Lincoln Center Announces Summer Line-up

As Lincoln Center marks its 50th Anniversary, its renowned summer programs return featuring hundreds of performances by world-class artists, ensembles, and productions both inside its storied halls and outdoors in its public spaces.

Lincoln Center Festival, JULY 7 - 26

The 14th season of the cutting-edge Lincoln Center Festival boasts 14 North American, U.S., and New York premieres and debuts and 56 performances by artists and ensembles from 14 countries. Several extraordinary productions by acclaimed European theater companies are a special focus of this year's Festival lineup.

?Les Éphémères - Opening the Festival on July 7, Les Éphémères is an intimate mosaic of ordinary life created by the members of France's Le Théâtre du Soleil and their visionary director Ariane Mnouchkine. There will be 14 performances staged at the Park Avenue Armory. (Part One on July 7, 10, and 15; Part Two on July 8, 16, and 17; and the Full Cycle on July 11, 12, 18, and 19.)

?Boris Godunov - The maneuverings of today's Russian power brokers are mirrored in Boris Godunov, the Chekhov International Theater Festival's modern-day staging of Pushkin's 1825 play, directed by one of today's most innovative directors, Declan Donnellan; there will be five performances at the Park Avenue Armory, July 22-26.

?Ivanov - This New York premiere production of Chekhov's early play about a man who faces painful truths about his life is performed by Budapest's Katona József Theatre. Directed by Tamás Ascher, Ivanov will have five performances at the Gerald W. Lynch Theater at John Jay College, July 7-11.

Kalkwerk - Members of Poland's fabled Narodowy Stary Teatr perform in the U.S. premiere of this adaptation of Thomas Bernhard's controversial surrealist novel, Kalkwerk, directed by the internationally renowned Krystian Lupa. There will be five performances of Kalkwerk, July 14-18, at the Gerald W. Lynch Theater at John Jay College.

 

?Peasant Opera - Hungary's award-winning Béla Pintér and Company makes its U.S. debut with Peasant Opera, devised and directed by Pintér. A darkly farcical tale of taboos in the Hungarian countryside, Peasant Opera will have seven performances, July 21-26, at the Clark Studio Theater.

 

?Life and Fate - Legendary director Lev Dodin adapted and directed Vasily Grossman's once-banned novel of life on the Eastern Front in the 1940s for this North American premiere production performed by members of Moscow's Maly Drama Theatre. There will be five performances of Life and Fate at the Gerald W. Lynch Theater at John Jay College, July 21-26.

 

?Trilogia della villeggiatura - Piccolo Teatro di Milano/Teatri Uniti's production of Goldoni's 18th-century comedy of manners is directed by and stars Toni Servillo. Goldoni's Arlecchino: The Servant of Two Masters was a hit for the company at Lincoln Center Festival 05. There will be five performances of Trilogia della villeggiatura at the Rose Theater, July 22-26.

 

?Shen Wei Dance Arts - Shen Wei reflects on his journey from China to the West and back with Re- (I, II, III), which marks the fifth festival appearance by the renowned dance company. These will be the first performances of the complete triptych in New York. There will be three performances at Alice Tully Hall's Starr Theater, July 9-11.

 

?Emanuel Gat Dance - The exciting contemporary dance company returns to Lincoln Center Festival for the North American premiere of a Lincoln Center co-commission, Silent Ballet, and the New York premiere of a new duet, Winter Variations, also a Lincoln Center co-commission. There will be three performances at the Rose Theater, July 14, 16, and 17.

 

?Two by Four with the Ruhr - This concert, presented in association with the Ruhr Piano Festival in Germany, will feature piano works for four hands and for two pianos performed by Dennis Russell Davies and Maki Namekawa. The program will include the U.S. premiere of Philip Glass's Four Movements for Two Pianos and the New York premiere of Chen Yi's China West-Suite for two pianos (commissioned by the artists). The July 25 recital will be performed at Alice Tully Hall's Starr Theater.

 

?A Night in the Maghreb - This extraordinary concert will introduce two world-renowned pop music artists from western North Africa to American audiences, as Algerian music icon Idir and Moroccan Chaabi singer Najat Aatabou share the Avery Fisher Hall stage on July 18.

