Performances to Feature Two Exciting Double Bills: Legendary Producers and Songwriters T Bone Burnett and Joe Henry on November 13; and Grammy Award-Winning Artists The Fairfield Four and Ranky Tanky on February 25
Carnegie Hall has announced the all-star lineup of artists for two exciting double-bill American Byways concerts to be presented in Zankel Hall in the 2020–2021 season. Curated and hosted by singer-songwriter Rosanne Cash (who was a Carnegie Hall Perspectives artist in the 2015–2016 season), these one-of-a kind performances take New York audiences on a journey through American roots music, featuring Appalachian traditions, the blues, and more.
American Byways Block. Photo of T Bone Burnett by Josh Cheuse; Joe Henry by Jacob Blickenstaff; Ranky Tanky by Peter Frank Edwards.
On Friday, November 13, 2020 at 9:00 p.m., Cash brings together two iconic producers and songwriters––T Bone Burnett and Joe Henry—for a very special concert. Renowned for producing ground-breaking albums by artists including Robert Plant, Alison Krauss, Willie Nelson, and Elton John, Burnett was also behind the soundtrack for films like Walk the Line and O Brother, Where Art Thou?. Mentored in part by Burnett, Joe Henry has earned acclaim for producing albums by artists including Bonnie Raitt, Allen Toussaint, and Rhiannon Giddens (whom Burnett has worked with as well). For this rare double bill performance, Burnett’s fluid guitar-playing and thoughtful songwriting is paired with Henry’s deeply personal and marvelously eclectic style of storytelling with inflections of rock, folk, country, and jazz.
Multiple Grammy and Academy Award winner Joseph Henry “T Bone” Burnett is a producer, musician and songwriter. Known recently for composing and producing music for the critically acclaimed HBO series True Detective, his film work includes the five-time Grammy winning soundtrack for O Brother, Where Art Thou?, The Big Lebowski, Cold Mountain, The Hunger Games, Crazy Heart and Walk The Line, amongst others. He has collaborated with numerous artists including Bob Dylan, Elvis Costello, Roy Orbison and won Album of the Year and Record of the Year Grammy Awards for Robert Plant and Alison Krauss’s Raising Sand.
In a career spanning more than 30 years, Joe Henry has left an indelible and unique imprint on American popular music. As a songwriter and artist, Mr. Henry is celebrated for his exploration of the human experience. A hyper-literate storyteller, by turns dark, devastating, and hopeful, he draws an author’s eye for the overlooked detail across a broad swath of American musical styles—rock, jazz and blues—rendering genre modifiers useless.
Mr. Henry has collaborated with many notable artists on his own body of work, including Don Cherry and T Bone Burnett (Shuffletown, 1990), Victoria Williams and the Jawhawks‘s Gary Louris and Marc Perlman (Kindness of the World, 1993), guitarists Page Hamilton (Trampoline, 1996), Daniel Lanois and Jakob Dylan (Fuse, 1999), Ornette Coleman, Brad Mehldau, Marc Ribot, Brian Blade, and Meshell Ndegeocello (Scar, 2001), Bill Frisell and Van Dyke Parks (Civilians, 2007), Jason Moran (Blood From Stars, 2009), Lisa Hannigan (Invisible Hour, 2014).
Evgeny Nikitin stars in the title role and Anja Kampe makes a notable Met debut as Senta
François Girard returns to the Met for the first time since his acclaimed production of Wagner’s Parsifal
Der Fliegende Holländer will be transmitted live to movie theaters around the world on Saturday, March 14, as part of The Met: Live in HD series
A co-production of the Metropolitan Opera; Dutch National Opera, Amsterdam; The Abu Dhabi Festival; and Opéra de Québec
The Metropolitan Opera presents a new production of Wagner’s early masterpiece Der Fliegende Holländer tonight, with performances continuing through March 27. Valery Gergiev conducts the new staging from director François Girard, whose interpretation is centered on the young woman Senta’s obsession with a portrait of the Dutchman.
Girard, whose revelatory 2013 take on Parsifal set the recent Met standard for Wagner stagings, now unveils a spellbinding new vision of the composer’s tale of a cursed sea captain doomed to sail the open ocean for eternity. With sweeping sets by John Macfarlane, Girard’s new production turns the Met stage into a rich, layered tableau reminiscent of a vast oil painting. Valery Gergiev conducts a brilliant cast led by bass-baritone Evgeny Nikitin as the Dutchman, with German soprano Anja Kampe making her anticipated Met debut as the devoted Senta, whose selfless love is what the Dutchman seeks. Bass Franz-Josef Selig is her father, Daland, and tenor Sergey Skorokhodov is her deserted former lover, Erik. Mihoko Fujimura makes her Met debut as Senta’s nurse, Mary, and David Portillo sings the role of the Steersman.
Top Row: Evgeny Nikitin, Franz-Josef Selig, Valery Gergiev Middle Row: Anja Kampe, Mihoko Fujimura, Patrick Furrer Bottom Row: Sergey Skorokhodov, Alok Kumar, David Portillo
The creative team includes set designer John Macfarlane, costume designer Moritz Junge, lighting designer David Finn, projection designer Peter Flaherty, choreographer Carolyn Choa, and dramaturg Serge Lamothe.
The performances on March 24 and 27 will be conducted by Patrick Furrer, making his debut. At the performance on March 24, the role of the Steersman will be performed by Alok Kumar.
RICHARD WAGNER Der Fliegende Holländer
Richard Wagner (1813–1883) was the controversial creator of music-drama masterpieces that stand at the center of today’s operatic repertory. An artistic revolutionary who reimagined every supposition about theater, Wagner insisted that words and music were equals in his works. This approach led to the idea of the Gesamtkunstwerk, or “total work of art,” combining music, poetry, architecture, painting, and other disciplines, a notion that has had an impact on creative fields far beyond opera.
RICHARD WAGNER Der Fliegende Holländer
The score of Der Fliegende Holländer is an extraordinary combination of operatic lyricism, dramatic insight, and magnificent effects. At the time it was written, Wagner had not yet developed his theories of music-drama, which would form the basis for his later works. Many of the features of conventional opera (recitatives, arias, ensembles), therefore, can still be found, but the way Wagner integrates them into the fabric of the score clearly foreshadows his later technique of a continuous musical flow.
Grammy Award-Winning Choir Performs New York Premiere of Michael Gordon’s Travel Guide to Nicaragua Featuring Cellist Maya Beiser
On Wednesday, March 25 at 7:30 p.m. in Zankel Hall. Grammy Award-winning new music choir The Crossing, led by Donald Nally, performs the New York premiere of Michael Gordon’s Travel Guide to Nicaraguawith cutting-edge cellist Maya Beiser, a work co-commissioned by Carnegie Hall as part of its 125 Commissions Project.
Photo of The Crossing by Kevin Vondrak and photo of Maya Beiser by ioulex.
Travel Guide to Nicaragua is inspired by Gordon’s hazy memory of his first eight years of life living on the outskirts of Managua, Nicaragua with his Eastern European parents who had emigrated to the country. In writing this third substantial work for The Crossing, Gordon—one of the founding members of Bang on a Can—also reaches beyond his childhood memories, pondering the world of the Maya and Aztecs and drawing on the words of poet Rube´n Dari´o and Mark Twain, who visited the country in the mid-1860s.
There’s a pre-concert talk at 6:30 p.m.: Conductor Donald Nally and composer Michael Gordon in conversation with John Schaefer, host of WNYC’s New Sounds and Soundcheck. Support for the 125 Commissions Project is provided by members of Carnegie Hall’s Composer Club.
Hailed as “America’s most astonishing choir” (The New York Times) and “ardently angelic,” (The Los Angeles Times), The Crossing is a Grammy-winning professional chamber choir conducted by Donald Nally and dedicated to new music. It is committed to working with creative teams to make and record new, substantial works for choir that explore and expand ways of writing for choir, singing in choir, and listening to music for choir. Many of its nearly 90 commissioned premieres address social, environmental, and political issues. With a commitment to recording its commissions, The Crossing has issued 19 releases, receiving two Grammy Awards for Best Choral Performance (2018, 2019), and five Grammy nominations in three years. They have presented nearly 90 commissioned world premieres.
The Crossing collaborates with some of the world’s most accomplished ensembles and artists, including the New York Philharmonic, LA Phil, the American Composers Orchestra,Network for New Music, Lyric Fest, Piffaro, Tempesta di Mare Baroque Chamber Orchestra, the Annenberg Center, Beth Morrison Projects, The Rolling Stones, the International Contemporary Ensemble (ICE), and more. The Crossing holds an annual residency at the Warren Miller Performing Arts Center in Big Sky, Montana where they are working on an extensive, multi-year project with composer Michael Gordon and filmmaker Bill Morrison. Their concerts are broadcast regularly on WRTI 90.1FM, Philadelphia’s Classical andJazz Public Radio.
The Crossing’s recordings of Robert Convery and Benjamin Boyle’s Voyages (August 2019, Innova) and Kile Smith’s The Arc in the Sky (July 2019, Navona) were both nominated for 2020 Grammy Awards for Best Choral Performance. Lansing McLoskey‘s Zealot Canticles won the 2019 Grammy; The Crossing’s collaboration with PRISM, Gavin Bryars’ The Fifth Century (ECM, October 2016), won the 2018 Grammy Award; and Thomas Lloyd’s Bonhoeffer (Albany 2016) was nominated for the 2017 Grammy, all for Best Choral Performance. The Crossing, with Donald Nally, was the American Composers Forums’ 2017 Champion of New Music. The Crossing’s 2014 commission Sound from The Bench by Ted Hearne was named a 2018 Finalist for the Pulitzer Prize in Music. Learn more at www.crossingchoir.org.
Hailed for her “stirring emotional power” by The New York Times, Maya Beiser has been called a “cello rock star” by Rolling Stone, praised as “a force of nature” by The Boston Globe, and dubbed “the queen of Avant-garde cello” by The Washington Post.
Raised on a Kibbutz in the Galilee Mountains in Israel, by her Argentinean father and French mother, Beiser was discovered at the age of twelve by the late violinist Isaac Stern. Upon graduating from Yale University, she embarked on a rebellious career, passionately forging her artistic path through uncharted territories, expanding her art form and bringing a bold and unorthodox presence to contemporary classical music.
Beiser is a featured performer on the world’s most prestigious stages including Lincoln Center, Carnegie Hall, BAM, The Kennedy Center, BBC Proms, London’s Southbank Centre, Royal Albert Hall and the Barbican, Sydney Opera House, Barcelona’s L’auditori, Paris’ Theatre de La Ville, Stockholm’s Concert Hall, and in major venues and festivals across five continents.
Among the wide range of artists she has collaborated with are Philip Glass, Louis Andriessen, Erin Cressida-Wilson, Brian Eno, Shirin Neshat, Steve Reich, Lucinda Childs, Michael Gordon, Julia Wolfe, Mark Anthony Turnage, David Lang, Bill Morrison, and Wendy Whelan.
Beiser’s discography includes twelve solo albums, many of them topping the classical music charts. In the summer of 2019, she launched her own record label – Islandia Music records – and released delugEON, a concept album that deconstructs the classical canon. On January 10 2020, she released “Bowie Cello Symphonic: Blackstar” – a reimagination of David Bowie’s last album – topping the Classical Crossover charts and receiving rave reviews. Beiser is the featured soloist on many film soundtracks, including an extensive collaboration with James Newton Howard.
Maya Beiser is a United States Artists Distinguished Fellow in Music and was a Mellon Distinguished Visiting Artist at MIT. Her mainstage TED Talk has been watched by over one million people. (www.mayabeiser.com)
Over the past 30 years, Michael Gordon has produced a strikingly diverse body of work, ranging from large-scale pieces for high-energy ensembles and major orchestral commissions to works conceived specifically for the recording studio and kaleidoscopic works for groups of identical instruments. Transcending categorization, his music represents the collision of mysterious introspection and brutal directness.
This season, the San Francisco Contemporary Music Players with Roomful of Teeth and Splinter Reeds premiere the concert-length In a Strange Land, the Strings of Autumn festival in Prague feature Gordon as composer-in-residence and perform Timber plus all of Gordon’s string quartets; and the percussion/piano/bass trio Bearthoven premieres a new work.
Artistic Director Harry Christophers Will Celebrate Final Season With a Powerful Line-up of Favorites, Major Choral Works
The Handel and Haydn Societywill celebrate Artistic Director Harry Christophers’s 12th and final season with nine major subscription concerts at Symphony Hall and the New England’s Conservatory’s Jordan Hall and select other venues. The 2020-21 season, the 206th in the organization’s history, will feature a host of Christophers’s favorite compositions and a powerful line-up of major choral works featuring the Handel and Haydn Society Orchestra, Chorus and notable guest artists.
Boston’s Handel and Haydn Society is dedicated to performing Baroque and Classical music with a freshness, a vitality, and a creativity that inspires all ages. H+H has been captivating audiences for 205 consecutive seasons (the most of any performing arts organization in the United States). Today, H+H’s Orchestra and Chorus delight more than 50,000 listeners annually with a nine-week subscription series at Boston Symphony Hall and other leading venues.
Handel and Haydn Society Announces 2020-21 Season
The season will feature guest conductors Harry Bicket, Jonathan Cohen, Laurence Equilbey, Raphaël Pichon, and Václav Luks. Special guest soloists will include sopranos Amanda Majeski, Amanda Forsythe, Carolyn Sampson, and Mary Bevan; mezzo-soprano Catherine Wyn-Rogers; tenors Nicholas Phan, James Way, Jeremy Budd, and Robert Murray; baritones Ryan McKinny, Tyler Duncan, and Sumner Thompson; countertenors Anthony Roth Costanzo, Iestyn Davies; and bass-baritones Henry Waddington and Matthew Brook.
The Handel and Haydn Society brings Classical and Baroque music to life on period instruments in historically informed performances. For the 2020-21 season, Harry Christophers has selected a series of acclaimed choral and orchestral works, rarely performed in one season. The selected compositions will highlight the immense talent of the Handel and Haydn Society Orchestra and Chorus. Christophers will conduct Handel’s Messiah and Israel in Egypt; and Haydn’s The Creation, Drum Roll symphony, and Theresienmesse.
Christophers was appointed Artistic Director at H+H in 2009, the thirteenth artistic director in the organization’s history. During his tenure, the organization has been transformed. H+H has grown to be regarded as one of the finest Baroque and Classical ensembles in the nation. Christophers led the organization through its 2015 Bicentennial. He has hired more than 60% of the current roster of musicians, whom he has led in 13 commercial recordings, the most of any H+H artistic director. There has been an increase in touring, sharing the H+H magic with audiences at Tanglewood and in New York City. During his tenure, subscription sales have risen more than 70%, and philanthropic support has risen significantly, including an increase in the endowment from $3 million to $11 million.
“Since his initial appointment, Harry Christophers has been the accomplished artistic beacon of the Handel and Haydn Society. Under his leadership, we’ve expanded, taking the Orchestra and Chorus to new heights and delivering one exceptional performance after another,” said David Snead, president and CEO of the Handel and Haydn Society. “In the upcoming season, we’ll celebrate his legacy, showcasing the compositions he loves best and shining a spotlight on the H+H Chorus. It will be a monumental season, not to be missed.”
The 2020-21 Season
The Handel and Haydn Society’s 2020-21 season begins on September 25 and 27, 2020 at Boston’s Symphony Hall with Brahms A German Requiem. Led by conductor Harry Bicket, the performance will open with the H+H premiere of Abendfeier in Venedit, Op. 19 from Clara Schumann, a close friend of Brahms and regarded as one of the most distinguished pianists and composers of the Romantic era. This composition, for an a capella chorus, will be followed by Brahms’s Ein deutsches Requiem, featuring soprano Amanda Majeski, baritone Ryan McKinny and the H+H Orchestra and Chorus.
The season continues with Bach + Vivaldi Gloria on October 23 and 25, 2020, at Symphony Hall. Conductor Jonathan Cohen will lead the H+H Orchestra in a rousing performance of J.S. Bach’s Orchestral Suite No. 1, BWV 1066 followed by C.P.E. Bach’s Magnificat, featuring festive trumpets and drums, and Vivaldi’s sunny Gloria, RV 589. Soprano Amanda Forsythe, countertenor Anthony Roth Costanzo, tenor Nicholas Phan, and baritone Tyler Duncan will join the H+H Orchestra and Chorus for the concert.
