Concrete tulip pillars welcome visitors to Little Island, which just announced its summer performance season (photo by twi-ny/mdr)
LITTLE ISLAND SUMMER SHOWS
The Amph at Little Island
Pier 55, Hudson River Park at West Thirteenth St.
July 29 – September 6, $25 unless otherwise noted, 8:30 littleisland.org
In 2015, Barry Diller and Diane von Furstenberg cemented their local legacy by donating $113 million to Little Island, a lovely paradise built on the remnants of a ramshackle pier at West Thirteenth St.
Little Island is a warm and welcoming oasis rising more than 60 feet above the Hudson River; it is shaped like a large leaf, bursting with more than 350 species of flowers, trees, and shrubs, a 687-seat amphitheater for live performances known as the Amph, the Play Ground plaza where you can get food and drink, and stage and lawn space called the Glade. More than 66,000 bulbs and 114 trees were initially planted, taking into account the changing seasons and even the differences in light between morning, afternoon, and night. It all sits upon 132 concrete pillars of varying heights that resemble high heels or slightly warped tulip Champagne glasses.
Lovers of the live arts have been waiting impatiently for the announcement of Little Island’s summer schedule, and at last it is here. There are only seven presentations, so it’s not nearly as expansive as previous years, but you better act quickly, because tickets are only $25 (and free for the Summer Legacy Ball). Below is the full schedule.
Wednesday, July 29
Thursday, July 30
Friday, July 31 Justin Vivian Bond: Summer’s Eve, with Justin Vivian Bond, Bernice “Boom Boom” Brooks on drums, Nath Ann Carrera on guitar, Claudia Chopek on violin, Mike Jackson on bass, and Matt Ray on piano
Saturday, August 1 Summer Legacy Ball, hosted by Qween Jean, with honorees Miss Major Griffin-Gracy, Boom Boom Balenciaga, Kiara St. James, and Brenda Continental Milan Soulja, preachers Samora Pinderhughes and Dr. Jehbreal Jackson, MCs Julz Romell and Thunda, performer Haus of Telfar, panelists Luna Luis, Tracey Africa Norman, and Mother Pandora West, ball DJ Blaize, and afterparty DJ DANIRO, free
Wednesday, August 5
through
Sunday, August 9 Anthony Roth Costanzo: Minimalism, with countertenor Anthony Roth Costanzo and different formations of Sandbox Percussion, Bryan Wagorn or Vicky Chow on piano, PUBLIQuartet, and mezzo-soprano Rachael Wilson
Wednesday, August 12
through
Sunday, August 16 Cécile McLorin Salvant: Tin Pan Alley, with different lineups including vocalists Lillias White, Cécile McLorin Salvant, and Mikaela Bennett, Billy Stritch on piano, Kyle Poole or Buddy Williams on drums, George Coleman on sax, Sullivan Fortner on piano, and Paul Sikivie on bass
Wednesday, August 19
through
Sunday, August 23 Louis Cato: The Harlem Renaissance, with bandleader Louis Cato on guitar, vocalist Catherine Russell, Louis Fouché on alto sax, Alphonso Horne on trumpet, Philip Kuehn on bass, Jeffrey Miller on trombone, Tivon Pennicott on tenor sax, Mathis Picard on piano, and Evan Sherman on drums, featuring recorded interviews with Ron Carter, Catherine Russell, and others
Saturday, August 29
and
Sunday, August 30 Julio Torres & Martine Gutierrez: Marina, conceived by Julio Torres & Martine Gutierrez, written and directed by Julio Torres, composed by Lia Ouyand Rusli, choreographed by Ryan McNamara, and starring Martine Gutierrez, River L. Ramirez, Spike Einbinder, Brandon Flynn, Scully James, and more, commissioned for the Whitney Biennial
Wednesday, September 2
through
Sunday, September 6 Thomas Bartlett: Allen Ginsberg at 100, with various configurations including curator Thomas Bartlett on piano, consultant Laurie Anderson, poet Anne Waldman, Oren Bloedow on guitar, Jason Burger on drums, vocalists Jennifer Charles and Davóne Tines, Spencer Murphy on bass, and Douglas Wieselman on sax, featuring special guests Rufus Wainwright on September 2, Bill Frisell on September 3, and others to be announced
[Mark Rifkin is a Brooklyn-born, Manhattan-based writer; you can follow him on Substack here.]
Pianist Min Kwon reimagines “America the Beautiful” at Chelsea Music Festival
CHELSEA MUSIC FESTIVAL: EVERY STORY COUNTS
St. Paul’s German Church and other venues
June 20-27, $65-$150, season pass $500 chelseamusicfestival.org
“This season, our theme, ‘Every Story Counts,’ draws inspiration from the phrase ‘Every Vote Counts,’ where each person’s vote is dignified and counted in a democracy,” 2026 Chelsea Music Festival artistic directors Melinda Lee Masur and Ken-David Masur said in a statement. “This summer, we celebrate the power of music and storytelling to preserve and elevate the voices of people from all walks of life in America. As we contemplate America’s 250th anniversary, we welcome the voices of composers, musicians, artists, chefs, and creators who contribute to the cultural fabric of this country and strive to elevate our shared humanity. Our hope is to continue providing a stage and safe haven for the exchange of ideas and differences, and a fertile ground for artistic collaborations between the performing, visual, and culinary arts.”
