Culture Picks: March 10

This week’s Culture Picks will take you around the world in seven days, ending (in spirit at least) in Ireland.

Ailey All Access presents:
Kyle Abraham’s Untitled America (excerpt)
Streaming through March 13
Untitled America, Kyle Abraham’s haunting work that shines a light on how the United States prison system impacts African American families, features spoken word narration by former prisoners mixed with a soundscape of soul, ambient, percussive, and music. “Mr. Abraham’s [dance] vocabulary, with its rich mix of street and studio suggesting a body at war with itself, is potent and explosive and wonderfully of the moment.” –The New York Times
Watch Kyle Abraham’s “Untitled America” on Ailey All Access

The Chamber Music Society of Lincoln Center presents:
Late Night Rose: Still, Poulenc, Bruch, Bartók
Livestream Thursday, March 10, 9pm
On-demand for one week
With host Terrance McKnight, and Romie de Guise-Langlois, clarinet, basset horn; Sean Lee, violin; Inbal Segev, cello; Gloria Chien, piano.
STILL: Pastorela for Violin and Piano (1946)
POULENC: Sonata for Cello and Piano (1940-48)
BRUCH: Selections from Eight Pieces for Clarinet, Cello, and Piano, Op. 83 (1909)
BARTÓK: Contrasts for Violin, Clarinet, and Piano (1938)
Watch and listen on the CMS website

The Cincinnati Symphony Orchestra presents:
Live from Music Hall: Mozart & Mazzoli Premiere
Livestream Saturday, March 12, 7:30pm
Music has the power to inspire, heal, and bring us together—even when we’re apart. Join CSO online from the comfort of home for the CSO and Pops Digital Concert series. Jennifer Koh is a prolific champion of new works and stars in the premiere of a CSO co-commission by “Brooklyn’s post-millennial Mozart,” Missy Mazzoli. The May Festival Chorus makes a triumphant return to Music Hall for Mozart’s poignant mass, taking us from anxiety and darkness to glorious transfiguration.
Louis Langrée, conductor; Jennifer Koh, violin; May Festival Chorus, Robert Porco, director.
MISSY MAZZOLI: Violin Concerto [CSO Co-commission]
WOLFGANG AMADEUS MOZART: Mass in C Minor, Great Mass
Watch on the CSO website, on YouTube, or on Facebook.

Flushing Town Hall presents
Common Ground: Mini-Global Mashup – India Meets Egypt
In-person and live-streamed on Sunday, March 13, 1pm
Common Ground features artists seemingly different in discipline, practices, or cultural identity who explore global connections, celebrating distinctions that make cultures unique. The new series Common Ground: Mini-Global Mashups are curated by acclaimed trumpeter and composer Frank London (The Klezmatics) bringing together two amazing global music artists along with accompanists for an afternoon of music, conversation, and exploration.
Falu is a GRAMMY-nominated, internationally recognized artist known for her rare ability to seamlessly blend a signature modern inventive style with a formidable Indian classically-shaped vocal talent. Falu’s career in the States had led to a series of brilliant and high-profile collaborations with Yo-Yo Ma, Wyclef Jean, Philip Glass, Ricky Martin, Blues Traveler, and A. R. Rahman amongst others.
Sami Abu Shumays is an Arabic violinist, vocalist, and rababa player, co-founder and musical director of Zikrayat, and a teacher and scholar of maqam and Arabic music. His field of expertise is in the Egyptian and Syrian music traditions, and Zikrayat highlights gems from the “Golden Age” of Egyptian Cinema, the 1930s-60s, presenting exciting dance numbers alongside classical Tarab repertory. Born in Pittsburgh, PA, Sami is a second-generation Palestinian-American immigrant, who studied Western classical music, piano, violin, and composition as a boy, and as an undergraduate at Harvard University
This concert is accompanied by vocalist and harmonium player Gaurav Shah.
Get tickets for the live performance of Common Ground here.
Can’t make it in person? This performance will be live-streamed on Flushing Town Hall’s YouTube Channel.
RSVP to receive the streaming link and reminder email

