The Metropolitan Museum of Art - October 2011

METROPOLITAN MUSEUM CONCERTS – OCTOBER 2011

http://www.metmuseum.org/ 

Hassan Hakmoun Ensemble and Qawal Najmuddin Saifuddin & Brothers, and Tablaphilia, a Symphony for 24 Tabla, Mark Opening of New Galleries for Art of the Arab Lands, Turkey, Iran, Central Asia, and Later South Asia.

Angélique Kidjo Performs in Conjunction with Heroic Africans Exhibition

Pacifica Quartet Begins a Beethoven String Quartet Cycle

Vince Giordano and the Nighthawks Perform Joplin, Gershwin, Berlin, Inspired by Stieglitz and His Artists: Matisse to O’Keeffe Exhibition

For tickets, visit www.metmuseum.org/tickets

or call 212-570-3949.

Tickets are also available at the Great Hall Box Office, which is open Tuesday-Saturday 10-5:00 and Sunday noon-5:00. Student and group discount tickets are available for some events; call 212-570-3949. Tickets include admission to the Museum on day of performance.

Saturday, October 1, 2011, at 7:00 p.m.- Angélique Kidjo

Called “Africa’s premier diva” by Time magazine, Grammy Award-winning singer-songwriter Angélique Kidjo performs folk songs from her native Benin (formerly Dahomey, West Africa) with her fellow countryman Lionel Loueke, guitar. They will perform traditional songs that tell the legends and tales of Benin in an acoustic format with voice, guitar, and calebasse percussion. The rich multicultural heritage of Benin is brought to life with Kidjo’s unique blend of Zilin vocal technique and jazz vocalese.

This concert is inspired by the exhibition Heroic Africans: Legendary Leaders, Iconic Sculptures, on view September 21, 2011 – January 29, 2012. The exhibition considers eight landmark sculptural traditions from West and Central Africa created between the 13th and early 20th century in terms of the individuals who inspired their creation. The exhibition is made possible in part by The Andrew W. Mellon Foundation, The Ceil & Michael E. Pulitzer Foundation, Inc., and the National Endowment for the Arts. The exhibition was organized by The Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York, in collaboration with the Museum Rietberg, Zurich.

Angélique Kidjo’s internationally acclaimed repertoire includes collaborations with various recording artists such as Carlos Santana, Peter Gabriel, Alicia Keys, Josh Groban, Branford Marsalis, and Joss Stone. Known for her dynamic and uplifting music, she has translated her distinctive work in the arts to that of philanthropy. By promoting education for girls in Africa through her foundation, Batonga and as a UNICEF Goodwill ambassador Kidjo travels the world to inspire and empower.

Like Miriam Makeba was before her, Kidjo is the continent’s most internationally celebrated female musical exponent, although she has lived outside Africa for more than two decades. She currently resides in New York City, where she is an exceptionally active member of the music scene, reaching people around the world with her recordings, tours, and philanthropic work. http://www.kidjo.com/

Tickets: $55

Sunday, October 9, 2011, at 3:00 p.m. - Nayibe La Gitana Family Concert

The salsa singer, joined by legendary salsero Rafael de Jesus and La Tribu Orchestra – J.R. de Jesus, piano; Maximo Rodriguez, bass; Harry Adorno, timbales; Richie Viruet and Peter Nater, trumpets; and Williw Alvares, trombone – performs a family concert in commemoration of Latino Heritage Month.