 

?A Tribute to Wardell Quezergue - The celebrated New Orleans arranger is honored in an event featuring a roster of noted musical artists from the Crescent City's annual Ponderosa Stomp music festival. Scheduled to appear are Mac Rebenack (aka Dr. John), Michael Hurtt, Jean Knight, Tammy Lynn, Dorothy Moore, Zigaboo Modeliste, and Wardell Querzergue. This event is part of a 3-night series, Ponderosa Stomp @ Lincoln Center, produced in collaboration with Midsummer Night Swing, which runs concurrent with the Lincoln Center Festival. The concert will take place at Alice Tully Hall on July 19.

 

?Afro-Blues for the 21st Century -- a double-bill featuring British guitarist Justin Adams and Gambian griot Juldeh Camara, and Malian instrumentalist Issa Bagayogo create a fusion of varied styles with roots in American blues, retro-rock and electronic, performed with infectious energy (July 21 at Alice Tully Hall).

 

Lincoln Center Festival 09 is sponsored by American Express.

 

MIDSUMMER NIGHT SWING, JULY 7 - 25

For its 21st outdoor season, Midsummer Night Swing presents three weeks of dancing to fantastic live music under the stars on a specially-constructed dance floor with bandstand in Lincoln Center's Damrosch Park (62nd Street and Amsterdam Avenue). Music runs the gamut from big band swing and jump blues to classic mambo, from tango to African music, to two nights of soul/r&b and rockabilly in collaboration with the Ponderosa Stomp festival and Lincoln Center Festival. Announcements of bands and special guest soloists are forthcoming. Dance lessons taught by New York's top instructors will take place each evening at 6:30 p.m., free with the price of admission; live music begins at 7:30 p.m. and ends at 10 p.m., Tuesday through Saturday.

 

Midsummer Night Swing 2009 is made possible in part by a grant from Daisy and Paul Soros and the Charina Endowment Fund

 

MOSTLY MOZART FESTIVAL, JULY 28 - AUGUST 23

The 43rd season of the very first indoor summer music festival in the United States includes the U.S. debut of conductor Robin Ticciati, the New York debut of conductor Yannick Nézet-Séguin, performances of works by Mozart, Haydn, and Mendelssohn, as well as premieres by the Mark Morris Dance Group in collaboration with Yo-Yo Ma and Emanuel Ax and this summer's Artist-in-Residence, John Adams. Louis Langrée, the Renée and Robert Belfer Music Director, returns for his 7th Mostly Mozart season, which includes orchestral and chamber concerts, opera, dance, films, recitals, pre-concert lectures, and discussions.

 

Highlights include:

 

?Artist-in-Residence John Adams - A Flowering Tree, Adams' fourth opera, premiered in 2006 at Peter Sellars' New Crowned Hope Festival in Vienna. With a libretto by Adams and Sellars (who also directs), the opera will have its New York premiere with three performances at the Rose Theater on August 13, 14, and 16 with Adams conducting the Orchestra of St. Luke's, a cast of American singers, and the original production's Schola Cantorum de Venezuela choir, set against a rich tapestry of Indonesian dancers and costumes. John Adams will also conduct an all-Adams program of Shaker Loops, Son of Chamber Symphony, and Gnarly Buttons for clarinet and chamber orchestra, with soloist Michael Collins, who premiered the work in 1996.

 

?Louis Langrée, the Renée and Robert Belfer Music Director, conducts the Mostly Mozart Festival Orchestra in ten performances of five separate programs, including works by Mozart, Beethoven, Brahms, Mendelssohn, and Haydn's The Creation, one of the Maestro's favorite works, on closing night.

 

?New York premiere by Mark Morris Dance Group - The Festival presents the New York premiere of a Lincoln Center commission for two dance works, Empire Garden and Visitation, by the Mark Morris Dance Group, August 19-22 at the Rose Theater. Featuring performances by cellist Yo-Yo Ma and pianist Emanuel Ax, the works are set to Ives' Trio for violin, cello, and piano, and Beethoven's Cello Sonata in C major, Op. 102, No. 1; the program will also include V, choreographed to Schumann's Quintet in E-flat major for piano and strings, first presented at Mostly Mozart in 2003.