The Metropolitan Opera presents: A Concert for Ukraine
Live, live-stream, and broadcast
Monday, March 14, at 6pm
The Metropolitan Opera will present a benefit performance to support Ukrainian citizens under attack, with all ticket sales and other proceeds going to support relief efforts in Ukraine. Met Music Director Yannick Nézet-Séguin will lead the Met Orchestra and Chorus and star soloists in a 70-minute program, featuring music by Valentin Silvestrov, Barber, Verdi, Strauss, and Beethoven. The soloists will be Lise Davidsen and Elza van den Heever, mezzo-soprano Jamie Barton, tenor Piotr Beczała, bass-baritone Ryan Speedo Green, and Ukrainian bass-baritone Vladyslav Buialskyi, who will lead the Met Chorus in a performance of the Ukrainian national anthem.
A Concert for Ukraine will be broadcast in the U.S. via many of the radio stations that regularly carry the Met’s Saturday Matinee Radio Broadcasts, as well as member stations of National Public Radio. Please check your local listing for details. The concert will be broadcast internationally via the European Broadcasting Union, allowing it to be heard in most countries in the world. It will also be carried live on Met Opera Radio on Sirius XM Channel 355, and streamed live on the Met website.
National Anthem of Ukraine
“Prayer for the Ukraine” by Valentin Silvestrov
Adagio for Strings by Samuel Barber
“Va, pensiero” from Verdi’s Nabucco
Four Last Songs by Richard Strauss, Lise Davidsen, soprano
Finale from Beethoven’s Symphony No. 9, Op. 125: Elza van den Heever, soprano; Jamie Barton, mezzo-soprano; Piotr Beczała, tenor; Ryan Speedo Green, bass-baritone
View more information about A Concert for Ukraine on the Met’s website

The Apollo’s Africa Now! Festival presents
Live Wire from the Archives: Bridging the Diaspora
Tuesday, March 15, 6:30pm
From Babatundi Olatunji and Hugh Masekela to Miriam Makeba, Salif Keita, and Burna Boy, the Apollo stage has provided a nexus between the African and the African American performance experience. For this Live Wire event, Juilliard ethnomusicologist Fredara Hadley engages with contemporary artists about some of the legendary artists and historic performances on the Apollo stage, and the significance of Africa Now! in honoring the music of the African diaspora in the contemporary world.
The Apollo’s Live Wire series was created to spark deeper insight and consideration of the contribution of Black arts and culture to the broader American canon. These electrifying events feature discussion with unpredictable and impromptu performative elements that shed new light on the timely topics of today.
Panelists include:
Abdel R. Salaam | Artistic Director, Forces of Nature Dance Theatre and Dance Africa
Jamilla Deria | Executive Director at UMass Fine Arts Center
Hélèn and Célia Faussart | Les Nubians | Les Nubians
Find more information on The Apollo Theater website

Aspen Armchair Concerts presents: John O’Conor, piano
Livestream Tuesday, March 15, 8pm
On-demand for three days
Former director of the Royal Irish Academy of Music, Irish pianist and pedagogue John O’Conor is “a pianist of unbounding sensitivity” (Gramophone). “He represents a vanishing tradition that favors inner expression and atmosphere over showmanship and bravura” (Chicago Tribune). O’Conor is a former AMFS artist-faculty member and a popular Festival guest artist most remembered for his vivid master classes. A noted Beethoven performer, here he presents an all-Beethoven program.
BEETHOVEN Piano Sonata No. 8 in C minor, op. 13, “Pathétique”
BEETHOVEN Piano Sonata No. 14 in C-sharp minor, op. 27, no. 2, “Moonlight”
Visit the Aspen Music Festival Virtual Stage

Wigmore Hall presents:
St. Patrick’s Day with Gavan Ring and Fiachra Garvey
Livestream Thursday, March 17, 9am
Then on-demand
Gavan Ring, tenor; Fiachra Garvey, piano
ANN CLEARE (b.1983)
Ceo, Glór, Eitilt
RAYMOND DEANE (b.1953)
Galar an Ghrá
Goirt anocht, deireadh mo scéil
Croí lán de smaointe
KINSELLA (1932-2021):
Bóithre Bána
Filleadh ón Antartach
An Muince Dreoilíní
Watch Wigmore Hall presents on YouTube

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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. Cultural connoisseur and 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, work being done by Purchase alums, plus a sampling of arts experiences you just can’t miss. Enjoy!

All times are EDT unless otherwise noted.