The seventeenth annual event, running June 20–27, consists of nine special presentations, with seventeen New York premieres and two world premieres; tickets for some are near capacity or already sold out, so you better hurry if you want to be part of this year’s fest.
Invitation to Love — Opening Night with Clara Osowski
St. Paul’s German Church
315 West Twenty-Second St.
Saturday, June 20, $85, 7:00 chelseamusicfestival.org
Mezzo-soprano Clara Osowski and pianists Dimitri Dover and Melinda Lee Masur lead a six-piece ensemble in an evening of works that explore the American immigrant experience and the poetry of Langston Hughes and Paul Laurence Dunbar, comprising Mark Carlson’s Stars — The Dream Keeper, Aaron Copland’s Three Old American Songs, Erich Wolfgang Korngold’s Three Songs, Libby Larsen’s This Unbearable Stillness: Songs from the Balcony, Reinaldo Moya’s DREAM Songs, Frederick Piket’s The Dream Keeper, Damien Sneed’s All Night, All Day and I Dream A World, and Steven Ward’s Invitation to Love.
Mark Twain–inspired Southern Sunday Brunch
City Winery Bistro
25 Eleventh Ave.
Sunday, June 21, $100, 12:30 chelseamusicfestival.org
Food and drink aren’t the only things on the menu at this City Winery brunch with Melinda Lee Masur and Ken-David Masur, joined by director, writer, and producer Bill Barclay for a talk about the making of Copland & Twain (see below), along with music by violinists Yuyu Ikeda and Carlos Rafael Martinez Arroyo. Oh, yes, there is food and drink as well; the menu features buttermilk biscuits, buttermilk fried chicken and waffle, farm egg scramble, Saratoga potatoes, heirloom tomato, and warm apple pie.
America/Beautiful
St. Paul’s German Church
315 West Twenty-Second St.
Monday, June 22, $65, 7:00 chelseamusicfestival.org
During the pandemic, pianist Min Kwon initiated her America/Beautiful project, in which she asked more than seventy composers around the country, “What is America — is it beautiful, was it ever, or will it ever be?” Some of the results will be heard when she teams up with pianists Timo Andres, Chaihun Kim, and Jorges Tabarés and violinist Claire Bourg to perform America-themed works by Stewart Copeland, Vijay Iyer, Nico Muhly, and others, accompanied by landscape photography by Park Joon.
Verona Quartet at Poets House
Poets House
10 River Terr.
Tuesday, June 23, pay-what-you-wish, 7:00 chelseamusicfestival.org
The Verona Quartet — Jonathan Ong and Dorothy Ro on violin, Abigail Rojansky on viola, and Jonathan Dormand on cello — perform Philip Glass’s String Quartet No. 2 “Company,” George Walker’s Lyric for String Quartet, Jerod Impichchaachaaha’ Tate’s MoonStrike, and arranger Peter Myers’s Twenties Tunes Jazz Suite, with narration by Byron Singleton and poetry from Wayne Koestenbaum, followed by a wine reception.
American Street Food Stories with Chef Hinnerk von Bargen
St. Paul’s German Church
315 West Twenty-Second St.
Wednesday, June 24, $75, 7:00 chelseamusicfestival.org
CIA professor and Street Foods author Hinnerk von Bargen hosts an evening of culinary delights from street food stalls, including sloopy bun, curry wurst, cold Sichuan-style sesame noodles, and fruit sandos.
Aaron Copland and Mark Twain join forces in unique theatrical concert
Copland & Twain — A Theatrical Concert
Open Jar Studios
1601 Broadway, floor 11
Thursday, June 25, $150, 7:00 chelseamusicfestival.org
One of the highlights of the festival is Bill Barclay’s Copland & Twain — A Theatrical Concert, a genius pairing of Brooklyn-born composer Aaron Copland and Missouri-born humorist Samuel Langhorne Clemens, better known as Mark Twain. Their lives barely overlapped — Copland was nine when Twain died in 1910 at the age of seventy-four — but writer-director Barclay and Concert Theatre Works have produced an evening that brings together Copland’s Music for the Movies and Music for the Theater and Twain’s Diaries of Adam and Eve, performed by the Festival Chamber Orchestra, conducted by Ken-David Masur, and actors Caleb Mayo, Chloe McFarlane, Maurice Emanuel Parent, Robert Walsh, and Carson Elrod, in costumes by Arthur Oliver.
“This program began by imagining how to publicly go about celebrating America’s 250th anniversary. How could this event serve such a polarized time in our history? I have always been moved by some of the traditional American tunes and hymns, but the state of our country called for something else, something I couldn’t quite identify at first,” Barclay explains. “I now realize that for some reason or other, I wanted to laugh. I wanted to release energy, not summon it. I wanted the community of joy, not the burden of politics. And it seemed that avoiding politics entirely was ignoring the elephant in the room. A symphony audience today may be one of the last public spaces of American life that is truly politically heterogeneous. Classical music plays to Republicans, Democrats, and Independents alike. This prompts a follow-up question: Is there a way we can laugh about ourselves without excluding people?”