Opening Night features a new Aida, conducted by Yannick Nézet-Séguin and starring Anna Netrebko, Anita Rachvelishvili, and Piotr Beczała, in a new staging by Michael Mayer.
Maestro Nézet-Séguin, in his third season as Music Director, will conduct six operas, including new stagings of Aida, Don Giovanni, and Dead Man Walking, as well as three classic revivals and two Met Orchestra concerts at Carnegie Hall.
The six operas conducted by Maestro Nézet-Séguin will all be featured in The Met: Live in HD series—the most transmissions ever led by a single conductor in an HD season.
Renowned directors Barrie Kosky (The Fiery Angel), Ivo van Hove (Don Giovanni and Dead Man Walking), and Simon McBurney (Die Zauberflöte) make notable Met debuts with new productions.
For the first time in recent decades, the Met season will extend into June and will include no performances in February.
There will be more weekend opera than ever before, with 22 Sunday matinee performances, plus onstage post-performance discussions with the stars of each Sunday matinee.
Notable debuts include conductors Hartmut Haenchen, Jakub Hrůša, Giacomo Sagripanti, Speranza Scappucci, and Lorenzo Viotti and singers Varduhi Abrahamyan, Benjamin Bernheim, Amartuvshin Enkhbat, Lucia Lucas, Thomas Oliemans, Svetlana Sozdateleva, and Okka von der Damerau.
Other notable conducting engagements include Harry Bicket (Giulio Cesare), Gustavo Dudamel (Die Zauberflöte), and Simone Young (Billy Budd), among others.
The 2020–21 season will be General Manager Peter Gelb’s 15th as the Met’s General Manager.
The Metropolitan Opera announced its 2020–21 season, the first in which Yannick Nézet-Séguin assumes his full breadth of musical duties as the company’s Jeanette Lerman-Neubauer Music Director, conducting six productions. His schedule includes the Met premiere of Jake Heggie’s Dead Man Walking, the first contemporary opera conducted by the maestro on the Met stage, as part of his ongoing commitment to opera of our time at the Met, which will expand in the seasons to come.
The season—which includes five new productions and 18 revivals—kicks off on September 21 with the first new staging of Verdi’s Aida in more than 30 years, directed by Michael Mayer, conducted by Nézet-Séguin, and starring Anna Netrebko, Anita Rachvelishvili, and Piotr Beczała. Australian director Barrie Kosky makes his company debut with the Met-premiere production of Prokofiev’s The Fiery Angel, with Michail Jurowski leading an extraordinary cast in his Met debut. Two Mozart operas will also be seen in new stagings: an acclaimed production of Die Zauberflöte directed by Simon McBurney and conducted by Gustavo Dudamel, and a sophisticated new take on Don Giovanni,Ivo van Hove’s highly anticipated Met-debut production, conducted by Nézet-Séguin and starring Peter Mattei, Gerald Finley, Ailyn Pérez, and Isabel Leonard in the leading roles. And in April, Nézet-Séguin conducts the Met premiere of Jake Heggie’s 21st-century masterpiece Dead Man Walking, with a new staging by van Hove featuring Joyce DiDonato, Susan Graham, Latonia Moore, and Etienne Dupuis.
Following the successful addition of 16 new Sunday matinee performances last season, the Met will offer even more weekend options in 2020–21, with 22 Sunday matinee performances. Each Sunday matinee will be followed by an onstage post-performance discussion with the stars.
For the first time, the Met season will include no performances in February, with the company instead extending its performance calendar into the month of June.
In his third season as Music Director, in addition to the three new stagings, Nézet-Séguin conducts revivals of Fidelio, Roméo et Juliette, and Die Frau ohne Schatten, as well as two of three Met Orchestra concerts at Carnegie Hall in June. (Semyon Bychkov will conduct the first concert in the Carnegie Hall series, on June 10.)
“This is the season in which the Yannick era hits its stride,” said General Manager Peter Gelb. “In conducting six operas, he will be present throughout the entire season, raising the artistic bar for the orchestra, the chorus, and the entire company.”
“The artistic excellence we achieve each season is due to the invaluable contributions in the pit and on stage by the great Met Orchestra and Chorus,” Music Director Yannick Nézet-Séguin said. “This is an exciting time for opera, and I’m thrilled to be sharing my passion for it with the Met’s discerning and loyal audience, while deepening my relationship with this great institution. As we look forward to future seasons, we will not only continue to expand our repertoire with new commissions by living composers but will also be adding to our artistic ranks with more women on the podium and a greater emphasis on artistic diversity.”
Dozens of the world’s leading opera stars bring their artistry to 18 repertory revivals throughout the season, including Marcelo Álvarez, Jamie Barton, Piotr Beczała, Angel Blue, Stephanie Blythe, J’Nai Bridges, Lawrence Brownlee, Javier Camarena, Anthony Roth Costanzo, Stephen Costello, Diana Damrau, Joyce DiDonato, Gerald Finley, Angela Gheorghiu, Christine Goerke, Susan Graham, Greer Grimsley, Günther Groissböck, Ekaterina Gubanova, Anita Hartig, Evelyn Herlitzius, Quinn Kelsey, Tomasz Konieczny, Isabel Leonard, Peter Mattei, Angela Meade, Latonia Moore, Erin Morley, Anna Netrebko, Lisette Oropesa, Eric Owens, Ailyn Pérez, Susanna Phillips, Matthew Polenzani, Anita Rachvelishvili, Brenda Rae, Golda Schultz, Nadine Sierra, Stuart Skelton, Nina Stemme, Krassimira Stoyanova, Elza van den Heever, Christian Van Horn, Klaus Florian Vogt, Michael Volle, Pretty Yende, and Sonya Yoncheva. They perform alongside a number of significant newcomers to the Met stage, including Benjamin Bernheim, Okka von der Damerau, and Varduhi Abrahamyan. This is also a remarkable season for new conductors, with Hartmut Haenchen, Jakub Hrůša, Michail Jurowski, Nimrod David Pfeffer, Giacomo Sagripanti, Speranza Scappucci, Lorenzo Viotti, and Kensho Watanabe all appearing for the first time on the podium.
New Productions
OPENING NIGHT: Aida — Giuseppe Verdi
A set model by Christine Jones for the Metropolitan Opera’s new production of Verdi’s “Aida.”
Opening: September 21, 2020
Conductor: Yannick Nézet-Séguin
Production: Michael Mayer
Set Designer: Christine Jones
Costume Designer: Susan Hilferty
Lighting Designer: Kevin Adams
Projection Designer: 59 Productions
Choreographer: Oleg Glushkov
Live in HD: October 10, 2020
Verdi’s opera receives its first new staging at the Met in more than three decades, with a season-opening premiere production directed by Michael Mayer, whose dazzling vision of ancient Egypt comes alive with intricate projections and eye-catching animations. Anna Netrebko and Anita Rachvelishvili portray archrivals Aida and Amneris on Opening Night—reprising their acclaimed partnership in the same roles from the 2018–19 season—and Piotr Beczała completes the triumvirate as Radamès. Yannick Nézet-Séguin leads a benchmark cast that also includes Ludovic Tézier as Aida’s father, Amonasro, and Krzysztof Bączyk in his Met debut as the King of Egypt. A co-production with the Bolshoi Theatre, this Aida also features Latonia Moore and Hibla Gerzmava in later performances of the title role, as well as Ekaterina Semenchuk and Marcelo Álvarez as Amneris and Radamès.
MET PREMIERE: The Fiery Angel — Sergei Prokofiev
Evgeny Nikitin as Ruprecht and Svetlana Sozdateleva as Renata in Prokofiev’s “The Fiery Angel.” Photo: Alfons Altman / Munich’s Bavarian State Opera
Opening: November 12, 2020
Conductor: Michail Jurowski
Production: Barrie Kosky
Set Designer: Rebecca Ringst
Costume Designer: Klaus Bruns
Lighting Designer: Joachim Klein
Choreographer: Otto Pichler
Australian director Barrie Kosky, a bright and bold force in the opera world, makes his long-awaited company debut with the Met premiere production of Prokofiev’s devilish masterwork, conducted by Michail Jurowski, also in his Met debut. Portraying the vagabond knight Ruprecht, Evgeny Nikitin stars opposite Svetlana Sozdateleva, who makes her Met debut in the role of Renata, the pious young woman obsessed with a mysterious angelic lover. Kosky’s visually stunning production was hailed by the Financial Times as “a gripping evening” when it premiered in Munich in 2015.
Mack Lecture Series April 8–29, 7 pm$15 ($12 Walker members, students, and seniors)Walker Cinema
Hear directly from explorers of our culture and contemporary moment during the Mack Lecture Series. Throughout the month of April, artists, writers, and other great thinkers at the forefront of diverse fields share their vision on topics ranging from artificial intelligence in performance art to gender politics and gonzo journalism.
Annie Dorsen’s Hello Hi There, 2010 Photo: W. Silveri/Steirischer Herbst
Simon Adler, 2018. Photo courtesy of Simon Adler.Catherine Havasi, 2019. Photo courtesy of Catherine Havasi.Annie Dorsen, 2019. Courtesy of John D. & Catherine T. MacArthur Foundation
Writer-director Annie Dorsen tries “to make perceptible how ideas change over time: where they come from, how they influence and are influenced by politics and culture, and how they take root in the body, physically and emotionally.” For this conversation, she explores the intersection of algorithms and live performance with artificial intelligence researcher and computational linguist Catherine Havasi, moderated by Simon Adler, a producer for WNYC’s Radiolab.
Annie Dorsen’s performance work Yesterday Tomorrow, takes place in the Walker’s McGuire Theater March 27–28.
Genderqueer political activist, visual artist, and musician JD Samson is perhaps best known as leader of the band MEN and one-third of the electronic-feminist-punk band Le Tigre. As a self-defined “gender outlaw,” she will investigate the precarious masculinity of the butch/masculine-of-center body, play with traditional concepts of ownership and destruction, and break down the charged heteronormative history of queer sex dynamics.
Special Guests Brittany Howard, Manu Dibango, Baaba Maal, and Yemi Alade Announced for Daughter of Independence Concert in Stern Auditorium / Perelman Stage on Saturday, March 14
Celebratory Program Marks Kidjo’s 60th Birthday an the Anniversary of Independence for Benin and 16 other West African Nations
On the heels of winning her fourth Grammy Award, Angélique Kidjo concludes her Perspectives series with Daughter of Independence on Saturday, March 14 at 8:00 p.m. in Stern Auditorium/ Perelman Stage. The concert marks both her 60th birthday and the anniversary of independence of her native Benin in addition to sixteen other West African nations. For this momentous occasion, Kidjo is joined by Grammy Award-winning vocalist Brittany Howard (of Alabama Shakes), legendary Cameroonian singer Manu Dibango, Senegalese singer and guitarist Baaba Maal, and Nigerian Afropop singer-songwriter Yemi Alade, to celebrate her remarkable musical career. Major support for the Angélique Kidjo Perspectives series has been provided by the Howard Gilman Foundation.
Angélique Kidjo Concludes her Perspective Series at Carnegie Hall with Special Guests Brittany Howard, Manu Dibango, Baaba Maal, and Yemi Alade. Photos courtesy of Carnegie Hall
“When I look back at 60 years of independence for my country, I feel that my life and career have been shaped in many ways by the postcolonial history of West Africa: I consider myself a true daughter of African independence,” says Kidjo. “I hope the audience leaves the March performance understanding that it doesn’t matter where you come from; it doesn’t matter your skin color or which language you speak. Music reduces it all to the fundamental element that speaks to us all as human beings.”
Program Information
Saturday, March 14, 2020 at 8:00 PM
Angélique Kidjo, Daughter Of Independence, Stern Auditorium / Perelman Stage
With special guests
Brittany Howard
Manu Dibango
Baaba Maal
Yemi Alade
Tickets: $34–$90
About the Artists
Angélique Kidjo’s performances over the past two decades have thrilled audiences and left an indelible mark on the history of Carnegie Hall. In 2014, she closed Carnegie Hall’s UBUNTU festival with a tribute to singer Miriam Makeba that inspired concertgoers—including Archbishop Emeritus Desmond Tutu—to rise to their feet and sing along. In 2017, Talking Heads lead singer David Byrne joined Kidjo on stage for her cover of the band’s hit “Once in a Lifetime” before she led a conga line that made its way throughout Stern Auditorium/Perelman Stage. The upcoming series is sure to give audiences more unforgettable moments with performances featuring outstanding guest artists joining together to celebrate one of music’s most vibrant voices.
Kidjo is one of the greatest artists in international music today. A creative force with 14 albums to her name, Time magazine has called her “Africa’s premier diva.” The BBC has included her in its list of the continents’ 50 most iconic figures, and, in 2011, The Guardian listed her as one of their Top 100 Most Inspiring Women in the World. Forbes magazine has ranked Angélique as the first woman in their list of the Most Powerful Celebrities in Africa. She is the recipient of the prestigious 2015 Crystal Award given by the World Economic Forum in Davos, Switzerland, and the 2016 Amnesty International Ambassador of Conscience Award.
INDIgenesis: GEN 3, A Showcase of Indigenous Filmmakers and Storytellers, March 19–28
Presented over two weeks, the series INDIgenesis: GEN 3, guest curated by Missy Whiteman (Northern Arapaho and Kickapoo Nations), opens with an evening of expanded cinema and includes several shorts programs in the Walker Cinema and Bentson Mediatheque, an afternoon of virtual reality, and a closing-night feature film.
The ongoing showcase of works by Native filmmakers and artists is rooted in Indigenous principles that consider the impact of our decisions on the next seven generations. GEN 3 connects perspectives and stories from the past, present, and future to convey Indigenous truths, teachings, and values.
“Indigenous artists use the creative process of filmmaking for revitalization and narrative sovereignty,” says Whiteman. “Our stories tell us where we came from, re-create our truths, affirm our languages and culture, and inspire us to imagine our Indigenous future. We come from the stars. How far will we take this medium?”
Throughout the program, join conversations with artists and community members centered on themes of Indigenous Futurism, revitalization, and artistic creation.
Opening Night: Remembering the Future Expanded Cinema Screening/Performance Thursday, March 19, 7:30 pm Free, Walker Cinema
Missy Whiteman’s The Coyote Way: Going Back Home, 2016. Photo courtesy the filmmaker.
Combining film, a live score, hoop dancing, hip-hop, and spoken word, a collective of Indigenous artists led by curator Missy Whiteman creates an immersive environment that transcends time and place. Guided by ancestral knowledge systems, traditional stories, and contemporary forms of expression, the expanded cinema program features performances by DJ AO (Hopi/Mdewakatonwan Dakota), Sacramento Knoxx (Ojibwe/Chicano), Lumhe “Micco” Sampson (Mvskoke Creek/Seneca), and Michael Wilson (Ojibwe). Archival found footage and Whiteman’s sci-fi docu-narrative The Coyote Way: Going Back Home(2016), filmed in the community of Little Earth in South Minneapolis, illuminate the space.
Missy Whiteman’s The Coyote Way: Going Back Home, 2016. Photo courtesy the filmmaker.
Indigenous Lens: Our RealityShort films by multiple directors Friday, March 20, 7 pm, $10 ($8 Walker members, students, and seniors), Walker Cinema
This evening of short films showcases a collection of contemporary stories about what it means to be Indigenous today, portraying identity and adaptability in a colonialist system. The program spans a spectrum of themes, including two-spirit transgender love, coming of age, reflections on friends and fathers, “indigenizing” pop art, and creative investigations into acts of repatriation. Digital video, 85 mins
Copresented with Hud Oberly (Comanche/Osage/Caddo), Indigenous Program at Sundance Institute (in attendance).
Lore Directed by Sky Hopinka (Ho-Chunk Nation/Pechanga Band of Luiseño Indians)
Images of friends and landscapes are fragmented and reassembled as a voice tells stories, composing elements of nostalgia in terms of lore. 2019, 10 min. View excerpt.
Adam Khalil, Zack Khalil, Jackson Polys, and Bailey Sweitzer’s Culture Capture: Terminal Adddition, 2019. Photo courtesy the filmmakers.
