studies from Couperin,” of which The Jerusalem Post wrote: “Such a combination of enchanting, sensitive lyricism and hypnotizing forcefulness is a phenomenon encountered very rarely.”

Monday, October 27 at 9:00 pm there will be a special performance at State 72 / The Triad, 158 West 72 Street (just off Broadway). Written and performed by Jon Peterson, 'He Wrote Good Songs' is the story of Anthony Newley, the legendary British actor, singer, song-writer, director.

The New York Philharmonic will present the second season of THE ART OF THE SCORE: Film Week at the Philharmonic September 16-20, 2014, offering two concert programs of film music - La Dolce Vita: The Music of Italian Cinema and Charlie Chaplin's Modern Times: The Tramp at 100 - that highlight some of the genre's most distinctive uses of music. Music Director Alan Gilbert opens the New York Philharmonic's 2014-15 season on September 16 with the Opening Gala Concert, La Dolce Vita: The Music of Italian Cinema, with special guest Martin Scorsese, Oscar-winning director and film preservation proponent, who will deliver welcoming and introductory remarks. Award-winning actor, Philharmonic Board Member, and Philharmonic Radio Host Alec Baldwin returns as Artistic Advisor of THE ART OF THE SCORE.

Houston Grand Opera's U.S. premiere of Mieczyslaw Weinberg's The Passenger- the long-suppressed Holocaust opera that Shostakovich declared 'a perfect masterpiece'- earned virtually universal acclaim earlier this year. The Chicago Tribune declared The Passenger to be an 'engrossing, thought-provoking experience,' while the Houston Chronicle praised the presentation for 'ingenious storytelling, potent music, commanding performances and vivid, fast-paced staging.' Now HGO brings the David Pountney production of The Passenger for its New York premiere in three performances- today, July 10, 12, 13 -at the Park Avenue Armory as part of the 2014 Lincoln Center Festival.

Houston Grand Opera's U.S. premiere of Mieczyslaw Weinberg's The Passenger— the long-suppressed Holocaust opera that Shostakovich declared “a perfect masterpiece”— earned virtually universal acclaim earlier this year. The Chicago Tribune declared The Passenger to be an “engrossing, thought-provoking experience,” while the Houston Chronicle praised the presentation for “ingenious storytelling, potent music, commanding performances and vivid, fast-paced staging.” Now HGO brings the David Pountney production of The Passenger for its New York premiere in three performances— July 10, 12, 13 —at the Park Avenue Armory as part of the 2014 Lincoln Center Festival. Pountney's staging was inspired, in part, by the soaring space of Park Avenue Armory's massive Wade Thompson Drill Hall, where he produced Zimmerman'sDie Soldaten for Lincoln Center Festival in 2008. HGO artistic and music director Patrick Summers will conduct the HGO Orchestra and Chorus; reviewing the Houston performances, the Wall Street Journal praised Summers for the way he “shaped the evening with enormous care.” The Dallas Morning News commended all the singers – headed by mezzo-soprano Michelle Breedt in the title role – by saying: “Top to bottom, the cast is excellent.”

Houston Grand Opera's U.S. premiere of Mieczyslaw Weinberg's The Passenger-the long-suppressed Holocaust opera that Shostakovich declared "a perfect masterpiece"-earned virtually universal acclaim earlier this year

Douglas Carter Beane's 2013 drama The Nance, produced by Lincoln Center Theater and headlined by two-time Tony Award-winning actor Nathan Lane, comes to more than 300 movie theatres in the U.S. and Canada for a limited run beginning today, June 23, 2014, during Gay Pride Week in many cities. In The Nance, celebrated playwright Douglas Carter Beane tells the story of Chauncey Miles (Nathan Lane), a headline nance performer in the twilight of New York burlesque's era. Integrating burlesque sketches into his drama, Beane paints the portrait of a homosexual man living and working in the secretive and dangerous gay world of 1930's New York, whose outrageous antics on the burlesque stage stand in marked contrast to his messy offstage life. This presentation is made possible by Screenvision, a leading innovator in cinema advertising, and Lincoln Center, the world's leading performing arts center.

