Piano World Home Page Forums Fun Stuff! - Parties, Tours, Projects & More... Forum Members Parties, Tours, Cruises, & Meetings new york city in october

These are my #1 and #2 choices:

Metropolitan Museum of Art
10/18 Beaux Arts Trio, Rachmaninoff (Op.9), Schubert (Op. 99)
10/20 Ivo Pogorelich "Celebrating a Birthday and an Anniversary" (It's his birthday the day of the performance)
Beethoven, Schriabin, Rachmaninoff

I will be offline for a few days. Whatever everyone prefers is fine with me. Not crazy about the Met. Opera, though.
Depending on my schedule, I should be able to make some or all portion of the "event."

I would be glad to help out in selecting restaurants, or anything else, when I get back.

Cheers

david burton, we think alike again!

i was going to post the same scheduling suggestion last night but was too tired and went to bed.

the only caveat is that we may have a tough time even at this date getting in to see alicia. i also would slightly more prefer opera or chamber music, as i'm not a big symphony fan. i think seeing alicia would be wonderful, but the recent reviews i've read indicate that she is not in very good form. these are evidently farewell concerts for a reason.

i know some of us will want to see her regardless, so, i will yield to that if it's important to the rest of you.

as david said, i could go with any of the suggestions and would happily attend whatever the group wants.

i'd also like to see even more options listed before we decide as i know there are many small halls, churches, and conservatories that also have very worthwhile events. choosing something less high profile might make it possible for us to delay getting tickets and thus include more people who haven't joined this thread yet.

also, i'd like to hear from frank. if he can make a friday because it is a weekday, but not a saturday, that would make me want to tilt more in that direction.

would a friday present problems for anyone else here?

we could do the museum collection another day. i'm definitely going while i'm in the city, so anyone who is interested is welcome to join me.

i think starting out on piano row is a great idea. we could begin at 3 pm at one store, then work our way through the three stores on west 58th street. if we had appointments with each of them at 3, 4, and 5, we could then have dinner at 6, and be at our concert in time for an 8 pm curtain.

do you think that's enough time at each store? if you want to start earlier at piano piano, that's fine with me. i'm going to take a pass on visiting them.

the other advantage to this sort of schedule is that people who decide to join us too late to get concert tickets could at least join us for a part of the evening or afternoon. if someone gets off at work at 5 pm, they could meet us at the store we have an appointment with at 5ish, and then join us for dinner, for example.

and if any of our manhattan denizens who have pianos come upon this thread late in the game, they could always offer to have us up for drinks post concert.

I also like the idea of starting on Piano Row. On second thoughts I realized a wine and cheese reception in the afternoon wouldn't be a great idea--wine doesn't mix well with piano playing!

Also on second thought I'm wondering if the museum would be a little too distracting for first introductions? It might be easier to meet and mingle where our attentions will not be so preoccupied and absored in masterpieces of art. Beethoven's will also be less crowded.

I'm glad the piano is making its way into this. As this is a PianoWorld gathering, I think we ought to have a keyboard and bench available for those who wish to play or show and tell. And like pique mentioned earlier, we could discuss our subjective impressions of tone quality.

I'm really starting to look forward to this.

I'm willing to buy the tickets on a credit card and you could all reimburse me. Let me know if you want me to do this.

i've been doing some online searches to see if we can get a broader calendar of events in october. here's a link some of you might want to peruse to see what the schedules are at some other venues:

citidex directory

i haven't gone through it myself yet, but it seems like following many of the links might lead to some good stuff. please post here if you do use this site and anything jumps out at you as being of interest.

edit:
well, right away something jumped out at me:

this is at st. bartholomew's church on the east side:

Wednesday, October 22, at 6:30 pm

Robert DeGaetano, pianist

Tickets: $25 (students/seniors $15).
Call 212-378-0248 or click here to purchase online.

"From Alice Tully Hall to Carnegie Hall to Europe and recitals in all 50 states, pianist Robert DeGaetano has been traveling the world composing for and performing on the piano. The New York Times described his playing as robust, precise, charming and propulsive. In this concert, he will perform some of his own pieces in addition to works by Chopin, Liszt, Beethoven, and Rachmaninoff."

robert was my teacher when i was studying at mannes. i'll probably go to this on my own, since it is during the week.

here's another web site:

nyc calendar of events

it's harder than i thought finding a comprehensive listing of classical music concerts in new york two months in advance.

i've now papered piano world with notices about our thread here, and have also emailed and messaged just about everyone i could think of who is in the area or might want to come in for the event.

what do you think about waiting a week and see what other traffic we get and what people's preferences are who do check in? weekends are usually slower on the forums, some people may be on vacation, etc...

can anyone check on current availability of tickets for the preferred concerts and post here what the prices are, and if there is any pressure to decide sooner?

