Culture Picks: March 31

Purchase PAC audiences will remember violinist Kelly Hall-Tompkins from her appearances here with Ted Sperling and the Westchester Philharmonic. Did you know that she also recorded a CD here? See what else she’s been up to in this week’s Culture Picks.

Violinist Kelly Hall-Tompkins/Music Kitchen presents
Forgotten Voices Song Cycle at Carnegie Hall
World Premiere concert
Thursday, March 31, 7:30 pm
The concert will celebrate Music Kitchen, an initiative founded by renowned violinist Kelly Hall-Tompkins to bring music to those experiencing homelessness. Founded in 2005, Music Kitchen – Food for the Soul is the pioneer organization to present concerts by top classical music in homeless shelters.
In celebration of 30,000 clients served, 100 concerts, and the 15th season in March of 2020, Music Kitchen commissioned “Forgotten Voices” with support from Carnegie Hall. “Forgotten Voices” is a composite song cycle featuring comments by the homeless shelter clients during the first 100 concerts, set to music by 15 of the most celebrated and emerging composers of our time: Courtney Bryan, Jon Grier, Kelly Hall-Tompkins, Gabriel Kahane, James Lee III, Beata Moon, Paul Moravec, Angelica Negron, Kevin Puts, Steve Sandberg, Kamala Sankaram, Jeff Scott, Carlos Simon, Errollyn Wallen, and Ellen Taaffe Zwilich.
Performers will include singers Allison Charney, Adrienne Danrich, Jesse Blumberg, and Mark Risinger; violinist Ling Ling Huang, violist Andrew Gonzalez, cellists Alexis Pia Gerlach and Peter Seidenberg, and double-bassist John-Paul Norpoth. Special guests will be NBC News’ Harry Smith and actress Jessica Hecht. A moderated Q&A session after the performance will conclude the event.
Get tickets for “Forgotten Voices” at Carnegie Hall

Great Performances at the Met presents Fire Shut Up in My Bones
Premieres Friday, April 1, 9pm on PBS (check local listings)
On-demand after April 1
Met Opera Music Director Yannick Nézet-Séguin conducts Grammy–winning jazz musician and composer Terence Blanchard’s adaptation of Charles M. Blow’s moving memoir, marking the Met’s first performance of an opera by a Black composer. Featuring a libretto by filmmaker Kasi Lemmons, the opera tells the story of a young man’s journey to overcome a life of trauma and hardship. James Robinson and Camille A. Brown co-direct this new staging with Brown also choreographing, becoming the first Black director to create a mainstage Met production. Baritone Will Liverman stars as Charles alongside soprano Angel Blue as Destiny/Loneliness/Greta with soprano Latonia Moore as Billie and Walter Russell III as Char’es-Baby. Hosted by Audra McDonald.
Watch the preview on PBS.org

WQXR Presents
An Exclusive Preview from Leif Ove Andsnes
Premiering Monday, April 4, at noon
WQXR Morning Host Jeff Spurgeon will be joined by pianist Leif Ove Andsnes in The Greene Space. Andsnes will give an exclusive preview of his new Mozart album followed by a special guest appearance by Metropolitan Opera star soprano, Lise Davidsen. The two will perform songs featured on their 2022 DECCA release Edvard Grieg.
PROGRAM:
Rondo in D Major by Mozart
Spring Song, Op. 85, No. 4 by Dvořák
Selections by Grieg (TBD)
Watch and listen to WQXR Presents an Exclusive Preview from Leif Ove Andsnes on YouTube

The White Plains Library Foundation presents
Virtual Author Visit with Frank Bruni
Tuesday, April 5, 7-8pm
Bestselling author, journalist, and White Plains native Frank Bruni will be talking about his new book, The Beauty of Dusk: On Vision Lost and Found. One morning in late 2017, New York Times columnist Frank Bruni woke up with strangely blurred vision. He wondered at first if some goo or gunk had worked its way into his right eye. But this was no fleeting annoyance, no fixable inconvenience. Overnight, a rare stroke had cut off blood to one of his optic nerves, rendering him functionally blind in that eye—forever. And he soon learned from doctors that the same disorder could ravage his left eye, too. He could lose his sight altogether.
In The Beauty of Dusk, Bruni hauntingly recounts his adjustment to this daunting reality, a medical and spiritual odyssey that involved not only reappraising his own priorities but also reaching out to, and gathering wisdom from, longtime friends and new acquaintances who had navigated their own traumas and afflictions. The result is a poignant, probing, and ultimately uplifting examination of the limits that all of us inevitably encounter, the lenses through which we choose to evaluate them, and the tools we have for perseverance.
Click to register for the Virtual Author Visit with Frank Bruni

New York Public Radio/The Greene Space presents
Soundcheck, Live: Gabriel Kahane
Premiering on Thursday, April 7, 7pm
Songwriter Gabriel Kahane will discuss his new album, Magnificent Bird, and the year-long internet hiatus that inspired it, in the first in-person Soundcheck, Live of 2022. Accompanied by string quartet, Kahane will play selections from the new LP, as well as songs from his critically acclaimed 2018 Nonesuch Records debut, Book of Travelers, which documented an 8,980-mile railway journey in the aftermath of the 2016 election. This event is produced with Soundcheck and hosted by John Schaefer. Genre-neutral and open-eared, Soundcheck is the New Sounds podcast where artists perform and talk about their work, their process, and themselves. Learn more.
Watch and listen to Soundcheck, Live: Gabriel Kahane 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.