cityArts November 24, 2010 by CityArts NYC

NOV. 24-DEC. 7, 2010 Volume 2, Issue 19

Jay Nordlinger on how our music organizations are handling the holidays. Joel Lobenthal on new Nutcrackers. Howard Mandel on seasonal voices.

C H A M B E R

O R C H E S T R A

BARBER, BRITTEN & BEETHOVEN SAT, DEC 4 @ 8 PM CARNEGIE HALL Orpheus-City Arts Cover Ad-Dec 2010 Concert-B.indd 1

Kate Royal soprano

Mark Morris Dance Group’s The Hard Nut presented at BAM Dec. 10-19.

WITH

Susana Millman

IN THIS ISSUE:

The music in 140 characters or less…

B A R B E R Capricorn Concerto Barber went edgy and dry, à la Bach and Stravinsky, in a piece named for his house, a wartime refuge. B R I T T E N Les Illuminations Setting Rimbaud’s poems of love and travel, Britten wrote this sparkling song cycle mostly in New York. B E E T H O V E N Symphony No. 7 Beethoven’s middle-period unity and focus plus a dash of Classical zest added up to a rhythmic cornucopia.

@orpheusnyc ORPHEUSNYC.ORG

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25/10/10

10:16 PM

InthisIssue 6 Classical Music & Opera JAY NORDLINGER rings in the holiday arts season by cheering for Chanticleer and jeering at Messiahs.

7 Jazz HOWARD MANDEL prepares for the caroling season with Bobby McFerrin.

8 Dance JOEL LOBENTHAL watches as Alexei Ratmansky preps a new crop of men mice for ABT’s Nutcracker.

10 At the Galleries Reviews: Luc Demers at Coleman Burke Gallery; Works by Meraud and Alvaro Guevara at Lori Bookstein Fine Art; Heather L. Johnson at Christina Ray Gallery; Philemona Williamson at June Kelly Gallery; Sculpture and Works on Paper by William Zorach at Gerald Peters Gallery; Mika Rottenberg at Mary Boone Gallery; James Hamilton at K.S. Art

The Strauss Symphony of America Klaus Arp

12 Collections The New York Public Library presents its collection of sacred texts in Three Faiths: Judaism, Christianity, Islam.

conductor (Frankfurt-Vienna)

14 Theater

Katarzyna Dondalska

CMY

Playwrights Horizons reminds us that theater can still make us think with After the Revolution.

soprano (Warsaw-Berlin)

15 Arts Agenda

Dániel Vadász tenor (Budapest)

Galleries, Art Events, Museums, Classical Music, Opera, Theater, Out of Town.

Dancers from

19 Paint the Town by Amanda Gordon

KIEV-ANIKO BALLET OF UKRAINE

EDITOR Jerry Portwood jportwood@manhattanmedia.com MANAGING EDITOR Adam Rathe arathe@ manhattanmedia.com ASSISTANT EDITOR

January 1, 2011 – 2:30 pm

Christine Werthman ART DIRECTOR Jessica Balaschak CONTRIBUTING ART DIRECTOR

Wendy Hu

SENIOR ART CRITIC Lance Esplund SENIOR MUSIC CRITIC

Jay Nordlinger

SENIOR DANCE CRITIC

Joel Lobenthal

CONTRIBUTING WRITERS:

Tickets: (212) 721-6500 www.lincolncenter.org INFO: salutetovienna.com

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Presented by Attila Glatz Concert Productions.

Valerie Gladstone, John Goodrich, Amanda Gordon, Howard Mandel, Maureen Mullarkey, Mario Naves

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InBrief

Lenka Vlasakova (left) with Anna Simonova in Kawasaki’s Rose at Film Forum.

Moral Interrogation Successful writer-director team Petr

Jarchovsky and Jan Hrebejk have crafted a stunning, understated film in Kawasaki’s Rose. The first ever Czech or Slovak feature film to deal with the subject of informing and cooperation with the communist secret police, Kawasaki’s Rose is a thoughtful exploration of the pitfalls of collective memory. Screening at Film Forum beginning Nov. 24, this slow-paced character drama puts one family under a microscope to watch the lies unravel. Forty-year-old Ludek is caught between his wife and workplace lover when the former is released from the hospital following extensive treatment for a stomach tumor. When he tells his wife, Lucie, about the affair, she kicks him out. Ludek turns his anger upon the downstairs neighbors, Lucie’s morally upright parents. As the television crew for which he works films a segment about Lucie’s father for a prestigious award, Ludek discovers a blemish on his father-in-law’s heroic history as a dissident and uncovers a ruinous secret. Like the subject matter, the movie’s title is many layered. A kawasaki rose is both a complex origami flower and a physical ink painting by the character Mr. Kawasaki, a Japanese artist shattered by the deaths of his wife and children. The film is an exploration of the selfish desire for love and forgiveness within the oppressive climate of the interrogation room, which has psychologically haunted each character since the heyday of the STB. But in the midst of such heavy drama, Kawasaki’s Rose is unexpectedly funny. Granddaughter Bara has a compulsion to

eat entire chocolate bars, which lands her in jail. Expatriate artist Borek confronts the man who informed on him, calmly listing the many synonyms of dirtbag and then explaining that he doesn’t feel the need to call anyone names anymore. Jumping between a studio room filled with the television crew and the interviews being screened comprises the only timeline manipulation in the film. Jarchovsky and Hrebejk deny themselves the easy out of a flashback, creating a stronger film by relying on current drama and contradictory memories. This authenticity is informed by the pair’s inspiration: “Our interest in the suffering caused by the revelation or accusation that someone was a secret police informer was not aroused by wellknown personalities but rather by people we know.” As an exercise in cultural memory, Kawasaki’s Rose is cathartic. For characters and audience members alike, transgressions of the past do not disappear, but can inform a more sensitive, accepting future. [Leslie Stonebraker]

A Hanukkah Project: Daniel Libeskind’s Line of Fire pits the ancient against the modern. Stark blue walls and a serpentine red sculptural platform contrast with the Hanukkah lamps selected by the noted architect from the museum’s collection. The oldest, an engraved pewter oil lamp sporting twin lions, heralds from 1750. The youngest is the amorphous green “Menoramorph,” created in 2004 by Karim Rashid using neon green silicon. Line of Fire places the dormant lamps on level with famous fire-related quotations printed on the walls, replacing physical light with literary flames. Through Jan. 24, the Jewish Museum will be hosting 20-minute gallery talks

wherein curators tell the stories behind each Hanukkah lamp. In addition to this featured exhibit, Hanukkah-related works will be added to the permanent exhibition. Lyn Godley’s “Miracle” and Matthew McCaslin’s “Being The Light” reinterpret the menorah within the modern age. Alice Aycock examines another icon of Hanukkah, the dreidel. Her kinetic steel sculpture lends new heft and power to the child’s spinning top. Eleanor Antin’s video “Vilna Nights,” Mike Mandel’s photograph “Robot Lights the Chanukah Candles” and paper works by Larry Rivers and Marc Alan Jacobs will also be on display.

Sights (and Sounds) ofThese Hanukkah days, Goyim typically associate

Hanukkah with Rugrats television specials and Adam Sandler songs. For Jews it is the historic festival of lights, celebrating the miracle that allowed a small amount of oil to fuel a synagogue menorah for eight days, keeping the eternal flame burning until more oil could be made. To honor the holiday, the Jewish Museum (1109 5th Ave.) has lined up an impressive series of events and exhibitions.

Lyn Godley’s Hanukkah lamp “Miracle.” November 24, 2010 | City Arts

InBrief

Andrew Schwartz

The Metropolitan Meseum plaza will be redesigned and rebuilt. For a more interactive holiday experience, Dec. 5 is Hanukkah Family Day. Children can create found-object menorahs, view a puppet performance by Talking Hands Theater and hear tunes from The Macaroons. Or take in a performance by the only klezmer band to win a Grammy, the Klezmatics, Dec. 7, when the East Village band will rock the Jewish Museum with its blend of jazz, punk, Arab, African, Latin and Balkan rhythms. [Leslie Stonebraker]

Museum Mile Makeover The Metropolitan Museum of Art

recently announced that it has named OLIN, an award-winning landscape architecture and urban design firm in Philadelphia and Los Angeles, to lead the way in redesigning and rebuilding the fourblock-long Fifth Avenue plaza. “This exciting new outdoor environment will provide the perfect complement to the majestic spaces and exceptional collections found within the building,” says Thomas P. Campbell, director of the museum, in a statement. One of the main features of the project is the design and installation of all new fountains, replacing the present fountains that have been in place since 1970. The existing fountains, long dormant, were recently repaired, but they still suffer from long-term problems such as piping issues and natural deterioration over time, says Harold Holzer, senior vice president of external affairs. Requiring advance planning, design and formal approvals from community and citywide agencies, the project is estimated for completion by 2015. A construction

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schedule has not yet been developed but is projected to last about two years. “Once we have developed a design proposal, we look forward to presenting it to forums and decision-makers at all levels of government, starting with our neighbors and our community board,” says Emily Rafferty, president of the museum. Holzer says the museum will likely begin presenting a design proposal in late 2011 or early 2012. The project will not affect the museum’s steps, which were recently reinstalled to improve the granite paving and install icemelting technology underneath. Holzer says that aside from the steps, the last change made to the plaza was the addition of the kiosks along the curb five years ago. Another goal of the project is to improve access to the museum’s 81st Street and 83rd Street entrances. “We have more than 5 million people visit a year, and they all walk up the front steps,” Holzer says. “It’s difficult to direct people to 81st Street.” The 81st Street entrance is used for school groups and visitors with disabilities, but all visitors are welcome to use the entrance. The 83rd Street entrance is primarily used for access to concerts and events at the Grace Rainey Rogers Auditorium, but Holzer says it could potentially be a third entrance for museum visitors. More than 30 leading landscape and building architects around the world were reviewed by a special museum committee before they selected OLIN. The design firm is responsible for the redesign of Bryant Park, the New York Public Library terrace, Columbus Circle and Battery Park City. The initial phase of design work for the project has been funded via a grant by David H. Koch. [Laura Shin]

ArtsNews will be scattered further uptown in the park… In celebration of its diamond anniversary, the Metropolitan Opera Guild will be remembering and honoring its pioneering founder, Eleanor Belmont. The anniversary, which will be celebrated with a celebrity-studded gala luncheon at the Waldorf-Astoria Dec. 7, will reflect on Belmont’s novel fundraising approach and how it saved the Metropolitan Opera from caving during the Depression… Jazz

at Lincoln Center Radio launches Jazz Stories Podcasts Nov. 29, featuring jazz celebrities sharing stories of their lives and music. The first episode features Billy Higgins and Barry Harris, Randy Weston, Sam Rivers and Hank Jones… In Washington D.C., The National Trust for Historic Preservation announced the grant winners for the Robert and Elizabeth Jeffe Preservation Fund for New York City Nov. 10. Eight projects

were awarded a total of $60,000. The recipient organizations were Bartow-Pell Landmark Fund; Columbia Graduate School of Architecture, Planning and Preservation; Free Synagogue of Flushing; Friends of the Upper East Side Historic Districts; Louis Armstrong House Museum; New York Landmarks Conservancy, Inc.; Two Bridges Neighborhood Council; and World Monuments Fund.

JOHN BALDESSARI PURE BEAUTY

LaPlacaCohen 212-675-4106 Publication: City Arts Insertion date: NOVEMBER 24, 2010

Through January 9 The exhibition is made possible in part by The Daniel and Estrellita Brodsky Foundation.

metmuseum.org Additional support is provided by Glenstone.

MET-0049-Baldessari_CityArts_7.341x8.5(1.16)_Nov24_v1.indd 1

The exhibition was organized by the Los Angeles County Museum of Art in association with Tate Modern, London.

It is supported by an indemnity from the Federal Council on the Arts and the Humanities.

John Baldessari, Palm Tree/Seascape (detail), 2010, digital print on synthetic canvas. Courtesy the artist and Marian Goodman Gallery, New York and Paris. © John Baldessari.