Culture Capture: Terminal Adddition Directed by New Red Order: Adam Khalil (Ojibway), Zack Khalil (Ojibway), Jackson Polys (Tlingit), Bayley Sweitzer
The latest video by the public secret society known as the New Red Order is an incendiary indictment of the norms of European settler colonialism. Examining institutionalized racism through a mix of 3D photographic scans and vivid dramatizations, this work questions the contemporary act of disposing historical artifacts as quick fixes, proposing the political potential of adding rather than removing. 2019, 7 min. View excerpt.
Shane McSauby’s Mino Bimaadiziwin, 2017. Photo courtesy the filmmaker.
Mino Bimaadiziwin Directed by Shane McSauby (Grand Traverse Band of Ottawa and Chippewa Indians)
A trans Anishinaabe man meets a young Anishinaabe woman who pushes him to reconnect with their culture. 2017, 10 min. View excerpt.
The Moon and the Night Directed by Erin Lau (Kanaka Maoli)
Erin Lau’s The Moon and the Night, 2017. Photo courtesy the filmmaker.
Set in rural Hawaii, a Native Hawaiian teenage girl must confront her father after he enters her beloved pet in a dogfight. 2018, 19 min. View excerpt.
Erin Lau’s The Moon and the Night, 2017. Photo courtesy the filmmaker.Erin Lau. Photo courtesy the filmmaker. Photo By: Antonio Agosto
Shinaab II Directed by Lyle Michell Corbine, Jr. (Bad River Band of the Lake Superior Chippewa Indians)
A young man seeks to honor the memory of his late father in a film that looks at Ojibwe ideas surrounding death and mourning. 2019, 6 min.
Daniel Flores’ Viva Diva, 2019. Image courtesy the artist.
Viva Diva Directed by Daniel Flores (Yaqui)
This road trip movie follows Rozene and Diva as they make their way down to Guadalajara for their gender affirmation surgeries. 2017, 15 min. View excerpt.
Daniel Flores. Image courtesy the artist.
Dig It If You Can Directed by Kyle Bell (Creek-Thlopthlocco Tribal Town)
An insightful portrait of the self-taught artist and designer Steven Paul Judd (Kiowa), whose satirical manipulations of pop culture for an Indigenous audience are gaining a passionate, mass following as he realizes his youthful dreams. 2016, 18 min. View excerpt.
Open 365 days a year, the VMFA shares its growing collection of African American art all year long. During Black History Month 2020, it’s great time to visit the collection and join the ongoing celebration of African American art, history, and culture.
Boy and H, Harlem, 1961, Louis Draper (American, 1935–2002), gelatin silver print, Virginia Museum of Fine Arts, Arthur and Margaret Glasgow Endowment. Courtesy of the Louis H. Draper Preservation Trust, Nell D. Winston, trustee.
TALK Working Together: Louis Draper and the Kamoinge Workshop Dr. Sarah Eckhardt, Associate Curator of Modern and Contemporary Art, VMFA, in conversation with Nell Draper-Winston Thu, Jan 30 | 6:30–7:30 pm, $8 (VMFA members $5), Leslie Cheek Theater
VMFA’s Dr. Sarah Eckhardt, curator of Working Together: Louis Draper and the Kamoinge Workshop, will provide an overview of the exhibition, which features photography by members of the Kamoinge Workshop, an artist collective founded in New York City in 1963. Nell Draper-Winston, sister of photographer Louis Draper, will join Dr. Eckhardt in conversation to discuss her brother’s photographs and his roots in Richmond.
Celebrate African and African American Family Day: Mali
OPEN STUDIO PLUS PERFORMANCE Grandma’s Hands Sun, Feb 2 | 1–4 pm, Free, no tickets required. Art Education Center. Performances in the Atrium 2 pm & 3 pm
Join others as they encounter generational lessons from two sisters with remarkable stories to share from the perspective of the African American South. Through song, stories, and signed poetry, we will learn how women have made an impact on culture through practices passed down from family matriarchs.
RVA Community Makers Art Activity Sun, Feb 2 | 1–4 pm, Free, no tickets required. Art Education Center
During Open Studio Plus Performance, celebrate family with Richmond artist Hamilton Glass and local African American photographers.
Take your digital family portraits onsite at VMFA to become part of a mixed-media public art collaboration. Glass will guide attendees in hands-on participation. You can also capture fun memories in the Family Portrait Photo Booth.
Extending the meaning of family to community, the project also brings together six local photographers—Regina Boone, Courtney Jones, Brian Palmer, Sandra Sellars, Ayasha Sledge, and James Wallace— who will create portraits of six selected community leaders.
FIRST FRIDAY Spirituals, Fri, Feb 7 | 6–8 pm, Free, no tickets required. Atrium
Welcome sopranos Lisa Edwards Burrs and Olletta Cheatham to the First Friday series with an evening of Spirituals. Lisa and Olletta will sing many powerful songs of the genre and explore their resonating impact on history.
DANCE PARTY VMFA After Hours: VMFA Is for Lovers Sat, Feb 15 | 7–11:30 pm, $45/person ($35 VMFA members). Museum wide
Join host Kelli Lemon for a night of art, music, dancing, and love after dark. Catch DJ Lonnie B on the spin in the Marble Hall. Enjoy Legacy Band performing live music in the Atrium. Experience the exhibitions Edward Hopper and the American Hotel and Working Together: Louis Draper and the Kamoinge Workshop.
All galleries will be open during this event to give you access to our diverse collections of art from around the world.
LIVE JAZZ, Dominion Energy Jazz Café: Jazz Around the Museum. Thu, Feb 13 | 6–9 pm, Free, no tickets required. Marble Hall
Back by popular demand! Who says a Jazz band can’t party, get down, and get funky? Led by saxophonist Robert “Bo” Bohannon, Klaxton Brown combines the old with the new, and will rock you steady all night long. Prepare to get Klaxtonized!
Sir John Eliot Gardiner Curates Carnegie Hall Perspectives Series Featuring His Orchestre Révolutionnaire et Romantique Performing A Complete Beethoven Symphony Cycle on Period Instruments in Five Concerts, February 19-24
Winter Concerts Are Part of Carnegie Hall’s Beethoven Celebration in Honor of the 250th Anniversary of the Composer’s Birth
This February, Sir John Eliot Gardiner, Artistic Director and Conductor of the internationally acclaimed period instrument ensemble Orchestre Révolutionnaire et Romantique (ORR), curates a five-concert Perspectivesseries at Carnegie Hall, featuring a complete Beethoven symphony cycle performed as part of Carnegie Hall’s season-long celebration of the 250th anniversary year of Beethoven’s birth.
The five New York City concerts by Sir John Eliot Gardiner and the Orchestre Révolutionnaire et Romantique are part of Carnegie Hall’s season-long Beethoven Celebration featuring more than 35 events highlighting the immensity of the composer’s transformative impact on music, performed by a remarkable line-up of internationally renowned musicians.
Grounded in Maestro Gardiner’s exacting study of Beethoven’s original manuscripts, the symphonies will be performed as the composer would have experienced them, played on period instruments, including valveless brass, woodwinds without additional keys and levers, gut strings, and hide-covered timpani struck with hard sticks.
A key figure both in the early music revival and as a pioneer of historically informed performances, Maestro Gardiner kicks off the ORR’s five-concert series on Wednesday, February 19 at 8:00 p.m. with selections from Beethoven’s rarely heard ballet score, The Creatures of Prometheus; the concert aria, “Ah! perfido;” excerpts from Leonore; and the composer’s Symphony No. 1; Soprano Lucy Crowe joins the orchestra as soloist. On Thursday, February 20 at 8:00 p.m., the orchestra performs Beethoven’s Symphony No. 2 and Symphony No. 3, “Eroica.” The series continues Friday, February 21 at 8:00 p.m. with symphonies Nos. 4 and 5. On Sunday, February 23 at 2:00 p.m., the program includes Symphony No. 6, “Pastoral” and Symphony No. 7. For the series’ final concert on Monday, February 24 at 8:00 p.m. the ORR’s Beethoven cycle culminates with the symphonies Nos. 8 and 9, with the orchestra joined by soprano Lucy Crowe, contralto Jess Dandy, tenor Ed Lyon, and bass Tareq Nazmi, alongside The Monteverdi Choir. As a prelude to the cycle, Maestro Gardiner will be joined by distinguished Beethoven scholar William Kinderman for a discussion in Carnegie Hall’s Weill Recital Hall to illuminate Sir John Eliot’s approach to these symphonic masterworks (Tuesday, February 18 at 7:00 p.m.). In addition to the public discussion with Sir John Eliot on February 18, Carnegie Hall Debs Composer’s Chair Jörg Widmann will present a talk later this spring (Mar. 29, WRH), enabling audiences to gain greater insights into Beethoven’s music.
The ORR’s final February 24 concert will be heard by listeners around the world as part of the ninth annual Carnegie Hall Live broadcast and digital series with a live radio broadcast on WQXR 105.9 FM in New York and online at wqxr.org and carnegiehall.org/wqxr. Produced by WQXR and Carnegie Hall and co-hosted by WQXR’s Jeff Spurgeon and Clemency Burton-Hill, select Carnegie Hall Livebroadcasts featured throughout the season include special digital access to the broadcast team, from backstage and in the control room, connecting national and international fans to the music and to each other.
When asked to reflect on thirty years of music making with the ORR and his upcoming Beethoven symphony performances, Sir John Eliot Gardiner said “When we started the Orchestre Révolutionnaire et Romantique 30 years ago, our mission statement included trying to recover the world of Beethoven’s sound. Our aim was to provide bold new perspectives on the glorious orchestral works of the 19th and early 20th centuries. Since the ensemble’s inception, we have used our time together productively and creatively to explore fresh approaches to this much-loved music, some of it familiar but also some of it neglected or undervalued. Through the use and mastery of period instruments, the ORR musicians bring out the subtle and pervasive differences in the palette of sounds that composers as different as Beethoven, Berlioz, Schumann, Debussy, and Verdi were committed to revealing. Time and again, the players have shown vision and tenacity in demonstrating the techniques and sounds required to recapture the true essence of this music. Every time we embark on a fresh project together, I am amazed and touched by the way the players seem willing to put their necks on the block in order to bring this music back to intoxicating life once again.”
The Carnegie Hall performances are part of Maestro Gardiner and the ORR’s Beethoven 250, a yearlong celebration of the composer’s milestone anniversary, and are also part of the ORR’s 30th anniversary season. The orchestra’s transatlantic tour, February 9-June 27, also includes engagements and complete symphony cycles at Chicago’s Harris Theater, London’s Barbican Hall, and Barcelona’s Palau de la Música.
Program Information
SIR JOHN ELIOT GARDINER ON THE BEETHOVEN SYMPHONIES
Tuesday, February 18, 2020 at 7:00 PM, Weill Recital Hall
Sir John Eliot Gardiner, Speaker
with William Kinderman, Moderator
Robin Michael, Principal Cello
Anneke Scott, Principal Horn
BEETHOVEN’S SYMPHONIES AND THE EMPIRE OF THE MIND
Sir John Eliot Gardiner’s groundbreaking interpretations of Beethoven’s music have cast this magnificent body of work in a new light. Joined by distinguished Beethoven scholar William Kinderman and ORR principals Robin Michael and Anneke Scott for this illuminating discussion, Gardiner shares his insights about his approach to this immortal music. Tickets: $25
ORCHESTRE RÉVOLUTIONNAIRE ET ROMANTIQUE
Wednesday, February 19, 2020 at 8:00 PM
Stern Auditorium / Perelman Stage
Sir John Eliot Gardiner, Artistic Director and Conductor
Lucy Crowe, Soprano
ALL-BEETHOVEN PROGRAM
Overture, Introduction, and Act I from The Creatures of Prometheus, Op. 43
“Ah! perfido,” Op. 65
Symphony No. 1 in C Major, Op. 21
Leonore Overture No. 1, Op. 138
“Ach, brich noch nicht, du mattes Herz!” – “Komm, Hoffnung, lass den letzten Stern” from Act II of Leonore, Op. 72
McElroy and Orfeh Perform Alongside Previously Announced Special Guests Jane Krakowski and Lillias White
Loretta Devine Will No Longer Appear Due to Scheduling Conflict
On Saturday, February 1 at 8:00 p.m. Tony Award nominees Michael McElroyand Orfehjoin Tituss Burgessin his Carnegie Hall debut in Stern Auditorium / Perelman Stage with a tribute concert to the music of Stephen Sondheim. Titled Take Me to the World, previously announced guest artists include Tony Award winners Jane Krakowskiand Lillias White. Due to scheduling conflicts, Loretta Devine will no longer appear on the program. Directed by Gabriel Vega Weissmanwith music direction by Charlie Rosen, the program focuses on the music of Sondheim and its singular impact on Burgess’s life and artistic trajectory.
Emmy and Screen Actors Guild nominated actor, musician, and writer Tituss Burgess is quickly emerging as one of the entertainment industry’s most versatile and dynamic performers, with his work in television and theater generating both critical and commercial acclaim.
Most notably, Burgess stars as Titus Andromedon in the Emmy-nominated comedy series Unbreakable Kimmy Schmidt, opposite Ellie Kemper, Jane Krakowski, and Carol Kane. The show follows a young woman named Kimmy Schmidt as she adjusts to life in New York City after living in a doomsday cult for 15 years. Burgess’s character becomes a friend, roommate, and mentor to Kimmy while he pursues his dreams of Broadway superstardom and becomes a viral sensation on YouTube. Tina Fey created Burgess’s outrageous character specifically for him. For the actor’s extraordinary performance on the series, Burgess has been nominated for two Emmy Awards for Outstanding Supporting Actor in a Comedy Series, a SAG Award for Outstanding Performance by a Male Actor in a Comedy Series and two Critics’ Choice TV Awards for Best Supporting Actor in a Comedy Series. He was also awarded Best Actor at the 2015 Webby Awards and Best Supporting Actor in a Comedy at the 2015 Gold Derby TV Awards.
The actor was first introduced to television audiences in Tina Fey’s Emmy-winning NBC series 30 Rock, where he played the scene-stealing ‘D’Fwan,’ a vivacious hairdresser and the sidekick of Angie Jordan (Sherri Shepherd). Burgess quickly became a breakout star in the series’ fifth and sixth seasons. His other television credits include A Gifted Man, Blue Bloods, and Royal Pains. On the big screen, Burgess recently lent his voice to two major studio films: The Angry Birds Movie and Smurfs: The Lost Village – and appeared in this year’s Dolemite is My Name alongside Eddie Murphy
A veteran of the stage, Burgess made his Broadway debut in 2005 as Eddie in Good Vibrations. Since, he has held many memorable roles on the Broadway stage including Hal Miller in Jersey Boys, Sebastian the Crab in The Little Mermaid, and Nicely-Nicely Johnson in the 2009 revival of Guys and Dolls. Burgess has also performed in regional theater productions such as The Wiz and Jesus Christ Superstar.
Evening programming features collaborations with local artists, pop-up art installations, performances and more
The Denver Art Museum (DAM) will kick off its new season of Untitled: Creative Fusions on January 31, 2020, with an unprecedented night of pop-up art installations, performances, interactive elements and more created by local artists Eileen Roscina Richardson and Joshua Ware in collaboration with 17 local creatives.
Untitled: Creative Fusions is a newly reimagined version of Untitled, presenting a bigger, bolder program at the Denver Art Museum in 2020. Taking place four times a year, Untitled: Creative Fusions will bring local creatives together to merge their artistic practices with the DAM’s exhibitions and artworks.
(Untitled is included in general museum admission, however, a special exhibition ticket is required for Claude Monet: The Truth of Nature.)
Creatives Eileen Roscina Richardson & Joshua Ware. Image courtesy of Denver Art Museum.
Inspired by Claude Monet: The Truth of Natureand The Light Show, Richardson and Ware join forces to investigate the wild and the constructed through the theme Entanglements. Visitors are invited to explore the space between the man-made and the natural, where humans and nature are irrevocably intertwined.
With can’t-miss moments including live ice sculpting by Jess Parris, pop-up installations by the lead creators, wheat pasting with We Were Wild, a complimentary liquid nitrogen popcorn station courtesy of The Inventing Room, beats by Dance the NightShift and more, visitors can expect a once-in-a-lifetime night at the DAM during Untitled.
