The Metropolitan Museum of Art Announces Schedule For MET MUSEUM PRESENTS

MET MUSEUM PRESENTS – JANUARY 2013 is a series of Performances and Talks at The Metropolitan Museum of Art. Performances & Talks Include: Jordi Savall Performing in the Spanish Renaissance Vélez Blanco Patio; DJ Spooky's The NAURU ELEGIES, a Live Performance/Multimedia Event, Companion Talk, and Tour of the Galleries for Oceanic Art; Paco Peña Flamenco Dance Company; Metropolitan Museum Artists in Concert 10th Anniversary Season.

Performances:

On Friday, January 11, 2013, at 7:00 pm in The Grace Rainey Rogers Auditorium, Metropolitan Museum Artists in Concert:

"It's hard to find better chamber-music playing in New York than in the cellist Edward Arron's series," said the New Yorker about the Metropolitan Museum Artists in Concert. For its 10th anniversary season, the ensemble's artistic coordinator, cellist Edward Arron, has assembled three programs of the lively mix of repertoire that has elicited critical praise over the last decade. In this first program, Reiko Aizawa, piano; Colin Jacobsen, violin; Nicholas Cords, viola; and Edward Arron, cello, perform a Boccherini String Trio; Kurtag's Jelék for Solo Viola, Op. 5; and Dvorák's Piano Quartet in D Major, Op. 23.

This series is made possible in part by Isabel C. Iverson and Walter T. Iverson.
In addition to leading the Metropolitan Museum Artists in Concert, cellist Edward Arron is also the artistic director, host, and resident performer of the Musical Masterworks concert series in Old Lyme, Connecticut (succeeding Charles Wadsworth), as well as concert series in Beaufort and Columbia, South Carolina. He is also the artistic director of the Caramoor Virtuosi, the resident chamber ensemble of the Caramoor International Music Festival.

Tickets are priced at $35.

On Friday, January 18, 2013, at 7:00 pm in The Grace Rainey Rogers Auditorium, THE NAURU ELEGIES – A live performance/multimedia event featuring Members of Face the Music; Part of The Met Reframed: DJ Spooky in Residence.

Paul D. Miller, aka DJ Spooky, describes his work: "THE NAURA ELEGIES is a technical synthesis of a live string ensemble (members of Face the Music, the new music ensemble comprised of some of New York's most outstanding student musicians), projected high-definition video footage, digital animation, and live internet feed of GPS coordinates of specific aspects of the island and its physical and financial infrastructure. It is an orchestration of content retrieved and processed in multiple localities, including research in New York City and documentation in Nauru. The ELEGIES are a statement of technology and media processes in the 21st century that is exponentially progressing to a more dematerialized and delocalized state.

"The Republic of Nauru is a small island in the South Pacific Ocean. It was, by consensus of several 'Great Powers,' used as a raw resource until there was literally nothing left. Nauru has been mined throughout the last two centuries for its phosphate deposits, which occupied 90% of the island. A small territory with no [other] exploitable resources, Nauru in the 1990s turned to off-shore financing and the creation of 'virtual banks' as a way of earning sorely needed foreign currency. THE NAURU ELEGIES posits that Nauru reflects many of the issues facing our contemporary information economy.

"The music component of THE NAURU ELEGIES reflects colonial and postcolonial issues facing the digital economy of the 21st century translated into a string quartet, while the literary and multimedia component of the project spatializes and formalizes otherwise invisible economic flows and irreversible ecological devastation." For more information visit www.djspooky.com/nauruelegies/.

On Wednesday, January 23, Paul Miller will host a companion conversation to THE NAURU ELEGIES, IN/VISIBLE: THE ECONOMY, ENVIRONMENT, AND CULTURE OF THE ISLAND NATION, and on Saturday, January 19, he leads a public tour of the galleries for Oceanic Art (see below).

The Met Reframed, an unprecedented Metropolitan Museum artist residency, breaks new ground as a collaboration between artist and institution. The Met's Limor Tomer, General Manager of Concerts & Lectures, conceived this year-long association as an opportunity to engage the curiosity and talents of the composer, multimedia artist, and writer Paul D. Miller aka DJ Spooky That Subliminal Kid with the extensive artistic and human resources of the Museum to create both new work and dialogues between artists, scholars, curators, and Museum visitors.

The Met Reframed is made possible by Marianna Sackler.

Tickets are priced at $30.

On Saturday, January 19, 2013, at 7:00 pm in The Grace Rainey Rogers Auditorium: Paco Peña Flamenco Dance Company – Flamenco Vivo

Paco Peña, guitarist, composer, dramatist, producer, and artistic mentor, returns to New York with his Flamenco Dance Company, a "revelatory troupe" (New York Times), to present Flamenco Vivo, a journey into the heart of Andalucía featuring the intensity, depth, and raw energy that have become the maestro's trademark. The company features a stellar cast including guitarists Rafael Montilla and Paco Arriaga, vocalists José Ángel Carmona and Cristina Pareja, percussionist Julio Cesar Alcocer, and three dancers: Ángel Muñoz, noted for his "regal, smoldering dancing", the commanding Ramón Martinez, and Charo Espino, who has been said to "distill a whole dance tradition through the eloquence of her hands".

