NEW YORK PHILHARMONIC: Concerts in the Parks
Van Cortland Park (June 11) / Central Park Great Lawn (June 12) / Cunningham Park (June 13) / Prospect Park (June 14)
Music Director Jaap van Zweden leads his orchestra out of doors and into the city’s parks to partake for his first time in the Philharmonic’s annual rite of summer. The June al fresco program features Rossini’s delirious Overture to La gazza ladra (“The Thieving Magpie”); Copland’s supreme act of All-American portrait painting, the “Hoe-Down” theme from Rodeo; Rachmaninoff’s sumptuous Symphony No. 2; and a special treat, compositions by two very young composers in the Philharmonic’s “Very Young Composers” afterschool program: Nilomi Weerakkody’s Soundscape for Orchestra and Mack Scocca-Ho’s Ociantrose.
THE PHILADELPHIA ORCHESTRA / MITSUKO UCHIDA / THE MET ORCHESTRA
Carnegie Hall (Philadelphia Orchestra: June 7) / (Met Orchestra: June 3 & 14) / (Mitsuko Uchida: June 18)
A scintillating monthlong mix of orchestras, soloists and vocalists commences with the Philadelphia Orchestra and its Music Director Yannick Nézet-Séguin in an all-Russian program; Prokofiev’s spectacularly effervescent Piano Concerto No. 3 performed by the young Italian virtuoso Beatrice Rana, plus two “lost” works, Rachmaninoff’s infamous First Symphony, which crashed and burned at its 1897 premiere, and Stravinsky’s recently discovered Funeral Song to his mentor Rimsky-Korsakov.
The Metropolitan Opera Orchestra then returns for two final concerts led by its Music Director, the ubiquitous Maestro Nézet-Séguin. An All-French program featuring Mezzo-Soprano Isabel Leonard, to include Debussy’s La mer and two by Ravel (Shéhérazade and Daphnis et Chloé Suite No. 2), is followed by a night of Mahler (Rückert Lieder) and Bruckner (Symphony No. 7) with Mezzo-Soprano Elīna Garanča.
Finally, pianist Mitsuko Uchida, after postponing last month, performs her all-Schubert Sonata program; the lithe, early E-flat Major (as revised by Schubert and posthumously published); and the later cries of pain in A-Minor and A-Major, written in the wake of the composer’s mortal diagnosis for venereal disease.
NEW YORK CITY OPERA: Stonewall
The Rose Theater (June 21-28)
City Opera returns with the world premiere of British composer Iain Bell’s opera Stonewall, commemorating the uprising on its 50th anniversary. Best known for his work with diva Diana Damrau, Bell collaborates here with Pulitzer Prize-winning librettist Mark Campbell.
WHITMAN IN MUSIC & WORDS
The Morgan Library (June 20)
An evening of music and spoken word to complement the Morgan’s current exhibition, Walt Whitman: Bard of Democracy. Curated by composer and conductor Matthew Aucoin, the program will feature works by John Adams, Leonard Bernstein, and excerpts from Aucoin’s opera Crossing.
BEETHOVEN PIANO & VIOLIN SONATAS: Ursula Oppens
Bargemusic (June 8)
The city’s finest floating concert hall, a retrofitted former-New York harbor barge berthed in the East River at the foot of the Brooklyn Bridge, hosts pianist Ursula Oppens performing Beethoven Sonatas No. 5 in F Major and No. 7 in C minor, with Bargemusic’s Artistic Director, violinist Mark Peskanov.
LEONARD BERNSTEIN CENTENNIAL FINALE CONCERT
Mary Flagler Cary Hall (June 14)
This self-styled Centennial finale, presented by The DiMenna Center for Classical Music, will feature new sinfonietta orchestrations of Bernstein’s ballet scores for Dybbuk and Fancy Free, performed by the Lost Dog New Music Ensemble, conducted by Bernstein aficionado Jayce Ogren.
VINCE GIORDANO & THE NIGHTHAWKS
Caramoor (June 16) / Lincoln Center (June 25)
Two opportunities to hear (and dance to) the finest classic dance orchestra in jazz today. The Nighthawks bring jazz of the 20s and 30s to the Caramoor Center in Katonah, New York, for a daylong “Hot Jazz Age Frolic,” with many special guests, before returning to Manhattan to open Lincoln Center’s beloved outdoor series, “Midsummer Night Swing,” in and all around Damrosch Park.