The Walker Arts Center continues to flesh out what is considerably a very dynamic exhibition schedule for the next two years. Additions to the Walker Art Center’s 2020–2021 exhibition schedule include two new solo exhibitions by female artists, Faye Driscoll: Thank You for Coming(February 27–June 14, 2020) and Candice Lin(April 17–August 29, 2021) as well as a Walker collection show of women artists, Don’t let this be easy(July 16–March 14, 2021). For her first solo museum exhibition, Faye Driscoll incorporates a guided audio soundtrack, moving image works, and props to look back across the entirety of her trilogy of performances Thank You For Coming—Attendance(2014), Play(2016), and Space(2019)—works that were presented and co-commissioned by the Walker and subsequently toured around the world over the past six years. Another newly added exhibition, Candice Lin, is the first US museum solo show by the artist, co-organized by the Walker Art Center and the Carpenter Center for Visual Arts (CCVA). Lin is creating a site-specific installation that responds to the space of the gallery at each institution, allowing the shape of the work to evolve over the course of its presentation.
The Walker-organized exhibition Don’t let this be easy highlights the diverse and experimental practices of women artists spanning some 50 years through a selection of paintings, sculptures, moving image works, artists’ books, and materials from the archives.
The initiative is presented in conjunction with the Feminist Art Coalition (FAC), a nationwide effort involving more than 60 museums committed to social justice and structural change.
Other upcoming exhibitions include An Art Of Changes: Jasper Johns Prints, 1960–2018 (February 16–September 20, 2020), a survey of six decades of Johns’ work in printmaking drawn from the Walker’s complete collection of the artists’ prints including intaglio, lithography, woodcut, linoleum cut, screenprinting, lead relief, and blind embossing; The Paradox of Stillness: Art, Object, and Performance (formerly titiled Still and Yet) (April 18–July 26, 2020), is an exhibition that rethinks the history of performance featuring artists whose works include performative elements but also embrace acts, objects, and gestures that refer more to the inert qualities of traditional painting or sculpture than to true staged action.
Additional exhibitions include Michaela Eichwald’s (June 13–November 8, 2020) first US solo museum presentation, bringing together painting, sculpture, and collage from across the past 10 years of her practice; Designs for Different Futures (September 12, 2020 – January 3, 2021)—a collaborative group show co-organized by the Walker Art Center, Philadelphia Museum of Art, and the Art Institute of Chicago—brings together about 80 dynamic works that address the challenges and opportunities that humans may encounter in the years, decades, and centuries to come; Rayyane Tabet(December 10, 2020– April 18, 2021), a solo show by the Beirut-based multidisciplinary artist featuring a new installation for the Walker that begins with a time capsule discovered on the site of what was once an IBM manufacturing facility in Rochester, Minnesota.
OPENING EXHIBITIONS
AN ART OF CHANGES: JASPER JOHNS PRINTS, 1960–2018, February 16–September 20, 2020
When Jasper Johns’s paintings of flags and targets debuted in 1958, they brought him instant acclaim and established him as a critical link between Abstract Expressionism and Pop Art. In the ensuing 60 years, Johns (US, b. 1930) has continued to astonish viewers with the beauty and complexity of his paintings, drawings, sculpture, and prints. Today, he is considered one of the 20th century’s greatest American artists.
Artist: Jasper Johns Title: Figure 7 from the Color Numeral Series Date: 1969 Medium: lithograph on paper Accession number: 1985.319 Credit Line: Gift of Kenneth Tyler, 1985. Repro Rights: VAGA; Art copyright Jasper Johns / Licensed by VAGA, New York, NY.Artist: Jasper Johns Title: Target Date: 1960 Medium: lithograph on paper Accession number: 1988.181 Credit Line: Gift of Judy and Kenneth Dayton, 1988. Repro Rights: VAGA; Art copyright Jasper Johns / Licensed by VAGA, New York, NY.
In celebration of the artist’s 90th birthday, An Art of Changes surveys six decades of Johns’s work in printmaking, highlighting his experiments with familiar, abstract, and personal imagery that play with memory and visual perception in endlessly original ways. The exhibition features some 90 works in intaglio, lithography, woodcut, linoleum cut, screenprinting, and lead relief—all drawn from the Walker’s comprehensive collection of the artist’s prints.
Organized in four thematic sections, the show follows Johns through the years as he revises and recycles key motifs over time, including the American flag, numerals, and the English alphabet, which he describes as “things the mind already knows.” Some works explore artists’ tools, materials, and techniques. Others explore signature aspects of the artist’s distinctive mark-making, including flagstones and hatch marks, while later pieces teem with autobiographical imagery. To underscore Johns’s fascination with the changes that occur when an image is reworked in another medium, the prints will be augmented by a small selection of paintings and sculptures.
Curator: Joan Rothfuss, guest curator, Visual Arts.
Exhibition Tour Carnegie Museum of Art, Pittsburgh: October 12, 2019–January 20, 2020 Walker Art Center, Minneapolis: February 16–September 20, 2020 Grand Rapids Art Museum, Michigan: October 24, 2020–January 24, 2021 Tampa Art Museum, Florida: April 28–September 6, 2021
On Friday, January 24 at 8:30 p.m., two widely popular groups from Quebec—Le Vent du Nord & De Temps Antan—come together in Zankel Hall for an exuberant performance of traditional and contemporary dance tunes of French-Canadian culture. In a program entitled QuebecFest!, the groups perform on a host of instruments that include hurdy-gurdy, jaws harp, guitar, and accordion with richly harmonized songs and instrumentals.
Le Vent du Nord and De Temps Antan teamed up together in 2016 and have performed traditional Quebec folk music (often called “trad” in colloquial Québécois French) throughout Quebec, the US, France and Switzerland, and at the Royal Glasgow Concert Hall. In 2018, they released a recording that was awarded Album of the Year—Traditional at the Québec Association for the Recording, Concert and Video Industries (ADISQ).
The award-winning Le Vent du Nord (The North Wind) is a leading force in Quebec’s progressive francophone folk movement and a key group in the renaissance of Quebec’s traditional music. The group’s vast repertoire draws from both traditional sources and original compositions, while enhancing its hard-driving soulful music (rooted in the Celtic diaspora) with a broad range of global influences. Since its inception in August 2002, Le Vent du Nord has enjoyed meteoric success, performing well over 2,000 concerts over four continents and receiving several prestigious awards, including a Grand Prix du Disque Charles Cros, two Junos (Canada’s Grammys), a Félix at ADISQ, a Canadian Folk Music Award, and “Artist of the Year” at the North American Folk Alliance Annual Gala. The group has appeared regularly on Canadian, American, French, and UK television and radio; played recently at major festivals such as Celtic Connections, WOMAD Chile, WOMADelaide, and WOMAD New Zealand; and collaborated and performed with a diverse range of artists, including Väsen, Dervish, The Chieftains, Breton musical pioneer Yann-Fañch Kemener, Québecois roots legend Michel Faubert, singer Julie Fowlis, and the trans-Mediterranean ensemble Constantinople. Le Vent du Nord also created a symphonic concert, providing a bridge between the symphonic and Quebec traditional music. In 2018, the band—Nicolas Boulerice, Simon Beaudry, Olivier Demers and Réjean Brunet—became a quintet when André Brunet joined the ensemble.
De Temps Antan (Of Olden Times) is regarded as the most powerful trad trio in Quebec. Its members— Éric Beaudry, David Boulanger and Pierre-Luc Dupuis—have been brilliantly and skillfully exploring and renewing the Quebec traditional repertoire since 2003. Using fiddle, accordion, harmonica, guitar, bouzouki and a number of other instruments, these three virtuosos blend boundless energy with the unmistakable joie de vivre found in traditional Quebec music. Their sets include ancient songs, new tunes, uncontrollable fits of laughter, dusted-down verses, and the occasional unplanned side trip. De Temps Antan has five albums to its credit, including Ce monde ici-bas which won ADISQ’s 2014 FELIX Award for Best Traditional Music Album, and has toured North America and Europe. All three musicians have been members of various Quebécois groups, including the iconic La Bottine Souriante.
Public Master Classes and Talks by Ms. Fleming, Gabriel Kahane, Soprano Julia Bullock, Hartmut Höll, and Mezzo-Soprano Elīna Garanča
Young Singers and Pianists from Around the Globe Selected to Participate
Tickets to Public Master Classes and Young Artist Recital On Sale Now
From January 13–18, 2020, renowned soprano Renée Fleming will mentor 10 aspiring young singers and 10 collaborative pianists from around the world in the second year of SongStudio, an innovative program exploring the future of the vocal recital. Building on Marilyn Horne’s remarkable work with The Song Continues, the intensive workshop will bring emerging vocalists and pianists together with leading artists and composers for a week of instruction and performance at Carnegie Hall.
“I’m hoping to spark more creative thinking about the art form and how it can be expanded,” said Renée Fleming. “I want to encourage singers to be intellectually curious and adventurous in their approach to song repertoire; to think outside the box in their choice of repertoire, including music beyond the standard classical literature; and to experiment with new performance elements.”
The week will feature vocalists, collaborative pianists, and other artists from a wide variety of disciplines lending their insights and expertise. Gabriel Kahane will serve as SongStudio’s composer-in-residence, working with the singers and pianists on selections from his diverse vocal music. On Tuesday, January 14 at 7:30 p.m., he will join Ms. Fleming for a discussion and master class dedicated to his vocal writing, with performances by SongStudio artists.
Sopranos Julia Bullock and Renée Fleming will be in conversation on Thursday, January 16 at 7:30 p.m. to discuss Ms. Bullock’s recent production, Zauberland, as well as her approach to creative programming and choosing collaborators.
All participating singers and pianists will receive private coaching throughout the week, learning from teachers, coaches, and collaborative pianists Javier Arrebola, Craig Terry, Hartmut Höll, and Gerald Martin Moore. Brian Zeger and Craig Terry will lead sessions on recital programming with the SongStudio artists. There will be a master class by Mr. Höll, focused on the art of the collaborative pianist, on Friday, January 17 at 4:00 p.m. At 7:30 p.m. that evening, Ms. Fleming will lead a public master class for participants.
Following a rigorous audition process open to talented young singers and collaborative pianists from around the world, twenty artists have been selected to participate and paired by faculty, coming from Russia, Armenia, Canada, Colombia, Australia, Japan, Germany, the United Kingdom, and the United States:
Natalie Buickians, Soprano/Sandy Lin, Piano
Meghan Kasanders, Soprano/Cameron Richardson-Eames, Piano
Anneliese Klenetsky, Soprano/Anna Smigelskaya, Piano
Kady Evanyshyn, Mezzo-Soprano/Nara Avetisyan, Piano
Xenia Puskarz Thomas, Mezzo-Soprano/Richard Fu, Piano
Eric Finbarr Carey, Tenor/Tomomi Sato, Piano
Randy Ho, Tenor/Celeste Marie Johnson, Piano
Dominik Belavy, Baritone/John Robertson, Piano
Johnathan McCullough, Baritone/Michael Sikich, Piano
Get into the award season spirit with three weeks of free films just for Walker Arts Center members. The annual presentation of the Film Independent Spirit Awards nominees showcases creativity and innovation in visual storytelling with the best of indie cinema. Now is the perfect time to buy a mewmbership to get ahead of films sure to heat up the awards race in the next few months. The 2020 Film Independent Spirit Awards, hosted by actor Audrey Plaza, will be broadcast live exclusively on IFC cable channel at 2:00 pm PT / 5:00 pm ET on Saturday, February 8, 2020.
Lulu Wang’s The Farewell, 2019. L to R: “Jiang Yongbo, Aoi Mizuhara, Chen Han, Tzi Ma, Awkwafina, Li Xiang, Lu Hong, Zhao Shuzhen.” Courtesy of Big Beach. Photo courtesy A24.Chinonye Chukwu’s Clemency, 2019. Photo courtesy NEON.Terrence Malick’s A Hidden Life, 2019. Photo courtesy Fox Searchlight.
Performance Marks Terfel’s First Recital at Carnegie Hall in Ten Years
On Sunday, February 9 at 2:00 p.m., beloved Welsh bass-baritone Sir Bryn Terfel returns to Stern Auditorium / Perelman Stage for a recital featuring works by Ireland, Quilter, Brahms, Schumann, Schubert, selections from Vaughan Williams’s Songs of Travel as well as additional selections to be announced from the stage. He is joined by pianist Natalia Katyukova. This concert marks his first recital at Carnegie Hall in ten years; for his complete performance history please click here. The full program is listed below.
Program Information
Sunday, February 9, 2020 at 2:00 p.m., Stern Auditorium / Perelman Stage
Sir Bryn Terfel, Bass-Baritone/Natalia Katyukova, Piano
JOHN IRELAND “Sea Fever”
JOHN IRELAND “Vagabond”
JOHN IRELAND “The Bells of San Marie”
ROGER QUILTER “Now Sleeps the Crimson Petal,” Op. 3, No. 2
ROGER QUILTER “Weep You No More, Sad Fountains,” Op. 12, No. 1
ROGER QUILTER “Go, Lovely Rose,” Op. 24, No. 3
ROGER QUILTER “Fair House of Joy,” Op. 12, No. 7
JOHANNES BRAHMS Vier ernste Gesänge, Op. 121
Denn es gehet dem Menschen wie dem Vieh
Ich wandte mich, und sahe an
O Tod, wie bitter bist du
Wenn ich mit Menschen- und mit Engelszungen redete
ROBERT SCHUMANN “Belsatzar,” Op. 57
FRANZ SCHUBERT “Trinklied,” D. 888
FRANZ SCHUBERT “Ständchen,” D. 889
FRANZ SCHUBERT “An Sylvia,” D. 891
ROGER QUILTER Three Shakespeare Songs, Op. 6
Come away, death
O mistress mine
Blow, blow, thou winter wind
RALPH VAUGHAN WILLIAMS Selections from Songs of Travel
The Vagabond
Whither Must I Wander
Bright Is the Ring of Words
I Have Trod the Upward and the Downward Slope
Additional selections to be announced from the stage
Welsh bass-baritone Sir Bryn Terfel has established an extraordinary career, performing regularly on the prestigious concert stages and opera houses of the world.
Photo of Sir Bryn Terfel by Mitch Jenkins / DG, Natalia Katyukova by Kristin Hoebermann
After winning the Song Prize at the 1989 BBC Cardiff Singer of the World, Sir Bryn made his professional operatic debut in 1990 as Guglielmo in Così fan tutte with the Welsh National Opera. He made his international operatic debut in 1991 as Speaker in Die Zauberflöte at the Théâtre de la Monnaie, Brussels and made his American debut in the same year as Figaro with the Santa Fe Opera. Other roles performed during his career include Méphistophélès in Faust; both the title role and Leporello in Don Giovanni; Jochanaan in Salome; Scarpia in Tosca; the title role in Gianni Schicchi; Nick Shadow in The Rake’s Progress; Wolfram in Tannhäuser; Balstrode in Peter Grimes; Four Villains in Les contes d’Hoffmann and Hans Sachs in Die Meistersinger von Nürnberg.
Sir Bryn marked his 50th birthday and twenty-five years in the profession with a special gala concert at the Royal Albert Hall, presented by Hollywood star Michael Sheen. The celebrations continued at Cardiff’s Wales Millennium Centre, where he sang Scarpia in a special concert performance of Tosca with the Welsh National Opera.
Recent performances include Holländer in Der fliegende Holländer for the Zürich Opera; Falstaff at the Royal Opera House, Covent Garden and the world premiere of an original show by Robat Arwyn and Mererid Hopwood—Hwn Yw Fy Mrawd—chronicling the life of the film star and singer Paul Robeson at the Wales Millennium Centre, Cardiff as part of the National Eisteddfod of Wales.
Six
artists have been short-listed for the Hugo Boss Prize 2020,
the biennial award for significant achievement in contemporary art.
The short list is selected by a panel of international curators and
critics in recognition of artists whose work is transforming the
field. Since its inception in 1996, the prize has consistently
functioned as a platform for the most relevant and influential art of
the present, and has become a cornerstone of the Guggenheim’s
contemporary programming.
