Saturday, June 6, 2015, Part 2
During Michael’s workout, I wrote part 1 of today’s post. When he arrived at the hotel, we set out for Tribeca Park on our search for the Sing For Hope pianos.
We found it!
Then, we Ubered (is that a word?) to Michael’s apartment for us to practice a bit. We dropped by Duane Reade, a relative of Walgreens, for some munchies and actually practiced – finally!
From there, we got another Uber and headed to the Lincoln Center complex. Our plan was to eat at the same restaurant we’d found before we saw The Marriage of Figaro at The Met.
When we got there, there was some sort of upscale street fair on the grounds. It turned out to be the American Crafts Festival.
We walked through that to find the next S4H piano, which we located in the Charles B Benson Grove. Yamaha grand. There was a woman playing ragtime and a long line of folks who wanted to play. Turned out the woman played clubs around the city and was using this event to advertise.
Off we went to the restaurant to find it closed for 2 months renovation. The next place reservations only so we went back to the Lincoln Center and had sandwiches in their coffee shop. Not bad!
We went to our pre-program Mozart lecture given by Joelle Wallach. Very interesting!
Then, into Avery Fisher Hall to hear an all-Mozart program including:
Piano Concerto No. 21
Symphony No. 38, Prague
Piano Concerto No. 20
Here’s a review of the exact same performance that we attended! The same program had been performed on Wednesday.
Review from the New York Times: New York Philharmonic Gives Mozart His Due
As the festival continues to evolve in directions that have less and less to do with its namesake, the Philharmonic, perhaps sensing an opportunity, offers a Mozart program of its own this week: the “Prague” Symphony and the Piano Concertos No. 20, in D minor, and No. 21, in C, with Jeffrey Kahane as guest conductor and soloist.
The “Prague” must be every opera lover’s favorite Mozart symphony. Composed in Vienna in 1786 and evidently given its premiere in Prague early the next year, it is a virtual caldron of tunes more or less shared with “Le Nozze di Figaro” (1786) and “Don Giovanni” (1787).
More than that, the symphony, played before intermission, evokes the moods and characters of those operas, especially “Don Giovanni.” Mr. Kahane treated all of that a bit matter-of-factly at Wednesday evening’s performance, with little lingering to search out lascivious byplay in dark recesses or to limn a bumbling Leporello.
So it came as a delightful surprise, after intermission, when Mr. Kahane injected the condemnatory sequence of rising and falling scales from “Don Giovanni” into his own cadenza for the first movement of the D minor Concerto. His playing was deft and virtuosic in both concertos, though his fast tempos in the outer movements of the C major resulted in some blurred scalar passages and a slightly hectic feel at times.
You might have feared a certain weightiness from the Philharmonic in Mozart, but Mr. Kahane generally drew stylish playing from a reduced band of 40 or so. The strings had a pliant quality, and the woodwinds were especially fine.
The program was fantastic but we wondered why it was Concerto-Symphony-Intermission-Concerto. With that type of programming, it started with the piano on stage, then moved out, then moved back during the intermission for the final concerto.
A quick stop at Duane Reade for night time snacks than an Uber home. We went right by the cruise terminal on our way to the hotel.
Tomorrow’s a busy day with Steinway Hall then boarding the cruise ship. I may not finish writing these until we get home, depending on WiFi and other activities – but I’ll take good notes 🙂
Saturday, June 6, 2015, Part 1
After not sleeping so well last night, I woke up to a text message that Michael was headed here to start the day.
I took a couple pictures out our window. It’s really sunny out but these pictures make it look pretty grim:
After milling around a bit, we decided to go to a diner I’d seen last night. On the way, it started raining. We got to the diner and it was closed so we headed to another one.
We ended up at Amelia’s Diner and had breakfast.
On the way to Tribeca Park, we saw Duarte Square
Juan Pablo Duarte Square
This text is part of Parks’ Historical Signs Project and can be found posted within the park.
In the late 1600s the land that is now Juan Pablo Duarte Square was developed as a farm by Trinity Church. A forty-foot-wide canal was built to the south in 1810 to drain the pestilent Collect Pond into the Hudson River. The canal was filled in 1819 and now forms Canal Street. As the city spread northward, this became an important commercial thoroughfare. Canal Street achieved further prominence with the construction of the Holland Tunnel at its western end in 1927.
Juan Pablo Duarte Square was officially dedicated in 1945, when Sixth Avenue was renamed Avenue of the Americas in celebration of Pan-American unity. The name of the square, located near the southern end of the Avenue of the Americas, honors Juan Pablo Duarte (1813-1876), the liberator of the Dominican Republic.
As a young man, Duarte founded a society called La Trinitaria which sought to promote democratic ideals among the Spanish-speaking inhabitants of Hispaniola Island, most of whom were clustered around the city of Santo Domingo. In 1843 Duarte launched an attempt to free the eastern half of the island from Haitian rule. When the rebellion failed, Duarte fled Hispaniola. However, when a new revolution succeeded in winning independence for the Dominican Republic in February 1844, Duarte was invited to return as President of the new republic. Although he eventually lost control to a military dictator and died in exile, Duarte was instrumental in developing the Pan-American traditions of democracy and self-government celebrated by the Avenue of the Americas.
Duarte Square, a triangular plot bounded by Sullivan Street, Grand Street, and the Avenue of the Americas at the intersection with Canal Street, was initially developed and maintained by the Department of Transportation. The square was improved in 1975 with the addition of benches, trees, and sidewalks.
On May 26, 1977, Duarte Square was transferred to the Department of Parks. A statue of Juan Pablo Duarte, donated by the Consulate of the Dominican Republic, was dedicated in the square on the 165th anniversary of Duarte’s birth, January 26, 1978. The thirteen-foot bronze figure, which rests atop an eight-foot granite base, was designed by the Italian sculptor Nicola Arrighini. It is one of a pantheon of six monuments to Latin American leaders which overlook the Avenue of the Americas.
We continued on to Tribeca Park and no one had put the tarp over the piano so it was pretty unplayable 🙁
The next stop was Albert Capsouto Park
Albert Capsouto Park
Laight St., Canal St., and Varick St.
Manhattan
Directions via Google Maps
Capsouto Park, named for neighborhood activist Albert Capsouto (1956-2010), is a vital public space located at the triangle between Canal, Varick, and Laight Streets in Lower Manhattan. Once a parking lot, this park opened in 2009 as one of the more than 30 parks and open spaces funded through the Lower Manhattan Development Corporation’s revitalization project.The park features lush plantings and an award-winning design. The park’s new plantings include a double row of canopy and street trees and three large planting beds filled with low flowering shrubs and colorful perennials. Nestled into the edges of the planting beds are several continuous rows of contemporary benches and a small cluster of chess tables at the southwestern gate. At each of the three entrances to the triangle are etched stainless steel plaques with images from the New York Historical Society, New York Public Library and Library of Congress that tell of the area’s urban evolution
The centerpiece of Capsouto Park is a 114-foot long sculptural fountain by SoHo artist Elyn Zimmerman. This fountain bisects the interior space. Water spills from an 8-foot tower into a series of stepped “locks” evoking the canal that once flowed along the Canal Street. A sunning lawn rises up to meet the fountain from the south and granite seat walls adorn the fountain to the north.
We stopped by Freeman Plaza East but it was on a “break”(?)
In the street, though were some odd rocks called lemniscatus.
From there back to our hotel so Michael could go to his training session.
And, so ends the morning.