November 24, 2010 |11/10/10 City Arts 5 3:27 PM

7.341 x 8.5, 4C NP

The 52nd Street Project presents Holy Cow!: The Astonishing Plays for its semi-annual playmaking series. Through a program that gives 9-year-old playwriting neophytes the opportunity to craft a script and put on a professional production over a nine-week course, 52nd Street Project has taken 10 kids from Hell’s Kitchen and given them the opportunity of a lifetime. Starring in these pint-sized productions are longtime volunteers Judy Kuhn, Sonia Manzano, Frances McDormand and Lili Taylor, who will be performing Dec. 10-Jan. 2 at the Project’s Five Angles Theater… Elisa Contemporary Art will be celebrating contemporary artists at its 40 under 4, A Group Holiday Show, where over 40 works of art can be purchased for under $4,000, with 5 percent of the proceeds to be donated to one of the support charities that help children heal through art. The exhibit opens Nov. 26 and will include works on paper, mixed media paintings and sculptures by a variety of local and international artists… Through a series of celebrated initiatives, The Frick Collection has spent the past four years renovating its galleries and public spaces. These continue now with two major fall projects: the reopening of the fully refurbished Boucher Room and the custom illumination system placed in the West Gallery. The Collection’s masterpieces by Rembrandt, Hals, Turner and Vermeer can now be viewed in an advanced light, bringing new depth to each piece. This is the first substantial relighting the Frick has undergone since its opening 75 years ago… Dec. 3-18, artists from ceramic studies all across the city will be participating in the premier New York City Ceramic Festival. Festivalgoers will find work in clay, porcelain, stoneware and earthenware at a variety of prices in traditional and contemporary styles. Every piece is unique and made locally, and can make the perfect holiday gift or collection addition… Soon to grace the Park Avenue Mall are 38 colossal rose bloom sculptures, part of a project by the Paul Kasmin Gallery and the NYC Department of Parks and Recreation. The Roses, by Will Ryman, will be installed Jan. 25 and will last through May 31. Roses towering over 25-feet high will give a fanciful feel to the area, bringing color and vibrancy in the long winter months and into the spring, evoking the cycle of nature. A sculptural tribute to the larger-than-life atmosphere of New York City, 20 additional sculptures

ClassicalMUSIC

Jingle Bells and Verdian Tragedy How our music organizations are handling the holidays By Jay Nordlinger n the New York music scene, Christmas begins early when Chanticleer comes to town. They are a 12-man singing group from San Francisco, and they have won a worldwide following. Their first concert in New York is Nov. 30, just five days after Thanksgiving. They will give two concerts that night— one at 6:30 and the other at 8:30—and do the same the next night. It all takes place in the Medieval Sculpture Hall of the Metropolitan Museum. Chanticleer sings a range of music, from Gregorian chant to contemporary composers. There is always a dash of spirituals thrown in. And there is an inevitable encore: the Ave Maria of Franz Biebl. Chanticleer is wildly popular, especially at Christmas, for good reason: They are technically excellent, musically erudite and well-nigh irresistible. They evince a rare and catching spirit. At best, the Chanticleer Christmas concert is a holy, as well as a joyous, experience. At worst, it’s still damn good. St. Thomas Church will present Handel’s Messiah on Dec. 7, and repeat the performance on Dec. 9. The New York Philharmonic, more grandly, or at least more expensively, also does a Messiah. The Philharmonic’s begins on Dec. 14 and runs through Dec. 18. I’m afraid I have about given up on Philharmonic Messiahs, and I have attended and reviewed them for many years. The Philharmonic goes for a Messiah that is musicologically correct—or allegedly correct. There is a rump of an orchestra, and the sound is dry and scratchy. Tempos are racing and cold. Joy is little evident in the chorus. If you’re going to sing, “For unto us a child is born,” you should at least pretend to be happy about it. If you’re going to shout “Hallelujah”—shout it. Occasionally, a soloist will break through with warmth and spirit. Stephanie Blythe did this a few years ago. But, in general, these Messiahs have been pretty grim affairs. There is a happy medium, of course, between a swollen, 19th-century Messiah, with all the bells and whistles, and the wheat germ we are often offered today. The New York Philharmonic should not play the part of period band. It should be proudly the Philharmonic. In any case, the orchestra’s Messiah this year will be conducted by Bernard Labadie, a Quebec early-music specialist. He is a very good musician. I wish you all the best of luck. St. Thomas Church will give another concert on Dec. 16. That is Beethoven’s birthday. But there will be no Beethoven in this concert. The church has programmed Britten’s Ceremony of Carols and

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Courtesy of Chanticleer

Chanticleer: Twelve men and true. Dancing Day by John Rutter. Rutter is a contemporary composer whose Christmas music, I believe, will last for a very long time. Same with some of his other music. Carnegie Hall is celebrating Christmas—or “the holidays,” as they’re careful to say—with the New York Pops. On Dec. 10, the Pops will do a concert with Brian Stokes Mitchell, “Broadway’s leading baritone,” according to PR materials. What a romantic title—“Broadway’s leading baritone”! Mitchell will sing “carols and traditional favorites.” The concert will be repeated on Dec. 11. That afternoon, the Pops will do another concert, this one featuring a musical treatment of How the Grinch Stole Christmas. The cast does not exclude Cindy Lou Who and Max the Dog. Also on the program is “Carol of the Bells,” everyone’s favorite Russian number, and “Sleigh Ride,” that spiffy, jaunty piece by Leroy Anderson. Don’t you wish you had written it? I do. And it’s good to see that a pops concert, any pops concert, will be performed. This type of concert, in all seasons, does not deserve to vanish from American life. Bach is certainly a composer for all seasons, and the Clarion Music Society stages an evening called “Bach for Christmas.” It includes, naturally, music

from the Christmas Oratorio. The concert takes place at the Park Avenue Christian Church. St. Bartholomew’s Church, another Park Avenue Christian church, has announced that their usual Christmas concert “has been cancelled this season due to financial reasons.” But: Members of the choir have volunteered to lead a “carol sing” at the church on Dec. 22. Good. The Christmas sing is another institution that does not deserve to vanish. On New Year’s Eve, the Philharmonic will have a concert—but the program is not very New Year’s Evey, and not very Viennesy: There are no Strauss-family galops, waltzes or polkas. Instead, the program is rather Christmassy, bringing us Act II of The Nutcracker. There is more Tchaikovsky, too. The evening begins with the Polonaise from Eugene Onegin. And then we will have the First Piano Concerto, played by Lang Lang, the young Chinese sensation. I heard him play this concerto with the Philharmonic a few summers ago in Central Park. All the conditions were working against him, and the music. This was an outdoor concert with a funky amplification system. The piano was fire-engine red. The performance had schlock written all over it.

Instead, it was flat-out brilliant. The Metropolitan Opera isn’t going to do anything especially Christmassy or New Year’s Evey—no Hansel and Gretel, no Fledermaus. On New Year’s Eve, the Met is presenting La traviata. Perhaps because it has a party scene? Two of them? Singing the title role will be Marina Poplavskaya, who should be up to the job. Alfredo will be Matthew Polenzani, that Wunderlichian wonder. Will he have enough oomph— enough brass and sound—for the part? Almost certainly. And Germont will be Andrzej Dobber, a sturdy, capable, sometimes moving Pole. The production will not be that of Franco Zeffirelli, because the Met is rapidly deep-sixing all Zeffirelli productions. These productions are embarrassing to critics and other soi-disant sophisticates. The Traviata will be that of Willy Decker. I reviewed it when it was new in Salzburg. I remember something I loved about it: the elimination of an intermission. When this Verdi masterwork is done right, it is unwatchable—because it is all too tragic. On New Year’s Eve, Violetta will drop dead and the Germonts will groan with guilt and grief. Then the fireworks will go off in Central Park, couples will smooch and life will be fine. <

Jazz

The Singer is the Song

OL NC LI AT ZZ JA

Elizabeth Leitzell

By Howard Mandel Bobby McFerrinâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s exhilarating concert a couple of weeks back with a 40-person choir at Jazz at Lincoln Center reminded me to listen to the voices of New York. Born here (his father sang at the Metropolitan Opera), McFerrin was raised mostly in Los Angeles and now lives in a forested area outside Philadelphia. But VOCAbuLarieS, his first album in eight years and the centerpiece of his Rose Theater performance, presents an idealistic universalism and wonderful balm, particularly appropriate to our polyglot capitol of urban America. McFerrinâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s theme is that everyone can and should singâ&#x20AC;&#x201D;however out of tune we may beâ&#x20AC;&#x201D;to embrace if not realize our heartâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s desires. In a mash-up of languages that accommodated references to Earth, Wind and Fire, Carl Orffâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s â&#x20AC;&#x153;Carmina Burana,â&#x20AC;? Ladysmith Black Mambazo, Brazilâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s Olodum and Steve Reichâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s â&#x20AC;&#x153;Tehilliem,â&#x20AC;? McFerrin and company gave voice to a breadth of human experience, including our expulsion from Eden, rearing of babies and contemplations of eternity. Uniquely, McFerrin has the gifts of range, taste and imagination to conjure such expression by himself. Performing VOCAbuLarieS with his co-composer and conductor Roger Treece, the Danish troupe Vocal Line, plus a dozen American ringersâ&#x20AC;&#x201D;who employed lyrics by Don Rosler in English as well as Latin, Sanskrit, Spanish, Italian, Zulu, Portuguese, Japanese, French, Egyptian, German, Mandarin, Hebrew and Gaelic (all annotated in the CDâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s liner notes)â&#x20AC;&#x201D;and also improvising with his son, daughter and a parade of strangers he daringly invited onstage, the singer was the song. So was his audience, which chimed in harmoniously at McFerrinâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s beck and call, as has never happened before in Wynton Marsalisâ&#x20AC;&#x2122; hallowed â&#x20AC;&#x153;house that swing built.â&#x20AC;? Was it jazz? That became an interesting question only upon recalling that jazzidentified singers since Louis Armstrong have treated vocalizing as just such a natural extension of the living vernacular, heightening words if they use them at all. Bessie Smith, Billie Holiday, Frank Sinatra, Al Greenâ&#x20AC;&#x201D;each is understood by listeners worldwide on the strengths of their sounds, regardless of language. These days there are many such singers, and New Yorkers love them. A line of attendees stood in the rain for an hour last week waiting to get into the Blue Note to hear Cassandra Wilson. In Silver Pony, Wilsonâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s new semi-live album, she evokes lust, loss, ease and urgency, applying her smoky drawl to ancient blues and pop standards by Stevie Wonder, Lennon/ McCartney, Hammerstein and Romberg.

Bobby McFerrin reminds us to listen to the voices of New York.

Bobby McFerrin performs with his son and daughter. Wilson now spends much of her time in Jackson, Miss., but wields an imperious earthiness with a sheen of sophistication she acquired by being in the jazz scene here. Sheila Jordan is another example, a woman who summons an array of emotional nuance with a seemingly littlegirl voice. Though never a renowned star, Jordan is beloved by aficionados and last week celebrated her 82nd birthday at the Jazz Standard. Other exemplars are coming right up: Judi Silvano in a 1 p.m. matinee at St. Peterâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s Church the day before Thanksgiving, and Janis Siegel of Manhattan Transfer fame in duo with pianist Fred Hersch that night at the Kitano. Broadway and cabaret star Chita Rivera has been getting glowing reviews for the show she brings to Birdland Nov. 26 and 27. Kendra Shank, a forthright, puretoned singer with expansive repertoire who has labored in the local trenches and toured widely for more than a dozen years, appears Nov. 26 at 55 Bar (starting at 6 p.m.) with her quartet featuring supremely atmospheric guitarist Ben Monder. Fay Victor, partnered by guitarist Anders Nilsson in the Exposed Blues Duo, has gained new fans with her album Bare and sings at 5C in the East Village Dec. 3. Not to overlook those singers with standing gigs like Annie Ross at the Metropolitan Room on Tuesdays, Gregory Porter at Smoke on Thursdays and TC III at St. Nickâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s Pub on Sundays. These are the folks who give voice to our thoughts, longings and sentiments, whether well-worn or half-formed. They push at the limits of language. As Bobby McFerrin asserts in â&#x20AC;&#x153;Say Ladeo,â&#x20AC;? the music video number from VOCAbuLarieS: â&#x20AC;&#x153;Words only take you so far and leave you/ Wondering just what it was you meant to/ Say what you would say if your heart led the way/ Take away the words, letting all the sounds just playâ&#x20AC;Śâ&#x20AC;? You see, that verse as printed doesnâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;t convey nearly as much as when you hear McFerrin-and-choir sing it. Thereâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s just something about giving voice to feelings. Thatâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s certainly a message of the upcoming season, when carolers abound.