“On
the occasion of the thirteenth Hugo Boss Prize, I’m delighted to
announce the finalists for the 2020 cycle,” said Nancy
Spector, Artistic Director and Jennifer and David Stockman Chief
Curator, Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum and Foundation, and jury
chair. “After a rigorous examination of today’s artistic
landscape, the jury identified a group of artists whose practices are
beacons of cultural impact. While diverse in their approaches and
themes, they each exemplify the spirit of experimentation and
innovation that the prize has always championed.”
Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum, New York logo
The
Hugo Boss Prize recognizes the achievements of both emerging
and established artists, and sets no restrictions in terms of age,
gender, nationality, or medium. The winner, who will receive a
$100,000 honorarium, will be announced in the fall of 2020 and will
present a solo exhibition at the Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum
in spring 2021.
Since
its inception in 1996, the Hugo Boss Prize has been awarded to
twelve influential contemporary artists: American artist Matthew
Barney (1996); Scottish artist Douglas Gordon (1998);
Slovenian artist Marjetica Potrč (2000); French artist Pierre
Huyghe (2002); Thai artist Rirkrit Tiravanija (2004);
English artist Tacita Dean (2006); Palestinian artist Emily
Jacir (2008); German artist Hans-Peter Feldmann (2010);
Danish artist Danh Vo (2012); American artist Paul Chan
(2014); American artist Anicka Yi (2016); and American artist
Simone Leigh (2018). The related exhibitions have constituted
some of the most compelling presentations in the museum’s history.
Previous
finalists include Laurie Anderson,
Janine Antoni, Cai Guo-Qiang, Stan Douglas, and Yasumasa Morimura
in 1996; Huang Yong Ping,
William Kentridge, Lee Bul, Pipilotti Rist, and Lorna Simpson in
1998; Vito Acconci, Maurizio
Cattelan, Michael Elmgreen and Ingar Dragset, Tom Friedman, Barry Le
Va, and Tunga in
2000; Francis Alÿs, Olafur
Eliasson, Hachiya Kazuhiko, Koo Jeong-A, and Anri Sala
in 2002; Franz Ackermann,
Rivane Neuenschwander, Jeroen de Rijke and Willem de Rooij, Simon
Starling, and Yang Fudong
in 2004; Allora &
Calzadilla, John Bock, Damián Ortega, Aïda Ruilova, and Tino Sehgal
in 2006; Christoph Büchel,
Patty Chang, Sam Durant, Joachim Koester, and Roman Signer
in 2008; Cao Fei, Roman Ondák,Walid Raad, Natascha SadrHaghighian, and Apichatpong
Weerasethakul
in 2010; Trisha Donnelly,
Rashid Johnson, Qiu Zhijie, Monika Sosnowska, and Tris Vonna-Michell
in
2012; Sheela Gowda, Camille
Henrot, Hassan Khan, and Charline von Heyl
in 2014; Tania Bruguera, Mark
Leckey, Ralph Lemon, Laura Owens, and Wael Shawky in
2016; and Bouchra Khalili,
Teresa Margolles, Emeka Ogboh, Frances Stark,
and Wu Tsang
in 2018.
The
following artists are finalists for the Hugo Boss Prize 2020:
Nairy Baghramian (b. 1971, Isfahan, Iran)
Kevin Beasley (b. 1985, Lynchburg, Va.)
Deana Lawson (b. 1979, Rochester, N.Y.)
Elias Sime (b. 1968, Addis Ababa, Ethiopia)
Cecilia Vicuña (b. 1948, Santiago, Chile)
Adrián Villar Rojas (b. 1980, Rosario, Argentina)
“The
Hugo Boss Prize is our most prestigious engagement in the field of
arts,” said Mark Langer, CEO and Chairman of HUGO BOSS AG. “We
are excited about this diverse and distinguished short list for 2020
and looking forward to the announcement of the winner next fall.”
HUGO
BOSS PRIZE 2020 SHORT LIST
Nairy
Baghramian(b.
1971, Isfahan, Iran) lives and works in Berlin. In an oeuvre that
probes the boundaries between the decorative, the utilitarian, and
the art object, Baghramian has illuminated new possibilities for
sculpture. The artist’s disarming biomorphic forms, made with a
range of materials including steel, silicon, resin, and leather,
elicit various unexpected art-historical and sociopolitical
references, reimagining the workings of the body, gender, and public
and private space.
Nairy Baghramian, Stay Downers: Nerd, Fidgety Philip, Dripper, Truant, Backrower and Grubby Urchin, 2017. Various media, dimensions variable Installation view: Déformation Professionnelle, Walker Art Center, Minneapolis, 2017–18. Courtesy the artist and Marian Goodman Gallery. Photo: Timo Ohler
Baghramian’s
work has been presented in solo exhibitions such as Privileged
Points,
Mudam Luxembourg—Musée d’Art Moderne Grand-Duc Jean (2019),
Breathing
Spell (Un respire),
Palacio de Cristal del Retiro, Madrid (2018); Déformation
Professionnelle,
Museum der Moderne Salzburg, and Walker Art Center, Minneapolis
(2017); S.M.A.K. Museum of Contemporary Art, Ghent (2016); Nairy
Baghramian: Scruff of the Neck (Supplements),
Zurich Art Prize, Museum Haus Konstruktiv, Zurich (2016); Hand
Me Down,
Museo Tamayo, Mexico City (2015); Fluffing
the Pillows,
MIT List Visual Arts Center, Cambridge, Mass. (2013), and Kunsthalle
Mannheim, Germany (2012); and Class
Reunion,
Contemporary Art Gallery, Vancouver (2012).
Kevin
Beasley(b.
1985, Lynchburg, Va.) lives and works in New York. Working at the
intersection of sculpture, installation, and performance, Beasley
constructs revelatory formal and sonic experiences. In works that
embed found objects in substances such as resin, foam, and tar, or
incorporate unconventionally manipulated audio equipment, he
amplifies the cultural resonances of his materials to excavate
personal and shared histories of class, race, and institutional
power.
Beasley
has presented and performed in solo exhibitions such as ASSEMBLY,
The Kitchen, New York (2019); a
view of a landscape,
Whitney Museum of American Art, New York (2018); Kevin
Beasley,
The Institute of Contemporary Art, Boston (2018); Movement
V: Ballroom,
CounterCurrent Festival, Cynthia Woods Mitchell Center for the Arts,
Houston (2017); Hammer
Projects: Kevin Beasley,
Hammer Museum at Art + Practice, Los Angeles (2017); Rubbings,
Kim? Contemporary Art Center, Riga, Latvia (2017); and inHarlem:
Kevin Beasley,
The Studio Museum in Harlem, New York (2016).
Deana
Lawson(b.
1979, Rochester, N.Y.) lives and works in New York. Her large-format
photographs channel vernacular, art-historical, and documentary
traditions within the medium, in compositions that valorize black
diasporic culture. Picturing individuals she encounters over the
course of her everyday life within carefully staged domestic
settings, Lawson choreographs every nuance of scenery, lighting, and
pose to create tableaux that powerfully evoke the agency of her
subjects.
Lawson’s
work has been presented in solo exhibitions including Deana
Lawson,
Huis Marseille, Museum voor Fotografie, Amsterdam (2019); Deana
Lawson: Planes,
The Underground Museum, Los Angeles (2018); Deana
Lawson,
Carnegie Museum of Art, Pittsburgh (2018); Deana
Lawson,
Contemporary Art Museum St. Louis (2017); Deana
Lawson,
The Art Institute of Chicago (2015); and Corporeal,
Light Work, Syracuse, N.Y. (2009).
The Whitney Museum of American Art announced today that its 2021 Biennial, the 80th edition, will be co-organized by two brilliant members of the Museum’s curatorial department, David Breslin and Adrienne Edwards. The 2021 Whitney Biennial exhibition will open in the spring of 2021 and is presented by Tiffany & Co., which has been the lead sponsor of the Biennial since the Museum’s move downtown.
Image credit: Adrienne Edwards and David Breslin. Photograph by Bryan Derballa
Alice
Pratt Brown Director Adam D. Weinberg noted: “The central
aim of the Biennial is to be a barometer of contemporary American
art. Each Biennial is a reflection of the cultural and social moment
as it intersects with the passions, perspectives, and tastes of the
curators. David and Adrienne will be a great team. They are
inquisitive, curious, and are acutely attuned to the art of the
current moment. No doubt they will bring fresh outlooks to this
historic exhibition and reinvent it for these complex and challenging
times.”
With
a long history of exhibiting the most promising and influential
artists and provoking debate, the Whitney Biennial is the Museum’s
signature survey of the state of contemporary art in the United
States. The Biennial, an invitational show of work produced in the
preceding two years, was introduced by Gertrude Vanderbilt Whitney in
1932, and it is the longest continuous series of exhibitions in the
country to survey recent developments in American art.
Initiated by founder Gertrude Vanderbilt Whitney in 1932, the Whitney Biennial is the longest-running survey of American art. More than 3,600 artists have participated, including Edward Hopper, Georgia O’Keeffe, Jacob Lawrence, Alexander Calder, Louise Bourgeois, Joan Mitchell, Jackson Pollock, Willem de Kooning, Robert Rauschenberg, Claes Oldenburg, Roy Lichtenstein, Agnes Martin, Cy Twombly, Andy Warhol, Ellsworth Kelly, Richard Serra, Lynda Benglis, Frank Bowling, Joan Jonas, Barbara Kruger, Jean-Michel Basquiat, Jenny Holzer, David Wojnarowicz, Glenn Ligon, Yvonne Rainer, Zoe Leonard, Kara Walker, Cindy Sherman, Nan Goldin, Mike Kelley, Lorna Simpson, Renée Green, Wade Guyton, Julie Mehretu, Cecilia Vicuña, Mark Bradford, Daniel Joseph Martinez, Ellen Gallagher, Rachel Harrison, Wu Tsang, Nick Mauss, Sarah Michelson, Laura Owens, Postcommodity, Pope.L, Jeffrey Gibson, and Tiona Nekkia McClodden.
The biennials were originally organized by medium, with painting alternating with sculpture and works on paper. Starting in 1937, the Museum shifted to yearly exhibitions called Annuals. The current format—a survey show of work in all media occurring every two years—has been in place since 1973. The 2019 Biennial (still on partial view on the Museum’s sixth floor until October 27) was organized by two Whitney curators, Jane Panetta and Rujeko Hockley. It featured seventy-five artists and collectives working in painting, sculpture, installation, film and video, photography, performance, and sound.
David
Breslin was recently named the DeMartini Family Curator and
Director of Curatorial Initiatives, a role he will assume this
month. Since joining the Museum in 2016 as DeMartini Family Curator
and Director of the Collection, Breslin has spearheaded the Museum’s
collection-related activities, curating a series of major collection
exhibitions and overseeing acquisitions. Working closely with his
curatorial colleagues, he has organized or co-organized four timely
and thematized collection displays, including Where We Are:
Selections from the Whitney’s Collection, 1900–1960, An
Incomplete History of Protest: Selections from the Whitney’s
Collection, 1940–2017, Spilling Over: Painting Color
in the 1960s, and The Whitney’s Collection:
Selections from 1900 to 1965, which is currently on view on
the Museum’s seventh floor. In 2018, he co-curated (with David
Kiehl) the landmark retrospective David Wojnarowicz:
History Keeps Me Awake at Night.
Breslin
came to the Whitney from the Menil Drawing Institute, where he
created an ambitious program of exhibitions and public and scholarly
events and helped to shape the design of the Institute’s new
facility. He also oversaw work on the catalogue raisonné of the
drawings of Jasper Johns and grew the collection. Prior to the
Menil, Breslin served as the associate director of the research and
academic program and associate curator of contemporary projects at
the Clark Art Institute in Williamstown, MA; he also oversaw
the Clark’s residential fellowship program and taught in the
Williams College Graduate Program in the History of Art.
Breslin co-edited Art History and Emergency: Crises in the Visual
Arts and Humanities (Yale University Press, 2016), a volume that
grew from a Clark Conference he organized with art historian Darby
English.
In
2018, Adrienne Edwards was named Engell Speyer Family
Curator and Curator of Performance at the Whitney. Previously,
she served as curator of Performa since 2010 and as Curator at
Large for the Walker Art Center since 2016.
At
the Whitney, Edwards curated Jason Moran, the artist’s first
museum show, now on view on the Museum’s eighth floor. She
originated the exhibition at the Walker in 2018; it previously
traveled to the ICA Boston and the Wexner Center for the
Arts. The exhibition features a series of performances, Jazz on a
High Floor in the Afternoon, curated by Edwards and Moran. She
organized the event commencing the construction of David
Hammons’s Day’s End, featuring a commission by composer
Henry Threadgill and a “water” tango on the Hudson
River by the Fire Department of the City of New York’s
Marine Company 9. Earlier this year, Edwards organized Moved
by the Motion: Sudden Rise, a series of performances based on
a text co-written by Wu Tsang, boychild, and Fred Moten,
which presented a collage of words, film, movements, and sounds.
For
Performa, Edwards realized new boundary-defying commissions,
as well as pathfinding conferences and film programs with a wide
range of over forty international artists. While at the Walker, she
co-led the institution-wide Mellon Foundation Interdisciplinary
Initiative, an effort to expand ways of commissioning, studying,
collecting, documenting, and conserving cross-disciplinary works.
Edwards’s curatorial projects have included the critically
acclaimed exhibition and catalogue Blackness in Abstraction,
hosted by Pace Gallery in 2016. She also organized Frieze’s
Artist Awardand Live program in New York in 2018. Edwards
taught art history and visual studies at New York University
and The New School, and she is a contributor to the National
Gallery of Art’s Center for the Advanced Study in Visual Art’s
forthcoming publication Black Modernisms.
Scott
Rothkopf, the Whitney’s Senior Deputy Director and Nancy and Steve
Crown Family Chief Curator, said, “David and Adrienne truly
represent the best spirit and ideals of the Whitney. Not only are
they devoted to—and beloved by—living artists, but they bring to
the art of our time a deep historical and scholarly awareness. The
most recent editions of the Biennial have reaffirmed its vitality and
relevance, and I look forward to discovering how another pair of
Whitney curators will lend their voices to our signature exhibition.”
U.S./New York-based Condé Nast and London-based Condé Nast International Are Integrated as One Global Team. New Consumer Marketing Function to Bring Focus on Direct-to-Consumer Efforts With Unified Commercial Team to Better Serve Global Clients’ Holistic Needs
New Leadership Structure is Expected to Help Further Turn the Financial Ship Around As Company Moves Beyond Closing and Selling Off Magazine Titles, Layoffs and Consolidation of Workforce Across All Titles
Long expected, Condé Nast yesterday appointed a new global leadership team designed to accelerate the company’s evolution into a 21st-century media company. The new organizational structure, which combines Condé Nast and Condé Nast International into a unified global team, was created with several guiding principles in mind, including the preservation of local editorial voice and authority, an enhanced focus on the consumer, unification of the company’s ad and commercial sales functions to reflect clients’ local and global needs and the development of new ways to share capabilities and best practices across the company.
Condé Nast is a global media company, home to iconic brands including Vogue, The New Yorker, GQ, Glamour, AD, Vanity Fair, and Wired, among many others. The company’s award-winning content reaches 84 million consumers in print, 367 million in digital and 379 million across social platforms, and generates more than 1 billion video views each month. The company is headquartered in London and New Yorkand operates in 32 markets worldwide including China, France, Germany, India, Italy, Japan, Mexico & Latin America, Russia, Spain, Taiwan, the U.K., and the U.S., with local license partners across the globe. Launched in 2011, Condé Nast Entertainment is an award-winning production and distribution studio that creates programming across film, television, social and digital video and virtual reality.
“One of my top priorities has been to define our organizational structure so that we can take full advantage of our unique growth opportunities and exceptional content around the world,” said the recently-appointed CEO of Condé Nast, RogerLynch “I’m confident that our new global structure will better enable us to collaborate across teams and markets and, ultimately, deliver unparalleled experiences for our consumers and clients.“
The
new structure is as follows:
Global Content Functions:: Anna Wintour, U.S. Artistic Director, Editor-in-Chief of Vogue U.S. and (newly-appointed) Global Content Advisor, will continue in her role as U.S. Artistic Director and Editor-in-Chief of Vogue U.S., and will add Global Content Advisor and oversight of Vogue International to her responsibilities. In her expanded role, Wintour will advise the executive leadership team on global content opportunities and act as a resource to editors-in-chief and editorial talent worldwide.