Shelters in the Desert — An Evening with Vu, León, Susman, Smirnóv, Hernández
St. Paul’s German Church
315 West Twenty-Second St.
Friday, June 26, $85, 7:00 chelseamusicfestival.org
Water, memory, and transformation are the underlying themes of Shelters in the Desert, in which the Festival Chamber Orchestra, conducted by Ken-David Masur, plays Ania Vu’s Water Realms, Tania León’s Esencia — I. Agua de Florida for strings, Grigóry Smirnóv’s Impromptu, J. E. Hernández’s Desert Shelter, and William Susman’s Clouds and Flames, the last piece inspired by Philippe Petit’s 1974 tightrope walk between the Twin Towers; a reception follows.
Family Event: Every Storybook Counts
St. Paul’s German Church
315 West Twenty-Second St.
Saturday, June 27, free with RSVP, 10:30 am chelseamusicfestival.org
American composers are celebrated in this interactive family-friendly morning with Paul Collins, the creator of the Unbannable Library.
Jazz Finale: Warren Wolf plays Chick Corea
St. Paul’s German Church
315 West Twenty-Second St.
Saturday, June 27, $85, 7:00 chelseamusicfestival.org
The 2026 Chelsea Music Festival concludes with a jazz finale celebrating the life and career of multi-instrumentalist legend Chick Corea, who died in 2021 at the age of seventy-nine. Vibraphonist Warren Wolf and pianist Alex Brown, joined by the Ivalas Quartet (violinists Tiani Butts and Reuben Kebede, violist Marcus Stevenson, cellist Pedro Sanchez), will perform Brown’s The Old Line and the New York premiere of Corea’s Lyric Suite for Sextet, with a reception to follow.
[Mark Rifkin is a Brooklyn-born, Manhattan-based writer and editor; you can follow him on Substack here.]
Peter Asher signs autographs with Gordon Waller, as seen in Peter Asher: Everywhere Man
PETER ASHER: EVERYWHERE MAN (Dayna Goldfine & Dan Geller, 2025)
Quad Cinema
34 West 13th St. between Fifth & Sixth Aves.
Opens Thursday, June 18 quadcinema.com thefilmcollaborative.org
Peter Asher: Everywhere Man is so utterly engaging and delightful, so happy-making and surprising, that I actually wanted to crawl inside the screen and enter Peter Asher’s extraordinary life.
In Terry Gilliam’s 1988 film The Adventures of Baron Munchausen, John Neville stars as the title character, who tells a fanciful, impossible-to-believe story based on Rudolf Erich Raspe’s 1785 collection The Surprising Adventures of Baron Munchausen, consisting of heavily embellished tall tales loosely inspired by the real-life eighteenth-century German nobleman Hieronymus Karl Friedrich Freiherr von Münchhausen, whose name was given to the mental disorder Munchausen syndrome, a subtype of factitious illness in part characterized by, according to the National Library of Medicine, “pseudologia fantastica, a pattern of fabricating detailed falsehoods regarding personal history, education, and achievements.”
In the extraordinary documentary Peter Asher: Everywhere Man, the title figure tells his fanciful, impossible-to-believe story — but in this case, it’s all remarkably true, including that his father, endocrinologist Dr. Richard Asher, is credited with introducing the term “Munchausen syndrome.”
Born in England in 1944, Asher has lived a charmed, and charming, life. He and his sisters, Jane and Clare, three redheads, were child actors affectionately known as the Carrots of Wimpole Street. At Westminster School, he met Gordon Waller, a fellow guitarist, and they formed a duo, Peter and Gordon, who joined the British Invasion and scored a series of huge hits, anchored by “A World without Love,” written for them in 1964 by Jane’s boyfriend, Paul McCartney, who was living in the Asher home at the time. Other songs followed: “I Don’t Want to See You Again,” “Woman,” “I Go to Pieces,” and “Nobody I Know,” and they appeared on The Ed Sullivan Show. Asher’s mother, Margaret, was an oboist and professor who taught music to George Martin, the Beatles’ innovative producer.
Asher opened the highly influential Indica bookstore and gallery, where John Lennon met Yoko Ono. After serving as head of A&R for Apple Records, he became producer and then manager of a rising young folk singer named James Taylor, which led to him working with Linda Ronstadt, Carole King, and so many others (Diana Ross, Cher, Neil Diamond, Morrissey, Elton John, Rodrigo y Gabriela, 10,000 Maniacs, Robin Williams). He threw the party at which Mick Jagger and Marianne Faithfull fell in love, even though she was married to one of Asher’s Indica partners, John Dunbar. He put together backing bands with such musicians as King, bassist Leland Sklar, guitarists Danny “Kootch” Kortchmar and Waddy Wachtel, multi-instrumentalist Andrew Gold, and drummer Russ Kunkel, and he listed them on albums, something that previously was not done on pop records. And he did all of it with little or no training, just thriving on improvisation and experience.
“I think that Peter just got better and better at what he did,” Kortchmar says in the film. “Producing is a very broad term. Sometimes it means he’s a musical prodigy, and sometimes it means he’s a social worker or a therapist. And sometimes it means he or she just enables somebody who’s musically gifted to do their thing and get out of the way. And I think he probably can wear any of those hats.”
