this week in music

THE ART OF THE SCORE: FILM WEEK AT THE PHILHARMONIC

There shouldn’t be much sleeping when the scores of films by Alfred Hitchcock (above, with composer Bernard Herrmann) and Stanley Kubrick take center stage at the Philharmonic

Avery Fisher Hall
10 Lincoln Square, Broadway at 64th St.
September 17-21, $45-$125
www.nyphil.org

Perhaps no two directors used music as effectively as Alfred Hitchcock and Stanley Kubrick, the former employing original compositions to build unwavering suspense, the latter including famous classical pieces to immerse viewers in magical atmospheres. The New York Philharmonic will pay tribute to both men during “The Art of the Score: Film Week at the Philharmonic,” as the orchestra performs the scores while film clips are shown on the big screen at Avery Fisher Hall. Curated by artistic director Alec Baldwin, “The Art of the Score” begins September 17-18 with “Hitchcock!,” comprising music by Lyn Murray (To Catch a Thief), Bernard Herrmann (Vertigo, North by Northwest), Dimitri Tiomkin (Strangers on a Train, Dial M for Murder), and Charles Gounod (“Funeral March of a Marionette,” the theme from Alfred Hitchcock Presents), conducted by Constantine Kitsopoulos; the first night will be hosted by Baldwin, the second by Sam Waterston. The Philharmonic then focuses on Kubrick’s epic 2001: A Space Odyssey on September 20-21, consisting of works by György Ligeti (“Atmosphères,” “Lux aeterna,” “Aventures,” “Kyrie” from Requiem), Richard Strauss (“Also sprach Zarathustra”), and Johann Strauss II (“On the Beautiful Blue Danube”), conducted by Alan Gilbert and featuring the Musica Sacra Chorus, directed by Kent Tritle. The final event, “Mind, Music, and the Moving Image,” being held on September 21 at the Gerald W. Lynch Theatre, in which Baldwin speaks with filmmakers Joel and Ethan Coen, their regular composer, Carter Burwell, and neuroscientest Aniruddh D. Patel, has already sold out.

IGNORANCE

Susan Sarandon will discuss “The Path Itself” with the Gyalwang Drukpa as part of Rubin Museum series on “Ignorance”

Rubin Museum of Art
150 West 17th St. at Seventh Ave.
September 25 – December 27, $15 – $45 (Acoustic Cash $85, Cabaret Cinema free with $7 bar purchase)
212-620-5000
www.rmanyc.org

Last fall, the Rubin Museum examined the concept of happiness through specially introduced film screenings, live performances, and a series of talks pairing artists with scientific and philosophical experts. This fall the museum and its mad-genius programmer, Tim McHenry, tackle a different kind of bliss: ignorance. In 1742, British poet Thomas Gray concluded his “Ode on a Distant Prospect of Eton College” thusly: “Since sorrow never comes too late, / And happiness too swiftly flies. / Thought would destroy their paradise. / No more; where ignorance is bliss, / ’Tis folly to be wise.” More than two centuries earlier, Gautama Buddha explained in the Sutta Nipata that “it is ignorance that smothers, and it is carelessness that makes it invisible. The hunger of craving pollutes the world, and the pain of suffering causes the greatest fear.” The Rubin’s “Ignorance” series, which explores the idea that “what you don’t know could hurt you,” begins September 25 with artist Ernesto Pujol and cultural critic Carol Becker discussing “Ignorance and Ritual,” followed September 26 with lama the Gyalwang Drukpa and actress Susan Sarandon delving into “The Path Itself” and September 27 with psychologist Daniel Gilbert and cartoonist Tim Kreider investigating “Delusion.” Among the other highlights are writer Neil Gaiman and multimedia artist Laurie Anderson sitting down for “Fantasy and Fact,” director Mira Nair and anthropologist Christopher Pinney getting into “Allegory and Illusion,” and playwright Neil LaBute and actor Alec Baldwin rapping about “Ignorance in the Information Age.” Live music includes Holly Near on September 27, Rosanne Cash and Cory Chisel on October 18, and Toshi Reagon on November 8. The Friday-night film programs kicks off September 6 with drama critic John Heilpern introducing Kind Hearts and Coronets and continues with such other beauties as actor and photographer Joel Grey introducing Cabaret, comedian Rachel Dratch introducing Lord of the Flies, and multidisciplinary performance artist John Kelly introducing Shadow of a Doubt. Nineteenth-century British preacher Charles Haddon Spurgeon wrote, “The doorstep to the temple of wisdom is the knowledge of our own ignorance”; this Rubin series should throw that door wide open.