Oren Katzeff, President of Condé Nast Entertainment (CNE), will expand the company’s digital video, film and television operations to create best-in-class video content experiences for audiences worldwide. The company has been increasing its focus on video content and currently generates 1.1 billion video views per month. Under Oren’s leadership, CNE will now be the core of our global network of video teams, supporting the growth of our video businesses in all markets.
David Remnick, Editor-in-Chief of The New Yorker, will also continue to report directly to Lynch.
Global Operations Organization: Wolfgang Blau, President, International & Chief Operating Officer will oversee all non-U.S. markets, as well as selected global strategic functions, including Product & Technology, Data, Licensing, Global Editorial Operations, Business Development, and Delivery & Business Transformation. This organization will ensure day-to-day operational excellence and capability sharing across the business.
Global Commercial Organization: Pamela Drucker Mann, Global Chief Revenue Officer & President, U.S. Revenue, will lead a new global revenue organization that brings together the company’s U.S. and international ad sales, creative and agency, B2B marketing and client service capabilities. Jamie Jouning, promoted to Chief Client Officer, will report to Drucker Mann and oversee key global accounts, multi-market deals, and central digital ad operations. Drucker Mann will define ad sales and ad product strategies globally, and work closely with Jamie and the central team and commercial leads in the company’s worldwide markets to drive overall ad, agency, and B2B revenue and share best practices.
Consumer Marketing Organization: Condé Nast is creating a new consumer marketing organization that will be led by a Chief Marketing Officer (CMO) and will bring added focus to the company’s direct-to-consumer efforts. As the company expands its consumer offerings, this team will be charged with developing best-in-class capabilities and consistency across consumer experiences on every platform. The team will also be responsible for consumer revenue, with a core focus on subscriptions and memberships. In addition, the team will have responsibility for global brand management, consumer research, and insights and global audience development, ensuring a data-driven approach to the company’s efforts. The search for a CMO to lead this new organization will begin immediately.
Corporate Functions: The company is also globalizing its three corporate functions to leverage skills, expertise and standardize processes and best practices: People, Finance and Communications. The company will begin an immediate search and selection process for these and other open roles. Until new leaders are identified, teams will maintain their existing reporting lines and responsibilities.
“We’re
bringing added focus to our direct-to-consumer efforts and will build
a new consumer marketing function that will be charged with
developing best-in-class subscription and membership capabilities,
and maintaining the authenticity of our iconic global brands,”
Lynch continued. “And by transforming our sales organization
into a unified global team, Condé Nast will be better positioned to
serve the holistic needs of our clients around the world and make it
easier for them to do business with us.“
The
new structure and appointments take effect immediately.
Visual Artist Nari Ward And Biophysicists Lily And Yuh-Nung Jan Receive $100,000 Vilcek Prizes
Winners Of Vilcek Prizes For Creative Promise Each Receive $50,000 Awards
TheVilcek Foundationis pleased to announce the winners of the annual Vilcek Prizes, recognizing outstanding immigrant contributions to the American arts and sciences. The Vilcek Prize in Biomedical Science will be awarded jointly to Chinese-born Lily and Yuh-Nung Jan, a collaborative research duo and professors of molecular physiology at the University of California, San Francisco. The Vilcek Prize in the Arts recognizes Jamaican-born Nari Ward, a New York-based visual artist known for found-object assemblage art. Each prize includes a $100,000 cash award. The prizewinners were selected by panels of experts in each field; they will be honored at an awards gala in New York City in April 2017.
“Like all great artists and scientists, these immigrant prizewinners challenge our very perceptions of the world,” said Rick Kinsel, president of the Vilcek Foundation. “Their works are attempts to understand fundamental questions and concepts in American society, from the neurological underpinnings of the self to the institution of democracy.”
The Vilcek Foundation was established in 2000 by Jan and Marica Vilcek, immigrants from the former Czechoslovakia. The mission of the foundation, to honor the contributions of immigrants to the United States and to foster an appreciation of the arts and sciences, was inspired by the couple’s respective careers in biomedical science and art history, as well as their personal experiences and appreciation for the opportunities they received as newcomers to this country. The foundation awards annual prizes to prominent immigrant biomedical scientists and artists and manages the Vilcek Foundation Art Collections, a promised gift from its founders.
This year, the Vilcek Prize in the Arts is awarded in the fine arts, marking the completion of an 11-year cycle through various disciplines in the arts and humanities. The recipient, Nari Ward, was born in Jamaica and immigrated to the U.S. at the age of 12. He is known for found-object assemblage artworks that invite both a public conversation and an intimate dialogue with the viewer around topics of race, immigration, and the Caribbean diaspora identity. His usage of found objects aims to highlight the history of a place and the urgency of the moment; his installation Naturalization Drawing Table features a large desk—built out of Plexiglas bodega barriers—covered with dense linear drawings made over copies of Immigration and Naturalization Service applications. On select days during the exhibition, viewers are invited to “apply” for naturalization by lining up and filling out an application, giving them a taste of the bureaucratic process of applying for citizenship. Ward has won several prestigious art prizes, including the Joyce Award, the Rome Prize, a Bessie Award, and several other awards from the American Academy of Arts and Letters, the National Endowment for the Arts, and the John Simon Guggenheim Foundation.
Lily and Yuh-Nung Jan were both born in China and raised in Taiwan. They came to the U.S. as graduate students of physics at the California Institute of Technology but switched their focus to biology, in part inspired by their mentor, the renowned biophysicist Max Delbrück. Over the course of a collaborative career spanning over four decades, the husband-and-wife team has made many significant discoveries in the field of neuroscience, with far-reaching clinical implications. They isolated the gene encoding a protein that shuttles potassium ions across cell membranes, enabling the characterization of a molecular player important to functions as vital as maintaining heart rate and controlling muscle movement. Today, this type of ion channel is implicated in diseases such as epilepsy, ataxia, and hypertension. Simultaneously, the Jans identified genes and principles underlying the processes by which neurons acquire distinct identities, burgeon into thickets, and establish precise circuits; their work in this area may help unravel human diseases such as autism and schizophrenia. Currently, professors of molecular physiology at the University of California, San Francisco, the Jans have been honored with membership in the United States National Academy of Sciences, as well as with Howard Hughes Medical Institute Investigator awards.
The Vilcek Foundation also awards the Vilcek Prizes for Creative Promise, given to younger immigrants who have shown substantial talent and ability early in their careers. Each prize includes a $50,000 cash award. The winners in the fine arts are the following:
Iman Issa, born in Egypt, a conceptual artist, creates objects and installations in an attempt to address complex philosophical questions. Her original area of study was phenomenology, a branch of philosophy that examines the structures of consciousness that organize subjective experience—or, put another way, how we take meaning from things we individually experience. Later, Issa realized that art allowed for nuanced exploration of those topics, and continued her philosophical questioning through art. She is particularly interested in monuments and memorials—aesthetic forms tasked with a function that holds a shifting relevance based on their location in time and relationship to history. Her work has been shown at the Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum, the 8th Berlin Biennial, and the New Museum, and she has received the DAAD 2017 Artist in Residence Award, the Louis Comfort Tiffany Foundation Award, and the HNF-MACBA Award.
Meleko Mokgosi, born in Botswana, is a slow, considered painter; behind every painting he produces are hours of research, reading, and conversations with people. Mokgosi is interested in depictions of Africa and its people; he believes that the widespread misrepresentation of Africa and Africans has done a violence to the people of the continent, and through his art he attempts a representation that is fair and just. He is deeply concerned with politics and seeks to understand and illuminate the relations of power that shape people, families, villages, regions, and nations. Mokgosi has been named the recipient of the Joan Mitchell Foundation Painters Grant and the Jarl and Pamela Mohn Award, and he has shown his work at Art Basel, the Armory, the Hammer Museum, and the Whitney Museum.Continue reading →
Downtown Seattle Hotel Guests Receive Half-Price Entry to Region’s Museums and Cultural Institutions in February 2017
February Is The Best Time To Save On Admission To More Than 40 Participating Museums Throughout Seattle And The Surrounding Region.
Visit Seattle‘s third annual Seattle Museum Month – returning February 1-28, 2017 – offers hotel guests half-price admission at more than 40 participating museums throughout Seattle and the region.
Chihuly Garden and Glass. (Photo Credit: Terry Rishel)
Seattle Museum Month , a program created to encourage travelers to visit Seattle in February and celebrate the incredible arts and culture scene present in the region, is produced by Visit Seattle and funded by the Seattle Tourism Improvement Area (STIA), a dedicated marketing fund assessed from guests at the 61 downtown Seattle hotels.
Seattle Art Museum’s Olympic Sculpture Park. (Photo Credit: Benjamin Benschneider)
For visitors and locals alike, Seattle Museum Month offers an immersive way of experiencing Seattle’s art, history, music, design and culture. Since its inaugural year in 2015, Museum Month has been an exciting cultural complement to Seattle during a mid-winter vacation.
Seattle Art Museum. (Photo Credit: Benjamin Benschneider)
Seattle’s major museums have returned for this year’s offer – including Seattle Art Museum, Museum of History & Industry, Museum of Flight, Museum of Pop Culture (MoPOP), Seattle Aquarium, Woodland Park Zoo, Wing Luke Museum of the Asian Pacific American Experience and the Burke Museum of Natural History and Culture. Two internationally renowned glass art museums are included – Chihuly Garden and Glass in Seattle and the Museum of Glass in Tacoma. The Flying Heritage Collection and the Suquamish Museum are new participants this year.
Museum of Pop Culture (MoPop) (Photo Credit : Brady Harvey)
Furthermore, many exhibitions of note are timed during the month-long promotion. Epicureans can indulge themselves at Edible City: A Delicious Journey at Museum of History & Industry (MOHAI), a new exhibit highlighting Seattle’s natural resources, cuisine, famous chefs and its role in the culinary industry.
Also on display in February is part three of the Day in the Life of Bruce Lee: Do You Know Bruce? exhibit at the Wing Luke Museum of the Pacific Asian Experience – the only museum outside Hong Kong to present an exhibition about Bruce Lee. Additionally, Star Trek: Exploring New Worlds at MoPOP commemorates the 50th anniversary of the famous science fiction series and is offered to Museum Month pass holders at a discount.
Seattle Asian Art Museum. (Photo Credit: Benjamin Benschneider)
Visitors can enjoy natural scenery while indoors at Seeing Nature: Landscape Photography from the Paul G. Allen Family Collection, opening February 16 at the Seattle Art Museum (SAM), or familiarize themselves with Puget Sound sea life during Octopus Week Feb. 18-26 at the Seattle Aquarium. Dance Theatre of Harlem: 40 Years of Firstswill be on display through Black History Month at the Northwest African American Museum.Continue reading →
The formation of self and the individual’s place in a turbulent society are among the key themes reflected in the work of the artists selected for the 2017 Whitney Biennial, opening at the Whitney Museum of American Art on March 17, 2016 and running through June 11, 2017. Curated by the Whitney’s Nancy and Fred Poses Associate Curator Christopher Y. Lew and independent curator Mia Locks, this will be the first Biennial held in the Whitney’s (still new) home in the Meatpacking District. The country’s preeminent survey of the current state of American art, this is the seventy-eighth in the Museum’s ongoing series of Annuals and Biennials, initiated by Gertrude Vanderbilt Whitney in 1932.
Lew and Locks named the sixty-three participants (see complete list below), whose works will fill two of the four main gallery floors of the Whitney (including the 18,000-square-foot Neil Bluhm Family Galleries on the fifth floor) and numerous other spaces throughout the Museum. The participants range from emerging to well-established individuals and collectives working in painting, sculpture, drawing, installation, film and video, photography, activism, performance, music, and video game design.
Scott Rothkopf, the Whitney’s Nancy and Steve Crown Family Chief Curator and Deputy Director for Programs, said, “Since we opened our new building, we’ve reignited our emerging artist program with venturesome solo premieres and ‘snapshot’ shows of new tendencies. This Biennial, the largest ever in terms of gallery space, marks the capstone of these efforts. Chris and Mia have done an amazing job scouring the country to discover new talents, while creating lively connections to senior figures and our roiling social landscape.”
Lew commented that, “Throughout our research and travel we’ve been moved by the impassioned discussions we had about recent tumult in society, politics, and the economic system. It’s been unavoidable as we met with artists, fellow curators, writers, and other cultural producers across the United States and beyond.” Locks noted: “Against this backdrop, many of the participating artists are asking probing questions about the self and the social, and where these intersect. How do we think and live through these lenses? How and where do they fall short?”
Rothkopf is leading a team of advisors who are working closely with Lew and Locks to help shape the exhibition. They include: Negar Azimi, writer and senior editor at Bidoun, an award-winning publishing, curatorial, and educational initiative with a focus on the Middle East and its diasporas; Gean Moreno, curator of programs at the Institute of Contemporary Art Miami and founder of [NAME] Publications; Aily Nash, co-curator of Projections, the New York Film Festival’s artists’s film and video section, and Film and Media Curator at Basilica Hudson; and Wendy Yao, a publisher and founder of both the exhibition space 356 South Mission Road and Ooga Booga, a shop with two Los Angeles locations that specializes in independent books, music, art, and clothing. Nash, together with the curators, is co-organizing the Biennial film program, which will screen in the Whitney’s third-floor Susan and John Hess Family Theater.
The 2017 Biennial will be accompanied by an exhibition catalogue, designed by Olga Casellas Badillo of San Juan-based Tiguere Corp., which includes essays by the curators as well as Biennial advisors Negar Azimi and Gean Moreno, a conversation between the curators and Scott Rothkopf, and a roundtable with filmmakers moderated by Aily Nash. The book will also feature individual entries on each of the sixty-three participants in the exhibition along with reproductions of their work. It will be published by the Whitney Museum of American Art and distributed by Yale University Press.
Starring Imelda Staunton on THIRTEEN’s Great Performances Friday, November 11 at 9 p.m. on the PBS Arts Fall Festival
Jonathan Kent‘s award-winning production of the classic musical Gypsy – a record-breaking sellout during its acclaimed London run – comes to THIRTEEN‘s Great Performances, Friday, November 11 at 9 p.m. on PBS on the PBS Arts Fall Festival. (Check local listings.) Gypsy first appeared in 1959 on Broadway under the titleGypsy: A Musical Fable.
The first London production to be seen for 40 years, the musical opened at England’s Chichester Festival Theatre before moving to the West End‘s Savoy Theatre. A London production had not been seen in the West End since 1973. This critically acclaimed West End production features Imelda Staunton as Rose(The role of Rose is often called the ‘King Lear’ of the musical theatre canon).
Following a run at the Chichester Festival Theatre, which won the Critics’ Choice Theatre Award for Best Musical in 2014, a West End revival of Gypsy opened at the Savoy Theatre on April 15, 2015, in a limited run through November 28. Directed by Jonathan Kent with choreography by Stephen Mear and set and costume design by Anthony Ward, the production starred Staunton as Rose, Peter Davison as Herbie, Lara Pulver as Louise, Gemma Sutton as June, Anita Louise Combe as Tessie Tura, Louise Gold as Mazzeppa and Julie Legrand as Electra. The London production was nominated for eight Laurence Olivier Awards at the 2016 ceremony, winning four, including Best Actress in a Musical (Staunton) and Best Musical Revival, the most awards won by a single production in that year
Gypsy is considered by many to be one of Broadway’s all-time triumphs. It tells the story of ambitious showbiz mother Rose, who treks across the country with her daughters Baby June and Louise in search of success with their homespun vaudeville act. As times change, Rose is forced to accept the demise of vaudeville and the rise of burlesque, as well as her daughters’ quest for autonomy.
With a book by Arthur Laurents, music by Jule Styne and lyrics by Stephen Sondheim, the show was suggested by the memoirs of Gypsy Rose Lee. The musical was initially a project of producer David Merrick and actress Ethel Merman (who starred as the original Rose). Merrick had read a chapter of Lee’s memoirs in Harper’s Magazine and approached Lee to obtain the rights. Jerome Robbins was interested, and wanted Leland Hayward as co-producer; (Merman also wanted Hayward to produce her next show.) Merrick and Hayward approached Laurents to write the book. As he relates, Laurents initially was not interested until he saw that the story was one of parents living their children’s lives. Composers Irving Berlin and Cole Porter declined the project. Finally, Robbins asked Stephen Sondheim, who agreed to do it. Sondheim had previously worked with Robbins and Laurents on the musical West Side Story. However, Merman did not want an unknown composer, and wanted Jule Styne to write the music. Although Sondheim initially refused to write only the lyrics, he was persuaded by Oscar Hammerstein to accept the job.