Nayibe La Gitana was born in Cali, Colombia. From an early age Nayibe loved to sing all the old Cuban songs, rumbas, and boleros, especially those of her mother’s favorite artist, Celia Cruz, as well as the songs of Celina Reutilio and La Lupe. By the age of 18 Nayibe had performed with the Mexican group La Sonora Latina and the Salvadorian group La Banda Ardiente. Nayibe’s most recent CD, released in 2010, was produced by maestros Julio Castro and Ray Castro of Conjunto Clásico. Her music will be featured in the upcoming feature film The Pigeon Man, and her song “Hay Negro” has been played extensively by Polito Vega on New York’s La Mega radio station. Tickets: $15

Friday, October 21, 2011, at 7:00 p.m.- Vince Giordano

Vince Giordano and the Nighthawks will rediscover musical gems of Scott Joplin, Irving Berlin, George Gershwin, Duke Ellington, and others who, with New York City as their backdrop, wrote ragtime, pop, Broadway, jazz, and early film music. This concert is inspired by the exhibition Stieglitz and His Artists: Matisse to O’Keeffe, on view October 13, 2011 – June 2, 2012. It is the first large-scale presentation of paintings, sculptures, drawings, and prints from Alfred Stieglitz’s collection, acquired by the Metropolitan in 1949. The exhibition is made possible by the Iris & B. Gerald Cantor Foundation.

Vince Giordano and the Nighthawks, renowned on the New York scene for their commitment to preserving and authentically presenting 1920s and ’30s jazz and popular music, have garnered recent acclaim for their performances on the soundtrack of the HBO series Boardwalk Empire. Formed in 1976, this dynamic band has also been invited to perform at the Smithsonian, Carnegie Hall, Lincoln Center, and jazz festivals around the world. Early appearances with Leon Redbone and on A Prairie Home Companion, and in Francis Ford Coppola’s film The Cotton Club, led to working with Dick Hyman’s orchestra in half a dozen Woody Allen soundtracks, then as a bass player in Woody Allen’s Sweet and Lowdown. Giordano and the band have been featured in the films Finding Forrester, The Aviator; The Good Shepherd, The Savages, Revolutionary Road, Away We Go, and Public Enemies. Other recording projects include the soundtrack for HBO’s Grey Gardens, as well as Boardwalk Empire. A big-band historian and collector, Giordano has more than 60,000 scores in his collection. Tickets: $40

Saturday, October 22, 2011, at 7:00 p.m. - Pacifica Quartet – Beethoven String Quartets

In 2009-2010, the Pacifica Quartet, called “one of the fastest rising ensembles today” by The New York Times. This season, the Quartet will perform the complete string quartets of Beethoven in six programs, each of which features early and later works.

This first program features Quartets No. 2 in G Major, Op. 18, “Compliments”; No. 10 in E flat Major, Op. 74, “Harp”; and No. 14 in C-sharp Minor, Op. 131. The succeeding concerts will take place on November 12, December 10, January 7, February 25, and March 10. This series is supported in part by the Grace Jarcho Ross and Daniel G. Ross Concert Fund.

Recognized for its virtuosity, exuberant performance style, and often daring repertory choices, the Pacifica Quartet has carved out a compelling and critically lauded musical path. In addition to the Musical America Ensemble of the Year 2009 award and a 2009 Grammy Award for Best Chamber Music Performance, the Pacifica Quartet has swept top awards in the U.S. and abroad, including the prestigious Avery Fisher Career Grant in 2006, making the Pacifica only the second chamber music ensemble ever to be selected. Formed in 1994, the ensemble quickly won top prizes in leading international competitions, including the 1998 Naumburg Chamber Music Award. The members of the Pacifica Quartet live in Urbana-Champaign, Illinois, where they were appointed to the faculty of the University of Illinois in 2004 and serve as Faculty Quartet in Residence. They are also resident performing artists at the University of Chicago and the Longy School in Boston. Reflecting its dedication to musicians and music lovers of the next generation, the Pacifica Quartet was instrumental in creating the Music Integration Project, an innovative program that provides musical performances and teacher training to inner-city elementary schools. Originating on the West Coast, where it played its earliest concerts together, the quartet takes its name from the Pacific Ocean. Throughout their journey as a string quartet, its members continually strive to be “Distinct as the billows/yet one as the sea” (James Montgomery). www.pacificaquartet.com
Tickets: $45

Saturday, October 29, 2011, at 7:00 p.m.- Hassan Hakmoun Ensemble and Qawal Najmuddin Saifuddin & Brothers