Directors and producers Dayna Goldfine and Dan Geller structure the documentary around Asher’s cabaret show, A Musical Memoir of the ’60s and Beyond, which they saw in December 2019 with Ronstadt. In the multimedia performance, Asher narrates his story and sings various songs with a band, along with projections of archival photos and videos. Editor Darren Lund intercuts new interviews with Monty Python veteran and The Adventures of Baron Munchausen costar Eric Idle, Steve Martin, Lyle Lovett, McCartney (voice), Twiggy, Kortchmar, Pattie Boyd, Paul Jones (Manfred Mann), Taylor and his sister Kate, Rolling Stone journalist Ben Fong-Torres, Indica cofounders Dunbar and Barry Miles, Natalie Merchant, and Asher’s longtime personal assistant, Chris O’Dell, among others, in addition to clips from a 2006 interview of Waller. They also follow Asher around London as he gives a tour to his daughter, Victoria.
Asher is generous with his time, although every now and then he prefers not to go into deep detail. When he is asked about drugs back in the 1960s and ’70s, he admits that he partook, although Ronstadt points out, “Cocaine was a lot of fun but it ruined everything.” Meanwhile, he had the unique ability to go where the action was, or create it himself.
Peter Asher relaxes in his office surrounded by many of his successes in an extraordinary career
Throughout it all, Asher, with his shock of bright red hair and dapper style, seems to have remained a warm, gentle, and caring individual who would do whatever it takes for his clients and friends, without seeking stardom for himself, at least since Peter & Gordon broke up in 1968. However, Wachtel states, “He’s a ham like the rest of us.”
“I suppose I do have this sort of generally optimistic view of what I set my hand to seems to work out okay, and I don’t think it’s necessarily to my credit at all,” he says humbly. “I think it could all just be a series of fortunate circumstances. But I’ve never really known what I was going to be doing next.”
Asher, a three-time Grammy winner and CBE (Commander of the British Empire), has touched so many people around the world over the last seven decades, whether they realize it or not, and it’s to his credit that he doesn’t get caught up in that, although he is clearly proud of his nearly endless accomplishments, as he should be. The film, to its credit, captures that beautifully. Asher was so often in the room where it happened, and is still happening, and Goldfine and Geller bring audiences into those very rooms.
Peter Asher: Everywhere Man opens June 18 at the Quad, with Goldfine and Geller (The Galapagos Affair: Satan Came to Eden,Hallelujah: Leonard Cohen, a Journey, a Song) participating in Q&As following the screenings on June 18 at 7:15 (moderated by Alan Light), June 19 at 7:00 (Dennis Elsas), June 20 at 7:00 (Joe Neumaier), and June 21 at 2:30 (Neumaier). You can find a Spotify playlist for the film here.
[Mark Rifkin is a Brooklyn-born, Manhattan-based writer; you can follow him on Substack here.]
Four teen girls explore their lives through music in world premiere play by Eisa Davis (photo by Carol Rosegg)
||: GIRLS :||: CHANCE :||: MUSIC :||
Vineyard Theatre
Gertrude and Irving Dimson Theatre
108 East 15th St. between Union Square East & Irving Pl.
Tuesday – Sunday through June 21, $37.80-$106.92 www.vineyardtheatre.org
Eisa Davis’s ||: Girls :||: Chance :||: Music :|| unfolds like an improvisatory jazz theatrical piece, transforming the concept of the creation and playing of music into subtle and not-so-subtle metaphors about growing up and making choices. It explores chaos and empathy, education and impermanence, and building — or not building — family and community, with time jumps and forays into alternate realities.
If you’re one of the first twelve people entering the Vineyard Theatre, you’ll be offered the opportunity of selecting a note on a keyboard chart that will, when done, form a unique tone row for that night’s performance, serving as the underlying musical theme. The cast will develop it at the start of the play, asking the audience to participate, and the tune will make appearances later on as well.
The show follows four teenagers of color as they prepare for their final project at a girls summer music program in Berkeley. Clementine (Gianna DiGregorio Rivera) is a straightforward flutist who mostly stays in the background; Fax (Hillary Fisher) is a vocalist who always prefers to have a plan; Margot (Naomi Latta) is a wildly unpredictable drummer; and Rile (Yeena Sung) is a pianist who enjoys experimenting.
Early on, Rile is playing the end of “Una Voce Poco Fa” from Rossini’s The Barber of Seville when she makes a mistake and improvises around it, completely throwing Fax off. “I mean it’s about being intentional with your juxtaposition,” Fax says, clearly unhappy. Rile responds, “Putting things together that don’t seem like they’ll fit.” Soon after, Fax declares, “Don’t do random shit onstage that’s different from what we practiced.”
Over the course of 105 minutes, the four characters face such issues as race, class, gender, and sexuality as they try to find their place not only in music but in the world itself, one filled with trouble and danger. “I love getting up in the morning to come here — when the world feels like one disaster after another,” Fax says.
Margot later explains, “Quake wasn’t random and it wasn’t planned / just cause and effect from billions of years ago to now / we’re given an effect and we get to make a new cause with it / which makes a new effect and / it’s a chain / a network of exchange.”