I wondered where this posting went!

I love the ideas everyone has had so far!
My vote is for the Alicia de Larrocha concert, but I will go to whatever! I think the fun of meeting you all would be worth it!

I am keeping my eye out for publications, internet or otherwise, that list concerts that far ahead of time, but I haven't really found one.

An ethnic restaurant would be great! Who here reads NY Times? They always do restaurant reviews, sometimes devoting entire articles to ethnic restaurants. I will keep reading them!

I hope this works, because I really want to meet you all!

I like David's suggested itinerary a lot. My strong first vote would be to hear Alicia De Larrocha. But, of course, everyone knows that by now .

lucy, bernard, ?

can you check on ticket prices and availability for the alicia d.l. concert and post your findings here?

it seems like possibly that is the best date, especially if some people are coming in from out of town? (still haven't heard from frank...)

my own preference for a concert on that date would lean more towards seeing either "the mikado" or "hms pinafore" or the beaux arts trio. my tastes lean more towards opera or chamber music.

but i will be fine with seeing alicia d. if that's what the majority wish. especially if it will attract more interest from forum members.

it seems it is uncertain if it will be her last concert, however. here's a review from last year from the new york times:

November 27, 2002, Wednesday

THE ARTS/CULTURAL DESK
MUSIC REVIEW; De Larrocha's Farewell, Assured but Subtle
By ALLAN KOZINN
The Spanish pianist Alicia de Larrocha, a revered presence in the New York concert world since the mid-1960's, appeared with the Tokyo String Quartet on Monday evening at Carnegie Hall in a program that a spokeswoman for her management company said would be her last public performance. She has been associated particularly closely with two parts of the literature: Mozart's work and the music of the Spanish nationalist composers, who have been figuring prominently in her repertory in recent years. But for her performance on Monday, she returned to Mozart.

As departures go, Ms. de Larrocha's appearance was unusually low-key. Not much had been made of it publicly, although her retirement at 79 was not entirely unexpected. A note in the program book described the concert only as her Carnegie Hall farewell, although she has no further engagements on her calendar.


When she came out to play the Piano Concerto No. 12 in A (K. 414) in its version for piano and string quartet midway through the first half of the program, she neither looked nor sounded her age. As always, she played with quiet assurance rather than flashiness. And although she came out for perhaps half a dozen curtain calls, she offered no encores.

Ms. de Larrocha played the solo line of the A major Concerto with sparkling, transparent textures that were perfectly weighted for this version of the work: essentially the familiar score stripped of its oboe and horn parts, and with the string body reduced to one player to a part.

She seemed to find this chamber setting invigorating. Like any musician who has enjoyed a long career, Ms. de Larrocha has seen performance style, and the tastes that drive it, move through cycles of change and reconsideration. In the Spanish works in her repertory she has remained peerless, but in Mozart, the expansion of the early-music world and the expectations it has created have been challenges for her. During the 1980's and into the 90's, her Mozart sometimes seemed to have an old-fashioned breadth.

On Monday, though, everything seemed to be right. The small details -- the trills and turns that adorn the score -- as well as the more expansive pianism in the cadenzas and the glowing Andante, had considerable energy behind them. Her performance had the bright, light quality that she brought to her playing in the 70's, when her appearances at the Mostly Mozart Festival were among the highlights of New York summers. If anything, her approach to Mozart on Monday was more fluid, more carefully nuanced than it was then.

This was also a night for the Tokyo String Quartet, which, after all, had the stage to itself for two-thirds of the program. Having undergone several personnel changes in the last five years, it has taken some time to find its sound. But this ensemble's longtime admirers who have found its unsettled performances worrisome in recent seasons can breathe easier now.

In Schubert's Quartet in E flat (D. 87), which opened the program, and Beethoven's Quartet in F (Op. 59, No. 1), which closed it, these musicians played with a far richer tone and greater unity than they have produced in a long time.

The greatly improved sound was apparent immediately, with the first notes of the Schubert. This is an early score, composed when Schubert was 16, but it was given such warmth and depth by the Tokyo players -- Martin Beaver and Kikuei Ikeda, violinists; Kazuhide Isomura, violist; and Clive Greensmith, cellist -- that it could have passed as a more mature work.

