Culture Picks: August 26

Hope you’re managing to stay cool this week! Hard to believe it’s “back to school” already…

Samara Joy Live from Emmet’s Place
Now streaming on-demand
American jazz pianist and composer Emmet Cohen is in the vanguard of his generation’s advancement of jazz. During the 2020 lockdown, Cohen developed Live from Emmet’s Place, a series of weekly performances by his trio and special guests who live-streamed from his New York apartment, recalling the Harlem rent parties of yesteryear. Samara Joy became an Ella Fitzgerald Scholar and won the prestigious Sarah Vaughan International Jazz Vocal Competition in 2019 before graduating from Purchase College in 2021, and, aged just 21, she is already a fixture of New York’s jazz clubs.
Watch Samara Joy Live from Emmet’s Place on YouTube

Carnegie Hall presents Vienna: City of Dreams
Beethoven’s “Kreutzer” Violin Sonata
On-demand from Friday, August 27 at noon
Carnegie Hall’s 2014 Vienna: City of Dreams festival explored the cultural splendor of the great Austrian city where Beethoven composed and premiered his greatest works. One of the festival highlights was a complete cycle of the composer’s sonatas for violin and piano with Leonidas Kavakos and Enrico Pace. In this recording from the Salzburg Festival in 2012, the duo performs the “Kreutzer” Sonata, famously named after Beethoven’s second dedicatee in an act of artistic revenge. Leonidas Kavakos performed at both Tanglewood and Caramoor this summer in addition to European concerts in Austria, Italy, and Denmark. Access the recording on the Carnegie Hall website

CMS presents Schubert Fantasies
On-demand from Monday, August 30 at 7:30pm
For one week only, experience the peerless artistry of the Chamber Music Society of Lincoln Center performing Shubert Fantasies as part of a series of newly curated full-length HD concerts from the Frederick R. Koch Foundation Townhouse.
Program
SCHUBERT Fantasie in F minor for Piano, Four Hands, D. 940, Op. 103 (1828)
SCHUBERT Fantasy in C major for Violin and Piano, D. 934, Op. 159 (1827)
Artists: Alessio Bax, Piano; Gilles Vonsattel, Piano; Sean Lee, Violin
Acesss Schubert Fantasies on the CMS website

Michael Chekhov Lecture by Dr. Lenka Pichlíková Burke
The Ridgefield Library
Tuesday, August 31, 7:30-8:30pm
Live via Zoom
Purchase College’s Dr. Lenka Pichlíková Burke, a professional actress, professor, and expert in Chekhov dramatic method, will present an illustrated lecture focusing on Chekhov’s work in the U.S. She will share many interesting facets of his dramatic community, along with charming anecdotes and personal stories from a moment when Ridgefield was one of the most important centers of United States theater history. Michael Chekhov Lecture | Ridgefield Library

Jacob’s Pillow presents the STREB Extreme Action Company
September 2-16
Streaming on-demand
The STREB Extreme Action Company revisits its roots with a retrospective of Elizabeth Streb’s classic solos from the ’70s and ’80s, early equipment experimentations from the ’90s, and jaw-dropping extreme action opuses with the large scale “action machines” the company has since become known for. This historic look back connects their experimental path with the extreme action of their current and future works. Access STREB on the Jacob’s Pillow website

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Culture Picks is a weekly feature celebrating the performing arts. The arts are back and there is so much to take in, both live and virtual. PAC staff member Coni Guhl is here to help you sort through it all. Each week we will post her curated selection of events featuring the artists you know and love from The PAC Center Series, plus a sampling of stellar local experiences. Enjoy!

All times are EDT unless otherwise noted.