September Song: Musical Events Around NYC

By Troy Segal

This week marks the opening of both the New York Philharmonic and the New York City Ballet. The return of the performing arts season inspires this bill of upcoming music-themed—and often musical—talks, activities and performances. Play, orchestra, play!

Tap to your feet to a different sort of jungle beat: a performance of the children’s concert-piano piece The History of Babar the Little Elephant, based on the French picture books about the adventures of a green-suited pachyderm, followed by Saint-Saëns’ The Carnival of the Animals. (The same venue will also host Broadway Goes to Church, with stars of the Great White Way, on Monday, Oct. 5). Church of Saint Paul the Apostle, Saturday, Sept. 26.

Pianist Maxim Anikushin delves into the more obscure works of composer Samuel Barber, punctuating his lecture with both a live recital and recordings. New York Public Library for the Performing Arts, Saturday, Sept. 26.

While the United Nations’ General Assembly meets, a consortium of young musicians from around the world—the Yphil International Philharmonic Orchestra—gathers to perform a “concert for global peace”, featuring Mendelssohn, Shostakovich and host Danny Glover. Carnegie Hall, Sunday, Sept 27.

Gregorio Uribe Big Band, image by Fernándo Lodeiro

From the Colombian chords of the Gregorio Uribe Big Band to the Honduran vocals of singer/guitarist Aurelio to the Puerto Rican dance moves of Baile y Teatro Puertorriqueno, the Caribbean touches down in Brooklyn—specifically, the Brooklyn Museum, all evening long. Come for the music, stay for the new exhibit Impressionism and the Caribbean; Francisco Oller and his Transatlantic World. Saturday, Oct. 3.

Image by Matthew Murphy

Trust The New Yorker Festival to be full of stimulating sounds. Triple threat Lin-Manuel Miranda, composer/lyricist/performer, talks about his career, currently riding high with the smash musical Hamilton. Directors Guild Theatre. Another talented composer native to these parts (ok, technically Long Island), Billy Joel, chats it up with The New Yorker writer who’s profiled him in the magazine’s pages. Acura at SIR Stage37. Both events, Sunday, Oct. 4.

During World War II, Jewish musicians often played for their lives, literally, in concentration camps. Their stories, juxtaposed with that of a modern instrument restorer who worked on 30 of their violins, are recounted by music historian James Grymes, author of Violins of Hope. The Anne Frank Center USA, Wednesday, October 7…Jews have played a significant role in the development of Persian music, both classical and popular. An expert in Iranian Jewish history describes their accomplishments. Queensborough Community College, Thursday, Oct. 15.

American theatre and classical music have one big thing in common: they’re both always dying—yet they both stubbornly manage to survive, and even thrive. A pair of lectures parses the two, and their place in American society: the first on the so-called snobbery of orchestral pieces, by the Music Director of the American Symphony Orchestra; the second on the past, present and future of Broadway by the publisher of Playbill. New York Institute of Technology, Tuesday, Oct. 13.

George Crumb’s offbeat electric piece Black Angels (it calls for, among things, suspended gongs and crystal glasses filled with water) inspired the founding of the Kronos Quartet. The group gathers to perform it again, and to discuss how music can comment on contemporary affairs with the host of NPR’s Soundcheck; Black Angels was written in 1970, during the Vietnam War, which ties in with the current exhibit On the Line: Intrepid and the Vietnam War at the Intrepid Sea, Air & Space Museum, Tuesday, Oct. 20.

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