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Photo of Wycliffe Gordon by Platon

November 24, 2010 | City Arts

DANCE

Nuts for the Winter New Nutcrackers, including a Ratmansky-choreographed production for ABT

Fabrizio Ferri

By Joel Lobenthal t was the week before Thanksgiving and all through New York, preparations for Nutcrackers—new and time-tested—were occurring apace. The Nutcracker ballet first came to life as a prettified re-telling of a macabre and violent story by E.T.A. Hoffman, performed by the Mariinsky Ballet of St. Petersburg, an institution that loved prettiness but also aimed at sublime beauty. This was back in the days when a Czar sat on the Russian throne and new scores by Tchaikovsky were eagerly expected. Since then, choreographers have been looking for, and finding, subtly and not-sosubtly different ways of putting the ballet on stage. When Mariinsky-alum George Balanchine choreographed a Nutcracker for his New York City Ballet in 1954, a veritable tradition was born. This year, Balanchine’s Nutcracker settles in for its annual month-long run Nov. 26. As most know, The Nutcracker opens on a Christmas Eve celebration, and young people are a crucial ingredient. Sometimes, indeed, they make up the entire cast, as they will in a new production performed by the Joffrey Ballet School and the Gelsey Kirkland Academy, choreographed by Kirkland and Misha Chernov. It will be performed Dec. 17–19 at John Jay College. Some like to send the ballet time-traveling from the moorings of its setting in a mid19th-century German home: On Dec. 12 at Brooklyn Center for the Performing Arts, Dance Theatre in Westchester gives us a Nutcracker set in Colonial America. Each choreographer adjusts the web of realism to fantasy and the different character coordinates of adult authority and childhood evolution. Some like to spin the whole Catherine Hurlin as Clara in The Nutcracker. thing on its head, as did Mark Morris in The Hard Nut, which gets hairpiece-high into grooviness. It returns to the Brooklyn second casts of corps de ballet men who Academy of Music Dec. 10–19. would dance mice in the battle scene The Nutcracker has been absent from waged against the Nutcracker Prince, as the repertory of American Ballet Theatre for some time, but this season the Watching from the sidelines were company is contributing a new entry choreographed the kids, who let out a collective by Alexei Ratmansky, gasp of admiration when the ABT artist-in-residence. The production debuts at two Mice King adjutants lofted BAM Dec. 22, running their ruler close to the ceiling in a through Jan. 2, 2011. Last week, Ratmansky crouched position. could be found mustering his production for stagereadiness in a large and crowded studio at ABT’s headquarters well as children who would make up the in downtown Manhattan’s Ladies Mile Nutcracker troops. landmark district. Present were first and Ratmansky, 42, former director of

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Moscow’s Bolshoi (“big”—very big) Ballet, slipped his glasses on and off and consulted the pianist and his own notebook of jottings. With the men mice, he demonstrated some agile scampering of his own. Watching from the sidelines were the kids, who let out a collective gasp of admiration when the two Mice King adjutants lofted their ruler close to the ceiling in a crouched position. Ratmansky was not leaving anything to chance, telling the Mice King what to do if he fell victim to a slippery descent as the adjutants lowered him to the ground. Now it was the pre-teens’ turn to take centerstage. Ratmansky gave dramatic motivation as well as step instructions to the raw recruits commanded by the Nutcracker. “The whole situation is very nervous for you,” he told them. “You’re

made to fight but you’ve never experienced it. You’re listening to try to get as much information as possible.” The children come from ABT’s own school, and Ratmansky was rounding out their education at the same time he drilled them, explaining to them some of the classic pantomime gestures of the Imperial ballet vocabulary, which he will perpetuate in his own vernacular. “You can’t be calm in the body and just do the face,” Ratmansky told the kids when they put on a brave facial show of quaking apprehension but let their bodies stay slack. This is, after all, ballet. Hoffman may have set the ball rolling, and Tchaikovsky called the tune magnificently. But ultimately it is on the physical eloquence of its dancers that The Nutcracker’s burden of theatrical viability resides. <

“a beautiful show... fantastic! If you ever get a chance to see it, you should.” — Joy Behar, co-host of aBc’s The View

Jan 6–16, 2011, LincoLn center DaviD H. KocH THeaTer CenterCharge 212-721-6500 | www.DavidHKochTheater.com/events Based in New York, Shen Yun Performing arts is the world’s premier chinese dance and music company.

AttheGALLERIES dimensional object. In Darkened Rooms, Demers attempts to rethink the notion of photography as “the medium of light.” Like many contemporary photographers, Demers is on an “exploration of absence.” The few rooms that we see are in passing, and devoid of bodies and human interaction. Almost a joke on the “shutin artist,” light is kept out, behind pulled blinds and nearly shut doors, utilized best as an abstraction and a subtle suggestion of its potency and photographic importance. [Nicholas Wells] Through Nov. 27, Coleman Burke Gallery, 636 W. 28th St., 917-677-7825.

The Pugilist and the Heiress: Works by Meraud and Alvaro Guevara

“Sweet Dreams,” by Philemona Williamson.

Philemona Williamson: Fractured Tales

Philemona Williamson paints preteen females who float in pairs across canvas with the lightness of schoolgirls at a moonstruck tea party. There is a charm, even a sweetness, to them that sets them far afield from the surrealist frisson to which the exhibition lays claim. Figures drift and turn in gravity-free spaces, more like untethered astronauts than Chagall’s airborne couples. Topsy-turvy cupcakes, hovering goblets, stylized flowers and buoyant oddments provide local color for dreamy narratives that waft over the surface with the insubstantiality of light fiction. Williamson is a talented illustrator. She is a capable draftsman with a fine sense of color and composition. Her juxtapositions of color areas, each with its delicate tonal transitions, are undeniably deft. “Garden Gift,” for example, tucks two pairs of shoes—one vermillion, the other a lucent cadmium red— into the variegated leaves of a row of purpled fall cabbages. The auburn hair of one girl echoes the warmth of the reds below and moves the eye up and across the image. The entire canvas is infused with a blush that underscores the girlishness of the motif. But surface appeal is not enough to cover for the slenderness of the work as a whole. What Williams does not have is an adult reason to paint. The work’s weightlessness is as much conceptual as compositional. For all the earnest claims of the gallery’s press material (“the searching, the alienation and the commonplace tempests encountered in the growth to maturity”), nothing more consequential resides in these motifs than in the decoration of a girl’s room. If a visual analogy were needed for chick lit, this

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would fit the bill. There is a certain cuteness to these vacant-eyed little girls that is better suited to picture books than to a gallery setting. Serious narrative painting requires a more mature and sustained ambition than what is visible here. Perhaps it will come. [Maureen Mullarkey] Through Dec. 14, June Kelly Gallery, 166 Mercer St., 212-226-1660.

Luc Demers: Darkened Rooms

In 16 large photographs, Luc Demers’ Darkened Rooms explores photography’s relationship to light and an underappreciated darkness. The pictures are of dark, empty rooms with what light there is leaking in from behind shuttered windows and doors ajar, creating the brooding atmosphere of a horror movie. A few stand out as almost minimalist compositions combining simple geometry with an inky black background. Much of their eerie beauty is in the artificiality of the light. In “Bedroom,” a window looking out on a bright day provides little light to a dark room. A translucent blind deadens the light coming in, and objects in the room can barely be discerned. “Night Light” and “South Window” seem to embrace the purity of darkness, as well as that of light. Dark blinds are backlit, framed by the stark white of windowsills. Divorced from context and grounding, the rectangles float in an abyss of deepening black. For Demers, light operates both as illuminator of objects and as the original color of photographic paper. It’s the light portions of paper that remain unchanged during the developing process. Likewise, an inkjet printer sprays ink in areas designated as shadow to create an image of a three-

The Pugilist and the Heiress sounds like the title of an overlooked MGM musical circa 1952, but it is, in fact, an exhibition of paintings by the British modernists Meraud and Alvaro Guevara at Lori Bookstein Fine Art. It’s something of an event as well: The Bookstein show is the first time paintings by this husband-and-wife team—a word used advisedly here, given Meraud and Alvaro’s fractious marriage—have been displayed together. Anglophiles will take interest in the couple’s association with the Bloomsbury crowd. Devotees of 20thcentury art will note the connection to Gertrude Stein and Pablo Picasso—Meraud introduced the two. Fans of painting will be charmed and, in the case of Meraud’s uncanny “Still Life,” bowled over by the couple’s minor key accomplishments. Heiress to the Guinness brewing fortune, Meraud studied painting at The Slade School of Art and was later mentored in New York by the great Russian sculptor Alexander Archipenko and in Paris by the great Dadaist gadfly Francis Picabia. It was in Paris that she met Alvaro, a Chilean ex-pat and champion ex-boxer, who had

“Back Door,” by Luc Demers.

done an earlier course of study at the Slade. Within two months, Meraud and Alvaro eloped, but the marriage was a looselimbed, mostly separate affair, due, in part, to Alvaro’s homosexuality, but also to each partner’s stubborn individuality. That’s the way it comes across at Bookstein. Could Meraud and Alvaro be any more different as artists? Meraud’s portraits and still lifes are weightybordering-on stolid, hearkening to Picasso’s neo-classical phase and imbued with a dry strain of Surrealism. Alvaro was given to giddy, almost frivolous depictions of leisure—theater, café society, napping in the park, like that. Meraud’s brush molded mountains, Alvaro’s lighted upon moments. Their collective paintings don’t butt heads so much as blissfully go their own way. The Pugilist and the Heiress offers a discreet and lovingly paced glimpse of their quixotic relationship. [Mario Naves] Through Dec. 11, Lori Bookstein Fine Art, 138 10th Ave., 212-750-0949.

Betye Saar: Cage: A New Series of Assemblages and Collages For her fifth solo exhibit at Michael Rosenfeld Gallery, Betye Saar has produced 21 provocative mixed-media assemblages and seven collages. Collected by the Museum of Fine Arts in Boston, the Metropolitan Museum of Art, The Studio Museum in Harlem, The Whitney and many other major institutions, the 84-year-old artist shows no sign of slowing down. For this show, she took cages that she had found over the years in flea markets, yard sales and antique shops, and used them as frames for works that primarily focus on containment and confinement. They function as metaphors in her exploration of repression over the centuries and around the world, especially the treatment of black people in American society. The collages deal with similar themes, their occasionally ironic titles revealing her jaundiced view of unexamined attitudes and values. But though her message is angry and clear, she’s never didactic, brilliant at creating complex works that are as captivating as they are disturbing. The sculpture “As the Crow Flies” features chubby, doll-like, brown babies stuffed into a quaint, old-fashioned boat. Meticulously assembled, it gives a powerful sense of the conditions on the slave ships and the utter hopelessness of the captives. At the same time, it’s perfectly constructed, with all the elements—wave beneath the boat, birds on bow and mast—conspiring to convey a physical sense of despair. One experiences the same horror looking at “The Weight of Color.” On the bottom of the three-piece, tower-like sculpture sits a weathered scale. On the next level, there’s a cage holding a black crow too big for the space, its wings sticking out of the bars, a lock attached to the cage door. And on

“As the Crow Flies,” by Betye Saar.

top stands a small rose-colored statue of a demure black woman, dressed in apron and cap. With shockingly apt imagery, Saar refers to Jim Crow and the selling of slaves by weight. The piece goes beyond illustration by using particularly resonant symbols. In the delicate collage “Farewell, Sweet Bird of Youth,” a yellow-and-black winged bird is stuck in a pale-blue window frame, unable to fly. On one side there’s a green tree, its roots bare, and on the other a black woman with her head bowed. There’s no freedom here, and even nature receives no nurture. Through these exquisitely made works, she insists we reevaluate our historical past and open her eyes to how it resonates today. [Valerie Gladstone] Through Dec. 23, Michael Rosenfeld Gallery, 24 W. 57th St., 212-247-0082.

A Passion for Form: Sculpture and Works on Paper by William Zorach

Before he had turned 30, William Zorach had performed on stage, designed sets, published poetry and, most memorably, exhibited his Fauvism-inspired paintings in the 1913 Armory Show. But by his mid-thirties he had turned almost exclusively to sculpture. He dedicated his last several decades to carving and casting the sinuously earthy figures and animals for which he is celebrated today. The sculptor, however, continued to draw and work in watercolor as a respite from sculpting. His efforts in these very different media—on delicate paper and in weighty bronze, stone and wood— are currently on view in Gerald Peters’ installation of over 40 works. The sculptures flirt with various modernist styles: the geometric forms of Art Deco, the faceted modeling of Cubism and, especially, the rounding masses of his friend Gaston Lachaise. But pervading all his work is an affection for elegant stylizations and intimately worked surfaces. Among the most compelling sculptures is the bronze “Male Cat,” with ruffs of fur muscularly pacing a drawn-back pose, finalized in the horizontals of half-closed eyes and flattening

ears. It suggests, vividly, an aesthetic midway between that of ancient Egypt and the Arts and Crafts movement. Exotic subjects, in fact, seem to have particularly inspired the artist, because the hunching poses and furrowed faces of a pair of 1943 bronze reliefs of tigers are especially striking; the bronze “Grouper” wondrously captures the determination of a fish in its mute, tapering bulk. Although touching in their subject matter—a number tenderly depict his children—some of the figure sculptures are less alert to the powers of rhythmic interval. At times one’s eye arrives rather indifferently, instead of with anticipation, at the details of a heavyset head or hand. (By comparison, the sculptures of Matisse or Lipchitz move authoritatively from larger gestures to the resolve of detail.) But this isn’t always the case: the robust, columnar pairing of torsos in the walnut sculpture “Gemini” is eloquently contained and completed, above finely carved faces, by a loop of upraised arms. Some of Zorach’s works in watercolor— that most ephemeral of media—reveal no less gravity of rhythm. While some depicting stylized flowers are intentionally decorative (and perhaps related to the tapestries produced by his wife Marguerite), in one watercolor from 1929 her standing form—a pillar of pure paper-white among slightly darker washes—expansively fills the height of the paper. Dark notes of hair and a single cast shadow lend character and weight to larger forms; the result is a domestic scene whose serene inhabitants have the inextricable life-force of lions, fish and cats. [John Goodrich] Through Dec. 17, Gerald Peters Gallery, 24 E. 78th St., 212-628-9760.