Margot (Naomi Latta) and Fax (Hillary Fisher) form a unique bond in ||: Girls :||: Chance :||: Music :|| (photo by Carol Rosegg)
Nina Ball’s set consists of four small platformed music sections, one for each character, surrounded by angled columns that harken back to Greek tragedy; it evokes how the girls are four distinct individuals who can benefit from working together as a kind of band instead of on their own, like in life. Loneliness is a leitmotif. When Margot and Fax art talking about being artists — and human beings — Margot advises, “We’re supposed to do things we’re not supposed to do . . . you have to go out on a limb to do anything crucial,” but Fax replies, “But then you’re like lonely.” Fax has a home to go back to, one that seems to be growing by the day, while Margot is much more on her own.
Mel Ng’s costumes change often, with cool little touches that at first define the characters by specific color schemes. Russell H. Champa’s lighting gives each of the girls their personal moment to take center stage. It’s a strong, talented ensemble, like a tight-knit jazz quartet, although the narrative does occasionally meander off track, becoming too abstract, but it always finds its way back to the melody. Fisher (The Notebook,Between the Lines) and Latta, in her impressive off-Broadway debut, play off each other with a gorgeous rhythm, with Sung (Mary V,Comfort Women: A New Musical) riling things up just enough as Rile, and Rivera, in her off-Broadway debut, providing the right elements as the ending approaches.
Produced by the Vineyard in conjunction with American Conservatory Theater, ||: Girls :||: Chance :||: Music :|| is conducted — er, directed — with an understanding, guiding hand by Tony winner Pam MacKinnon (Clybourne Park,Who’s Afraid of Virginia Woolf?), who turns Davis’s (Bulrusher,The Essentialist) complex script into a mini-symphony.
It is both a perplexing and rewarding play, weaving in and out of time and reality, expectations and desires, as four teenagers contemplate — or don’t — what’s waiting for them around the corner, and what their role in taking those next steps might be.
[Mark Rifkin is a Brooklyn-born, Manhattan-based writer and editor; you can follow him on Substack here.]
RACHAEL SAGE AND CASSANDRA KUBINSKI
DROM
85 Ave. A between Fifth & Sixth Sts.
Saturday, June 20, $23.49 (plus $20 table minimum per person), VIP $46.97, 7:00 dromnyc.com rachaelsage.com cassandrakubinski.com
“Every time that you touch my hand I feel love / Every time you look in my eyes I feel love / Every time that you touch my cheek I feel love / Every time you give me a squeeze I feel love,” Rachael Sage sings on “Just Enough,” the lead track on her beautiful 2025 album, Canopy. It’s hard not to feel love when listening to the Port Chester native’s music, either across more than twenty LPs and EPs or live with her band, the Sequins.
“I wished and I waited / So quiet, so patient / I thought I would never hear it come / But here it comes now / I want it to thrill me / Cut through me, come fill me up / I’m ready, so let me / Sing it out, sing it out,” Cassandra Kubinski sings out on “This Is the Sound,” the lead track on her alluring 2023 EP, The Saratoga Sessions: Songs + Stories. It’s hard not to feel the thrill when listening to the Connecticut-born, NYC-based artist’s music, either across more than a half dozen LPs and EPs, as bandleader on The Never Settle Show, or as a featured songwriter on Dance Moms (as is Sage).
On June 20, the two singer-songwriters will team up for a special concert at DROM, playing separately and together. Joined by the Sequins, Sage will highlight tunes from her upcoming record, Under My Canopy, an acoustic reimagining of Canopy. Kubinski will focus on tunes from her upcoming record, Dance Moms Acoustic & Lyrical Solos, which includes such tracks as “Timeless,” “Save You Tonight,” and “There Is Only Love.”
“I am bursting with excitement to finally share the stage with Cassandra after so many years of knowing one another and having both had our music so heavily featured on the TV show Dance Moms,” says Sage, the founder, president, and art director of MPress Records and winner of three Great American Song Contests, the John Lennon Songwriting Contest, the Billboard Songwriting Contest, four OUTmusic Awards, and five Independent Music Awards. “What makes this upcoming show so special isn’t only that we’re both unveiling new material and unique acoustic arrangements — along with a video premiere — but that we are and have long been two fiercely independent, strong female artists who’ve advocated for and enjoyed intense community with the NYC music scene for decades. That shared sensibility of wanting to show up for and lift up other women while pursuing our creative bliss has always been something that’s bound us within the New York scene . . . and now we’ll finally get a chance to sing together — and about what it means to be resilient and inspired by one another’s journeys. Plus, I just adore her songwriting and vocal abilities, so there’s a ton of respect and admiration right now, which will make this night especially fun.”
Kubinski agrees wholeheartedly.
“I’m so excited to premiere songs from my forthcoming album. I’m also looking forward to sharing the stage with Rachael Sage for the first time,” adds Kubinski, who is also a voice actress, the former global co-chair of membership for the international nonprofit Women in Music, and winner of a Women in Sync Award. “It’s a unique connection, as our music has been central to the world of dance competitions. It’s gratifying when these different creative threads combine to form something memorably distinctive. I so respect Rachael’s songwriting and work ethic. Playing in NYC, the heartland of the arts, is a very special honor, and it’s a city I’ve loved performing in over the years.”