Two famed virtuoso artists and their ensembles perform hypnotic praise songs from North Africa and South Asia. Morocco’s Hassan Hakmoun Ensemble, representing the Gnaoua spiritual trance tradition, and Pakistan’s Qawal Najmuddin Saifuddin & Brothers, belonging to the Sufi Qawwali tradition, perform their distinctive music and come together for a specially created finale.  This program is presented in conjunction with the opening of the New Galleries for the Art of the Arab Lands, Turkey, Iran, Central Asia, and Later South Asia on November 1, 2011. This program is generously supported by the Doris Duke Foundation for Islamic Art. The appearance of Qawal Najmuddin Saifuddin & Brothers is part of Caravanserai: A place where cultures meet. Caravanserai is a groundbreaking initiative designed to open and expand the dialogue between American communities and contemporary Muslim societies, using the arts as a point of entry, and is managed by Arts Midwest on behalf of the U.S. Regional Arts Organizations.

Hassan Hakmoun was born in Marrakech in 1963. At the age of seven he began performing tagnawit, the Gnaoua related arts and lore, under local Gnaoua Masters, and eventually played for the Derdeba (Gnaoua ceremony), which can last from an evening into the next day; it is believed to release spirits that have inhabited a person or place. At the age of 14, Hakmoun left school and traveled throughout Morocco, Spain, and through all of Europe, learning from the Gnaoua masters he visited on his journey. Along with other young musicians in Marrakech, he has begun to broaden the repertory of Gnaoua entertainment songs by performing Arab and Berber tunes in the Gnaoua style. The pentatonic scale and driving rhythm of the sintir are instantly appealing and familiar to Western audiences; music of the Gnaoua, like much American popular music, is built from elements borrowed from West Africa. Hakmoun made his U.S. debut in 1987 at Lincoln Center and has been living in New York City ever since. For his U.S. television debut in 1989, he shared the stage with Miles Davis. He performed at Woodstock ’94 and on the WOMAD ’94 tour. Besides performing traditional Gnaoua music he has performed and recorded with jazz musicians including Don Cherry and Adam Rudolph, pop stars Peter Gabriel and Paula Cole, world beat artist Jamshied Sharifi, and many more. Hassan is currently working on his new album, which will be a new collaboration among inspirational singers from around the world. http://www.hassanhakmoun.com/

Ustad Qawal Bahauddin Khansahab (son of Haji Suleman Khansahab and maestro in the Khusrou tradition of Qawwali, a type of Sufi devotional music), after enchanting audiences all over the world with his knowledge, voice, and command on different styles of Qawwali, has successfully transferred this spiritual art and style to his sons, Qawal Najmuddin Saifuddin & Brothers. Apart from what they have learned as the progeny of a prominent gharana, or musical family, the sons present Qawwali in various languages including Arabic, Persian, Hindi, Punjabi, and Sindhi, as well as in English. They have performed all over the world, both with their father and on their own. In 2004, Najmuddin, the eldest son of Qawal Bahauddin, was appointed a doyen in the Chishti Sufi Order to carry on the spiritual Sufi tradition and propagate its message of love, peace, and humanity. The ensemble has received various awards, medals, and shields in Pakistan and abroad for their outstanding performances. www.qawalbachchay.com
Tickets: $35

Sunday, October 30, 2011, at 3:00 p.m. - Hassan Hakmoun Ensemble and Qawal Najmuddin Saifuddin & Brothers – Music for Families

The Hassan Hakmoun Ensemble and Qawal Najmuddin Saifuddin & Brothers perform an hour-long family program highlighting aspects of the Gnaoua and Qawwali traditions, including drumming solos and acrobatic dancing. This program is presented in conjunction with the opening of the New Galleries for the Art of the Arab Lands, Turkey, Iran, Central Asia, and Later South Asia on November 1, 2011. This program is generously supported by the Doris Duke Foundation for Islamic Art. The appearance of Qawal Najmuddin Saifuddin & Brothers is part of Caravanserai: A place where cultures meet. Caravanserai is a groundbreaking initiative designed to open and expand the dialogue between American communities and contemporary Muslim societies, using the arts as a point of entry, and is managed by Arts Midwest on behalf of the U.S. Regional Arts Organizations. Tickets: $15