 

?Films @ Mostly Mozart - Mostly Mozart will present the U.S. premiere of French director Bruno Monsaingeon's documentary about Polish pianist Piotr Anderszewski, Unquiet Traveller, on August 1 at the Walter Reade Theater. Indonesian director Garin Nugroho's Opera Jawa, which brought together artists from a country of 14,000 islands and 100 different languages, will be screened on August 15, also at the Walter Reade. Opera Jawa is a highly stylized film, using gamelan, Javanese song (tembang), dance, costume, visual art, and special installations designed to showcase Indonesian multi-culturalism-particularly Javanese aesthetics-through the selection of a diverse group of actors and crew members.

 

?"A Little Night Music" - Six candle-lit late-night concerts include performances by pianists Piotr Anderszewski (July 29), Claire-Marie Le Guay (August 1), Nicholas Angelich (August 7), Stefan Vladar (August 8), Simone Dinnerstein (August 15), and the Borromeo String Quartet with clarinetist Michael Collins (August 18) all in the intimate Stanley H. Kaplan Penthouse.

 

?Visiting Chamber Orchestras - Mostly Mozart will present four renowned chamber orchestras to perform classical and contemporary works. The Chamber Orchestra of Europe (COE) will be led by Pierre-Laurent Aimard, who will serve as both conductor and soloist in two Alice Tully Hall programs on August 9 and 10. The first concert will feature works by Haydn, Mozart (a piano concerto with Aimard as soloist), and Ligeti. On August 10, Aimard will lead the Orchestra in works by Haydn, Mozart (he will be soloist in another concerto), and Stockhausen. Period instrument specialists the Orchestra of the Age of Enlightenment (OAE) return to Mostly Mozart to present an all-Mozart program in Alice Tully Hall on August 16 under the baton of rising British conductor Robin Ticciati in his U.S. debut. Currently Ensemble-in-Residence at New York University, the International Contemporary Ensemble (ICE) returns to Mostly Mozart for a program led by John Adams at Alice Tully Hall on August 17, featuring works by Adams, including Gnarly Buttons for solo clarinet and chamber orchestra, with soloist Michael Collins, who premiered the work in 1996.

LINCOLN CENTER OUT OF DOORS 2009, AUGUST 5 - 23

Lincoln Center Out of Doors 09 will offer three weeks of FREE performances, by dozens of exciting international, U.S. and local artists, in Lincoln Center's Damrosch Park and South Plaza (Amsterdam Avenue & 62nd Street). This 39th annual edition of the festival that has become a summer institution presents a schedule of varied music and dance events, World, U.S. and New York premieres, family performances, and this year, specially-commissioned works to celebrate Lincoln Center's 50th Anniversary.

Concerts will range from classic jazz to world music, urban fusion to blues/rock and Brazilian mangue-beat to Iraqi maqam, and dance programs from three noted New York contemporary dance ensembles as well as new-generation hip-hop, Afro-Latin dance and more. Returning, are annual audience favorites: La Casita (August 9) featuring poets and performers representing Latin America, the Caribbean, Asia and Native America celebrating community and culture; "Family Day" on August 15, highlighted by a brand-new giant puppet pageant; "Heritage Sunday" (August 16) spotlighting traditional music and dance from around the world; and "Roots of American Music," (August 22-23), now in its 26th year, showcasing both headliners and un-sung masters of blues, folk, jazz, soul, rock, gospel, New Orleans R&B , and more.

Lincoln Center Out of Doors 2009 is sponsored by Bloomberg and PepsiCo, Inc.

Lincoln Center - Visual Arts - SUMMER 2009

An exhibition of selected works from Lincoln Center's renowned List Art Print and Poster Collection will be on view at the Time Warner Center Columbus Circle, 50th St. and Broadway from June 21 through July 12.

Sponsored by Altria.

In celebration of Lincoln Center's 50th Anniversary, noted artists Vija Celmins, Jim Dine, HeLen Frankenthaler, Jill Moser, Malcolm Morley, Richard Serra, and Terry Winters have been commissioned to create posters and prints which will be released over the year of activities.

The New York Philharmonic will present a 50th Anniversary exhibit from its extensive archives from July 1 until the end of August at Avery Fisher Hall.

The Juilliard School is planning a 50th Anniversary exhibit.

The Lincoln Center Information Line for all programs: 212-LINCOLN or visit LincolnCenter.org. For tickets, call CenterCharge, 212-721-6500.