June 2004

A wide variety of aural excitment, from classical fate to funky fun, awaits those who don't flee on vacations  

Pity the folks who flee Manhattan for posh summer retreats. While they contend with traffic-clogged country lanes, disease-carrying insects and the Hilton sisters, those who stay behind have their pick of sparkling musical offerings, served up in air-conditioned bliss or in the city's glorious outdoor spaces.

International Keyboard Institute & Festival
In terms of bang for the buck, few summer series top Mannes College of Music's International Keyboard Institute & Festival (July 11-25), offering accessibly priced concerts by both piano legends and up-and-coming stars.

Festival director Jerome Rose gets things started with towering sonatas by Schubert and Brahms (July 11) and accompanies tenor Jon Frederic West in Schubert's desolate "Die Winterreise" (July 22). Pavlina Dokovska offers an all-Schumann program (July 13), while Peter Frankl plays Schubert's C-minor sonata and music of Schubert, Schumann and Chopin (July 21).

Lovers of Beethoven's transcendent late sonatas can choose among concerts by Jeffrey Swann (July 15) and Michael Oelbaum (July 23) and poetic virtuoso Fabio Bidini's program juxtaposing Beethoven's Opus 109 sonata with works by Chopin and Debussy (July 12).

Of special interest: Earl Wild, 88, playing works ranging from Haydn to Respighi (July 17); Jay Gottlieb performing 21st-century music (also July 17); a master class led by Alicia de Larrocha (July 20); and Menachem Pressler and the Beaux Arts Trio in music by Beethoven, Debussy, Fauré and Schubert (July 24).

Mannes is at 150 W. 85th St., Manhattan. Visit www.ikif.org or call 212-580-0210, ext. 336.

Lincoln Center Festival
This genre-busting, geographically sweeping shindig brings a touch of BAM-like flair to the heart of Manhattan's musical establishment. In addition to dance and spoken-theater offerings from around the globe, the 2004 festival includes a number of musical events that defy categorization.

For the North American premiere of Sir John Taverner's all-night choral work, "The Veil of the Temple," Avery Fisher Hall will become a contemplative space, with musicians positioned on the first and second tiers and most orchestra seats removed, allowing listeners to sit or stand as light and sound wash over them. Combining Eastern Orthodox, Sufi and Hindu motifs, the work takes its inspiration from the traditional all-night Easter vigil and calls for 120 choristers, organ, brass, percussion, and Asian and Eastern European instruments (July 24).

Musical theater offerings include Nathan Lane's adaptation of Stephen Sondheim's "The Frogs," based on Aristophanes' comedy and last performed in a Yale University pool in 1974. Tony-Award winner Susan Stroman directs this revival, for which Sondheim composed several new songs. The show, currently in previews at the Vivian Beaumont Theater, opens July 22 and continues its run through Oct. 10. Nicholas Brooke's world premiere opera "Tone Test," based on Thomas Edison's phonographic demonstrations, explores the boundaries between original and replica in a soundscape encompassing live music, electronics and recordings of Edison's day (July 22-24). A traditional Kabuki tent in Damrosch Park will house the ensemble Nakamura-za's performance of "The Summer Festival: A Mirror of Osaka," the high-spirited tale of a young nobleman intent on marrying a courtesan (July 17-25).

Multimedia artist DJ Spooky curates "TransMetropolitan," a program of Fourth World compositions mixing world music and cutting-edge sound environments (July 21), and "Rebirth of a Nation," a remix of D.W. Griffith's racist film (July 23-24). Ensemble Sospeso performs original music by Joshua Cody, Kirk Noreen, Wolfgang Rihm and Elliott Sharp for Luis Buñuel and Salvador Dalí's 1929 silent film "Un chien andalou" (July 22).

Finally, the festival pays tribute to Elvis Costello, whose first full-length orchestral work, "Il Sogno" (for a ballet of Shakespeare's "A Midsummer Night's Dream"), receives its North American premiere (July 17). Costello performs orchestral songs with the Netherlands Metropole Orkest (July 13) and jams with The Imposters (July 15).