'Liminal Languages: Complexity and Emotion in Art' will be moderated by Natalee Cayton and Rotem Linial on June 15, 2014 at 3 pm at Hunter College, 205 Hudson Street Gallery (entrance on Canal between Hudson and Greenwich). This panel is presented in conjunction with the Spring 2014 MFA Thesis Exhibitions and hosted by the MFA Thesis Students in collaboration with the Hunter College Art Galleries.

South Portland's Mad Horse Theatre Company ended its season with a poignant and ambitious production of the Tony-award-winning musical, Grey Gardens. A musical is a bit of a departure for the small theatre company and its tiny black box space, but they acquitted themselves with both substance and aplomb. Premiered in New York in 2006 with music by Scott Frankel, lyrics by Michael Korie, and book by Douglas Wright, the play tells the heartbreaking story of Jacqueline Kennedy's reclusive aunt and cousin, whose eccentric lives descend into disarray and squalor. With a script that is part Long Day's Journey into Night and a score that is part Stephen Sondheim, Grey Gardens is laden with pathos and a bittersweet humor. The lyrics are mordant; the music through composed as an extension of the dialogue, it is a theatre piece which calls for sensitive singing-actors and a director who can plumb its depths. Fortunately, the Mad Horse Theatre has both!

I was encouraged to see so many students in the audience experiencing this required reading masterpiece in a whole new light.

The Film Society of Lincoln Center announced today the upcoming summer lineup of new releases opening through August.

Entering its sixth season in 2014-15, CONTACT!, the Philharmonic's new-music series, will include five programs featuring World, U.S., and New York Premieres, four of which explore the new-music scene from four different countries, and a fifth curated and hosted by composer John Adams. CONTACT! will return for three programs at SubCulture, co-presented with 92nd Street Y: John's Playlist, featuring works by five composers selected by John Adams; a concert of works by Israeli composers, featuring The Mary and James G. Wallach Artist-in-Residence Lisa Batiashvili alongside Philharmonic musicians; and a performance of works by Italian composers. Two CONTACT! programs will take place at The Metropolitan Museum of Art with Met Museum Presents: a concert of works by Nordic composers conducted in part by Music Director Alan Gilbert; and a program featuring works from Japan, conducted by Jeffrey Milarsky.

What are the latest employment figures for working artists-both full-time and their moonlighting counterparts? Keeping My Day Job: Identifying U.S. Workers Who Have Dual Careers As Artists is the third installment in the National Endowment for the Arts' Arts Data Profiles, an online resource offering facts and figures from large, national datasets about the arts, along with instructions for their use. Arts Data Profile #3 reports on employment statistics for U.S. workers who name 'artist' as their primary or secondary job.

ABC News' “Good Morning America” won the February 2014 Sweep in Total Viewers (5.851 million), according to Nielsen Media Research.

For week two of the 2014 Winter Olympics in Sochi, ABC News' “Good Morning America” averaged 5.590 million Total Viewers and a 1.8 rating/13 share/2.174 million Adults 25-54 for the week of February 17, 2014

What can be defined as slavery? In multiple ways, slavery continually exists and humans can all be slaves to someone or something. At the Stiemke Studio this past February weekend, The Milwaukee Rep opened The Whipping Man. The 2006 award-winning Off Broadway play written by Matthew Lopez returns three men, the owner's son and two of his slaves, to their family homestead in a complex and riveting American Civil War drama set a few days before the assassination of President Lincoln.

The Metropolitan Opera's 2014-15 season will feature 26 operas, three of them company premieres, in six new productions and 18 revivals showcasing the talents of the world's leading singers, conductors, and theater artists. The three operas that will have their first-ever Met performances, each staged by a director making his Met debut, are John Adams's The Death of Klinghoffer, conducted by David Robertson and directed by Tom Morris, opening October 20; Rossini's La Donna del Lago, conducted by Michele Mariotti and directed by Paul Curran, opening February 16, 2015; and Tchaikovsky's one-act opera Iolanta, conducted by Valery Gergiev and directed by Mariusz Treli?ski. Iolanta will be presented in a double bill with a new staging of Bartok's one-act Duke Bluebeard's Castle, also conducted by Gergiev and directed by Treli?ski.

