Met Museum to Present Premiere Inspired by Its Percussion Collection Next Week

Next week at the Metropolitan Museum will be a premiere inspired by the Met's Percussion Collection, and a performance of Lincoln's Favorite Shakespeare.

Leon Botstein and The Orchestra Now pair orchestral works with masterpieces from the Met's collection.

"Strauss, Watteau, and Nostalgia"
February 7, 2:00 p.m.

Old-fashioned characters take the stage in Watteau's 1720 painting of a theater scene. Strauss, who was obsessed with the past, wrote music for a 1912 update of Molière's play Le bourgeois gentilhomme, which he later formed into an orchestral suite.

"Strauss's Le bourgeois gentilhomme and Watteau's The French Comedians."

The series continues on May 22 with "Mendelssohn, Turner, and Romantic Imagination."

Tickets start at $30

Surface Tension
Wednesday, February 10, 7:00 p.m., in the Grace Rainey Rogers Auditorium

A new work inspired by the Museum's percussion collection, created by Irish composer Donnacha Dennehy and performed by Third Coast Percussion.

Program:

Surface Tension (2015; NY Premiere) Donnacha Dennehy

Sextet (1984) Steve Reich

This performance is made possible by a commissioning grant from the Augustine Foundation.

Donnacha Dennehy's Surface Tension was commissioned by the University of Notre Dame's DeBartolo Performing Arts Center, and The Metropolitan Museum of Art. Additional funding provided by the Elizabeth F. Cheney Foundation.

Tickets start at $30

Lincoln's Favorite Shakespeare
Thursday, February 11, 6:30 p.m., in the Grace Rainey Rogers Auditorium

Actors perform the Shakespearian soliloquies that once provided solace and inspiration to Abraham Lincoln. Historian Harold Holzer provides the riveting context. Performances and readings by Blair Brown, Stephen Lang, and Fritz Weaver.

Tickets start at $45

For tickets and information, visit www.metmuseum.org/tickets or call 212-570-3949. Tickets are also available at the Great Hall Box Office, which is open Monday-Saturday, 11:00 a.m.-3:30 p.m. Tickets include admission to the Museum on day of performance. Prices are subject to change.

Bring the Kids for $1 tickets for children (ages 7-16) are available for select performances when accompanied by an adult with a full-price ticket. For more information, visit www.metmuseum.org/tickets, call 212-570-3949, or visit the box office.

The groundbreaking live arts series at The Metropolitan Museum of Art explores contemporary performance through the lens of the Museum's exhibitions and unparalleled gallery spaces with singular performances and talks. MetLiveArts invites artists, performers, curators, and thought-leaders to explore and collaborate within the Met, leading with new commissions, world premieres, and site-specific durational performances that have been named some of the most "Memorable" and "Best of" performances in New York City by the New York Times, New Yorker, and BroadwayWorld. For more information about MetLiveArts, visit www.metmuseum.org/tickets.