Mika Rottenberg: Squeeze

The problem with Squeeze, a video by Mika Rottenberg at the West 24th Street outpost of Mary Boone Gallery, is that it’s better than it has any right to be. Or maybe it’s that the film’s crafting surpasses its narrative and symbolic trajectory. Perhaps it’s that Rottenberg has yet to outgrow the icky fascinations typical of an adolescent mindset. Whatever: Squeeze is arresting and nettlesome entertainment. Rottenberg possesses genuine cinematic flair. It’s the rare video artist who acknowledges the role played by the camera. No numbing, point-and-shoot documentation for Rottenberg: Squeeze evinces a knowing eye for movement, texture, composition, color, set design and especially sound. Not that she allows much leeway to appreciate them in terms of form: The film is too caught up in wildly contrived grotesqueries to encourage aesthetic distance. Food, sex and the assembly line are Rottenberg’s motifs. The chief setting is a factory that is equal parts M.C. Escher, The Cabinet of Dr. Caligari and blue-collar cliché. Clownish, rash-riddled figures are

literally squeezed for their juices. A pathetic, wiggling tongue is trapped within a wall; the same goes for an array of condensationsoaked buttocks. Claustrophobia is the rule, as is nightmarish camp. The body and its products are indistinguishable from nourishment. It’s as if Eraserhead were cast with the misfits from Pink Flamingos and then choregraphed by Matthew Barney. So, what’s it all about? The press release goes on about “the mechanisms by which value is generated... the logistics of global outsourcing and the alchemy of art.” A kind of alchemy, anyway: The end result of Rottenberg’s factory is a compressed cube of putrefact—at the entrance to Squeeze, there’s a photo of the thing being held by, yes, Mary Boone. But would that Rottenberg’s fascinations bedeviled rather than preoccupied her. Then, maybe the film would embody the visionary rather than indulge in artifice. Squeeze is enough of a near-miss to make you wonder if Rottenberg knows the difference. [MN] Through Dec. 18, Mary Boone Gallery, 541 W. 24th St., 212-752-2929.

James Hamilton: You Should Have Heard Just What I Seen

Is there any photographic subject that draws people more than celebrities? Even nature usually takes a back seat. But there are pictures and there are masterpieces, and photographer James Hamilton creates portraits of famous musical performers that reveal their souls. It is easy to see the influence of his heroes Diane Arbus and Eugene Smith. Over the past four decades, he shot for the early music magazine Crawdaddy!, Harper’s Bazaar, Rolling Stone and The New York Observer, covering every music craze, including rock, punk, disco and hip-hop. He also worked with filmmakers George A. Romero, Francis Ford Coppola, Wes Anderson and Noah Baumbach as the on-set photographer. Amazingly, this is his first gallery exhibition. It’s a wonderful opportunity to discover works that illuminate a major aspect of our contemporary culture. You can even take them home with you by buying his recently published book. It’s hard to know where to start. Sweetfaced Dusty Springfield appears in her dressing room, hair tousled, with a bemused expression on her face. James Brown is ready to rock, his jaw set, eyes hidden behind dark glasses, his hips about to swivel. The Ramones also hide behind dark glasses and shaggy hair, looking like little kids trying to be tough. One of the loveliest is of Muddy Waters, a great, knowing smile on his face. And there’s scary-looking Mick Jagger, his rib cage more prominent than his lips. They make you miss the wildness, the eccentricity and the talent, and put into focus the fun, the danger and the seductiveness of music. [VG] Through Dec. 23, K.S. Art, 73 Leonard St., 212-219-9918.

Heather L. Johnson: Erasure

Heather L. Johnson’s installation of embroideries, watercolors and a textbased wall drawing brings back to life the horrors that took place in the insane asylums and penitentiaries that existed in Hudson County, N.J., in the late 19th century. Allowed to exist because of political corruption and indifference, these institutions served as torture chambers for the weak, disenfranchised and mentally incompetent. She believes that these places and the people who suffered in them should not be forgotten, and has spent years digging into archives to uncover their histories. By using this archival material as part of her works, she gives them extraordinary emotional immediacy. “207 Acres” is a map of an “Asylum for the Insane.” Johnson has outlined in linen thread the places where the buildings, roads and fences once existed, which appear innocent until looked at closely. Simply by bringing these places back into our consciousness, she reminds us not only of them but all the other places we’ve chosen to forget where terrible things have happened. The same is true of “Terra Incognita,” which bears two inscriptions: “Ward No. 1 for Women” and “Animal Bones Picked Clean.” It doesn’t take much imagination to populate the rooms outlined in the diagram with the inmates, who probably had no way to contest their incarceration. One of them might have been the subject of “Mug Shot,” a watercolor of a round-faced woman, one eye bruised and closed, her expression resigned. In the small, finely drawn watercolors, Johnson provides us with the details of these terrible places, such as “Hallways and Chairs,” “Dead End” and “Fence,” carefully constructing a world that, thanks to her, will now stay in our memory. [VG] Through Dec. 12, Christina Ray Gallery, 30 Grand St., 212-334-0204.

“No31,” by Heather L. Johnson. November 24, 2010 | City Arts

DEC 12

YALE ›››NY David Shifrin, Artistic Director

YALE PERCUSSION GROUP Robert van Sice, director “Something truly extraordinary.” – Steve Reich

CARNEGIE HALL Sun, 8 pm | Zankel Hall de Mey: Musique de Tables Reich: Sextet • Wood: Village Burial with Fire • Kagel: Dressur

TICKETS $15–$25 at www.carnegiehall.org CarnegieCharge: 212 247-7800 Box Office: 57th St & 7th Ave MEDIA SPONSORS

music.yale.edu Robert Blocker, Dean

EVOLUTION OF A GALLERY

GREEN MOUNTAIN TO BLUE MOUNTAIN 1968 -2010

NOVEMBER 30 – DECEMBER 30, 2010 RECEPTION: Thursday, December 2 / 5-8 PM PANEL DISCUSSION:

The Power of the Co-op Model

Panelists: Donna Maria de Creeft / Jacqueline Lima / Janet Sawyer / Robert Sievert Moderator: Sharyn Finnegan

Thursday, December 9, 7- 8:30 PM CONCERT :

First Street Woodwind Quintet Saturday, December 18, 2- 4 PM

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Elaborating Faith The New York Public Library illuminates ancient sacred texts

By Maureen Mullarkey among whom Christians count themselves Three Faiths: Judaism, Christianity, together with Jews—and of Ishmael, Islam is two things at once. To the casual a patriarch of Islam, seem lost only on observer, it is a stunning exhibition of diffident Westerners. Muslims, by contrast, historic manuscripts, incunabula and are not hesitant in asserting the superiority printed texts of great rarity and beauty. On of their claimed patrimony. Harvard’s that level, it is nothing short of breathtaking. biblical scholar Jon Levenson demurs from This is an uncommon opportunity to greet exaggerated appeals to Abrahamic kinship. antiquities of incomparable scholarly and In the Jewish Review of Books, he quotes a aesthetic value. recent imam: “Abraham is the father of one Unfortunately, the rarities on show, religion, and that religion is Islam.” It is not all from the New York Public Library’s surprising, in feel-good projects like this, permanent collection, are not displayed that the burden of understanding leans only for their own sakes. Nor are they one way. here to instruct us in the necessity for Nevertheless, reductive and evasive civilizational stewardship, the true purpose tutorials are no bar to delight in the of a magnificent library. Rather, they are treasures on display. The variety of Jewish a stalking horse for an ideological agenda material is particularly compelling and that blunts historical realities with the wide-ranging. Here are things seldom seen, pieties of religious tourism. Packaged by from a 14th-century Ashkenazic German the British-based Coexist Foundation—a prayer book to the first printed Mahzor major sponsor—and its media partner Roma, the prayer book used in the Jewish Global Tolerance, the exhibition is designed Roman rite. The printers of this Italian to lull well-intentioned, largely secular text were founders of a prolific Hebrew Westerners anxious to hold their place in printing dynasty that spread across Italy to the multicultural hymnal. Istanbul, Salonika and Cairo. The book is But first, the exhibit. It begins with the open to an illustration of a stylized Passover sacred texts of the three “Abrahamic faiths” matzah, copied from the manuscript side by side in one vitrine. A 13th-century tradition. It looks wonderfully similar to a Tanakh (Hebrew Bible) from the Lower pressed Communion wafer, derived from Rhineland—where Jews had lived since unleavened matzah. Roman times—sits next to a ninth-century A 15th-century Italian prayer book is Christian Bible from a Breton abbey. distinguished by the painting of a delicate Influenced by Celtic pictorial culture tree, or bush, indicating the maror (bitter prior to Viking invasion, this is the oldest herbs) eaten at a Passover Seder. While manuscript in the library’s Bible collection. illustrations of maror are frequent, this is It is thrilling to stand in its presence and the only known source that depicts it as an to compare the graphic approaches of entire plant. Of considerable interest is the Christian and Jewish scribes. 15th-century Peregrinatio in Terram Sanctum Whereas Christian manuscripts flourish (Pilgrimage to the Holy Land), translated with elaborately decorated uncials, Hebrew into Latin from the original German. The ones enlarge the entire first word of the page An entry titled “The Whole or a particular passage. Since the Hebrew Megillah” is not a put-on. This alphabet has no capitals, amplification is a lively, is the first time the library has available means of graphic unrolled the scroll to full length enhancement. Alongside these manuscripts rests a for public display. large, 14th-century Koran, probably Turkish. The linear grace of Arabic first illustrated travel journal ever to be script, written from right to left like other printed, it is open to a remarkable handSemitic scripts, is accompanied by gilded colored woodcut panorama, assembled vocalization cues. These systematic aids for in panels, of the Holy Land. Jerusalem’s public recitation are still in use. Temple Mount is clearly indicated by Starting here, in this alignment of texts, a domed structure labeled Templum is a built-in suggestion of equivalence Salomonis (Solomon’s Temple). The library that carries throughout the exhibition. is careful to identify it as the al-Aqsa Yes, all three traditions have their text, a Mosque without explaining why, in the canon of sacred knowledge and a vehicle 1480s, the illustrator named it otherwise. for teaching. To paraphrase the old gospel An entry titled “The Whole Megillah” spiritual, “All God’s chill’un got scripture.” is not a put-on. Megillah, meaning scroll, But these scriptures diverge significantly is the common name for a biblical book over the things to be taught. Absolute written in the format of a scroll. This differences between the sons of Isaac— lushly ornamented, horizontal scroll

Philemona Williamson Fractured Tales New Paintings

12 November –14 December 2010

JUNE KELLY GALLERY 166 Mercer Street, New York, NY 10012/212-226-1660

A detail of “The Whole Megilla,” scroll of Esther.

of the book of Esther dates from 17thcentury Amsterdam, a Sephardic center for megillah decoration. This is the first time the library has unrolled it to full length for public display. That in itself is as historic as the scroll. Read from right to left, Esther’s saga is accompanied by a glory of animal and floral motifs, cherubs and a medley of distinct cityscapes signifying the breadth of the Persian Empire. The array of beautiful calligraphies in languages from North Africa and the Levant is marvelous to see. Besides the Hebrew, Arabic and Latin, are Persian, Cyrillic, Aramaic, Syriac, Amharic, Slavic, Greek, language families of the Levant and North Africa. Nowadays, with cursive script falling into disuse, it is chastening to have these lovely reminders that script was—and still is—the hand’s first experience with disciplined drawing. Among the most delightful displays is a small 16th-century guide for Muslims on pilgrimage to Mecca and Medina. An Arabic forerunner to Baedeker, its conventionalized drawings indicate the key sites where tents are pitched and camels parked. Another delectable entry, one of many medieval lectionaries and psalters, anticipates the pocket bible. Before pockets existed, carriables were held in purses tied to a cincture around the waist. A “girdle” binding wrapped around a small Bible and

ended in a leather loop through which the owner’s belt could pass. If only the tutorial were not an embarrassment of platitudes. A wealth of bibliographic information covers for a shallow, middlebrow exercise in misleading ecumenism. The physical beauty of these three sacred texts and their ritual uses tells us nothing about the conceptual universe each of them represents. Superficial commonalities distract from the complex particularities of each of the three “Abrahamic faiths.” Soothing bromides mask those specific beliefs, behaviors and practices distinguishing Islam from the Judeo-Christian heritage that informs Western civilization. Shared claims to the legacy of Abraham are hardly indications of a shared soul. Straining for comity, the tutorial erases the radical self-understanding generated by these texts. Instead, it magnifies superficial correspondences in the modes and manners of worship while it turns a blind eye on the theological imperatives and ethical systems derived from them. The ethos of one of these “Abrahamic faith communities” inspires the conquest or annihilation of the other two. That is no small distinction. < Through Feb. 27, 2011, New York Public Library, Fifth Avenue at East 42nd St., 917-275-6975.

