Culture Picks: August 11

Whatever the weather, there’s music in the air this week—enjoy!

NPR Music Presents
Regina Spektor: Tiny Desk Concert
On-demand
Singer-songwriter (and Purchase College alum) Regina Spektor sat in her hotel room waiting as we tuned the piano behind my desk. In those idle moments, she whipped up a “Tiny Song,” and she opens her concert singing this sweet, funny and tiny ditty. “Took a train from New York to D.C. / And everyone was coughing on me,” she sings, “But I wore a real tight mask / And got myself a negative COVID test.” What unfolds over the course of the next five songs is the humor and passion I’ve loved in Regina Spektor’s music since receiving an early release of her Soviet Kitsch CD in 2004. Now 18 years later, Regina has made what I believe is her most astonishing record to date, Home, before and after. We hear two songs from this 2022 release, including the album’s opening track, “Becoming All Alone.” The story has Regina walking home alone when she hears God call out her name: “And He said, ‘Hey, Let’s grab a beer / It’s awful late / We both right here,’ ” she sings, “And we didn’t even have to pay / ‘Cause God is God / And He’s revered.” Their conversation ensues, and Spektor wonders just why life and loneliness don’t improve with time. It’s the type of truth and whimsy that makes for such heartbreaking music, including old favorites “Fidelity” and “Samson,” performed here simply on piano with charm and conviction.–Bob Boilen
Watch “Regina Spektor: Tiny Desk Concert” on YouTube

Lincoln Center for the Performing Arts Summer for the City presents
Requiem: Fire in the Air of the Earth / A.I.M by Kyle Abraham
Thursday, August 11 – Saturday, August 13, 8pm
Jazz at Lincoln Center Rose Theater
Choreographer, MacArthur Fellow, and Purchase College alum Kyle Abraham and pioneering producer, composer, and electronic dance music artist Jlin have joined forces to create Requiem: Fire in the Air of the Earth, an Afro-Futurist exploration of death, reincarnation, and the after-life, all set to an electronic movement transcription of Mozart’s Requiem in D minor. Jlin transforms Mozart’s music into an electronic opus that memorializes ritual, mourning, and rebirth, and performs it live onstage with ten dancers from Abraham’s company—A.I.M by Kyle Abraham. This is the first New York presentation of the piece, which was co-commissioned by Lincoln Center for the Performing Arts; the Boston Celebrity Series; International Summer Festival Kampnagel; Stanford Live at Stanford University; and the University Musical Society of the University of Michigan, Ann Arbor.
Get tickets for “Requiem: Fire in the Air of the Earth”

ICYMI: Jazz Forum Arts presents
Free Outdoor Jazz Concerts
Jazz Forum Arts is celebrating 25 years of free outdoor summer concerts in Westchester.
Sunset Jazz at Lyndhurst, Tarrytown | Thursdays at 6:30-8pm, through August 25
Jazz at Pierson Park, Tarrytown | Fridays at 6:30-8pm, through August 26
Jazz at Henry Gourdine Park, Ossining | Mondays at 6:30-8pm, August 22
Jazz at Horan’s Landing, Sleepy Hollow | Tuesdays at 6:30-8pm, through August 23
For more information, visit the Jazz Forum Arts website

Lincoln Center for the Performing Arts Summer for the City presents
BAAND Together Dance Festival
Through August 13
Five of NYC’s most iconic dance companies—Ballet Hispánico, Alvin Ailey American Dance Theater, American Ballet Theatre, New York City Ballet, and Dance Theatre of Harlem—share the spotlight and an outdoor stage with dancers and pieces from across the companies featured each night. Audiences will be delighted by new works and repertory favorites, with each unique and exciting evening of programming curated collaboratively by the artistic directors of the five companies. In the afternoons, each organization will also bring its unique teaching style to the Lincoln Center campus with daily Education Workshops, appropriate for all ages! The Festival is made possible by CHANEL. All performances and dance workshops are FREE.
View the full BAAND Together schedule of events

Untermyer Performing Arts Council/Mayor Mike Spano/Yonkers Department of Parks, Recreation and Conservation present
World Fest 2022: New Westchester Symphony Orchestra
Saturday, August 13, 6:45pm
Untermyer Park & Gardens, 945 North Broadway, Yonkers
The New Westchester Symphony Orchestra is an audition-free, community orchestra offering instrumentalists of all ages and abilities the opportunity to play the same repertoire as professional orchestras, but in a non-competitive and supportive environment. There are no auditions to join, and anyone can play music with NewWSO. Celebrate community music-making with our varied program including Bach, Piazzolla, Chaminade, and other works, featuring our very own accomplished members as soloists.
Click here for event details and rain location information

Aspen Music Festival presents
Aspen Festival Orchestra with Joyce Yang
Livestream on Sunday, August 14, 6pm
JAMES LEE III: Amer’ican
PROKOFIEV: Piano Concerto No. 3 in C major, op. 26
DVOŘÁK: Symphony No. 9 in E minor, op. 95, “From the New World”
Pianist extraordinaire Joyce Yang returns to Aspen for a performance of pianistic pyrotechnics in Prokofiev’s Third Piano Concerto, which stands high on the list of virtuosic showpiece concertos.
Watch and listen to the Aspen Music Festival Orchestra with Joyce Yang

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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.