The Beethoven, too, benefited from a beautifully burnished sound, impeccable ensemble and delicately modulated balances. In its best moments -- the return of the principal theme at the end of the first movement, for example -- the performance bristled with energy.


Published: 11 - 27 - 2002 , Late Edition - Final , Section E , Column 3 , Page 1

Correction: November 28, 2002, Thursday A music review yesterday about a performance by the pianist Alicia de Larrocha with the Tokyo String Quartet included an erroneous characterization from her managers. While the concert on Monday was her last at Carnegie Hall, it was not the final performance of her career. Her managers, Columbia Artists Management, said yesterday that she planned to perform through the end of 2003, and that no date for a farewell performance had been set.

Hey all,

Sorry it took me a while to post on this thread.
I've been having really tough piano days recently and may even give up playing

Would love to meet up with everyone and have a night out. Will try and keep up with the posts here. Let me know whats goin on

glad to see you here, d. you play so beautifully, and have had such a promising beginning, it would be a shame if you gave up the piano! i know others here who have heard you play would concur.

please stay tuned here for developments and look forward to seeing you again in oct.

decibel101, Sorry to hear about the discouragement. We all go through periods of struggle to be sure. Of course, only you can decide if a rest is the best thing for now. Still, part of me really wants to know if you'd like to talk about it. Not having any idea why you are looking at the possibility of some time off, I wonder if there may be some answers that you've overlooked? Feeling like you're not progressing? Maybe it's time for a change of teacher? Change of repertoire? Change of approach?

Feel free to email me if you'd like to discuss it.

Hi, Folks:

Bernard was kind enough to draw my attention to this thread. I would like to join you for at least part of your get-together if held on a Friday or Saturday. Would enjoy meeting all of you!

Thanks . . . Linda

Off Topic:

decible101 - sorry to hear of your frustration. As Bernard suggested, perhaps some of the members here might be able to help. In any event, I hope that your difficulties pass quickly and that you rediscover the joy of your music.

. . . Linda

The Philharmonic box office says there is still good ticket availability.

Like I said, it's horribly expensive, these are the prices PER TICKET (** means partial view):

1st Tier Box - Front $114.00
1st Tier Center $114.00
Prime Orchestra $114.00
1st Tier Box - Rear $87.00
Preferred Orchestra $87.00
2nd Tier Center $79.00
2nd Tier Box** $66.00
3rd Tier Center $66.00
Front Orchestra $66.00
Rear Orchestra $66.00
3rd Tier Box** $37.00

Frankly, I'm willing to go for something less expensive, but I'll do what the majority votes for.

I may try and come in for this. At some point we'll have to cement some details. I would enjoy DeLarocha - but could also enjoy just ending up at one of the stores and close them down too.
Let's see how this develops -- hope I can make it.

Ken

thanks for the legwork on this, bernard.

i could live with 3rd tier center, as that is the best option both acoustically and price wise. if others want to go for more expensive seats, i suppose we could still meet up in the lobby afterwards. or some of us could continue carousing outside the theater .

of the other musical offerings that evening, what are people's second choices?

someone said they don't care for opera (not even gilbert and sullivan operettas? we'd certainly be in a jovial mood afterwards), so does that leave us with the beaux arts trio?

not a bad second choice imho, they are truly excellent.

i think my top choice would be hms pinafore. where is that playing?

Hi, Decibel!

I've been wondering what happened to you! Let me add my voice to those encouraging you not to give up playing. If I remember correctly, you are fairly new to piano, and your first public performance was at the Piano Forum party at Bernard's apartment.

Take the advice from a newbie like me only for what it's worth, but learning to play can be HARD. I've been taking lessons for a year now, currently 1/2 hour lessons every other week--my teacher is pricey, but I love her. I am still having difficulty keeping inactive fingers in contact with the keys, and my teacher busts me each time that they drift. That is BIG TIME frustrating! Still, when I'm away from my piano for even a day, I miss it. That's saying a lot given that my work can keep me away from home long hours for several days straight, causing me to miss the 9 AM to 10 PM playing hours allowed in my building.

Feel free to email me if I can be of any help to you.

All of the best,

Wow, kluurs, that would be fantastic if you can make it! Direct from the windy city...

Chicago immediately reminds me of 2 things: My uncle on my mother's side who lived there (though I've never been), and the Twentieth Century--the train that used to run between Chicago and NYC. It was before my time, but it sounds as if it was just grand.

I've got to visit some time!!! Hope we'll see you in October.

You're always welcome to visit. I'm planning a couple of concerts at the house - soon as I have dates, I'll let you know.

Ken