Berenice Abbott, New York II, complete portfolio with 12 silver prints, 1930-50, published in 1979. Estimate $18,000 to $22,000. At auction December 9.

AUCTIONS Dec 1 Maps & Atlases, Travel Books, Natural History & Historical Prints, Ephemera

Dec 9 Important Photographs & Photobooks Dec 15 Rare & Important Art Nouveau Posters Illustrated Catalogues $35 each: 212 254 4710, ext 0 104 East 25th Street • New York, NY 10010

View catalogues and bid online at www.swanngalleries.com November 24, 2010 | City Arts

Theater

Egon, Baby, Gone John Kelly’s renowned dance performance with Schiele takes its final bow

John Kelly

by Nick Curley ince its humble beginnings 28 years ago, John Kelly’s Pass the Blutwurst, Bitte has been a night of theater that arouses the heart, loins and mind. The seminal performance piece has since played throughout Europe, won an Obie Award and made Kelly a patron saint of the East Village’s avant-garde. A bombastic study of early 20th-century Austrian painter Egon Schiele, Blutwurst returns Dec. 2 to La MaMa, in what’s being billed as its final run—ever. It’s half of a one-two punch that begins Nov. 23 at La Galleria with Schiele-Kelly, a solo exhibition of self-portraits in which Kelly uniquely photographs himself portraying the painter. “Schiele’s a conjurer, but a bit out of control: the definitive adolescent brat,” explains Kelly with a wry smile. “His pushing of the envelope got him in trouble. He’s like the James Dean of Austria.” To meet Kelly is to meet a man fit for the part. While no one would mistake him for an adolescent brat, he’s maintained a dancer’s physique of wiry muscle and smoldering eyes. Joining Kelly are two essentials from Blutwurst’s prior incarnations: Anthony Chase, the self-taught filmmaker of the show’s 16mm movies projected onstage, and Stan Pressner, a seasoned, jovial lighting designer who’s taught at Julliard, UCLA A John Kelly self-portrait as Egon Schiele, which will be on display at La Galleria. and NYU. It’s a team that, for Kelly, embodies “cooperation, contribution and self-portraits on glass and inventing raucous, change,” he adds. “It has a rough-hewn minimum of ego.” jarring choreography. “It was always done beauty and the kind of flexible space you Schiele’s paintings—notorious for their on zero budget!” Chase exclaims. “I enjoy want as an artist.” contorted nudes and vivid color—first getting production value out of nothing.” So why then is this Blutwurst’s last captivated Kelly in his studies at Parsons This year’s Blutwurst features new hurrah? “Schiele died when he was 28,” The New School for Design. “There was dances performed by Kelly and his Kelly explains. “So there’s vitality attached so much social information in each line,” doppelgangers, the Alter Egons. Other to it.” The artist worked fast: When he Kelly says. “In our fashion illustration class, scenes have been rewritten, reshot or met his early demise from an influenza we studied porno models and bikers, and set to new music. “I’m using the bones, epidemic in 1910, Schiele was arguably the we were very much influenced by Schiele’s but altering the flesh a bit,” says Kelly, most successful artist in Austria. “Still, I’m edge of sexuality.” employing appropriately anatomical words jumping around better than I thought I Prior to art school, Kelly was a prodigy, for a work about Schiele. would,” Kelly says. training at the American Ballet Theatre. Pressner goes one step further by Being able to jump at all these days is stating: “John’s now feeling more of something for which Kelly is immensely The wild gesticulation of Schiele’s figures a humanity about Egon.” Pressner grateful. In 2004 he broke his neck in a seemed ripe for realization onstage. He first characterizes the show’s last run at La trapeze accident after slipping out of a performed a 10-minute tribute to Schiele in harness during rehearsals, fracturing his 1982 at East Village staple fourth and sixth vertebrae. He spent The Pyramid Club. “It To meet Kelly is to meet a man fit for 15 hours in St. Vincent’s Hospital, his was a great time because doctors unsure if he would ever walk real estate was affordable,” the part. While no one would mistake again. “It was a real rupture in my life,” Kelly says. “There’s no him for an adolescent brat, he’s Kelly says. “I wound up questioning physical bohemia left in maintained a dancer’s physique of everything and still can’t fathom that Manhattan, only virtual catastrophic lapse in concentration.” bohemia.” It was at the wiry muscle and smoldering eyes. Pyramid that Kelly met Shaken up, Kelly took on Chase, a recent émigré fond of shooting MaMa in 1995 as “angular and shadowed, fellowships at the American Academy in experimental films with the Super 8 camera with a kind of Prussian sensibility,” and Rome, followed by Radcliffe for a year. he’d brought from his native South Africa. considers today’s version something rounder He taught at Harvard, and starred in “A In the Pyramid’s basement, they produced and warmer. “Yet one of the interesting Clerk’s Tale,” a short film directed by James the first footage of Kelly as Schiele, drawing things about La MaMa is that it doesn’t Franco that debuted this year at Cannes. Yet

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at every opportunity, La MaMa’s Artistic Director Ellen Stewart asked Kelly to bring Blutwurst back for another blutletting. “This is a gift to Ellen, who’s been very good to me throughout my career,” Kelly says. Among these new endeavors were photographs taken this summer in Italy that comprise Schiele-Kelly, and find Kelly tangled up in an array of akimbo poses. The result is a stark biography akin to method acting, and wholly impressive imagery: rich in hue, emotionally taut and true to Schiele’s watercolors without painting-by-numbers. Yet even amidst so much retrospection, Blutwurst’s creators have no urge to impose morals onto their diverse audience. “To quote David Gordon,” Pressner says, “‘What we want them to take away is their handbag.’” But in producing work as original as it is reverential, the Blutwurst gang offers something memorable: Exquisite art ably refracted into weird new mediums. In short, it’s a rapturous mutation that would titillate young Egon himself. < Pass the Blutwurst, Bitte, Dec. 2-19, Ellen Stewart Theatre, 66 E. 4th St., 212-4757710; Thu.-Sat., 7:30, Sun., 2:30, $20-$25. Schiele-Kelly, Nov. 23-Dec. 12, La Galleria, 6 E. 1st St.

ArtsAGENDA Exhibition Openings Axelle Fine Arts: Goxwa: “Epiphanies.” Opens Dec.

6, 535 W. 25th St., 212-226-2262. Blue Mountain Gallery: “Evolution of a Gallery: Green Mountain to Blue Mountain 1968-2010.” Opens Nov. 30, 530 W. 25th St., 4th Fl., 646486-4730. DCKT Contemporary: Laura Lobdell: “Traces of Color.” Opens Nov. 23, 195 Bowery, 212-7419955. Forum Gallery: Linden Frederick: “Night Neighbors.” Opens Nov. 23, 730 5th Ave., 212-3554545. Gallery 307: “Works on Walls II.” Opens Dec. 2, 307 7th Ave., Ste. 1401, 646-400-5254. Henry Gregg Gallery: Judith Nilson: “Paintings/ Drawings.” Opens Dec. 2, 111 Front St., Ste. 226, Brooklyn, 718-408-1090. Icosahedron Gallery: “Conventional Wisdom.” Opens Dec. 3, 606 W. 26th St., 212-966-3897. Noho Gallery: Ludmila Aristova: “Illuminations.” Opens Nov. 30, 530 W. 25th St., 4th Fl., 212367-7063. Park Avenue Armory: “Leonardo’s Last Supper: A Vision by Peter Greenaway.” Opens Dec. 3, 643 Park Ave., 212-616-3930. Phoenix Gallery: Leslie Carabas, Beth Cartland, Busser Howell, Gary Paul Stutler & Christa Toole. Opens Dec. 1, 210 11th Ave., 212-226-8711. Spazio 522: Rino Li Causi: “Paintings & Sculpture.” Opens Nov. 29, 526 W. 26th St., Ste. 522, 212929-1981. Stephen Haller Gallery: “Spectrum.” Opens Dec. 2, 542 W. 26th St., 212-741-7777. Swiss Institute: Rita Ackermann & Harmony Korine: “Shadow Fux.” Opens Nov. 24, 495 Broadway, 3rd Fl., 212-925-2035. Tache Gallery: Yuriy Ibragimov. Opens Dec. 2, 547 W. 27th St., No. 602, 347-453-7903. Tibor de Nagy Gallery: Joe Brainard, Jess & John O’Reilly: “Selected Works.” Opens Dec. 2. Rudy Burckhardt: “Children.” Opens Dec. 2, 724 5th Ave., 212-262-5050. Visual Arts Gallery: “Between Picture & Viewer: The Image in Contemporary Painting.” Opens Nov. 23, 601 W. 26th St., 212-725-3587.

Exhibition Closings 92YTribeca: “Off the Clock.” Ends Nov. 29, 200

Hudson St., 212-601-1000.

A.I.R. Gallery: Sylvia Netzer: “Redux.” Ends Nov.

28. Joan Ryan: “What We Forget to Remember.” Ends Nov. 28. Luisa Sartori: “Circles, Triangles & Then...” Ends Nov. 28, 111 Front St. #228, Brooklyn, 212-255-6651. ACA Galleries: “Surveying Judy Chicago: 1970-2010.” Ends Nov. 27, 529 W. 20th St., 212-206-8080. Alexandre Gallery: Gregory Amenoff: “At All Hours: New Paintings.” Ends Nov. 27, Fuller Building, 41 E. 57th St., 212-755-2828. Ameringer|McEnery|Yohe: Suzanne Caporael: “The Memory Store.” Ends Dec. 4, 525 W. 22nd St., 212-445-0051. Andrea Rosen Gallery: Friedrich Kunath: “Tropical Depression.” Ends Dec. 4. Ilene Segalove. Ends Dec. 4, 525 W. 24th St., 212-627-6000. The Arsenal Gallery in Central Park: Anthony Almeida: “The Everglades: Vanishing Splendor.” Ends Nov. 30, Fifth Avenue & East 64th Street, 3rd Fl., 212-360-8163. AS IF Gallery: Devendra Banhart: “Seja Marginal Seja Herói.” Ends Nov. 27, 529 Manhattan Ave., 646-338-2140. Atlantic Gallery: Carol Crawford: “Another Time, Another Place.” Ends Nov. 27, 135 W. 29th St.,

Ste. 601, 212-219-3183.

Museums

Blue Mountain Gallery: John Wallace. Ends Nov.

27, 530 W. 25th St., 4th Fl., 646-486-4730. Bowery Gallery: Martha Armstrong: “Vermont Landscapes.” Ends Nov. 27, 530 W. 25th St., 646-230-6655. Calumet Gallery: “Inspired by Nature.” Ends Nov. 26, 22 W. 22nd St., 212-989-8500. Carrol Boyes: Gemma Orkin. Ends Nov. 30, 126 Prince St., 212-334-3556. Ceres Gallery: Ann R. Shapiro: “Altering Landscapes.” Ends Nov. 27. Pat Hill Cresson: “Exotic Scenes & Natural Habitats.” Ends Nov. 27, 547 W. 27th St., Ste. 201, 212-947-6100. Christopher Henry Gallery: Johnny Rozsa. Ends Nov. 28, 127 Elizabeth St., 212-244-6004. Dacia Gallery: “Harlequin’s Troop.” Ends Dec. 5, 53 Stanton St., 917-727-9383. Dean Project: Bryan Drury: “Recent Works: Antibiosis.” Ends Nov. 27, 511 W. 25th St., 2nd Fl., 212-229-2017. dm contemporary: Linda Cummings: “Stirring the Waters.” Ends Dec. 3, 39 E. 29th St., 2B, 212576-2032. Exit Art: “Alternative Histories.” Ends Nov. 24, 475 10th Ave., 212-966-7745. Galleries at Saint Peter’s Church: “New York New York: Life in the City.” Ends Nov. 28, 619 Lexington Ave., 212-935-2200. Gallery Henoch: Max Ferguson: “Urban Intimacy.” Ends Dec. 4, 555 W. 25th St., 917-305-0003. Hal Bromm Gallery: “Neo-Vitruvian: the Body Now.” Ends Nov. 24, 90 W. Broadway, 212732-6196. Half Gallery: David Armstrong: “Mad About the Boy.” Ends Nov. 29, 208 Forsyth St., no phone. Heskin Contemporary: Russell Roberts: “Pockets of Accumulation.” Ends Dec. 4, 443 W. 37th St., 212-967-4972. Icosahedron Gallery: “Cryptical Envelopment.” Ends Nov. 24, 606 W. 26th St., 212-966-3897. Invisible-Exports: Mickey Smith: “Believe You Me.” Ends Dec. 5, 14A Orchard St., 212-2265447. J. Cacciola Gallery: Danielle Frankenthal & Mark Williams: “New Paintings.” Ends Nov. 27, 617 W. 27th St., 212-462-4646. Jen Bekman Gallery: Jessica Snow: “Multiple Plot Points.” Ends Dec. 5, 6 Spring St., 212-2190166. Jim Kempner Fine Art: Charlie Hewitt. Ends Nov. 28, 501 W. 23rd St., 212-206-6872. Kim Foster Gallery: Moon Beom: “a place/a shade/a fade.” Ends Nov. 27, 529 W. 20th St., 1st Fl., 212-229-0044. Kouros Gallery: Fred Otnes: “A Retrospective.” Ends Nov. 27, 23 E. 73rd, 212-288-5888. Leslie/Lohman Gay Art Foundation: “Stepping Boldly into the Future.” Ends Nov. 27. “The Art/Life of The. Titolo.” Ends Nov. 27, 26 Wooster St., 212-431-2609. LMAKprojects: Andy Graydon: “Vostok, Faretheewell.” Ends Dec. 5, 139 Eldridge St., 212-2559707. Ludlow 38: Maryanne Amacher: “City-Links.” Ends Nov. 28, 38 Ludlow St., 212-228-6848. Marlborough Gallery: “Jacques Lipchitz: Beyond Bible & Myth.” Ends Nov. 27, 40 W. 57th St., 212-541-4900. Marlborough Gallery: Claudio Bravo: “Recent Work.” Ends Nov. 27, 545 W. 25th St., 212463-8634. Milton J. Weill Art Gallery: Robert Zuckerman: “Time Machine.” Ends Nov. 29, 92nd Street Y, 1395 Lexington Ave., 212-415-5500. Noho Gallery: Marilyn Henrion: “Soft City.” Ends Nov. 27, 530 W. 25th St., 4th Fl., 212367-7063.

