Summer Guide 2010: Music
SummerStage
SummerStage turns 25 this year, and like any true twentysomething it’s going all out to celebrate, as the Central Park summer staple expands to all five boroughs. See free shows from The xx, St. Vincent, Public Enemy and Jay Electronica, while others from Pavement, The Flaming Lips and Hot Chips will cost you.
June 1 through Aug. 29, various locations, 212-360-2756; Free. Read more
No Wallflower: Symphony Space’s Laura Kaminsky
Symphony Space is known for presenting music marathons that are unforgettable for any culture vulture. May 15, the 12-hour “Wall to Wall Behind the Wall” will include world and U.S. premieres, along with rare works by world-renowned and emerging composers from the Soviet Union and Communist-era Eastern Europe. It’s the brainchild of Symphony Space’s associate artistic director Laura Kaminsky, who will become the institutions’ director July 1. We caught up with Kaminsky, who grew up on West 79th Street between Amsterdam and Columbus avenues, to find out why Russia, why now. Read more
Lofts Ain’t What They Used to Be
By Howard Mandel
Time was a Manhattan jazz loft, a downbeat, drafty, dingy, semi-dangerous place, was where you might hear anything, meet anyone and afterward end up anywhere. That’s why you dropped by. Today the Manhattan jazz loft is different: renovated, formalized, upscale.
But drift back to the Jazz Loft, a bohemian hangout in the flower district from the mid-1950s to the mid-’60s, where eccentric geniuses, slumming celebrities, the contentiously brilliant and attractive hangers-on rubbed shoulders, crossed genres and created sparks. Read more
A MetroStar Is Born
By Dustin Fitzharris
“I’m sweating my ass off,” Anne Steele murmurs in between slinging some cocktails on a tray. And you can’t blame her.
The animated and whimsical 36-year-old blond is dressed in paint-spotted jeans and a black, low-cut top as she takes drink orders. While running to the bar to pick them up, she smears on the lip-gloss she always keeps handy, checks her BlackBerry (protected in a hot pink case) and juggles a microphone so she can provide some harmony to the tunes being sung at the piano. Read more
Al Fresco Opera
By Kevin Filipski
As the summer festival closest to Manhattan—it’s 45 minutes by car (traffic willing), train or bus—Caramoor is the place to go to hear wonderful music in an idyllic outdoor setting of gorgeously landscaped gardens. For the past dozen years, musicologist turned conductor Will Crutchfield has been leading the acclaimed Bel Canto at Caramoor series there, presenting revivals of 19th-century Italian operas by Donizetti, Rossini and Bellini, all sung by artists at home in this repertoire. Read more
Voigt Preps for a ‘Vocal Challenge’
By Kevin Filipski
Soprano Deborah Voigt has risen to the top of the opera world by singing the parts of the demanding, dramatic heroines in the operas of Richard Wagner and Richard Strauss.
So is taking on the title role in Alceste, a baroque work by Christoph Willibald Gluck that will be performed by The Collegiate Chorale on May 26, a true departure for her?
“That would be absolutely correct!” the Upper West Side resident laughs in response. “I learned this role nearly 20 years ago when I understudied for Jessye Norman at The Lyric Opera of Chicago. She seemed to be sick every day, but she never got quite ill enough to cancel, so I never sang the part.” Read more
IT’S STILL HER PARTY
By Betty Ming Liu
Back in 1963, 16-year-old pop sensation Lesley Gore topped the charts with “It’s My Party.” So whatever happened to the chirpy strawberry blonde with the beehive hairdo?
How about this storyline: the nice, multi-tasking Jewish girl from affluent Tenafly, N.J., went on to graduate from Sarah Lawrence College (major: English and American Literature) and rack up another two dozen or so hits. When that gig waned, she turned to acting in summer stock, singing on the club circuit and discovering that she’s gay. Read more
MUMFORD SIGNS HER FAVORITES
By Kevin Filipski
Although mezzo-soprano Tamara Mumford has been associated with the Metropolitan Opera since graduating from its Young Artist Program, it’s another Met that she’ll be calling home this weekend. The 27-year-old Utah native makes her first solo concert appearance at the Metropolitan Museum of Art on Saturday, March 21. Read more
THE PIRATE’S RETURN
Interviewed, edited and condensed by Deirdre Donovan
European cabaret legend Ute Lemper is making Joe’s Pub her second home for the last two weeks of November, headlining in her new show “Pirate Jenny Comes Back.” The chanteuse will be singing a pastiche of Kurt Weill’s works, Berlin Cabaret Songs, French chanson, contemporary American classics and a few selections from her self-penned album Between Yesterday and Tomorrow.
The German-born singer, who lives on the Upper West Side, has played at countless venues in New York, including the Carlyle Hotel, Carnegie Hall and the Delacorte Theater. Read more
GIOVANNI’S ‘TRUTH’ COMES TO THE IRIDIUM
By Christopher Moore
The hamburger is not good, the overflow crowd of tourists from Ellen’s Stardust Diner upstairs creates precisely the wrong vibe and the amplification seems excessive. But there’s a fantastic time to be had with the sweet combination of Capathia Jenkins and Louis Rosen, now playing at the Iridium Jazz Club.
She’s a blow-’em-away Broadway musical star who turns out to be a sophisticated and subtle musical artist. He’s a well-regarded songwriter with a charming, understated stage style. Together, they’re simultaneously adorable and smart. They delve bravely into challenging material. Read more