Tickets for the DROM show are $23.49 with a $20 table minimum per person; the VIP package is $46.97 and comes with priority seating, a signed, personalized commemorative poster, and autographed CDs from both Sage and Kubinski.
On “Nexus (Acoustic),” the first single from Under My Canopy — originally written about nonbinary high school student Nex Benedict, who died by suicide after being bullied and whose death became a national incident — Sage sings, “We can lift each other up with our resolve instead of doing nothing / We can lift each other up with our resolve instead of giving up.”
There should be a lot of lifting up at DROM on June 20 when these two extraordinary women take the stage.
[Mark Rifkin is a Brooklyn-born, Manhattan-based writer; you can follow him on Substack here.]
Lincoln Center’s Summer for the City features numerous events tied to the World Cup
SUMMER FOR THE CITY: TOGETHER, WE MOVE
Lincoln Center
June 10 – August 8, free or choose-what-you-pay www.lincolncenter.org
The fifth iteration of Lincoln Center’s Summer for the City features art, film, music, comedy, workshops, discussions, meditation, silent discos, and more, but its focus is on dance — along with World Cup–related soccer programs.
Describing the series, which features an outdoor installation by Clint Ramos, Chief Artistic Director Shanta Thake explains, “Lincoln Center becomes a celebration of bodies in motion — dancing, gathering, and connecting people from all walks of life.” There are hundreds of events, with performers from around the globe.
All presentations are free or choose-what-you-pay, and some require advance RSVP; below are twi-ny’s don’t-miss highlights.
Reg Bloor will conduct her late husband Glenn Branca’s symphony for one hundred guitars at Lincoln Center on June 12 (photo by Maria Jose Govia)
Glenn Branca’s Symphony No. 13 (Hallucination City) for 100 Guitars
Wu Tsai Theater, David Geffen Hall
Friday, June 12, choose-what-you-pay, 7:30 www.lincolncenter.org
On June 13, 2001, avant-garde composer Glenn Branca premiered Symphony No. 13 (Hallucination City) for 100 Guitars on the plaza at the World Trade Center. Writing about the piece for Sound American, Reg Bloor, guitarist Reg Bloor, Branca’s wife, explained, “This is the first time Glenn had done anything like this with volunteers, so we had no idea if anyone was going to show up. I’ll never forget walking around the corner of the North Tower onto the World Trade Center Plaza for the first rehearsal and seeing people sitting there on their amps waiting for us. This was really going to work. . . . The piece was a swirling cauldron of consonance and dissonance, like a giant swarm of bees trapped in a cyclone, the single movement a long, gradual build of dynamics, pitch, and tempo to a crescendo bouncing off the towers and ringing through the plaza, spilling out onto the streets of Lower Manhattan. It’s a sound that stays with you for the rest of the day after the piece is over. You hear it coming out of the subway tunnel or in the air conditioning. You can’t get it out of your ear until whole world starts to sound like Glenn.” Bloor will conduct the symphony at David Geffen Hall on June 12 at 7:30, with one hundred guitarists along with drummer Greg Fox.
Lincoln Center honors Juneteenth with three special performances that, unfortunately, overlap one another: Carl Hancock Rux’s Oh Sankofa at Hearst Plaza at 7:00, boasting a talented cast exploring the importance of folklore during the Transatlantic Slave Trade; Jeremy Nedd’s from rock to rock . . . aka how magnolia was taken for granite at Alice Tully Hall at 7:30, which looks at the Milly Rock; and Pulitzer Prize winner Suzan-Lori Parks’s The Tune Up at the David Rubenstein Atrium at 7:30, directed by the Flea’s Niegel Smith.
The music of Labelle is celebrated by original member Nona Hendryx at David Geffen Hall
Nightbirds, the Music of Labelle
Wu Tsai Theater, David Geffen Hall
Sunday, June 28, choose-what-you-pay, 7:30 www.lincolncenter.org
In 1974, Patti LaBelle, Nona Hendryx, and Sarah Dash, known as LaBelle, took the country by storm with the monster hit “Lady Marmalade.” The trio had been together in other forms since 1961, broke up in lurid circumstances in 1976, the re-formed from 2005 to 2009. On June 28, Dream Machine Studio is presenting “Nightbirds, the Music of Labelle” at David Geffen Hall, led by Hendryx, joined by the original Labelle backing trio of guitarist Eddie Martinez, bassist Carmine Rojas, and percussionist Jose Rossy, along with Tony winner Adrienne Warren, Kimberly Nichole, Ledisi, and Sandra St. Victor.
Shen Wei Dance Arts and Guangdong Modern Dance Company team up for site-specific MindScape on Hearst Plaza (photo by Gabe Palacio)
Shen Wei Dance Arts | Guangdong Modern Dance Company: MindScape
Hearst Plaza
July 1-3, free, 5:00 www.lincolncenter.org
Chinese-born, NYC-based choreographer, director, and painter Shen Wei brings together Shen Wei Dance Arts (SWDA) and Guangdong Modern Dance Company for MindScape, a forty-five-minute piece that incorporates poetry, calligraphy, painting, and movement on Hearst Plaza. SWDA has presented dazzling dances in the Park Ave. Armory Drill Hall, at the Prospect Park Bandshell, in the Met’s Charles Engelhard Court, and other unique locations, so it should be fascinating to see what they’ll be doing outdoors at Lincoln Center. MindScape is part of Lincoln Center’s Dance Encounters series, which also has performances by Omari Wiles / Les Ballet Afrik (New York Is Burning), Ogemdi Ude (Major), Anna Sperber (Bow Echo), Benjamin Akio Kimitch (Tiger Hands), and Vangeline (Naiad Metal), which takes place in and around the Milstein Reflecting Pool, as well as Chinese Arts Week, which also includes Chinese-born, NYC-based Pulitzer Prize winner Du Yun’s family-friendly The Ocean Etched in the Forest.