American Folk Art Museum: “Perspectives: Forming

Detail of “Me Versus the Light,” by Rita Ackermann and Harmony Korine. Nohra Haime Gallery: Adolph Gottlieb. Ends Dec.

4. Julie Hedrick: “Red.” Ends Dec. 4, 730 5th Ave., Ste. 701, 212-888-3550. OK Harris Works of Art: David Giese, David Jensz, Drew Goings, Peter Myma, Ellen Stavitsky & Rod Penner. Ends Nov. 27, 383 W. Broadway, 212-431-3600. Open Source Gallery: Pirmin Hagen: “First.” Ends Nov. 30, 255 17th St., Brooklyn, 718-877-5712. The Painting Center: Rella Stuart-Hunt: “New Paintings.” Ends Nov. 27, 547 W. 27th St., Ste. 500, 212-343-1060. Phoenix Gallery: Joseph Brown: “Bodies in Motion.” Ends Nov. 27. Sydney Drum: “Digital/ Painting.” Ends Nov. 27, 210 11th Ave., 212-2268711. Pleiades Gallery: Hilda Green Demsky: “The Atlantic From Ireland to Maine.” Ends Nov. 27, 530 W. 25th St., 4th Fl., 646-230-0056. Robert Mann Gallery: David Vestal: “Once Upon a Time in New York.” Ends Dec. 4, 210 11th Ave., 212-989-7600. Salomon Arts Gallery: Claudio Castillo: “It’s About Time.” Ends Dec. 4, 83 Leonard St., 4th Fl., 212-966-1997. Skoto Gallery: Myles Carter: “Paintings: 19892010.” Ends Nov. 27, 529 W. 20th St., 5th Fl., 212-352-8058. Soho Photo Gallery: “Sixth Annual Alternative Processes Competition.” Ends Dec. 4. Dan Burkholder: “The Next Phase: iPhone Photographs.” Ends Dec. 4, 15 White St., 212-226-8571. Soho20 Gallery Chelsea: Patricia Berube: “Recent Work.” Ends Nov. 27, 547 W. 27th St., Ste. 301, 212-367-8994. Spanierman Modern: Charlotte Park. Ends Nov. 27, 53 E. 58th St., 212-832-1400. Stephen Haller Gallery: Nobu Fukui. Ends Nov. 27, 542 W. 26th St., 212-741-7777. Tria Gallery: “Identity.” Ends Dec. 4, 531 W. 25th St., Ground Floor, 212-695-0021. Von Lintel Gallery: Marco Breuer: “Nature of the Pencil.” Ends Dec. 4, 520 W. 23rd St., 212-2420599. Walter Wickiser Gallery: “New Abstractions III.” Ends Nov. 24, 210 11th Ave., Ste. 303, 212-9411817. Yashar Gallery: Amelie Mancini: “Sacrebleu! Napoleon Would Have Made A Fine Shortstop.” Ends Nov. 24, 276 Greenpoint Ave., Brooklyn, 917-701-1956. Zürcher Studio: “In A Violet Distance.” Ends Dec. 4, 33 Bleecker St., 212-777-0790.

the Figure.” Ends Aug. 2011. “Quilts: Masterworks from the American Folk Art Museum.” Ends Oct. 16, 45 W. 53rd St., 212-265-1040. American Museum of Natural History: “Race to the End of the Earth.” Ends Jan. 2. “Brain The Inside Story.” Ends Aug. 14, Central Park West at West 79th Street, 212-769-5100. Brooklyn Historical Society: “Artist & Artifact: Re|Visioning Brooklyn’s Past.” Ends Dec. 17. “Home Base: Memories of the Brooklyn Dodgers at Ebbets Field.” Ends Apr. 24. “It Happened in Brooklyn.” Ongoing, 128 Pierrepont St., Brooklyn, 718-222-4111. Brooklyn Museum: “Fred Tomaselli.” Ends Jan. 2. “Seductive Subversion: Women Pop Artists, 1958-1968.” Ends Jan. 9. “Norman Rockwell: Behind the Camera.” Ends Apr. 10. Sam TaylorWood: “Ghosts.” Ends Aug. 14, 200 Eastern Pkwy., Brooklyn, 718-638-5000. Cooper-Hewitt National Design Museum: “Ted Muehling Selects: Lobmeyr Glass from the Permanent Collection.” Ends Jan. 2. “National Design Triennial: Why Design Now?.” Ends Jan. 9, 2 E. 91st St., 212-849-8400. Discovery Times Square Exposition: “King Tut NYC: Return of the King.” Ends Jan. 2, 226 W. 44th St., no phone. The Drawing Center: “Day Job.” Opens Dec. 10, 35 Wooster St., 212-219-2166. Frick Collection: “The Spanish Manner: Drawings from Ribera to Goya.” Ends Jan. 9. “The King at War: Velázquez’s Portrait of Philip IV.” Ends Jan. 23, 1 E. 70th St., 212-288-0700. International Center of Photography: “The Mexican Suitcase.” Ends Jan. 9. “Cuba in Revolution.” Ends Jan. 9, 1133 6th Ave., 212-857-0000. Intrepid Sea, Air & Space Museum: “27 Seconds.” Ends Jan. 16, Pier 86, West 46th Street & 12th Avenue, 212-245-0072. Japan Society: “The Sound of One Hand: Paintings & Calligraphy by Zen Master Hakuin.” Ends Jan. 9. Max Gimblett & Lewis Hyde: “oxherding.” Ends Jan. 16, 333 E. 47th St., 212-8321155. Jewish Museum: “A Hanukkah Project: Daniel Libeskind’s Line of Fire.” Ends Jan. 30. “Shifting the Gaze: Painting & Feminism.” Ends Jan. 30. “Houdini: Art & Magic.” Ends March 27, 1109 5th Ave., 212-423-3200. Merchant’s House Museum: “Memento Mori: The Birth & Resurrection of Postmortem Photography.” Ends Nov. 29, 29 E. 4th St., 212-777-1089. The Metropolitan Museum of Art: “The World of Khubilai Khan: Chinese Art in the Yuan Dynasty.” Ends Jan. 2. “Italy Observed: Views & Souvenirs, 1706-1899.” Ends Jan. 2. “John Baldessari: Pure Beauty.” Ends Jan. 9. “Miró: The Dutch Interiors.” Ends Jan. 17. “Man, Myth & Sensual Pleasures: Jan Gossart’s Renaissance.” Ends Jan. 17. “The Artistic Furniture of Charles Rohlfs.” Ends Jan. 23. “Katrin Sigurdardottir at the Met.” Ends Mar. 6. “The Roman Mosaic from Lod, Israel.” Ends Apr. 3. “Stieglitz, Steichen, Strand.” Ends Apr. 10. “Haremhab, The General Who Became King.” Ends July 4, 1000 5th Ave., 212-535-7710. The Morgan Library & Museum: “Mark Twain: A Skeptic’s Progress.” Ends Jan. 2. “Roy Lichtenstein: The Black-and-White Drawings.” Ends Jan. 2. “Degas: Drawings & Sketchbooks.” Ends Jan. 23, 225 Madison Ave., 212-685-0008. El Museo del Barrio: “Voces y Visiones.” Ends Dec. 12. “Nueva York (1613-1945).” Ends Jan. 9, 1230 5th Ave., 212-831-7272.

November 24, 2010 | City Arts

ArtsAGENDA Out of Town EVENTS & ATTRACTIONS Montclair Art Museum: MSU/MAM Art Talks

presents Mariko Mori, a Japanese video and photographic artist. Hear Mori speak about how her modeling career influences her work, as well as her interests in the fusion of art, technology, Buddhism and universal spiritual consciousness. Dec. 7, South Mountain Avenue, Montclair, N.J., 973-746-5555, www. montclair-art.com

The Center for Performing Arts at Rhinebeck:The

CENTER presents the timeless holiday classic A Christmas Carol by Charles Dickens, directed by Cait Johnson and Emily DePew. Come and see this heart-warming production with the whole family. Ends Dec. 16, 661 Rte 308, Rhinebeck, N.Y., 845-876-3080, www. centerforperformingarts.org.

CCS Bard Hessel Museum of Art: At Home/Not At

Home: Works from the Collection of Martin and Rebecca Eisenberg is a fantastic collection of contemporary art that has been 25 years in the making and is on public view for the first time. The collection features work by Kai Althoff, Jeremy Deller, Peter Doig, David Hammons, Mary Heilmann, Elizabeth Peyton and Rirkrit Tiravanija. Ends Dec. 19, Bard College, Annandale-on-Hudson, N.Y., www. bard.edu/ccs/museum.

The Aldrich Contemporary Art Museum: Award-

winning photojournalist John Shearer’s America (Continued) explores themes of social justice through a photographic exhibit on the subject of immigration, “relating it to issues of race, class, economic disparity that are the roots of discrimination and injustice.” Ends Jan. 2, 258 Main Street, Ridgefield, Conn., 203-438-4519, www.aldrichart.org.

Katonah Museum of Art: Mapping: Memory and

Motion in Contemporary Art is a multi-artist display, featuring a wide variety of media, including paintings, sculptures, videos and a live

Museum at the Fashion Institute of Technology: “Ja-

pan Fashion Now.” Ends Jan. 8, Seventh Avenue at West 27th Street, 212-217-4558. Museum of Arts & Design: “Think Again: New Latin American Jewelry.” Ends Jan. 9. Patrick Jouin: “Design & Gesture.” Ends Feb. 6. “Eat Drink Art Design.” Ends March 27. “The Global Africa Project.” Ends May 15, 2 Columbus Cir., 212-299-7777. Museum of Jewish Heritage: “Project Mah Jongg.” Ends Jan. 2. “Fire in My Heart: The Story of Hannah Senesh.” Ends Aug. 7. “The Morgenthaus: A Legacy of Service.” Ends Sept. 5, 36 Battery Pl., 646-437-4200. Museum of Modern Art: “Small Scale, Big Change: New Architectures of Social Engagement.” Ends Jan. 3. “New Photography 2010.” Ends Jan. 10. “Underground Gallery: London Transport Posters, 1920s-1940s.” Ends Jan. 10. “On Line: Drawing Through the Twentieth Century.” Ends Feb. 7. “Counter Space: Design & the Modern Kitchen.” Ends March 14. “Abstract Expressionist New York.” Ends Apr. 25, 11 W. 53rd St., 212-708-9400. New Museum: “The Last Newspaper.” Ends Jan. 9. “Voice & Wind: Haegue Yang.” Ends Jan. 23. “Free.” Ends Jan. 23, 235 Bowery, 212-219-1222. New York Public Library: “Recollection: Thirty Years of Photography at the New York Public Library.”

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web terminal. The exhibition addresses ideas of borders, boundaries, identity, colonialism, journeys and tourism. Ends Jan. 9, 134 Jay Street Katonah, N.Y., 914-232-9555, www. katonahmuseum.org. Norman Rockwell Museum: Celebrated and

award-winning picturebook artist, Jerry Pinkney’s works will be on display at the Norman Rockwell Museum in Witness: The Art of Jerry Pinkney. Among the displayed works will be the original illustrations for The Lion and The Mouse, The Old African, The Little Match Girl, and for the African Burial Ground Interpretive Center in New York City and the National Underground Railroad Freedom Center in Ohio. Ends May 30, 9 Rte 183, Stockbridge, Mass., 413-298-4100, www.nrm.org.

