«Over the course of this past season, live arts at the Met have offered audiences daring and intriguing performances. By staging events right in the galleries and commissioning new works specifically for these powerful and iconic spaces, Met Museum Presents invites audiences to connect and engage with their surroundings and to be active in the performance experience.
While reflecting on this past season, as well as looking ahead to our 2015–16 season, we've assembled this special itinerary to give visitors the opportunity to view the galleries that have inspired memorable performances and have sparked the creativity of some of today's most fearless artists.»
Christopher Taylor performs on the Museum's double-manual Bösendorfer. Photo courtesy of The Metropolitan Museum of Art
Stop 1: Gallery 684—Musical Instruments
Performance: The Goldberg Variations: The Double Manual Experience, performed by Christopher Taylor (November 21, 2014)
The celebrated and dynamic pianist Christopher Taylor performed Johann Sebastian Bach's mesmerizing Goldberg Variations on the Grace Rainey Rogers stage in November 2014, but what made this concert a singular experience was that Taylor performed on a rare example of a double-manual piano that has been on loan to the Met since 1947. The Bösendorfer piano has an incredible 164 keys—88 on the lower keyboard and 76 on the upper. This exquisite instrument was removed from storage, conserved, tuned, performed on, and now lives in gallery 684 in The André Mertens Galleries for Musical Instruments.
Photo courtesy of Met Museum Presents
Stop 2: Gallery 305—Medieval Sculpture Hall
Performance: Byzantine Pop-Ups (December 5, 12, and 19, 2014; December 11 and 18, 2015)
Pop-up mini concerts featuring hymns and carols of the Byzantine Empire were performed from the balcony in the Medieval Sculpture Hall, and for about thirty minutes visitors shifted their gaze upwards as the exquisite voices of master cantors of the Eastern Orthodox community echoed throughout the Hall. These Byzantine Pop-Ups will return again as part of the 2015–2016 season of holiday performances.
Photo by Nan Melville
Stop 3: Gallery 131—The Temple of Dendur in The Sackler Wing
Performance: Nrityagram (January 10, 2015)
In front of a packed audience, and completely filling the otherwise spacious gallery, two otherworldly artists from the Nrityagram Dance Ensemble, principal dancers Surupa Sen and Bijayini Satpathy, performed one of the most mesmerizing performances to take place at The Temple of Dendur. Throughout the solos and duets accompanied by live music, audiences sat enchanted by a performance that the New York Times said should "stand as one of the most extraordinary dance events of the year."
Photo by Stephanie Berger
Stop 4: European Paintings Galleries, 1250–1800
Performance: The Grand Tour (January 21 & 22, 2015; November 20 & 27 and December 4 & 11, 2015)
For the past two seasons, The Grand Tour performances have been staged in the European Paintings Galleries, and audiences have traveled to each of the four concerts to engage with the galleries and art in an immersive performance experience. The next Grand Tour, in November 2015, will still feature intimate performances in multiple spaces, and audiences will still journey from gallery to gallery, but this season the concerts take place in the Asian Art galleries to explore performance art from India to China. This time, it's also free with Museum admission!
Photo courtesy of ERRATICA
Stop 5: Gallery 534—Vélez Blanco Patio
Performance: La Celestina (March 20–29, 2015)
For nine full days, the video opera La Celestina, created by ERRATICA specifically for the Met's sixteenth-century Vélez Blanco Patio, became a must-see performance at the Met. The video opera promised intrigue and groundbreaking use of the Patio's existing architecture, which it certainly delivered, receiving critical and popular acclaim from press and visitors alike. La Celestina was both incredibly creative as well as collaborative, and while informed by the history of the space and based on a masterpiece of Spanish literature by the same title, the installation had almost no impact on the gallery itself, forging a new way to approach performance among priceless art and artifacts.
Gallery 918. Photo © The Metropolitan Museum of Art
Stop 6: Gallery 918—International Contemporary Works
Performance: Pierre Boulez: A 90th Birthday Celebration
Nestled in the Modern and Contemporary Art galleries, pianist Conor Hanick performed in one of the Met's newly reinstalled twentieth-century galleries in celebration of the great Pierre Boulez with a program that included Boulez's own music alongside works of John Cage and contemporary composer David Fulmer.
Photo by Marc Millman
Stop 7: Gallery 700—The Charles Engelhard Court and Gallery 760—History, Landscape, and National Identity, 1850–75
Performance: Jazz & Colors (January 30 and April 24, 2015)
This past winter, Jazz & Colors moved from Central Park to the Metropolitan Museum for an energetic evening of jazz in multiple galleries across the Met. Several jazz ensembles performed their interpretations of the same set list while, at the same time, allowing Museum visitors to become spontaneous audience members. Following the first Jazz & Colors, which was titled The Masterworks Edition, audiences asked when the Met would present another evening of Jazz & Colors—which led to the second evening in April, The Full Spectrum Edition, featuring new jazz groups and new set lists. Again, audiences are asking for more . . . so stay tuned.
Photo by Stephanie Berger
Stop 8: Great Hall
Performance: Lang Lang at the Met (May 14, 2015)
Pianist and classical-music superstar Lang Lang performed in the Great Hall for one of the most striking and dramatically lit concerts, presented in conjunction with The Costume Institute's spring exhibition, China: Through the Looking Glass. Revered for his virtuosity and energetic style, Lang Lang's program included compositions by Wu Zuqiang, Du Mingxin, Lü Wencheng, as well as Chopin's Scherzos Nos. 1 and 3 and The Seasons by Tchaikovsky.
Photo by Michele Xiaoyun
Stop 9: Gallery 915—Paintings and Sculpture, 1970–Present
Performance: SILENT dialogue, by choreographer Dai Jian (June 26, 2015)
Just one of the several galleries that choreographer Dai Jian has selected to for the premiere of his new piece SILENT dialogue, this space in the Met's Modern and Contemporary galleries inspired an immersive dance performance that responds to Jian's reflections on rules, regulations, and logic. Jian was moved by the specific energy and the emotional narrative inherent in each of the galleries to be featured in SILENT dialogue.
Gallery 504. Photo by Wilson Santiago
Stop 10: Gallery 504—The Venetian Sculpture Gallery
Performance: The Return, Created by Reid Farrington (July 11–August 2, 2015)
An ambitious collaboration between Met Museum Presents and the curators in the Department of European Sculpture and Decorative Arts, The Return celebrates the restoration of Tullio Lombardo's Adam (ca. 1490–95) with the premiere of a groundbreaking digital technology in the form of a digital avatar of "Adam." For a month, and free with Museum admission, visitors will be able to interact with the art and the gallery in an innovative way while enjoying this extraordinary story performed by live actors.
To purchase tickets to any Met Museum Presents event, visit www.metmuseum.org/tickets; call 212-570-3949; or stop by the Great Hall Box Office, open Monday–Saturday, 11:00 a.m.–3:30 p.m.