Akram Khan’s Thikra is part of Summer for the City at Lincoln Center
Akram Khan Company: Thikra: Night of Remembering
Alice Tully Hall, 1941 Broadway
Thursday, July 2, 7:30; Friday, July 3, 7:30; Sunday, July 5, 2:00, choose-what-you-pay www.lincolncenter.org
English choreographer Akram Khan, who melds the Indian kathak form with contemporary dance, collaborates with visual director Manal AlDowayan on Thikra: Night of Remembering, a piece for between nine and eleven women set to “Gyura Beli Belo Platno” by the London Bulgarian Choir and “The Elephant’s Funeral” by Sushma Soma with Aditya Prakash. “As I stand humbled within the vastness of this epic desert known as AlUla, I feel the urge to unearth the many cultures that have passed through here,” Khan says about the work, which explores the ancient Saudi Arabia desert civilization. Thikra: Night of Remembering is part of the Lincoln Center Contemporary Dance Festival, which also features Jeremy Nedd, Yinka Esi Graves, Sung Im Her / Her Project, Rachid Ouramdane / Compagnie de Chaillot, and others.
Documentary reveals how Elizabeth Streb and her Extreme Action Company (including Jackie Carlson, seen here) take dance to a whole new level
For more than fifteen years, New Yorkers have gotten the chance to see Elizabeth Streb’s Extreme Action Company perform such dazzling works as Ascension at Gansevoort Plaza, Kiss the Air! at the Park Avenue Armory, and Human Fountain at World Financial Center Plaza as her team of gymnast-dancer-acrobats risk their physical well-being in daring feats of strength, stamina, durability, and grace. In addition, Streb herself walked down the outside wall of the Whitney as part of a tribute to one of her mentors, Trisha Brown. Catherine Gund takes viewers behind the scenes in the exhilarating documentary Born to Fly: Elizabeth Streb vs. Gravity, going deep into the mind of the endlessly inventive and adventurous extreme action architect and the courage and fearlessness of her company. Gund follows Streb as she discusses her childhood, her dance studies, the formation of STREB in 1985, and her carefully thought out views on space, line, and movement as her work stretches the limits of what the human body can do. “I think my original belief and desire is to see a human being fly,” Streb says near the beginning of the film, which includes archival footage of early performances, family photos, and a warm scene in which the Rochester-born Streb and her partner, Laura Flanders, host a dinner party in their apartment, cooking for Bill T. Jones, Bjorn Amelan, Anne Bogart, Catharine Stimpson, and A. M. Homes. Gund also speaks with current and past members of the talented, ever-enthusiastic company — associate artistic director Fabio Tavares, Sarah Callan, Jackie Carlson, Leonardo Giron, Felix Hess, Samantha Jakus, Cassandre Joseph, John Kasten, and Daniel Rysak — who talk about their dedication to Streb’s vision while using such words as “challenge,” “velocity,” “endurance,” “magic,” “invincibility,” and “risk” to describe what they do and how they feel about it. The film is screening on Hearst Plaza on July 10 at 6:00 as part of Lincoln Center’s Dance Encounters series, which also includes “Movement on Film: Athletic Shorts” July 15–17.
Double Dutch Fusion Freestyle & Open Jump
The Dance Floor, Josie Robertson Plaza
Thursday, July 16, free, 5:00 www.lincolncenter.org
One of the most exciting events of every summer at Lincoln Center is the National Double Dutch League strutting its stuff with breathtaking displays of athleticism. It’s three hours of exhilarating movement, including an open jump where visitors are encouraged to participate.
Five troupes come together for annual BAAND Festival (Francesca Levita by Rachel Neville, Christopher R. Wilson by Andrew Eccles, Fangqi Li by Karolina Kuras, Taylor Stanley by Paul Kolnik, DTH Company Artist Kamala Saara by Nir Arieli)
BAAND Together Dance Festival
David H. Koch Theater
Tuesday, July 28, through Sunday, August 1, choose-what-you-pay www.lincolncenter.org
The sixth BAAND Together Dance Festival takes place July 28 thorugh August 1, with five exciting troupes performing in the David H. Koch Theater: Ballet Hispánico New York, Alvin Ailey American Dance Theater, American Ballet Theatre, New York City Ballet, and Dance Theatre of Harlem. It doesn’t get much better than that. Each company will also host a family-friendly dance workshop every day.
[Mark Rifkin is a Brooklyn-born, Manhattan-based writer; you can follow him on Substack here.]