Sterling and Francine Clark Art Institute: The

Clark Art Institute presents The Strange World of Albrecht Dürer, which features 75 graphics by the celebrated German Renaissance painter and printmaker, many of which have not been on display in over 35 years. His works—which focus on apocalyptic imagery, dreams, fantastic creatures and tense relations between men and women—are as relevant now as they were in his day. Ends March 13, 225 South Street, Williamstown, Mass., 413458-2303, www.clarkart.edu.

Celebration of Lights & Song: Come to New

London’s Main Street to celebrate cultures and traditions from around the world through music and dance. Dec. 4, Parade Plaza, Corner of State and Bank Street, New London, Conn., www.newlondonmainstreet.org.

Spirit of the Holidays: Watertown celebrates

the holidays with a town-wide festival that includes concerts, shopping, children’s activities, and a holiday marketplace. Dec. 10-11, Watertown, Conn., www.watertownct.org.

Ends Jan. 2. “Three Faiths: Judaism, Christianity, Islam.” Ends Feb. 27, Stephen A. Schwarzman Building, Print Gallery & Stokes Gallery, East 42nd Street & Fifth Avenue, 917-275-6975. New York Public Library for the Performing Arts: “Talking Pictures.” Ends Nov. 27. “Alwin Nikolais’ Total Theater of Motion.” Ends Jan. 15. “On Stage in Fashion: Design for Theater, Opera & Dance.” Ends Jan. 22, 40 Lincoln Center Plz., 212-870-1630. Noguchi Museum: “On Becoming An Artist: Isamu Noguchi & His Contemporaries, 1922-1960.” Ends Apr. 24, 33rd Road at Vernon Boulevard, Queens, 718-721-2308. Rubin Museum of Art: “Embodying the Holy: Icons in Eastern Orthodox Christianity & Tibetan Buddhism.” Ends March 7. “Grain of Emptiness: Buddhism-Inspired Contemporary Art.” Ends Apr. 11. “The Nepalese Legacy in Tibetan Painting.” Ends May 23, 150 W. 17th St., 212620-5000. Skyscraper Museum: “The Rise of Wall Street.” Ends Nov. 28, 39 Battery Pl., 212-968-1961. Society of Illustrators: “2010 Original Art: Celebrating the Fine Art of Children’s Book Illustration.” Ends Nov. 24. Chris Spollen. Nov. 30-Dec. 30, 128 E. 63rd St., 212-838-2560. Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum: “Broken Forms: European Modernism from the Guggenheim

Collection.” Ends Jan. 5. “Chaos & Classicism: Art in France, Italy & Germany, 1918-1936.” Ends Jan. 9. “Vox Populi: Posters of the Interwar Years.” Ends Jan. 9. “Kandinsky at the Bauhaus, 1922-1933.” Ongoing. “Thannhauser Collection.” Ongoing, 1071 5th Ave., 212-423-3500. South Street Seaport: “Tigers.” Ends Jan. 1, Pier 17 at South Street Seaport, 800-745-3000. Studio Museum: “VideoStudio: Changing Same.” Ends March 13. “The Production of Space.” Ends March 13. “StudioSound: Matana Roberts.” Ends March 13. “Harlem Postcards: Fall/ Winter 2010-11.” Ends March 13. Lynette Yiadom-Boakye: “Any Number of Preoccupations.” Ends March 13. Mark Bradford: “Alphabet.” Ends March 13, 144 W. 125th St., 212-864-4500. Whitney Museum of American Art: “Lee Friedlander: America by Car.” Ends Nov. 28. “Sara VanDerBeek.” Ends Dec. 5. “Paul Thek: Diver, A Retrospective.” Ends Jan. 9. Slater Bradley & Ed Lachman: “Shadow.” Ends Jan. 23. “Charles LeDray: workworkworkworkwork.” Ends Feb. 13. “Modern Life: Edward Hopper & His Time.” Ends Apr. 10, 945 Madison Ave., 212-570-3600.

Art Events BAM 2010 Next Wave Festival: The Brooklyn Acad-

emy of Music hosts its annual festival. Now in its 28th year, Next Wave comprises 16 music, dance, theater & opera performances, in addition to artist talks, art exhibitions & more. Ends Dec. 19, BAM, 30 Lafayette Ave., Brooklyn, 718-6364129, www.bam.org. Chelsea Art Gallery Tour: Head to Chelsea for a guided tour of that week’s top seven gallery exhibits in the world’s center for contemporary art. Dec. 4, 526 W. 26th St., 212-946-1548; 1, $20. International Print Center New York: The IPCNY presents “New Prints 2009/10: A Benefit Exhibition & Silent Auction.” All 120 prints featured will be sold to benefit IPCNY’s exhibitions & programs. Dec. 2-18, 508 W. 26th St., Rm. 5A, 212-989-5090, www.ipcny.org. NYC Ceramic Festival: Members of New York City’s ceramic arts community open their doors & showcase their talents for collectors & holiday shoppers for the first time. Dec. 3-18, locations vary, www.brickhouseny.com. Thanksgiving Tour: Bring the family to Chelsea for a tour of the week’s top seven gallery exhibits. Nov. 27, 526 W. 26th St., 212-946-1548; 1, $15+.

Auctions Christie’s: 500 Years: Decorative Arts Europe,

Including Oriental Carpets. Nov. 23, 10 a.m. & 2. Important American Paintings, Drawings & Sculpture. Dec. 1, 10 a.m. Beautiful Evidence: The Library of Edward Tufte. Dec. 2, 2. Fine Printed Books & Manuscripts Including Americana. Dec. 3, 10 a.m. & 2, 20 Rockefeller Plz., 212-636-2000. Doyle New York: Doyle at Home. Dec. 7, 10 a.m., 175 E. 87th St., 212-427-2730. ROGALLERY.com: Fine art buyers & sellers in online live art auctions. 800-888-1063, www.rogallery. com. Swann Auction Galleries: Maps & Atlases, Travel Books, Natural History, Historical Prints & Ephemera. Dec. 1, 104 E. 25th St., 212-254-4710.

Music & Opera Alice Tully Hall: Tenor Paul Appleby, accompanied

by pianist Brian Zeger, performs a solo recital as the winner of Juilliard’s 14th annual Alice Tully Vocal Arts Recital Award. Nov. 30, Broadway at West 65th Street, 212-721-6500; 8, $30.

Avery Fisher Hall: Rafael Frühbeck de Burgos

conducts the New York Philharmonic in works by Glinka, Tchaikovsky, Debussy & Stravinsky. Nov. 26, 27 & 30, 10 Lincoln Center Plz., 212875-5656; times vary, $37+. Carnegie Hall: Joanna Newsom performs in support of her album Have One On Me. Nov. 23, Stern Auditorium, 881 7th Ave., 212-247-7800; 8, $30+. Howard Gilman Performance Space: The St. Lawrence String Quartet performs Haydn’s Quartet Op. 20, No. 4 & Britten’s Quartet No. 2, Op. 36. Nov. 29, Baryshnikov Arts Center, 450 W. 37th St., 212-868-4444; 7, free. Le Poisson Rouge: The Claremont Trio, featuring violinist Emily Bruskin, cellist Julia Bruskin & pianist Donna Kwong, performs works by Beethoven & Ravel. Nov. 29, 158 Bleecker St., 212-228-4854; 7:30, $15+. Merkin Concert Hall: Songs of Gay Life pays tribute to gay composers with songs by Poulenc, Tchaikovsky, Griffes, Bernstein, Porter, Blitzstein & others. Nov. 30 & Dec. 2, Kaufman Center, 129 W. 67th St., 212-501-3300; 8, $40. Merkin Concert Hall: Soprano Shirley Ritenour pays tribute to diva Eileen Farrell. Dec. 5, Kaufman Center, 129 W. 67th St., 212-501-3300; 3, $15+. Merkin Concert Hall: Liz Callaway hosts the 10th anniversary of Bound for Broadway, the series that informs audiences of new shows in progress. This session also revisits previously featured shows, including Next to Normal, Avenue Q & others. Dec. 6, Kaufman Center, 129 W. 67th St., 212-501-3300; 8, $40. The Metropolitan Museum of Art: The Pacifica Quartet performs Shostakovich. Dec. 4, Jan. 22 & Feb. 19, 1000 5th Ave., 212-535-7710; 7, $45. The Metropolitan Museum of Art: A Chanticleer Christmas features traditional carols, medieval & Renaissance sacred works, & new holiday gems. Nov. 30 & Dec. 1, 1000 5th Ave., 212-535-7710; times vary, $70. Metropolitan Opera: Così fan tutte. Ends Dec. 2. Don Carlo. Ends Dec. 18. Carmen. Ends Jan. 13. Don Pasquale. Ends Feb. 19. La Bohème. Ends Feb. 25. Il Trovatore. Ends Apr. 30, West 62nd Street, betw. Columbus & Amsterdam Aves., 212-362-6000; times vary, $25+. Miller Theatre: The Talea Ensemble, with conductor James Baker, pays tribute to composer & conductor Pierre Boulez for his 85th birthday celebration. Dec. 6, 2960 Broadway, 212-8547799; 8, $25. WMP Concert Hall: Violinist Gabriela Rengel, violist Kristin Nikaj, cellist Sokol Nikaj & pianist Vladmir Valjarevic perform works by Bach, Dhomi & Mozart. Nov. 24. The Amphion String Quartet performs works by Haydn & Ravel. Dec. 1, 31 E. 28th St., 212-582-7536; 12:30, $10.

Jazz Cornelia Street Cafe: Tom Beckham Group. Nov.

23. Dan Rufolo Trio. Nov. 24. John McNeil’s Urban Legend. Nov. 26 & 27. Mark Dresser Quintet. Nov. 28. Harris Eisenstadt & Canada Day. Nov. 29. Jonathan Kreisberg Quartet. Nov. 30, 29 Cornelia St., 212-989-9319; times vary, $10+. Jazz Standard: Maria Schneider Orchestra. Nov. 23-28. Mingus Dynasty. Nov. 29 & Dec. 6. Peter Bernstein Quartet. Nov. 30-Dec. 1, 116 E. 27th St., 212-576-2232; times vary, $20+. Kitano New York: Jill McCarron on solo piano. Nov. 23 & 30. Janis Siegel with the Fred Hersch Duo. Nov. 24. Kenny Werner on solo piano. Nov. 26 & 27, 66 Park Ave., 212-885-7119; times vary, $15+. Rubin Museum of Art: The Sean Smith Trio plays an acoustic jazz concert as part of Harlem in the

Alexandre CityArts 10-2010 #2

Dance Alvin Ailey American Dance Theater: AAADT, led by

Judith Jamison in her final year as artistic director, presents seven premieres & new productions in addition to repertory favorites in its holiday run at New York City Center. Dec. 1-Jan. 2, New York City Center, 131 W. 55th St., 212-5811212; times vary, $25+. Ballet Hispanico: Ballet Hispanico celebrates its 40th anniversary with three world premieres, one revival & three repertory favorites. Nov. 30-Dec. 12, The Joyce Theater, 175 8th Ave., 212-2420800; times vary, $10+. Barnard Project: For six years, the Barnard Project has paired Barnard & Columbia dance students with artists presented at Dance Theater Workshop. This year’s performance features works by Kimberly Bartosik, Ori Flomin, Will Rawls & Gwen Welliver. Dec. 2-4, Dance Theater Workshop, 219 W. 19th St., 212-924-0077; times vary, $20. Complexions Contemporary Ballet: The company’s intense physical movements take center stage in three different programs. Ends Nov. 28, The Joyce Theater, 175 8th Ave., 212-242-0800; times vary, $10+. Jody Oberfelder Dance Projects: Jody Oberfelder presents For All Intents & Purposes, Dancing Diva & Moved, as well as the film Come Sit Stay. Dec. 2, David Rubenstein Atrium, Lincoln Center, betw. West 62nd and 63rd Streets, 212875-5000; 8:30, free. Nai-Ni Chen Dance Company: The company collaborates with the Ahn Trio for its December season at Harlem School of the Arts. The program features three premieres to music by Kenji Bunch, Michael Nyman & Ronn Yedidia. Dec. 2-5, Harlem School of the Arts, 645 St. Nicholas Ave., 800-650-0246; times vary, $10+. New York City Ballet: The company performs The Magic Flute, the comedic tale for all ages, set to a score by Riccardo Drigo. Feb. 2, 4, 6 & 8, David H. Koch Theater, 20 Lincoln Center, 212-7216500; times vary, $20+. Sokolow Theatre/Dance Ensemble: The tribute to Anna Sokolow continues with a performance of 1988’s Kurt Weill, with music by Fusion Bande. Nov. 30 & Dec. 9, Howard Gilman Performance Space, Baryshnikov Arts Center, 450 W. 37th St., 800-838-3006; 7:30, $25+. Splice: This international double feature presents Israeli artists Noa Shadur & Netta Yerushalmy. Dec. 2-4, Dance New Amsterdam, 280 Broadway, 2nd Fl., 212-227-9856; 8, $12+. Urban Ballet Theater: The classic ballet of the Nutcracker mixes with salsa, krumping & hiphop in Nutcracker in the Lower. Nov. 27-Dec. 5, Abrons Arts Center, Henry Street Settlement, 466 Grand St., 212-598-0400; times vary, $20.