SUMMER HD FESTIVAL 2013

The Met will be screening recent productions of operas for free on Lincoln Center Plaza August 24 – September 2 (photo by Chris Lee)

Lincoln Center Plaza
Broadway at 64th St.
August 24 – September 2, free, 8:00
www.metoperafamily.org

Over the last several years, the Metropolitan Opera has been expanding its reach, presenting HD screenings of its productions, both live and previously recorded, on television and in movie theaters around the country, and more recently it has instituted the Free Summer HD Festival, holding free first-come, first-served screenings outside on Lincoln Center Plaza, by the fountain. This year’s series comprises ten operas recorded between 2008 and 2013, beginning August 24 with Willy Decker’s version of Verdi’s La Traviata, featuring Natalie Dessay, Matthew Polenzani, and Dimitri Hvorostovsky, conducted by Fabio Luisi. Mary Zimmerman’s staging of Donizetti’s Lucia di Lammermoor will be shown August 25, with Anna Netrebko, Piotr Beczala, Mariusz Kwiecien, and Ildar Abdrazakov, conducted by Marco Armiliato, followed August 26 by Robert Lepage’s take on Thomas Adès’s The Tempest, starring Audrey Luna, Isabel Leonard, Alan Oke, Alek Shrader, and Simon Keenlyside, conducted by Adès. The nightly festival continues with Renée Fleming in Verdi’s Otello, Jean-Pierre Ponnelle’s production of Mozart’s La Clemenza di Tito, James Levine conducting Berlioz’s La Damnation de Faust, the 2013 Met premiere production of David McVicar’s version of Donizetti’s Maria Stuarda, Netrebko in Massenet’s Manon, and the return to Sweden of Verdi’s Un Ballo in Maschera, then concluding September 2 with Luisi conducting Liudmyla Monastyrksa in Sonja Frisell’s staging of Verdi’s Aida.

VIDEO OF THE DAY: “YOU RUINED LOVE” BY ASHLEY ALLEN

Ashley Allen burst out of the gate in June with her debut single, the sugary sweet YouTube dance-pop hit “Let’s Go.” The perennially upbeat singer-songwriter gets much more introspective on “You Ruined Love,” a folk-country lament about first love and heartbreak. The New York native, who is currently working on her debut EP, due out later this year, to be followed by a full-length LP in 2014, has also recorded the catchy “Body Say No, Heart Say Yes” and the pop ballad “Dancing in My Head.” According to her Facebook page, Allen is “just a girl from New York City. Total Weirdo and totally okay with it,” which is okay with us too. On “Let’s Go,” she declares, “I wanna scream and lose my voice,” but hopefully the second part of that statement won’t take place when Allen plays Santos Party House on August 23 with Free Keys and Glass Mansion.

ANOTHER DAY, ANOTHER TIME: CELEBRATING THE MUSIC OF “INSIDE LLEWYN DAVIS”

Benefit concert will celebrate music of latest Coen brothers film, INSIDE LLEWYN DAVIS

The Town Hall
123 West 43rd St. between Sixth Ave. & Broadway
Tickets on sale Wednesday, August 21, 12 noon
Concert takes place September 29, $75-$150, 7:30
212-840-2824
www.insidellewyndavis.com
www.the-townhall-nyc.org

In 2000, filmmakers Joel and Ethan Coen teamed up with producer T Bone Burnett to create an award-winning soundtrack for their hit film O Brother, Where Art Thou? The 1930s-set movie featured a mix of traditional Americana, country, folk, and blues, including such songs as “Big Rock Candy Mountain,” “I Am a Man of Constant Sorrow,” “O Death,” and “Lonesome Valley” performed by such musicians as Norman Blake, Jerry Douglas, Alison Krauss, Ralph Stanley, Emmylou Harris, Gillian Welch, and the Soggy Bottom Boys. In their latest film, Inside Llewyn Davis, which premiered at Cannes in May, the Coens tell the story of a week in the life of a 1960s Greenwich Village folksinger, with Burnett once again on board to steer the soundtrack. On September 29, the music of the film will take center stage at the Town Hall, when “Another Day, Another Time: Celebrating the Music of Inside Llewyn Davis” takes place, featuring an all-star lineup raising funds for the National Recording Preservation Foundation. The roster is unusually impressive, featuring the Avett Brothers, Joan Baez, Rhiannon Giddens, Lake Street Drive, Colin Meloy, the Milk Carton Kids, Marcus Mumford, Conor Oberst, the Punch Brothers, Secret Sisters, Patti Smith, Gillian Welch & David Rawlings, Willie Watson, and Jack White in addition to cast members Oscar Isaac, John Goodman, Carey Mulligan, and Stark Sands. The concert will include songs from the film in addition to 1960s tunes that inspired them. The film will screen at this fall’s New York Film Festival before opening in December. Tickets are $75 and $150 and go on sale August 21 at noon.