Paco Peña Flamenco Dance Company is co-presented by the World Music Institute.
Paco Peña embodies both authenticity and innovation in flamenco. As guitarist, composer, dramatist, producer, and artistic mentor he has transformed perceptions of this archetypal Spanish art form. Since 1970 he has performed regularly with his own hand-picked company of dancers, guitarists, and singers in a succession of groundbreaking shows. The Paco Peña Flamenco Dance Company has taken flamenco into the realm of music-theatre with regular seasons in London (Royal Festival Hall, Sadler's Wells Theatre, and Barbican) and festival appearances in Edinburgh, Adelaide, Amsterdam, Athens, Israel, Istanbul, Singapore, and Hong Kong. For more information visit www.pacopena.com.

Tickets are priced at $60.

On Friday, January 25, 2013, at 7:00 pm in the Vélez Blanco Patio, Jordi Savall: LUDI MUSICI, AN EXPLORATION OF THE CREATION OF THE MODERN ORCHESTRA.

Jordi Savall, who has been described as an "early-music superstar", returns to the Met for a program titled LUDI MUSICI, AN EXPLORATION OF THE CREATION OF THE MODERN ORCHESTRA featuring music by JohAnn Hermann Schein, William Brade, Samuel Scheidt, and Johann Rosenmuller.

This performance will take place in the unique Vélez Blanco Patio, which has been recognized around the world as one of the jewels of early Renaissance Spain and which melds indigenous Gothic and Hispano-Moresque architectural elements.

This program is developed in collaboration with the Juilliard School's Historical Performance Department.

Jordi Savall has been a celebrated figure in early music for three decades. He is known for singlehandedly reviving the viola da gamba's prominence onstage and for rediscovering forgotten musical gems. To view Jordi Savall's biography click here.

Tickets are priced at $90.

Every Friday and Saturday, 5:00-8:00 pm on the Balcony Bar-Free with admission,
ETHEL and Friends.

ETHEL, the acclaimed string quartet that has been described as "a necessary jet of cold water in the contemporary classical scene," began as resident ensemble at the Metropolitan Museum's Balcony Bar in October. Marking the first time that a prominent musical group has been featured in that venue, ETHEL will perform there each Friday and Saturday night on a regular basis, sometimes with friends and collaborators, throughout the year. The quartet will also select musical groups from ETHEL's expansive list of notable colleagues to perform when the group is on the road. This new programming initiative will provide a variety of musical experiences to Met audiences delivered by a range of ensemble types and compositions.

Click here for the schedule of performers.

The Balcony Bar serves appetizers and cocktails on the second-floor balcony overlooking the Great Hall. Three sets of performances between 5:00 and 8:00 pm will take place each Friday and Saturday. Free with Museum admission.

Talks and Special Gallery Tours:

On Saturday, January 19, 2013, at 4:00 pm, Public Gallery Tour: DJ Spooky in the Galleries for Oceanic Art. Part of The Met Reframed: DJ Spooky in Residence.

This free gallery tour gives an unprecedented opportunity to look at the Oceanic galleries with an artist's gaze. Paul Miller, aka DJ Spooky, shares what draws him to the South Pacific and what about that area of the world inspired his new project, THE NAURU ELEGIES (performance, January 18). While ticketed in advance, the program is free with Museum admission but limited to 90 participants.

The Met Reframed is made possible by Marianna Sackler.

Tickets: Free with Museum admission, reservation required.

On Wednesday, January 23, 2013, at 6:00 pm in Bonnie J. Sacerdote Hall, IN/VISIBLE: THE ECONOMY, ENVIRONMENT, AND CULTURE OF THE ISLAND NATION. A Companion Conversation to DJ Spooky's THE NAURU ELEGIES. Part of The Met Reframed: DJ Spooky in Residence.

In this companion conversation to his evocative multimedia piece THE NAURU ELEGIES (January 18), Paul Miller, aka DJ Spooky, is joined in dialogue by panelists including Lisa Sachs from the Vale Columbia Center on Sustainable International Investment, and Michael Gerrard, Professor and Director, Center for Climate Change Law, Columbia Law School, as they revisit the cautionary tale of the South Pacific island of Nauru, an example of how a fragile economy built on extraction of finite natural resources and mismanaged off-shore banking profits can so easily crumble under bad decision-making. "The discussion will journey through the unseen networks of the global economy," says Lisa Sachs, "and the eruptions that ensue when greed and hyper-consumerism go unchecked."

The Met Reframed is made possible by Marianna Sackler.

Tickets are priced at $30.

For tickets, visit www.metmuseum.org/tickets or call 212-570-3949.
Tickets are also available at the Great Hall Box Office, which is open Tuesday-Saturday from 10-4:30 pm and Sunday from noon-4:30. Tickets include admission to the Museum on day of performance. 30 & Under Rush: $15 tickets for ticket buyers 30 years and younger, with proof of age, the day of the event (subject to availability). For more information, visit www.metmuseum.org/tickets, call 212-570-3949, or visit the box office.

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