Met Museum Presents Announces 2014–15 Season

«This morning, Director Thomas P. Campbell announced the 2014–15 season of performances and talks at the Met programmed by Concerts and Lectures General Manager, Limor Tomer. The third year of Met Museum Presents programming by Tomer, this new season will include groundbreaking commissions, New York premieres, and adventurous performances in iconic galleries—something our audiences have come to expect at the Met. A thrilling "new normal."»

But Met Museum Presents remains ever-inquisitive. What are new ways to experiment and explore the Met’s spaces, narratives, and resources?

The upcoming season marks the first time the Museum will host a theater troupe in residency. The investigative theater company The Civilians has been named the 2014–15 Artists in Residence and will have a full year to create new works and restage some of their repertory favorites. A major moment in performance at the Met, The Civilians will interpret the Museum's collection in their own signature style while also playfully observing the visitor experience. During their yearlong residency, The Civilians will perform and develop new works and collaborate with curators in three site-specific performances: a compilation of excerpts from their previous productions; a new work designed to probe dying, death, and the afterlife; and a third that examines the changing dynamic of what it means to be an American.

The Civilians. Photograph by Eileen Travell

An unprecedented collaboration, The Civilians will investigate the Met and the narratives embedded in its collections. Known for a unique brand of high-impact theater, The Civilians will be at home discovering, researching, and connecting with the art as well as the atmosphere of some of the Met's most beautiful galleries and architectural treasures. Founded in Brooklyn in 2001, The Civilians brand their work as a "Center for Investigative Theater." The company is directed by Steve Cosson and has created theater that carves out its own niche and taps into contemporary culture and current events.

While The Civilians spend the season exploring site-specific theater, the Met will also be hosting another residency: Attacca Quartet has been named Quartet in Residence for 2014–15. Regarded as one of the most dynamic and important quartets of its generation, Attacca performs daring programs of classic repertoire and contemporary composers alike. While at the Met, the quartet will dive into their residency with Concert 16 of their ongoing series, "The 68," in which Attacca aims to perform all sixty-eight of Haydn's string quartets. Since the group's founding in 2010, it has performed forty-seven quartets over the course of fifteen concerts. Additionally, their full season at the Met will include a visionary approach to John Adams's 1994 composition John's Book of Alleged Dances. Attacca will join forces with choreographer Francesca Harper as she creates movement for this music—which will seek to make the "alleged" dances "confirmed."

The new season will continue our exploration of opera for the twenty-first century with composer JacobTV, who takes on the media with his reality opera, The News (a U.S. premiere). Another exciting performance, so unique to the Met, is La Celestina—a digital opera for the Vélez Blanco Patio. For this new work, Opera Erratica will animate a sixteenth-century Spanish play, and performances will take place during Museum hours. Throughout next season there will be many opportunities to experience performance in the galleries with several free-with-Museum-admission events: from Byzantine pop-up concerts around the holidays to performances by the premier Indian dance troupe, Nrityagram, in The Temple of Dendur in The Sackler Wing.

The new season also delves into the Met's enviable intellectual resources, featuring fast-paced talks with curators and thought-leaders that will illuminate the Museum's unparalleled collections and galleries. One of the many highlights of the upcoming season's talk series includes three conversations on contemporary Mali moderated by Henry Louis Gates, Jr., who will discuss key issues affecting Mali today. The SPARK series also continues with conversations that consider pop culture as well as artistry and entrepreneurship.

With a full range of performances and talks, the new Met Museum Presents season will provide audiences with fresh ideas and cutting-edge, exploratory performances—all in a visual setting exclusive to the Met experience.

Tickets are available by visiting www.metmuseum.org/tickets or calling 212-570-3949. The Great Hall Box Office is also open Monday through Saturday, 11:00 a.m.–3:30 p.m.