The life and career of Billy Preston held many surprises revealed in documentary
BILLY PRESTON: THAT’S THE WAY GOD PLANNED IT (Paris Barclay, 2024)
Maysles Documentary Center
343 Lenox Ave./Malcolm X Blvd. between 127th & 128th Sts.
June 12, 7:00, June 13, 7:00, June 14, $15 (reduced price $7), 4:30 maysles.org www.billyprestonfilm.com
“Will it go ’round in circles? / Will it fly high like a bird up in the sky?” Billy Preston sang in his 1973 smash hit. He might not have realized it then, but that line foretold his career, which had a seemingly endless series of ups until it all came crashing down.
The rise and fall of one of popular music’s most talented and beloved figures is intimately detailed in Paris Barclay’s revelatory documentary, Billy Preston: That’s the Way God Planned It.
Born in 1946 and raised in the church by his mother, gospel singer Robbie Lee Williams, Preston began playing the piano at age three, appeared on The Nat “King” Cole Show in 1957, accompanied Mahalia Jackson and Pearl Bailey on keyboards in the 1958 film St. Louis Blues, played with the gospel group the Cogics (Church of God in Christ), and as a teenager toured with Little Richard and the Rolling Stones. An enthusiastic man with an infectious gap-toothed smile and a collection of impressive wigs, Preston was soon recording with the Stones, Sam Cooke, Sly Stone, Ray Charles, and Aretha Franklin.
He singlehandedly rescued the Beatles when the Fab Four was preparing the Let It Be album and concert, just dropping by to say hello but then taking a seat at the organ and starting to improvise with John, Paul, George, and Ringo, infusing them with the energy they had been previous lacking as rumors swirled that the band was breaking up. The tabloids nicknamed him the Fifth Beatle and the Black Beatle. “He never put his hands in the wrong place,” Starr says in the film.
Preston might have been the ultimate sideman, but when performing he couldn’t help himself, often getting up and dancing wildly, joy emanating out of every pore. He couldn’t read music and never used charts but just felt the music blaze through him, even when playing backup. “He would steal the record without you even knowing until later, and you’d go, ‘He’s done it again,’” Eric Clapton explains.
When Preston brought an original song to George Harrison for a potential solo LP, the Quiet Beatle quickly assembled an all-star roster to back him up: Harrison, Clapton, Keith Richards, and Ginger Baker.
In the 1970s, he hit the charts with such songs as “Outa-Space,” “Will It Go Round in Circles,” “Nothing from Nothing,” and “With You I’m Born Again,” all of which are featured prominently in the film. He was a musical guest on the very first episode of Saturday Night Live. Most people don’t realize that Preston wrote and originally recorded “You Are So Beautiful,” made famous by Joe Cocker; one of the highlights of the documentary is Preston’s performance of the song at the Apollo 50 celebration, joined by Cocker and Patti LaBelle on vocals. We also learn that it is a love song — to his mother, who he also plays it with in the film.
But his life started falling apart as he got lost in a haze of drugs and alcohol (Courvoisier, coke, eventually crack), starred as Sgt. Pepper in the ill-fated movie Sgt. Pepper’s Lonely Hearts Club Band, and continued to hide his sexuality, even though his friends, family, and musical colleagues knew he was gay going back to his youth. He was often seen with young men he referred to as cousins, but he was overcome with loneliness.
In their debut documentary, three-time Emmy winner Barclay (NYPD Blue,Glee) and cowriter Cheo Hodari Coker (Ray Donovan,Luke Cage) also delve into the sexual abuse Preston suffered as a child, which added to his problems as an adult. In the 1990s, he was arrested for DUI, charged with assault and child molestation, and spent time in prison, but he kept on playing music until his death in 2006 at the age of fifty-nine.
“He couldn’t move on,” soul and gospel singer Merry Clayton says. “No one knew what had transpired but us, the inner circle, family people. He’d have that smile, but his heart would be broken.”
Producer Suzanne de Passe notes, “Billy Preston was a gifted, genius, wonderful, talented human being, and he had a very, very self-destructed aspect to who he was. I wish I could have been more of a help in the parts that weren’t any of my business.”
Similarly, engineer Bob Margouleff says wistfully, “I don’t think anyone, including me, knew how to help him.”
The film has a bevy of revelatory archival material, from photographs and home movies to rare clips of Preston from childhood through his entire career, including key segments from a 2004 live appearance. Barclay also speaks with Billy Porter, producer Tony Jones, recording artists Gloria Jones and Blinky Williams, Pastor Sandra Crouch, musician Cory Henry, A&M publicist Don Mizell, biographer David Ritz, Preston’s cowriter Bruce Fisher, his nephew Derrick Preston, his managers Bob Ellis and Joyce McRae Moore, and numerous members of his bands, who all share poignant stories of Preston as a performer and a human being, a man bursting with life but hiding so much inside.
“I just want to be free, to play the music that God’s given to me,” Preston says.
It’s a tragic, if not unfamiliar, story, in this case happening to a cherished person who could not conquer his demons. But as he sang in his first big hit: “Let not your heart be troubled / Let mourning sobbing cease / Learn to help one another / And live in perfect peace.”
If you missed the theatrical release of Billy Preston: That’s the Way God Planned It earlier this year at Film Forum, you can catch it at Maysles Documentary Center from June 12 to 14.
[Mark Rifkin is a Brooklyn-born, Manhattan-based writer; you can follow him on Substack here.]