Lakeland Civic Theatre's THE LIGHT IN THE PIAZZA is a special night of musical theatre. To appreciate the show, the viewer must put aside any attitude of what a musical should look and sound like and embrace this creatively 'different' approach. I, for one, loved the story, the music and the production, and would declare it a MUST SEE!

Beginning today, 15 January, Hauser & Wirth will present its first New York exhibition devoted to the late sculptor Hans Josephsohn (1920 - 2012). For over six decades, the German-born Swiss artist devoted his practice to the enduring theme of the human figure, which he explored in standing, sitting, and reclining figures, as well as half-figures, heads, torsos, and reliefs. Josephsohn's highly personal artistic language - the distinctive weight, mass, and force he achieved through a bold, immediate, and highly physical way of working - conveys deep understanding of both classical sculpture and Modernist principles. From slim abstracted forms reminiscent of ancient steles, to rough-hewn figures cast in bronze and left unpainted, the artist's output reveals a continuous search to reinvent and express the fundamental humanity of the individual and to summon the presence of a person.

Once, the 2012 Tony-winning Best Musical, is headed to the Durham Performing Arts Center this month. The musical is based on a 2006 film with the same name which earned an Academy Award for Best Original Song. Once, taking place largely in a Dublin pub, tells the story of the fortuitous meeting of a down-and-out Irish musician-slash-vacuum-repairman and a persuasive Czech woman who encourages him to continue making music. Including the prize of Best Musical, Once took home eight Tony Awards.

Over 12 years and 7 critically acclaimed albums, ambient pop-rock collective Blow Up Hollywood has created an expansive and adventurous body of work that manages to be both highly emotionally charged and majestically anonymous. Helmed by Steve Messina, and backed by trusted friends and collaborators, Blow Up Hollywood has put its distinct fingerprint on warped Americana, dark wave, post rock, noise, jazz, classical, freak folk, and any other music medium they felt like inhabiting. But when Messina's personal life became painfully complex, he stepped out front and crafted the most direct and vulnerable album in Blow Up Hollywood's career, the stunning, BLUE SKY BLOND (Out TODAY, January 7, 2014).

The South Orange Performing Arts Center (SOPAC) today announced the ambitious performance schedule for January - May 2014. From Grammy Award- winners such as Paula Cole to guitar legends including Johnny Winter to a night of comedy with Jay Mohr, SOPAC's 2014 season sates every artistic appetite. With a nod to sounds of Americana, SOPAC serves a heaping of national folk treasures in a robust singer/songwriter concert series. As always, SOPAC welcomes its ongoing Juilliard @ SOPAC classical concert series as well as the Jazz in the LOFT and the Blues in the LOFT series.

Nigel Redden, director of the Lincoln Center Festival, and Rebecca Robertson, President and Executive Producer, Park Avenue Armory, today announced that the two organizations will co-present The Passenger, Mieczyslaw Weinberg's uncompromising 1968 opera about the Holocaust, performed by Houston Grand Opera and directed by David Pountney, in its New York premiere performances July 10, 12 and 13 at Lincoln Center Festival 2014. Pountney's production will have its U.S. premiere on January 18, 2014 at Houston Grand Opera.

Over 12 years and 7 critically acclaimed albums, ambient pop-rock collective Blow Up Hollywood has created an expansive and adventurous body of work that manages to be both highly emotionally charged and majestically anonymous. Helmed by Steve Messina, and backed by trusted friends and collaborators, Blow Up Hollywood has put its distinct fingerprint on warped Americana, dark wave, post rock, noise, jazz, classical, freak folk, and any other music medium they felt like inhabiting. But when Messina's personal life became painfully complex, he stepped out front and crafted the most direct and vulnerable album in Blow Up Hollywood's career, the stunning, BLUE SKY BLOND (Out January 7, 2014).