Culture Picks writer/editor Coni Guhl has a busy month of arts activities planned for herself! What’s on your August must-see list?
WQXR presents Carnegie Hall’s World Orchestra Week
August 1-7
A celebration of international youth orchestras, broadcasting live from Carnegie Hall’s World Orchestra Week. Tune in to WQXR and experience the excitement as these astonishing musicians from around the globe perform on the biggest stage with top conductors and soloists, including Gustavo Dudamel and Marin Alsop.
Youth orchestras play a crucial role in nurturing young musicians by providing valuable opportunities to develop musical skills and passion. They can also be a home away from home, and a place of refuge. For Zohra Ahmadi, a 15-year-old refugee who is a member of the Afghan Youth Orchestra, she said of her participation in the ensemble, “It helped me to not give up on my dreams.”
August 1: Carnegie Hall’s National Youth Orchestra of the United States of America (NYO2)
August 2: National Children’s Symphony of Venezuela
August 3: Africa United Youth Orchestra
August 4: Beijing Youth Orchestra
August 5: Carnegie Hall’s National Youth Orchestra of the United States of America (NYO-USA)
August 6: European Union Youth Orchestra
August 7: Afghan Youth Orchestra
Learn more about National Orchestra Week on WQXR.org
Caramoor presents
Orchestra of St. Luke’s & Jeremy Denk, piano
Thomas Wilkins, conductor
Sunday, August 4, at 4pm
Caramoor, 149 Girdle Ridge Road, Katonah, NY
Caramoor’s summer season makes an electrifying crescendo as the Orchestra of St. Luke’s collaborates with the brilliant Jeremy Denk on the pinnacle of piano concertos, Beethoven’s fourth, and symphonic masterpieces by Samuel Coleridge-Taylor and Antonin Dvořák.
Learn more and get tickets on Caramoor’s website
NY Opera Conservatory presents
August 2024 Free Summer Concert Series: Gaetano Donizetti’s Don Pasquale
Wednesday, August 7, Friday, August 9, and Saturday, August 10 at 7pm. Sunday, August 11, 3pm
Croton Free Library, 171 Cleveland Drive, Croton-on-Hudson, NY
The Taconic Opera summer program for emerging opera singers, New York Opera Conservatory (NYOC), offers you an opportunity to hear the upcoming generation of professionally trained singers. Established in 2018, the NYOC helps to fill an unmet need among trained singers to gain valuable hands-on experience through actual performance. Each performance includes the complete opera and is semi-staged using costumes and props.
Gaetano Donizetti’s hilarious comedy, Don Pasquale follows the story of Don Pasquale, an elderly bachelor who is tricked into a fake marriage with a seemingly sweet young woman. To his shock, she quickly turns into a demanding tyrant, teaching him a hilarious yet poignant life lesson. Featuring Taconic Opera’s favorite buffo, Jorge Ocasio, in the title role alongside our New York Opera Conservatory young artists.
Learn more about the NY Opera Conservatory Summer Concert Series
White Plains Performing Arts Center presents Seth Rudetsky with Norm Lewis
Saturday, August 17, 7:30-9pm
White Plains Performing Arts Center, 11 City Place in White Plains, NY
Sirius XM Radio Star Seth Rudetsky hosts and music directs this acclaimed international concert series of up-close and personal concerts featuring Broadway’s biggest stars in a seamless mix of intimate behind-the-scenes stories prompted by Seth’s funny, insightful, and revealing questions, and the songs from each star’s stellar Broadway career.
Norm Lewis is an Emmy, Grammy, Tony and SAG Award nominee for his work onstage, screen, and in music. His theatre credits include Porgy & Bess, Les Misérables, Sweeney Todd, The Phantom of the Opera, Sondheim on Sondheim, The Little Mermaid, Chicago, Amour, The Wild Party, Side Show, Miss Saigon, and The Who’s Tommy. In London’s West End he has appeared as Javert in Les Misérables and Les Misérables: The 25th Anniversary Concert, which aired on PBS. He was also seen as ‘Caiaphas’ in the award-winning NBC television special, “Jesus Christ Superstar Live in Concert!,” alongside John Legend, Sara Bareilles, and Alice Cooper. Lewis was most recently seen onstage starring in the national tour of the Tony Award-winning production of A Soldier’s Play and in Andrew Lloyd Webber’s West End Concert of “Love Never Dies.”
Get tickets for WPPAC presents Seth Rudetsky with Norm Lewis
Hudson River Museum presents
Yonkers Philharmonic Orchestra: River Music (Amphitheater 2024)
Saturday, August 17, 8-10pm
Hudson River Museum, 511 Warburton Avenue in Yonkers, NY
In River Music, the Yonkers Philharmonic, led by Maestro Ariel Rudiakov, performs music inspired by the great rivers of the world, exploring how rivers, art, culture, and music continually transform over time. The eclectic program includes Ivanovici’s Waves of the Danube, Johann Strauss II’s Artist’s Life Waltz, Handel’s excerpts from Water Music, Grainger’s Molly on the Shore, Larry Deming’s From the Roots – Variations and Deep River, Yin Chengzong and Chu Wanghua’s collaboration Ode to the Yellow River, and James Kessler’s Hudson River Rhapsody.
This program is part of the 2024 Summer Amphitheater Series. Doors open at 7:30pm. No reservations required. Seating is on a first-come, first-served basis. Free parking is available.
Learn more on the Hudson River Museum website
Aspen Music Festival and School presents Summer Livestreams
Sunday, August 18 at 6pm
Season finale featuring Garrick Ohlsson as piano soloist in Liszt’s Second Piano Concerto.
Free on the AMFS Virtual Stage.
And if you like what you hear, save the date to experience Garrick Ohlsson and Orpheus Chamber Orchestra as they open the PAC’s 2024-2025 season on September 27 at 7:30pm!
Get tickets for Orpheus with Garrick Ohlsson on The Purchase PAC website
Jazz Forum Arts presents Free Outdoor Jazz Concerts
Jazz Forum Arts presents 32 concerts annually in July and August at five Hudson River locations: Dobbs Ferry Waterfront Park, Lyndhurst and Pierson Park in Tarrytown, Horan’s Landing in Sleepy Hollow, and Henry Gourdine Park in Ossining.
View the Jazz Forum Arts Summer Concerts schedule
ArtsWestchester presents Westchester Roots: Dia de la Cultura Ecuatoriana
Sunday, August 25, 3-8pm
Barnhart Park, 25 Andrews Lane, Sleepy Hollow, NY
Join us for an afternoon of Ecuadorian music, dance, food and craft, along with family-friendly presentations that feature traditional Ecuadorian costumes and the indigenous Kichwa language. Bring your lawn chairs or picnic blankets and enjoy the performance. This is a FREE event.
For more information about this and other Westchester Roots events, visit the ArtsWestchester website
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Culture Picks celebrates the performing arts. In each post, PAC staff member Coni Guhl shines the spotlight on work by artists that you know and love from their appearances at The Purchase PAC, and offers recommendations about other performing arts events that you really should not miss. Experience them all!
All times are EDT unless otherwise noted.
Pictured: Pianist Garrick Ohlsson (c) Dario Acosta.