Theater Billy Elliot: This Tony-winning adaptation of the

2000 film chronicles a young British boy’s desire to dance ballet in a poverty-choked coal-mining town. Open run, Imperial Theatre, 249 W. 45th St., 212-239-6200.

Bloody Bloody Andrew Jackson: Benjamin Walker

reprises his role as America’s first political maverick. Open run, Jacobs Theatre, 242 W. 45th St., 212-239-6200. Brief Encounter: Roundabout Theatre Company presents Noel Coward’s screenplay, adapted and directed by Emma Rice. Ends Jan. 2, Studio 54, 254 W. 54th St., 212-719-1300. La Casa de Bernarda Alba: Tyrannical mother Bernarda Alba attempts to dominate her five unmarried daughters, all of whom harbor a secret passion for the same man. Ends May 27, Repertorio Español, 138 E. 27th St., 212225-9999. Chicago: The long-running revival of Kander & Ebb’s musical about sex, murder & celebrity continues to razzle-dazzle. Open run, Ambassador Theatre, 219 W. 49th St., 212-239-6200. A Christmas Carol: The Players Theatre hosts a lively musical rendition of the classic Dickens tale. Nov. 27-Dec. 30, The Players Theatre, 115 MacDougal St., 212-352-3101. Danny & Sylvia - The Danny Kaye Musical: This musical love story depicts the relationship between Danny Kaye & his wife & creative partner, Sylvia Fine, who wrote many of Kaye’s most famous songs. Open run, St. Luke’s Theatre, 308 W. 46th St., 212-239-6200. Dietrich & Chevalier: Marlene Dietrich & Maurice Chevalier were the top film stars at Paramount Pictures in the 1930s. Married to others, they fell in love & remained friends for life. Jerry Mayer’s musical stars Robert Cuccioli, Jodi Stevens & Donald Corren. Open run, St. Luke’s Theatre, 308 W. 46th St., 212-239-6200. Driving Miss Daisy: James Earl Jones & Vanessa Redgrave star in Alfred Uhry’s play. Ends Jan. 30, Golden Theatre, 252 W. 45th St., 212-2396200. FELA!: The story of legendary Nigerian musican Fela Kuti, whose soulful Afrobeat rhythms ignited a generation, is told through music & dance. Featuring Patti LaBelle. Ends Jan. 2, The Eugene O’Neil Theatre, 230 W. 49th St., 212-239-6200. Fuerza Bruta - Look Up: A visual dance-rave, technoride, Latino walking-on-the-ceiling fiesta from Buenos Aires. Open run, Daryl Roth Theatre, 101 E. 15th St., 212-239-2600. The Great Game - Afghanistan: The Tricycle Theatre Company’s production, shown in three parts, explores the culture & history of Afghanistan through the eyes of 12 British & American playwrights & individuals who have been actively involved in the country’s affairs from 1842 to the present. Dec. 1-19, Skirball Center, 566 LaGuardia Pl., 212-352-3101. In the Heights: This heartfelt & high-spirited love letter to Washington Heights features a salsa & hip-hop flavored score by Lin-Manuel Miranda. Ends Jan. 9, Richard Rodgers Theatre, 226 W. 46th St., 212-221-1211. Memphis - A New Musical: Set in the titular city during the segregated 1950s, this musical charts the romance between a white DJ & a black singer as rock-and-roll begins to emerge. Open run, Shubert Theatre, 225 W. 44th St., 212239-6200. Next to Normal: A woman & her family struggle to cope with her bipolar disorder in this emotional, Tony-winning musical. Ends Jan. 16, Booth Theatre, 222 W. 45th St., 212-239-6200. Way to Heaven: Matthew Earnest directs Juan Mayorga’s depiction of the fake Jewish settlement of Theresienstadt, used by the Nazis during the Holocaust to convince outsiders that its camps were humane. Ends Jan. 27, Gramercy Arts Theater, 138 E. 27th St., 212225-9999.

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Gregory Amenoff AT ALL HOURS: NEW PAINTINGS Through November 27

Trine, 2010, oil on panel, 32 1/4 x 34 1/2 inches

Himalayas. Dec. 3, 150 W. 17th St., 212-6205000; 7, $7+. Schomburg Center: In honor of Dr. Billy Taylor’s 90th birthday, Jazzmobile presents a series of events celebrating his career, starting with A Touch of Taylor. Nov. 29, 515 Malcolm X Blvd., 212-491-2206; 7, $10. Smoke: The Terrell Stafford Quintet featuring Tim Warfield on saxophone. Dec. 3 & 4, 2751 Broadway, 212-864-6662; times vary, $30.

10/12/10

A l e x a n d r e Ga l l e r y Fuller Building 41 East 57th 212.755.2828 www.alexandregallery.com

November 24, 2010 | City Arts

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PainttheTOWN

By Amanda Gordon

The New York Public Library serves all ages, and its annual gala on the first of this month was, refreshingly, all-ages (if you start counting at around 21). That’s because instead of giving the Young Lions their own event, the library efficiently and admirably doubles up. It gets the most affluent of its junior supporters to its “adult” event at which the Library Lions medals are awarded (this year they went to Steve Martin and Zadie Smith, among others). Then, starting at 9 p.m., in another location at the 42nd Street flagship, it holds a dance for a broader group of Young Lions. It makes for a long but fun evening. Mine included conversations about Lyndon Michael Odell and Andrea Olshan, Johnson with author Robert Caro, and about upcoming recently married and enjoying the Ivanka Trump en route to her dinner Art Basel Miami Beach parties with a Columbia Business dance music at the Young Lions party. table in the Rose Reading Room. School student from Brittany. A sign it went well: Guests were Jake Hurwitz and Bee still hanging out at 2 a.m. at the Andaz’s cellar bar across the street from the library. Shaffer.

Photos by Amanda Gordon

The Book Club

Leslie and Tom Freudenheim with the Forward’s arts editor, Dan Friedman (can you tell he wrote for The Ali G Show?)

Looking Forward File this in the annals of journalism: The Forward newspaper hasn’t turned a profit since 1944, but it’s just now decided to seek public support. The entity that is raising money is the Forward Association, which had a reception last week to kick off the effort. You see, it has its heart set on surviving another 100 years by shifting its focus from Yiddish and English to digital. For example, the Forward website offers a video of rockers Gloria Deluxe and Brian Chase (of the Yeah Yeah Yeahs) performing nigun, a form of Jewish song. We hope there’s more like this at the Forward’s first gala Mar. 8.

The Big BAM

Jennie and Chris Coyne.

Vanity Fair’s Graydon Carter with Liz Smith

Author Alex Berenson chats with CNBC’s James Cramer while Berenson’s wife, Jacqueline, meets Cramer’s date, Lisa Detwiler.

Fran Lebowitz, subject of Scorsese’s Jon Tisch and Lizzie Tisch with the president of the Metropolitan HBO doc Public Speaking, which Museum of Art, Emily Rafferty. premiered Nov. 15.

Living Landmarks Jon Tisch became a Living Landmark Nov. 3, an honor bestowed by the New York Landmarks Conservancy. But the landmark he wanted to talk about at the event was not himself, but Central Park. His wife, Lizzie, however, said her favorite landmark is the Chrysler Building, an answer she said Michael Arad shares photographs was in allegiance with her seven-yearold daughter, who has recently drawn it of his memorial-in-progress at in school. Meanwhile Living Landmark ground zero with Frank Sciame. The Schomberg’s retiring Graydon Carter said he likes the Woolworth Building. But he’s always had director, Howard Dodson. an eye for all of New York’s architectural marvels. When he first arrived in the city and had no friends to hang out with, he said, he spent hours walking around, carrying the AIA Guide.

Oh, how far the Brooklyn Academy of Music has come. When the city’s Commissioner of Cultural Affairs, Kate Levin, worked there in the early ’80s, people would ask her, “What instrument do you play?” Now any New Yorker with cultural aspirations talks about BAM this and that, referring to the theater, opera, dance and music performed there. As Levin pointed out the other day while standing on the stage of the BAM Harvey Theater, the man who programs the work there is Joseph Melillo. Levin paid tribute to Melillo on the occasion of his 25th anniversary at BAM, noting that she enjoys working with the “two-headed monster—I mean model” composed of Melillo and president Karen Brooks Hopkins. With plenty of ribbing about his travel schedule and his wardrobe, all given and received in good spirits, the event felt like a family night out. “BAM is family,” confirmed Adam Max, longtime board member of the Hannah, Adam and Diane Max. Fort Greene institution, who had his wife and daughter with him. As for musicians: We did find one, just as the chocolate mousse was being passed around at Skylight One Hanson. Philip Glass said he supports BAM “because there needs to be a counterweight to Lincoln Center.” Joe Melillo (second from left), with his siblings, celebrating 25 years at BAM. For more party coverage, visit www.cityarts.info. To contact the author or purchase photos, email Amanda.Gordon@rocketmail.com; bit.ly/agphotos. November 24, 2010 | City Arts

CityArts_10_Final.qxd:3Sheet.SeptOct

11/22/10

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New York Philharmonic HOLIDAY CONCERTS

Come celebrate the sounds of the season with the New York Philharmonic. New York Philharmonic Principal Brass Quintet

West Point Band

HOLIDAY BRASS

Sun, Dec 12 12:00pm Sun, Dec 12 3:00pm New York Philharmonic Principal Brass Quintet West Point Band Lieutenant Colonel Jim Keene Commander/Conductor A New York tradition! The Philharmonic’s Principal Brass Quintet and the West Point Band present our annual holiday classic filled with wit, virtuosity, and the glorious music of the season. nyphil.org/brass The New York Philharmonic gratefully acknowledges support for its activities from the Gurnee and Marjorie Hart Endowment Fund.

HANDEL’S MESSIAH

Tue, Dec 14 7:30pm Fri, Dec 17 7:30pm Wed, Dec 15 7:30pm Sat, Dec 18 7:30pm Thu, Dec 16 7:30pm Bernard Labadie Conductor Karina Gauvin Soprano Marie-Nicole Lemieux Contralto Tilman Lichdi Tenor Andrew Foster-Williams Bass New York Choral Artists Joseph Flummerfelt Director HANDEL Messiah nyphil.org/messiah

Bernard Labadie Alan Gilbert

Philip Smith

Pre-Concert Talk one hour before concert time, $7.

Presented by the Robert Hekemian Family Foundation.

BOLÉRO AND VIRTUOSOS FROM THE PHILHARMONIC

Tue, Dec 28 7:30pm Thu, Dec 30 7:30pm Wed, Dec 29 7:30pm Alan Gilbert Conductor Sheryl Staples, Michelle Kim, Marc Ginsberg, Lisa Kim Violins Philip Smith Trumpet Philip Myers Horn Liang Wang Oboe VIVALDI Concerto for Four Violins, RV 580 Aaron Jay KERNIS a Voice, a Messenger*** HINDEMITH Horn Concerto Christopher ROUSE Oboe Concerto* RAVEL Boléro

Lang Lang

NEW YEAR’S EVE

Fri, Dec 31 8:00pm Alan Gilbert Conductor Lang Lang Piano TCHAIKOVSKY Polonaise from Eugene Onegin TCHAIKOVSKY Piano Concerto No. 1 TCHAIKOVSKY The Nutcracker, Act II nyphil.org/nye Broadcast nationally on PBS’s Live From Lincoln Center.

The New Year’s Eve Concert is presented by Breguet.

For tickets visit nyphil.org or call 212 875 5656

nyphil.org/bolero Pre-Concert Talk one hour before concert time, $7. The commissioning of Aaron Jay Kernis’s a Voice, a Messenger was made possible with a generous gift from Marie-Josée Kravis. Major support provided by the Francis Goelet Fund.

ALL CONCERTS ARE AT AVERY FISHER HALL. Programs of the New York Philharmonic are supported, in part, by public funds from the New York City Department of Cultural Affairs, New York State Council on the Arts, and the National Endowment for the Arts. Classical 105.9 FM WQXR, the radio station of the New York Philharmonic. © 2010 New York Philharmonic. Programs, artists, and pricing subject to change. Photo Credits: New York Philharmonic Principal Brass Quintet by David Finlayson Photography, West Point Band courtesy of West Point Public AffairsBernard Labadie by Luc Delisle, Alan Gilbert by Karen Ballard, Philip Smith by Chris Lee, Lang Lang by Philip Glaser. *** World Premiere: New York Philharmonic Commission * New York Premiere.