Music in NYC: Ukrainian Freedom Orchestra

Music in NYC: Ukrainian Freedom Orchestra

FREE Live concert featuring Ukrainian Freedom Orchestra at Damrosch Park at Lincoln Center, NYC; presented in collaboration with the resident organizations of Lincoln Center.

August 18 & 19, 2022 at 7.30 pm

Donations are encouraged to organizations supporting the resettlement of Ukrainians

 

Ukrainian Freedom Orchestra
Ukrainian Freedom Orchestra / Image courtesy of the MetOpera

The Ukrainian Freedom Orchestra will play at Lincoln Center in two free concerts, August 18 & 19. The powerful and symbolic international Freedom Tour includes recent refugees of the war, members of orchestras in other parts of Europe, and the leading musicians of Kyiv, Lviv, Kharkiv, and Odesa.

In solidarity with the victims of the war in Ukraine, the Metropolitan Opera and the Polish National Opera brought these musicians together to create an orchestra for a European and American tour. The American performances will be held at Lincoln Center in a co-presentation of all eleven organizations on campus and, following, at the Kennedy Center in Washington D.C.
The Ukrainian government is supporting the project by addressing the issues of allowing male musicians to put down weapons and take up their instruments in a remarkable demonstration of the power of art over adversity.

FREE Concerts

Dates: August 18 & 19, 2022, 7.30 pm
Venue: Damrosch Park at Lincoln Center, NY
Donations: Welcome.US

Read More

Dance in NYC: Anna Karenina by Eifman Ballet of St. Petersburg at Lincoln Center

Dance in NYC: Anna Karenina by Eifman Ballet of St. Petersburg at Lincoln Center, NY

Eifman Ballet of St. Petersburg returns to New York City on April 6-8, 2018 with a ballet Anna Karenina

Dance NYC Eifman Ballet Anna Karenina David Koch Theater
Anna Karenina / Image courtesy of Ardani Artists Management, Inc.

Eifman Ballet of St. Petersburg is well-known on New York City dance scene. Its performances are eagerly anticipated by the fans of Russian ballet. Boris Eifman, the founder, and creator of this ballet theater, chooses complex psychological stories as the basis for his repertoire requiring from the spectators to know the literary text or the historical intricacies and to be able to appreciate a very abstract form of expression such as dance. In the case of Anna Karenina ballet, he obviously takes the cues from Leo Tolstoy but zeroes in on its main love triangle Anna-Vronsky-Karenin leaving aside the rest of Tolstoy’s characters. The show is dramatically staged and performed by the top-class classically trained dancers of Eifman Ballet theater. The performances in New York City will be taking place at the David H. Koch Theater on April 6-8, 2018. Book your discounted tickets with a promo code TNTIX here.

Read More

Lincoln Center’s Mostly Mozart Festival: Don Giovanni by Budapest Festival Orchestra

Lincoln Center’s Mostly Mozart Festival: Don Giovanni by Budapest Festival Orchestra

Ivan Fischer, conductor and director 

Lincoln Center's Mostly Mozart Festival: Don Giovanni by Budapest Festival Orchestra
Don Giovanni by Max Slevogt, 1912

This year Mostly Mozart Festival at Lincoln Center brings back to New York a fascinating production of opera Don Giovanni. The performance will take place at the Rose Theater at the Jazz at Lincoln Center Frederick P. Rose Hall.

Mozart wrote this opera to a libretto by Lorenzo Da Ponte which was based on the legend about Don Juan, a philanderer and seducer. Premiered at the National Theater of Bohemia in Prague in 1787, it was billed by Mozart himself as opera buffa. However, this particular rendition of the story is much more a tragedy and a learning lesson than a comedy or a melodrama.

Ivan Fischer, co-founder and conductor of Budapest Festival Orchestra, was also directing the production. In an interview  by NPR in anticipation of the opening in 2011, Fischer points out that this dual role as conductor and director lets him offer “much more unified experience” for the actors. The resulting accents in the story are on bringing the villain to justice. The costume, stage design and casting of the students of Bucharest Acting Academy in the supporting ensemble are both innovative and highly appropriate. Instead of a singing statue, the actors costumes are designed to resemble the stones serving as both the silent elements of the design and the embodiment of the fate and consequence that gets a final say. The New York Times review of the performance back in 2011 highlights the “climactic moment staged to such haunting effect” under Fischer’s direction.

Venue: Rose Theater at Jazz at Lincoln Center, 10 Columbus Circle, NY                               Dates: August 17, 19, 20