Monday, October 31, 2011, at 6:30 p.m. - Tablaphilia

A symphony for tabla (Indian drum) players and vocalists under the direction of tabla maestro and composer Samir Chatterjee, Tablaphilia interprets the four stages of life (asharamas) of Hindu philosophy— Bramhacharya, Garhastha, Banaprastha, and Sanyasa—through the mystical and multicolor language of the drum. The performance will take place in the Museum’s Great Hall. This program is presented in conjunction with the opening of the New Galleries for the Art of the Arab Lands, Turkey, Iran, Central Asia, and Later South Asia on November 1, 2011. Tablaphilia is a 70-minute tabla symphony composed, directed, and conducted by tabla maestro Samir Chatterjee and performed by the Chhandayan Tabla Symphony of 22 tabla players playing more than 50 tablas, and four vocalists.  Tablaphilia was first performed on May 8, 2010, at the 11th Chhandayan All-Night Concert, and subsequently on a successful seven-city tour of Karnataka in December 2010, as well as in New Jersey in July 2011.

Samir Chatterjee is a virtuoso tabla player of India. He travels widely throughout the year performing in numerous festivals as a soloist and with other outstanding musicians from both Indian and Western musical traditions. Samir performed at the Nobel Peace Prize ceremony in Oslo, Norway, in 2007. Often featured on the national radio and television of India, he can be heard on numerous recordings both as soloist and in collaboration with prominent musicians. Samir Chatterjee lives in the New York area, where he has become a catalyst in the fusion of Indian and Western music, performing with Pauline Oliveros, William Parker, Branford Marsalis, Ravi Coltrane, Dave Douglas, Myra Melford, Steve Gorn, Glen Velez, Boby Sanabria, Ben Verdery, the Dance Theater of Harlem, the Boston Philharmonic, Ethos Percussion group, Boston Musica Viva, and other jazz, classical, and avant garde musicians and ensembles. He is a member of the jazz trio SYNC with Ned Rothenberg and Jerome Harris and the quintet Inner Diaspora with Mark Feldman and Eric Friedlander. He also collaborates with Sufi-rock singer Salman Ahmad of Junoon. He performed with Sanjay Mishra on his CD Blue Incantation, which featured Jerry Garcia as guest artist. http://www.tabla.org/
Tickets: $20

The Great Hall- Music Lectures

Wednesday, October 12, 2011, at 6:00 p.m. - “On Imprisoning Violins” with Jayson Kerr Dobney and Sean Carpenter

Jayson Kerr Dobney, Associate Curator and Administrator in the Department of Musical Instruments, and Sean Carpenter, violinist and co-founder of the Salomé Chamber Orchestra, will address the ongoing debate about whether examples of fine instruments should be kept in museums or used by performers. This lecture will examine the context of violin collection in the United States, and the tension between preservation and performance.Tickets: $25

Tuesdays, October 18 & 25, 2011, at 2:30 p.m.- “Musical Conversations with June LeBell and Friends”

Broadcaster, lecturer, and American musical theater aficionada June LeBell presents two lectures focusing on the music of the first half of the 20th century – when Alfred Stieglitz was a dominant figure in New York cultural life. These lectures are inspired by the exhibition Stieglitz and His Artists: Matisse to O'Keeffe, which runs from October 13, 2011, to June 2, 2012. It is the first large-scale presentation of paintings, sculptures, drawings, and prints from Alfred Stieglitz's collection, acquired by the Metropolitan in 1949.

October 18: “George Gershwin’s New York City” features performances by special guests.
October 25: “Irving Berlin’s New York City” – June is joined by Mary Ellin Barrett, author of Irving Berlin: A Daughter’s Memoir, as well as special guest performers. Tickets: $25 (Series: $40)