Judy Collins at The Temple of Dendur in The Sackler Wing,
Dee Dee Bridgewater's Tribute to Billie Holliday, and
"Strings of the Black Sea," Music from Bulgaria, Ukraine, Crimea, and Turkey
For tickets, call the Concerts & Lectures Department at 212-570-3949, or visit www.metmuseum.org/tickets, where updated schedules and programs are available.
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.
Sunday, September 19, 2010, at 3:00 p.m. - "Strings of the Black Sea: A Celebration of Lutes & Fiddles from Bulgaria, Ukraine, Crimea, and Turkey"
Presented in collaboration with the Center for Traditional Music and Dance and the World Music Institute, "Strings of the Black Sea" is the opening event of the New York World Festival – Music around the Black Sea, a week-long festival celebrating New York's cultural diversity through the exploration of musical connections between communities surrounding the Black Sea and their New York immigrant populations, taking place at various New York venues.
Showcasing instruments like those included in the Metropolitan Museum's permanent musical instrument collection, "Strings of the Black Sea" features violinist Nariman Asanov, a leading exponent of the musical tradition of the Crimean Tatars accompanied by Patrick Farrell on accordion; Beth Bahia Cohen, Turkish yayli tanbur (bowed tanbur) player who has performed with masters from the Balkans and the Middle East; Ahmet Erdoðdular, Turkish tanbur (long-necked plucked lute) player and singer who is one of the most important musicians of the new generation of Turkish classical music; Nikolay Kolev, a virtuoso gadulka (vertically held pear-shaped rebec fiddle) player from the village of Karavelovo in the Rose Valley of Bulgaria; Julian Kytasty, one of the world's premier bandura (Ukrainian lute-harp) players and singer; and the extraordinary Christos Tiktapanidis, one of the few musicians in the US who plays the Pontic Greek lyra, a vertically held bottle-shaped three-stringed rebec.
A crossroads between Europe and Asia, the Black Sea (known by the Greeks as "Pontus," meaning "sea") has always been a center of mercantile and cultural exchange. From trade and colonization by a succession of empires – Scythian, Greek, Roman, Persian, Byzantine, Ottoman, Russian and Soviet – the diverse coastal populations of the Black Sea share a degree of cultural continuity. Instrumental traditions with evident links to Byzantium (and possibly earlier times) include the bottle-shaped kemance fiddle, the droneless tulum bagpipes, the reed woodwind zurna, and the pear-shaped bowed lyra. Throughout the region there are rich traditions of polyphonic singing and circle dances. In later times, the introduction of instruments from Europe—clarinets, violins, accordions, and, more recently, electronic instruments-- have been integrated into older musical forms and facilitated the development of new musical genres.
Tickets: $30 (Student tickets: $15)
Tuesday, September 21, 2010, at 7:00 p.m. -"An Evening with Judy Collins"
Judy Collins returns to the Metropolitan Museum with a program highlighted by selections from her new album, Paradise (release May 2010), that includes new renditions of archetypal songs.
This concert is supported by the estate of Kathryn Walter Stein.
About Paradise, David Honigsmann said on FT.com, "Judy Collins's ear for and way with a song have remained constant. She negotiates the octaves of 'Over The Rainbow' with ease. There is tongue-in-chaps country on 'Ghost Riders in the Sky,' and oblique looks at the Iraq war on 'Once I Was' and the unbearably-sad 'Weight of the World.'"
Judy Collins has thrilled audiences worldwide with her unique blend of interpretative folksongs and contemporary themes. Her impressive career has spanned more than 40 years. At 13, Judy Collins made her public debut performing Mozart's "Concerto for Two Pianos" but it was the music of such artists as Woody Guthrie and Pete Seeger, as well as the traditional songs of the folk revival, that sparked Judy Collins' love of lyrics. She soon moved away from the classical piano and began her lifelong love with the guitar. In 1961, Judy Collins released her first album, A Maid of Constant Sorrow, at the age of 22 and began a thirty-five year association with Jac Holzman and Elektra Records.
Judy Collins is also noted for her rendition of Joni Mitchell's "Both Sides Now" on her classic 1967 album, Wildflowers. "Both Sides Now" has since been entered into the Grammy's Hall of Fame. Winning "Song of the Year" at the 1975 Grammy's Awards show was Judy's version of "Send in the Clowns," a ballad written by Stephen Sondheim for the Broadway musical "A Little Night Music."
The Temple of Dendur in The Sackler Wing
Tickets: $65
Friday, September 24, 2010, at 7:00 p.m. - Dee Dee Bridgewater – "To Billie with Love: A Celebration of Lady Day"
The jazz vocalist, actress, and current host of NPR's "JazzSet" performs a program in tribute to the iconic singer Billie Holiday, with pianist and arranger Edsel Gomez. Bridgewater's latest CD, an acclaimed tribute to Holiday, was released earlier this year.
Over the course of a multifaceted career that has spanned four decades, Dee Dee Bridgewater has risen to the top tier of today's jazz vocalists, putting her own unique spin on standards as well as taking leaps of faith in re-envisioning jazz classics. For her latest recording, Eleanora Fagan (1917-1959): To Billie With Love From Dee Dee, Bridgewater honors an iconic jazz figure, Billie Holiday (born Eleanora Fagan), who died tragically at the age of 44 a half-century ago, and assembled an all-star band for the recording: dynamic reeds player James Carter, bassist Christian McBride and drummer Lewis Nash.
"This album is my way of paying my respect to a vocalist who made it possible for singers like me to carve out a career for ourselves," says Bridgewater, who performed the role of Holiday in the triumphant theatrical production Lady Day – based on the singer's autobiography, Lady Sings the Blues – staged in Paris and London in 1986 and 1987. "I wanted Eleanora Fagan to be something different: more modern and a celebration, not a [recording] that goes dark and sullen and maudlin. I wanted the album to be joyful."
Bridgewater adds that Eleanora Fagan goes far deeper than being a tribute album of retreaded Holiday tunes. "Billie deserves to have her music heard in another light," she says, "and I definitely didn't set out to imitate her."
Key to the fresh approach is pianist Edsel Gomez, Bridgewater's longtime band mate who wrote new arrangements for the 12 songs on the album, including the African polyrhythmic-charged interpretation of "Lady Sings the Blues," a reharmonized version of "All of Me," and the gospel-tinged "God Bless the Child."
Christopher Loudon raved in JazzTimes, "With Bridgewater having advanced from Holiday pupil to full-fledged peer, derivativeness is behind her. It comes as no surprise that her performances of a dozen Holiday classics, running the gamut from the lighthearted coquettishness of "Mother's Son-in-Law" to the grisly depths of "Strange Fruit," are astounding. We'd expect nothing less."
Few entertainers have been rewarded with Broadway's coveted Tony Award (Best Featured Actress in a Musical – The Wiz), nominated for the London theater's West End equivalent, the Laurence Oliver Award (Best Actress in a Musical – Lady Day), won two Grammy® Awards (1998's Best Jazz Vocal Performance and Best Arrangement Accompanying a Vocal for "Cottontail" – Slide Hampton, arranger – "Dear Ella "), and France's 1998 top honor Victoire de la Musique (Best Jazz Vocal Album).
Tickets: $45
August 10, 2010
Press resources