The score features songs that have since become show standards, and helped launch the career of Sondheim. “Everything’s Coming Up Roses,” “Some People,” “Let Me Entertain You,” “Together, Wherever We Go” and of course “Rose’s Turn” are among the musical highlights.Continue reading →
For 10 straight years, the eight-day citywide festival has celebrated Denver’s creative community with hundreds of events bringing thousands of people each year
Denver Arts Week, an annual celebration of The Mile High City‘s vibrant arts scene, will mark its 10th anniversary this year from November 4-12. Presented by VISIT DENVER, The Convention & Visitors Bureau, the event will feature annual favorites like Know Your Arts First Friday and FREE Night at the Museums, as well as new experiences throughout the more than 300 events at galleries, museums and arts districts throughout the city.
“Denver is home to a phenomenal year-round arts scene – with world-renowned museums, cutting edge street art, exceptional performing arts and more,” says Richard Scharf, president and CEO of VISIT DENVER, The Convention & Visitors Bureau. “For 10 years, Denver Arts Week has encouraged people to celebrate the city’s cultural scene, and we are thrilled that the event has continued to evolve and grow as much as the arts scene has. The tenth anniversary is the perfect opportunity to attend some classic events or experience new ones and really immerse yourself in the city’s creative community.“
With more than 300 cultural events – some of which are free or heavily discounted – throughout the city over nine days, there are plenty of reasons to make a night – or a few nights – of it; and there are plenty of great hotel deals to facilitate a stay in Denver. For a complete calendar and a full listing of all the deals and discounts on art, experiences and hotels, visit the Denver Arts Week website.
10 Ways to Make the Most of Denver Arts Week
It can be difficult to choose from the myriad of events taking place around town; here’s how to get the most out of Denver Arts Week 2016:
1. Explore vibrant art districts and diverse neighborhoods on First Friday Art Walks, Nov. 4
Art District on Santa Fe
The annual event kicks off with citywideFirst Friday Art Walksin Denver’s art districts, where more than 100 galleries and display spaces stay open late and feature art shows, demonstrations and more. Go on a VIP Art Tour in the River North Art District (RiNo), take advantage of Tennyson Street Cultural District‘s $52.80 art sale, submit your own art in the Art District on Santa Fe‘s “To Denver With Love” art contest, and venture to the Golden Triangle neighborhood to see some of the city’s finest galleries.
2. Experience FREE Night at the Museums on Nov. 5
Venues around town are open late, from 5 to 10 p.m., during FREE Night at the Museums. The museums offer special programming, family-friendly activities and live entertainment, and there are complimentary shuttles to make “museum hopping” easy and convenient. The Denver Museum of Nature & Science, Denver Art Museum, History Colorado Center, The Counterterrorism Education Learning Lab (CELL), Forney Museum of Transportation and Denver Firefighters Museum are just some of this year’s many not-to-miss participants.
3. Check out blockbuster exhibitions, from mummies to Japanese fashion
This fall, several of Denver’s major museums are hosting international traveling exhibitions and original curations. See Washed Ashore, Art to Save the Sea at Denver Zoo; Shock Wave: Japanese Fashion Design, 1980s-90s at the Denver Art Museum; and Extreme Mammals and Mummies: New Secrets from the Tombs, both of which are at the Denver Museum of Nature & Science.
Washed Ashore, Art to Save the Sea, features 15 giant sculptures depicting sea life, made almost entirely of debris collected from beaches.
This unusual traveling exhibit, Washed Ashore, Art to Save the Sea, features 15 giant sculptures depicting sea life, made almost entirely of debris collected from beaches. Hosted by Denver Zoo, it’s the first time the exhibit has appeared at an inland, noncoastal location. The exhibit will be open from Sept. 24, 2016, to Jan. 16, 2017. The Washed Ashore Project aims to educate the public and raise awareness about pollution through the arts. As a community-based organization, lead artist Angela Haseltine Pozzi draws on people of all ages to help her remove thousands of pounds of debris from beaches then turn it into large works of art.
The organization says 90 percent of the debris they collect come from petroleum-based products such as plastics, nylon ropes and fishing nets. Almost all of the trash then gets turned into sculptures such as a walk-through replica of ocean currents and a coral reef made of Styrofoam. Continue reading →
Neiman Marcus Fantasy Gifts Include a Walk-On Role in the Broadway Musical Waitress
Exclusive Grammy Awards Experience, Private Quarterback Camp with Joe Montana and His and Hers Neiman Marcus Island Cars Featuring Lilly Pulitzer
The2016 Christmas Bookwas unveiled today by luxury omni-channel retailer Neiman Marcusin Dallas. The 90th edition of this legendary book continues Neiman Marcus’ unmatched tradition of offering a selection of spectacular and unique holiday gifts sure to make even the wildest of dreams come true.
The arrival of theChristmas Bookis considered by many to mark the official start of the holiday shopping season. This year’s edition carries on the Neiman Marcus tradition of presenting a refined selection of items across a broad range of categories for everyone on your holiday shopping list. With a new collection of fantasy giftscertain to satisfy even the most indulgent appetites, theChristmas Bookfeatures exceptional and distinctive gifts and experiences, includingA Week at Three English Estates Experience, Slumber Party at the Neiman Marcus Flagshipand Cobalt Valkyrie-X Private Plane in rose gold. This year’s featured car is an INFINITI Q60 Neiman Marcus Limited Edition. The“His & Hers” fantasy giftcomes to life as theNeiman Marcus Island Cars Featuring Lilly Pulitzer.
“We are thrilled to present the 2016 fantasy gifts. Our team has scoured and vetted hundreds of one-of-a-kind items resulting in this highly curated collection of 12 items and experiences,” said Jim Gold, President and Chief Merchandising Officer of Neiman Marcus. “It is our goal to bring dreams to life!“
First published in 1926 as a 16-page booklet, the Neiman Marcus Christmas Book was initially intended as a Christmas card to the store’s best customers. Through the years, the book has maintained its personal touch while evolving into a legendary source for alluring and mystical gifts.
Each year, the Christmas Book features specially commissioned artwork and the covers are as anticipated as the contents. “With the goal of bringing a fashion component to the cover of the Christmas Book, we combined custom artwork by Maija Louekari with the beautiful face of Lindsey Wixson to create a final image photographed by Walter Chin. And, to add that bit of fantasy that Neiman Marcus is famous for, the lenticular printing animates Lindsey winking,” said Georgia Christensen, Vice President, Brand Creative Director of Neiman Marcus. This year represents only the second time a unique element has been used to animate the cover. In 1999, a Christmas tree glistened with butterflies thanks to a lenticular onset.
As in previous years, Neiman Marcus will donate a portion of the proceeds from the majority of fantasy gifts to The Heart of Neiman Marcus Foundation which brings enriching art experiences to youth in communities nationwide. Donations will be made to the GRAMMY Foundation with the purchase of the Exclusive GRAMMY Awards Experience and to Akola Project with the purchase of the Optimist Akola Bracelet.
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The Love to Give Collection, also featured in the 2016 Christmas Book, includes over 40 perfectly priced items for gift giving. Each Neiman Marcus store gives ten percent of the proceeds to benefit youth arts education in Neiman Marcus communities across the country. An additional $50,000 from online sales goes to The Heart of Neiman Marcus Foundation. Vendors participating in the Neiman Marcus Love to Give Collection include, but are not limited to, Hermès, Yves Saint Laurent beauty, Fresh, Lumio, Sugarfina, and Kate Spade. Prices range from $10 – $200.
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Hip stocking stuffers, cool hostess gifts and unexpected treats can be found in the Fun to Give Collection, also featured in the 2016 Christmas Book. These imaginative, easy to buy items (starting at just $5) are truly fun to give.
The fantasy gifts included in the 2016 Christmas Book include:
WALK-ON ROLE IN THE BROADWAY MUSICAL WAITRESS
WALK-ON ROLE IN THE BROADWAY MUSICAL WAITRESS
Perfect for the star in your life searching for their spotlight, one lucky recipient will receive a walk-on role in Broadway’s tastiest musical, Waitress, starring Tony Award winner Jessie Mueller and directed by Tony winner Diane Paulus. With music and lyrics by five-time GRAMMY Award nominee Sara Bareilles, the gift comes with four premium show tickets, a meet-and-greet with the Waitress cast, and a Waitress-themed pie-making lesson with the show’s pie consultant.
The gift comes with four premium show tickets, a meet-and-greet with the Waitress cast, and a Waitress-themed pie-making lesson with the show’s pie consultant.
With the purchase of the Broadway musical Waitress walk-on role, Neiman Marcus will donate $22,500 to The Heart of Neiman Marcus Foundation. Gift limited to one customer. ($30,000; page 120)
CURATED COLLECTION OF 36 CALDECOTT MEDAL-WINNING CHILDREN’S BOOKS
Send someone on a charming editorial exploration with a curated collection of 36 Caldecott Medal-winning children’s books. Perfect for children of any age, the books within this once-in-a-lifetime library span over almost 80 years and have each been bestowed the Caldecott Medal, given annually since 1938 to “the artist of the most distinguished American picture book for children” as voted by the Association for Library Service to Children. Either first editions or early printings, all in original dust jackets, the collection has been gathered by two of New England’s finest book sellers, Johnnycake Books and E.M. Maurice Books.
CURATED COLLECTION OF 36 CALDECOTT MEDAL-WINNING CHILDREN’S BOOKS
The 36 Titles Included in the Caldecott Medal-winning Children’s Book Collection Fantasy Gift:
2015: The Adventures of Beekle: The Unimaginary Friend, illustrator Dan Santat
2014: Locomotive, illustrator Brian Floca
2013: This Is Not My Hat, illustrator Jon Klassen
2012: A Ball for Daisy, illustrator Chris Raschka
2009: The House in the Night, illustrator Beth Krommes
2008: The Invention of Hugo Cabret, illustrator Brian Selznick
2007: Flotsam, illustrator David Wiesner
2006: The Hello, Goodbye Window, illustrator Chris Raschka
2005: Kitten’s First Full Moon, illustrator Kevin Henkes
2004: The Man Who Walked Between the Towers, illustrator Mordicai Gerstein
2003: My Friend Rabbit, illustrator Eric Rohmann
1999: Snowflake Bentley, illustrator Mary Azarian
1998: Rapunzel, illustrator Paul O. Zelinsky
1992: Tuesday, illustrator David Wiesner
1991: Black and White, illustrator David Macaulay
1986: The Polar Express, illustrator Chris Van Allsburg
1985: Saint George and the Dragon, illustrator Trina Schart Hyman
1982: Jumanji, illustrator Chris Van Allsburg
1981: Fables, illustrator Arnold Lobel
1978: Noah’s Ark, illustrator Peter Spier
1976: Why Mosquitoes Buzz in People’s Ears, illustrators Diane and Leo Dillon
1974: Duffy and the Devil, illustrator Margot Zemach
1973: The Funny Little Woman, illustrator Blair Lent
1964: Where the Wild Things Are, illustrator Maurice Sendak
1963: The Snowy Day, illustrator Ezra Jack Keats
1959: Chanticleer and the Fox, illustrator Barbara Cooney
1954: Madeline’s Rescue, illustrator Ludwig Bemelmans
1951: The Egg Tree, illustrator Katherine Milhous
1944: Many Moons, illustrator Louis Slobodkin
1942: Make Way for Ducklings, illustrator Robert McCloskey
1941: They Were Strong and Good, illustrator Robert Lawson
1940: Abraham Lincoln, illustrators Ingri and Edgar Parin d’Aulaire
1939: Mei Li, illustrator Thomas Handforth
With the purchase of the curated collection of 36 Caldecott Medal-winning children’s books, Neiman Marcus will donate $10,000 to The Heart of Neiman Marcus Foundation. Gift limited to one customer. Caldecott is a registered trademark of American Library Association, which does not sponsor or endorse this gift, Neiman Marcus, Johnnycake Books, or E.M. Maurice Books. ($100,000; page 122)Continue reading →
The scare season is upon us asLand of Illusion Scream Park in Middletown, Ohio opens with monsters, music and mayhem for 23 select nights this fall between September 2nd and October 30th.
The park’s 19th season will be the biggest and scariest. The spine-chilling line-up of new concerts includes national recording artists LoCash, Granger Smith, Chris Lane, Old Dominion and more. The Scream Park has also added new scenes throughout the haunted houses and trail; added a new walk up bar; and has a new expanded gift shop.
Land of Illusion’s general admission includes unlimited access to 4 terrifying haunted houses, the Middletown Haunted Trail and live entertainment that takes place every Friday and Saturday night. Season Passes are also available for unlimited admissions and all of the concerts.
Roaming zombies, mutants and the largest Killer Klown won’t help you escape from your worst nightmares and just because you’re not in a haunted house, doesn’t mean you are safe from the gruesome ghouls.
The park’s dark rides feature their own type of fun and fear. The Sniper Zombie Patrol and the freefall Demon Drop require a separate ticket.
The Zombie Sniper Patrol puts you right in the action, hunting down roving bands of unruly undead. Visitors board an army transport vehicle and take aim at the zombies with a paint-spewing pistol – as the “glow” paint-balls fly, the bodies fall. Demon Drop is an amazing 40-ft freefall experience. Visitors climb up a pole with hand and foot holds from the ground to an elevated platform 40-feet in the air with two separate platforms. You step off the platform, with safety gear, to begin your descent.
Also new this season is the Run Like Hell 5K. This is no leisurely 5K, you need to be prepared to encounter brain-hungry, virus-spreading, bloody zombies as well as anything else that may lurk in the dark. You’ll need speed, strategy and your intact brains to make it to the Finish Line “alive”. A special registration includes park admission, Zombie 5K, Zombie 5K t-shirt, concert featuring Chris Lane, medal and 1 drink ticket.
Visit www.LandofIllusion.com for hours, dates, payment details, register for the Run Like Hell 5K and to purchase admission tickets or season passes online.
PBS Confirms Premiere Date for HAMILTON’S AMERICA, a Behind-the-Scenes Special on the Making of the Tony Award-Winning Broadway Phenomenon and Centerpiece of PBS Arts Fall Festival
MASTERPIECE Offers New Seasons of “Poldark” and “Indian Summers”
Renée Fleming Performance to Headline PBS TCA Press Tour Sessions Also Featuring Josh Radnor, John Singleton and Aidan Turner, andTony Award-winner Sophie Okonedo
Election and History Specials Bring New Insights Into Past and Present
PBS’ fall 2016 primetime schedule is rich in politics, arts, drama and political history, covering a span from the American Revolution to the upcoming Presidential election. FRONTLINE’s acclaimed series “The Choice 2016”returns on September 27 with an in-depth look at this year’s presidential candidates, whileTHE CONTENDERS – 16 FOR ’16, debuting September 13, looks back at previous elections through the stories of former candidates. History and politics carry over into the arts with “Hamilton’s America” from GREAT PERFORMANCES, an intimate look at the making of the wildly successful Broadway production of Hamilton, winner of 11 Tony Awards and the Pulitzer Prize, which kicks off the sixth season of the PBS ARTS FALL FESTIVAL on October 21. Fall 2016 also brings the highly–anticipated return of “Poldark” on MASTERPIECE (date TBA), whose Season 2 continues the story of Captain Ross Poldark (Aidan Turner) in a love story set in windswept Cornwall of the late 1700s. On September 6, PBS presents 9/11 INSIDE THEPENTAGON, a documentary that goes behind the scenes at the Pentagon on September 11, 2001, and airs in commemoration of the 15th anniversary of the attack [VIEW CLIP]. On September 20, Ken Burns’s DEFYING THE NAZIS: THE SHARPS’ WAR tells the moving story of an American couple who rescued hundreds trying to escape the Nazis [VIEW CLIP].