Concerts are held at various Lincoln Center venues. Visit www.lincolncenter.org or call 212-721-6500.

Lincoln Center Out of Doors
The offerings in this free, funky, multicultural festival range from concerts by jazz giants Sonny Rollins and Chick Corea to puppet pageants, interactive hula and yoga events. Music fans willing to have their minds blown will find much to enjoy, starting with a concert of overtone singing by the monks of Tibet's Drepung Loseling Monastery (Aug. 12).

Chamber music offerings include programs of traditional and contemporary Japanese works for shakuhachi (a wooden flute) and koto (a 13-string zither) (Aug. 15); the Gerard Edery Ensemble in the poignant, lilting songs of the Sephardic Jews (Aug. 18); and Persian classical music by Bronx-born poet, singer and instrumentalist Haale (Aug. 26). Agatsuma, a master of the lute-like shamisen, performs his exhilarating fusion of classical music, jazz and pop (Aug. 27).

The festival runs Aug. 10-30, with events in Damrosch Park and on the Lincoln Center plazas. Visit www.lincolncenter.org or call 212-875-5766.

Mostly Mozart Festival
Two years after a musicians' strike deep-sixed most of its offerings, Mostly Mozart looks to be sailing into prosperous waters with Louis Langrée at the helm. The Alsatian's second season as music director opens with an all-Mozart gala featuring Yefim Bronfman in the turbulent C-minor piano concerto and winsome mezzo-soprano Magdalena Kozená (Aug. 3-4).

Two spit-and-polish period-instrument bands, the Freiburg Baroque Orchestra (Aug. 5) and the Orchestra of the Age of Enlightenment (Aug. 7-8), will play Bach and others. Director Jonathan Miller's sassy modern-dress staging of Mozart's "Cosí fan tutte" (first seen last year at BAM) will make a welcome return, with Québec's scintillating Les Violons du Roy under Bernard Labadie (Aug. 10, 12, 14).

Starry soloists include violinist Joshua Bell (Aug. 20-21) and pianists Katia and Marielle Labèque (Aug. 6-7), Christian Zacharias (Aug. 10-11), Emmanuel Ax (Aug. 19) and Garrick Ohlsson (Aug. 24-25). The Mark Morris Dance Group performs to Monteverdi, Haydn and Bach (Aug. 19, 21), while Belgian choreographer Anne Teresa De Keersmaeker leads her ensemble, Rosas, in an all-Mozart program (Aug. 25, 27-28).

New this year are a film series showcasing legendary pianists (Aug. 16 and 23); late-night all-Bach concerts by soulful cellist Pieter Wispelwey (Aug. 10-12) and violin phenomenon Christian Tetzlaff (Aug. 17); an interactive, animal-themed family event with composer and commentator Robert Kapilow (Aug. 21); and a program setting Mozart's haunting Requiem alongside Persian and Indian sacred music (Aug. 27).

Concerts are held at various Lincoln Center venues. Visit www.lincolncenter.org or call 212-875-5776.

New York Grand Opera
Maestro Vincent La Selva and his merry band offer opera al fresco that is more scrappily played than in the Met in the Parks series, but also fully staged and served up with pluck and passion. Following their monumental traversal of Verdi's operas and several seasons centering on rarities, they turn to three beloved masterworks: Puccini's "Turandot" and "Tosca" (Aug. 11 and Sept. 9) and Verdi's "Rigoletto" (Aug. 19).

Free performances start at 7:30 p.m. at the Central Park Bandshell (72nd Street entrance). Visit www.newyorkgrandopera.org or call 212-245-8837.

New York Guitar Seminar at Mannes
The Upper West Side will swing to steamy ritmos brasilieros during the New York Guitar Seminar at Mannes. Brazilian virtuosos Celso Machado (July 6), Fabio Zanon (July 7) and Carlos Barbosa-Lima (July 8) headline this year's concerts, which also feature the Guitar Project, Mario Ulloa and Croatian master Srdjan Berdovic (July 9).

The seminar runs July 6-10. Visit www.mannes.edu/guitar or call 212-580-0210, ext. 285.