Over 100 different New York artists are involved in this musical program organized by the Kaufman Music Center. One way to maintain contact with the public while waiting for the reopening scheduled for April.
Musicians in the window: the image can make you smile, in the temple of consumption that New York represents. A pianist and a cellist play an aria by Debussy; their notes fly away and, through loudspeakers, echo behind the window of an abandoned store on the Upper West Side of New York where they come to call out to the few passers-by of the moment: joggers, parents with stroller, elderly. All listen, take a look at the window and discover, with surprise, not models or various products of the moment, but the figure of Spencer Myer, on the piano, and of Michael Katz, on the cello.
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No concert hall, no armchairs, a separating glass, but it is indeed a concert, the occasion for two musicians “hungryOf human contact, as Spencer Myer puts it, to play together and find an audience. “We need this reciprocal relationship“, Explained to AFP Michael Katz, who has already performed in most of the great classic venues in New York. “Bringing music to people like we did is really unique and extraordinary.»
“Musical showcases”
From April 2, performance venues will be allowed to reopen to the public in New York City, but with a tonnage limited to 33% or 100 people maximum. On April 14 and 15, the New York Philharmonic will be making a personal return to The Shed, a cultural space in midtown Manhattan. But this will only be a taste, because the “Phil», Which has also organized small impromptu outdoor concerts since September, is already on its way to September, like the Metropolitan Opera or the New York City Ballet.
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In the meantime, the Kaufman Music Center has organized a program dubbed Musical Storefronts («musical showcases»), To allow musicians to perform in the neighborhood, sheltered by a glass wall. The organizers of this New York Upper West Side institution, both a venue for concerts and musical education, prefer not to disclose the exact location of the famous showcase, nor to reveal the calendar in advance. concerts, to avoid too large gatherings, coronavirus requires. “We try to program a bit of everything, explains, Kate Sheeran, who runs the Kaufman Music Center, from classical musicians to the people of Broadway. We even had experimental improvisation.»
One of the lessons of the pandemic is the need for music, theater and dance, live performance in general that people have.
Michael Katz, cellist
The project “wants to highlight the artistic engine of New York and remind that artists need to work“. Some 30% of New York City adults have already received at least one dose of the coronavirus vaccine, and with the onset of spring, hope is reborn. The city “is like this all the time. When something bad happens we improviseEnthuses Terry Lieberman, who has come to pick up some melodies by Debussy, Beethoven, Mendelssohn and Boulanger. “People pull themselves together and leave. That’s wonderful.» «One of the lessons of the pandemic is the need for music, theater and dance, live performance in general that people have», Summarizes Michael Katz. “It is as essential to them as food and water. It’s not just entertainment, or a commodity».
While spring is already here and the beautiful days are gradually returning, this essential need is reappearing more and more urgently in the four corners of the world. In Barcelona, on Saturday, a rock concert brought together 5,000 people for a life-size test of health measures that could be generalized to facilitate the return of major concerts and festivals, while in Paris, in front of the busy Odeon theater , the artists mobilized in music to demand the reopening of places of culture and state aid.
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