As part of PBS’ commitment to education, the fall season will kick off with “SPOTLIGHT EDUCATION”, a week of primetime programming focused on the challenges facing America’s education system. Starting Monday, Sept.12, PBS will lead a national dialogue on-air, online and across communities, exploring ideas and solutions to improve outcomes for all of America’s youth. National broadcast programs include POV “All the Difference,” TED TALKS “Education Revolution,” [VIEW CLIP] FRONTLINE “The Diploma Mill,” (w.t.), NOVA “School of the Future,” CRAFT IN AMERICA “Teachers” andTIME FOR SCHOOL. Funding for these programs is provided by the Corporation for Public Broadcasting (CPB), in partnership with PBS, as part of the public media initiative, “American Graduate: Let’s Make It Happen.”
On October 25, “Norman Lear: Just Another Version of You” on AMERICAN MASTERS celebrates the life of the acclaimed, and often controversial, TV writer and producer. In BLACK AMERICA SINCE MLK: AND STILL I RISE, which debuts in two-parts on November 15 and November 22, acclaimed scholar Henry Louis Gates, Jr. explores the last 50 years of African-American history, looking at culture, politics and an ever-changing racial landscape to explore the remarkable progress, daunting setbacks and deep contradictions of black America. ANNE OF GREEN GABLES, a new feature film starring Martin Sheen and based on the iconic book by L.M. Montgomery, will air on Thanksgiving night, November 24.
As part of PBS’ partnership with NPR to cover the 2016 elections, the 2016Campaign Connectionsite offers a round-up of election coverage from across public media. FRONTLINE’s“The Choice 2016” and THE CONTENDERS – 16 FOR ’16 are part of the PBS ELECTION 2016 lineup, which brings together venerable news and public affairs shows with new programs and specials to offer viewers information and insights about the 2016 elections, the candidates and key issues for voters. PBS NEWSHOUR,WASHINGTON WEEK WITH GWEN IFILL and PBSNEWSHOUR WEEKEND will provide distinctive coverage of the ongoing national, state and local campaigns, as well as presidential and vice presidential debates. On election night, PBS NEWSHOUR will offer live coverage of national and local results.
“PBS’ fall programming truly stands out for its amazing variety, quality and diversity,” said Beth Hoppe, PBS’ Chief Programming Executive and General Manager. “Like the artists who populate our Friday primetime cultural programs this fall, PBS brings new perspectives to stories both well-known and untold. PBS viewers will discover everything from joyous musical creations to thoughtful approaches to presidential elections, learn from biographies of acclaimed Americans and find inspiration even in history’s darkest hours.”
MASTERPIECE enhances PBS’ Sunday night drama block with the September 11 debut of CHURCHILL’S SECRET, with Emmy® Award-winner Michael Gambon as Winston Churchill in an all-star production based on a little-known incident in Churchill’s illustrious life. Following CHURCHILL’S SECRET on September 11 is INDIAN SUMMERS, set during the tumultuous period of British Colonialism in the 1930s. Rachel Griffiths and Art Malik join Julie Walters, Henry Lloyd-Hughes, and Nikesh Patel for Season 2 of the picturesque series. POLDARK, starring Aidan Turner in a love story set in windswept Cornwall in the late 1700s, returns for a second highly-anticipated season (date TBA).
The PBS Arts Fall Festival kicks off on October 21, and continues with a number of new programs on Friday nights throughout the fall. Joining “Hamilton’s America” from GREAT PERFORMANCES are Imelda Staunton as the iconic Momma Rose in a British revival of the classic American musical “Gypsy” and “Shakespeare Live! From the Royal Shakespeare Company.” LIVE FROM LINCOLN CENTER returns to the festival this year with “Alvin Ailey American Dance Theater” and pianist “Lang Lang’s New York Rhapsody.” Full broadcast dates and several other programs that are part of the PBS Arts Fall Festival will be announced later. SOUNDBREAKING: STORIES FROM THE CUTTING EDGE OF RECORDED MUSIC, an eight-episode series that explores how cutting edge technology combines with human artistry to create modern recorded music, premieres on November 14. ART IN THE 21ST CENTURY, hosted by Claire Danes and produced by ART21 premieres a new season on September 16.
PBS will unveil many of these new shows at the Television Critics Association Press Tour July 28 and 29 with a range of stars from the worlds of arts and politics. Talent appearing at the TCA includeJenna Coleman, Tom Hughes, Rufus Sewell andDaisy Goodwin for MASTERPIECE “Victoria”;Aidan Turner, Heida Reed andEleanor Tomlinson for Season 2 of “Poldark” on MASTERPIECE; Ken Burns for DEFYING THE NAZIS: THE SHARPS’ WAR; McKinley Belcher III, Gary Cole, Hannah James andJosh Radnor for MERCY STREET Season 2; Tom Sturridge,Sophie Okonedo and award-winning directorDominic Cooke forGREAT PERFORMANCES “The Hollow Crown: The Wars of the Roses”; andHenry Louis Gates, Jr. for BLACK AMERICA SINCE MLK: AND STILL I RISE. A panel introducing THE CONTENDERS – 16 FOR ’16 will feature series producerCarlos Watson (host of the weekly PBS talk show POINT TAKEN) and several of the politicians who appear in the series, which showcases the memorable presidential and vice presidential campaigns of Howard Dean, Michael Dukakis, Ralph Nader and John McCain, among others. PBS will also welcomeKenya Barris, creator and executive producer of black-ish, and Oscar-nominated filmmaker John Singleton on a panel for THE TALK. PBS is delighted to feature a special performance by celebrated soprano and music ambassador Renée Fleming. The star of many PBS productions, Ms. Fleming most recently was featured in PBS’ National Memorial Day Concert in Washington, DC. Her next project, which she curated, will be the broadcast of Lyric Opera of Chicago’s “Bel Canto” onGREAT PERFORMANCES (airdate TBA). Other talent and performers will be announced later.
A chronological listing of Fall 2016 PBS programs follows, grouped by month and premiere date:
SEPTEMBER ON PBS:
POV “The Birth of Saké”– Go behind the scenes at Japan’s Yoshida Brewery, where a brotherhood of artisans, ranging from 20 to 70, spend six months in nearly monastic isolation as they follow an age-old process to create saké, the nation’s revered rice wine.Monday, September 5, 10-11 p.m. ET
9/11 INSIDE THE PENTAGON – On September 11, 2001 at 9:37 a.m. American Flight 77 slammed into the Pentagon killing 184 people. What happened behind the walls of the Pentagon is a largely untold chapter in history. Fifteen years later, survivors and first responders shed light on that tragic day. Tuesday, September 6, 8-9 p.m. ET
AMERICA BY THE NUMBERS: THE NEW DECIDERS– Learn how Asian-American, black millennial, Arab-American, and Latino evangelical voters are exerting their growing strength and influence in this 2016 election special about power and politics, demographics and democracy. Tuesday, September 6, 10-11 p.m. ET
CHURCHILL’S SECRET ON MASTERPIECE – Michael Gambon (The Singing Detective, Harry Potter) stars as Winston Churchill in this dramatization of Churchill’s life-threatening stroke in the summer of 1953, when he was prime minister for the second time. His illness and battle to recover were kept secret from the world. Lindsay Duncan (Birdman) plays Churchill’s wife Clementine, and Romola Garai (The Hour) is the remarkable young nurse who cared for him. Sunday, September 11, 8-10 pm ET
INDIAN SUMMERS ON MASTERPIECE – It’s 1935 in Simla—an Indian retreat for British colonials set in the Himalayas. An assassination attempt on the Viceroy Lord Willingdon (Patrick Malahide), and the surprise arrival of Lord Hawthorne (James Fleet, Outlander), puts Ralph’s (Henry Lloyd-Hughes) future in the balance. Meanwhile, Cynthia’s (Julie Walters) Royal Simla Club plays host to an important royal guest, the Maharaja Maritpur (Art Malik, Upstairs Downstairs) and his elegant and mysterious mistress Sirene (Rachel Griffiths, Brothers & Sisters). Sundays, September 11-November 20, 10-11 p.m. ETContinue reading →
Cunard, Blue Note Records, and Blue Note Jazz Clubs are excited to welcome Grammy® Award-winning artists on two Cunard Blue Note Jazz at Sea Transatlantic Crossings aboard the Queen Mary 2 in 2016.This is on one of those special sailings and you will experience the best of jazz along with Cunard’s traditional entertainment offerings, on the grandest ocean liner in the world.
Blue Note Jazz at Sea in 2016 – Gregory Porter, Dee Dee Bridgewater and Herbie Hancock
Grammy® Award-winning artist, Herbie Hancock will join the Queen Mary 2 on the 1 August 2016 “Jazz at Sea” Transatlantic Crossing. The multi Grammy Award winning star will perform three, 45-minute intimate shows in The Royal Court Theatre. During the westbound Transatlantic Crossing Hancock will be joined by band members, drummer Vinnie Colaiuta, bassist James Genus and guitarist Lionel Loueke.
Bridgewater is a Triple Grammy® Award Winner, a TONY® Winner, a UN Goodwill Ambassador, producer, record label head, and much more. Widely celebrated for her depth of artistry across mediums, Bridgewater will perform three intimate, powerhouse shows in The Royal Court Theatre as well as a Q&A session on board Queen Mary 2’s7-night crossing.
Bridgewater’s career spans more than four decades, and began with her phenomenal debut in New York City in 1970 as the lead vocalist for the band led by Thad Jones and Mel Lewis, one of the premier jazz orchestras of the day. Bridgewater marked an early career in concerts and recordings with musical giants including Dizzy Gillespie, before beginning a career on Broadway, where she won a Tony Award for her role as Glinda the Good Witch in The Wiz. Her time on Broadway led to work in Tokyo, Los Angeles, Paris, and beyond. In London’s West End, she garnered a coveted “Laurence Olivier” Award nomination as Best Actress for her tour de force portrayal of jazz legend Billie Holiday in Stephen Stahl’sLady Day.
Bridgewater joins booming baritone Gregory Porter on the Transatlantic Crossing. Fellow jazz musician Gregory Porter is also a Grammy® Winner and was awarded “International Jazz Artist of the Year” in 2015 by Jazz FM. (Porter’s upcoming participation was announced in November, 2015).
Jazz, soul and gospel singer, songwriter and actor Gregory Porter was born in Los Angeles, California and grew up in Bakersfield, California, where his mother was a minister. As a child, he fell under the spell of his mother’s Nat King Cole records, learning to imitate and sing like Cole. Luckily, this charismatic artist is here to breathe life, vitality, fun, excitement, passion and honesty into the musical genres he has loved from boyhood. Flutist Hubert Laws featured Porter’s vocals on his 1998 album, “Remembers the Unforgettable Nat King Cole.” Laws’ sister, Eloise Laws, helped him get cast as one of the leads in a new musical “It Ain’t Nothing But the Blues,” which eventually enjoyed a run on Broadway. His debut album, Water, appeared in 2010, and was followed by a second, “Be Good,” released two years later in 2012. Gregory’s latest album “Liquid Spirit” won last year’s Grammy Award for Best Jazz vocal album and reached the top 10 on the UK charts. Gregory was recognised this year by Jazz FM as “International Jazz Artist of the Year” and is described by the New York Times as “a jazz singer of thrilling presence, a booming baritone with a gift for earthy refinement and soaring uplift.”
“I am thrilled to join Cunard and Blue Note for such a unique musical experience on board Queen Mary 2,” said Bridgewater. “To me, jazz symbolizes liberty and freedom of expression, and I look forward to sharing this jazz experience with guests on board and with my dear friend, Mr. Gregory Porter.”Continue reading →
A Behind-the-Scenes Look At Lin-Manuel Miranda’s Broadway Musical Hamilton Coming to GREAT PERFORMANCES in Fall 2016 as Part of PBS Arts
Produced by Radical Media, The Performance Documentary Features Scenes From “Hamilton” And Interviews With Key Thinkers And Artists
PBS President and CEO Paula Kerger announced at the recent Television Critics Association Press Tour that it will air HAMILTON’S AMERICA, a feature film documentary providing intimate access to Lin-Manuel Miranda and his colleagues during the two years leading up to the Broadway opening of the blockbuster hit musical Hamilton. A contemporary perspective of Lin-Manuel Miranda’s revolutionary musical based on the life of United States Founding Father Alexander Hamilton, HAMILTON’S AMERICAwill come to GREAT PERFORMANCES in the fall 2016, and will be a highlight of PBS’s Arts programming.
Hamilton The Musical Official Broadway Poster
Hamilton was a poor immigrant who built himself up from nothing to become the architect of modern finance and one of the nation’s most vital authors, but his story was cut short by scandal and untimely tragedy. He was killed in a duel by Vice President Aaron Burr, and his contributions to modern society have largely been forgotten by today’s general public.
Today, Hamilton’s fan club is vocal and growing, and at the center of it is Tony®, Grammy® and Emmy®-winning composer and actor Lin-Manuel Miranda.
Screenshot from Hamilton! The musical
Hamiltonopened on Broadway on August 6, 2015 to rave reviews and unprecedented advance ticket sales. The show is redefining how audiences learn about history–a history rife with issues as relevant today as they were during Hamilton’s era.
Based on Ron Chernow’s biography, Hamilton has book, music and lyrics by Lin-Manuel Miranda, is directed by Thomas Kail, choreographed by Andy Blankenbuehler, with musical direction and orchestrations by Alex Lacamoire.
HAMILTON’S AMERICA is being produced by Academy Award® and Emmy®-Winning producers Radical Media (What Happened Miss Simone?, Keith Richards:Under The Influence, In the Heights: Chasing Broadway Dreams for PBS). The documentary combines interviews with experts and prominent personalities, new footage of the production in New York, and cast-led expeditions to DC, Philadelphia and New York. Audiences will sit with Miranda as he composes songs in Aaron Burr’s Manhattan bedroom. They’ll take a trip to Virginia with Chris Jackson – the African-American actor who portrays George Washington – and watch him place a wreath on Washington’s grave, as he discusses the difficulty of grappling with our founders’ legacy of slavery. Back in New York, Miranda and Leslie Odom, Jr. – who plays Aaron Burr – visit the Museum of American Finance to get their hands on some 19th-century dueling pistols and stage a quick re-enactment.
“PBS is thrilled to give viewers an exclusive behind-the-scenes look at this sensational—and sold out—Broadway musical,” said Beth Hoppe, Chief Programming Executive and General Manager, General Audience Programming, PBS. “With this level of access to Lin-Manuel Miranda and his team, PBS continues to live up to our mission of giving viewers a backstage pass and a front row seat to the arts.”
“Since we presented ‘In the Heights: Chasing Broadway Dreams’ in 2009, we’ve been taken by Lin-Manuel’s unique talents and we’re honored to collaborate with him again on ‘Hamilton’s America’,” said David Horn, Executive Producer, “Great Performances.” “The film will offer audiences a fascinating point of view as we witness first-hand Lin’s inspiration and creative process, as well as the lasting impact of Alexander Hamilton on our society today.”
“On behalf of the entire Hamilton cast and creative team, many of whom are In The Heights alumni, we are overjoyed to be returning to PBS in partnership with RadicalMedia with this project,” said Lin-Manuel Miranda, the creator, writer and star of Hamilton.“We invited filmmaker Alex Horwitz into ‘the room where it happened’ a few years ago, and he’s captured parts of this journey no one has seen. We can’t wait to share it, thanks to PBS.”
Produced by Radical Media in association with Thirteen Productions LLC for WNET and PBS, HAMILTON’S AMERICAis directed by Alex Horwitz and produced by Nicole Pusateri, with Jon Kamen, Justin Wilkes, Dave Sirulnick, Jeffrey Seller and Lin-Manuel Miranda as executive producers. For GREAT PERFORMANCES, Bill O’Donnell is series producer; David Horn is executive producer.
GREAT PERFORMANCES is funded by the Irene Diamond Fund, the Anna-Maria and Stephen Kellen Arts Fund, The Joseph & Robert Cornell Memorial Foundation, The LuEsther T. Mertz Charitable Trust, Rosalind P. Walter, The Agnes Varis Trust, The Starr Foundation, the Kate W. Cassidy Foundation, Ellen and James S. Marcus, the Philip and Janice Levin Foundation, the Lenore Hecht Foundation, and PBS.
Visit Great Performances Onlineat www.pbs.org/gperf for additional information about this and other programs.
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