SPEAKEASY DOLLHOUSE

102 Norfolk St.
First monthly Saturday and Monday, September 7 – December 14, $55 general admission, $145 VIP
800-838-3006
www.speakeasydollhouse.com

New York has gone crazy for immersive theatrical productions recently, as the audience interacts with the actors in various ways in such hit shows as Sleep No More at the McKittrick Hotel and Natasha, Pierre & the Great Comet of 1812 at the temporary Klub Kazino. Things go even further in Speakeasy Dollhouse, a flashy, lurid tale of murder and deception taking place in a series of rooms in an underground location on Norfolk St. Once you purchase your tickets — which just jumped from $30/$55 to $55/$145 — you start receiving e-mails from Cynthia von Buhler detailing the real-life murder of her grandfather Frank Spano and its cover-up, which reached all the way inside Tammany Hall. “My grandmother died in the 1980s and I never knew my grandfather,” one von Buhler missive explains. “He was mysteriously killed in 1935. He died on the very same day my mother was born. She told us that he was shot and nobody knew why. It was a secret. They boarded up the club and bakery after that.” Speakeasy Dollhouse re-creates that time period, acting out the events that led to the shooting, based on both facts and supposition, as von Buhler seeks to uncover the truth. Attendees are given a password and asked to dress in Prohibition-era costumes, which is a good idea, as the vast majority of people do so. Upon entering the nightclub, each person receives a piece of paper from the Fortune Teller (Jordana Rollerdazzler) giving them a specific role to carry out. For the next few hours, the cast, crew, and audience mingle as they travel from room to room and various plot elements are revealed, from an autopsy and a secret lovers tryst to back-room machinations and a card game.

Evidence is presented as SPEAKEASY DOLLHOUSE seeks to find answers to real-life murder (photo © Margee Challa, 2012)

The story revolves around the killing of club owner Frank Spano (Russell Farhang) by barber John Guerrieri (Silent James), which soon involves such figures as Detective Thomas Crane (Justin Moore), mobster Dutch Schultz (Travis Moore), Tammany Hall party boss Jimmy Hines (Charley Layton), and Magistrate Hulon Capshaw (Scott Southard). To further the atmosphere, there are a series of live performances by burlesque singers and dancers and the Howard Fishman Quartet. Meanwhile, a cash bar serves drinks and a bakery offers cannoli and other pastries. Originally planned as a one-time-only presentation, Speakeasy Dollhouse is now playing the first Saturday and Monday of each month through December, with each show centering on a different theme investigating the possible motive behind the killing; on October 26, there will be a special Halloween performance only for people who have previously attended a show, complete with zombies, werewolves, vampires, and unicorns. The production captures the feel of 1930s New York City, but the allowance of photography detracts a bit from the overall experience; the producers might want to have pictures spread all over social media, but there weren’t really many iPhones back in those days. Still, the more you immerse yourself in Speakeasy Dollhouse, the more fun you’re going to have. And there’s a whole lot of fun to be had as von Buhler, who appears as herself, keeps trying to get to the bottom of what happened to her family.

VIDEO OF THE DAY: “USE ME” BY LIV WARFIELD, SHELBY J, AND NEW POWER GENERATION AT CITY WINERY

Over the years, Prince has put the spotlight on a series of musical protégés, from Wendy and Lisa, Sheila E., and Vanity to Apollonia 6, Carmen Electra, and Sheena Easton. City Winery will be celebrating His Most Purpleness’s newest up-and-comers as current backup singers Shelby J and Liv Warfield take center stage, with the NPG Hornz, for a series of hotly anticipated shows. The Purple Week festivities begin on August 19 with a free screening (advance RSVP required) of Albert Magnoli’s 1984 film Purple Rain, in which Prince stars as the Kid, performing such classic tracks as “Let’s Go Crazy,” “Darling Nikki,” “When Doves Cry,” and “I Would Die 4 U.” The movie will be preceded by a set by Prince tour DJ Dudley. Then Shelby J, Liv Warfield, and the New Power Generation Hornz will play two shows a night August 21, 22, 23, and 25 ($75 – $150), with special unannounced guests at each show. Will TAFKAP himself show up? He currently is not out on the road, so who knows. In any case, it should be one funky week.