New Yorkers rediscover the performing arts

AFP, published on Sunday March 28, 2021 at 07:24 a.m.

Notes echoed in the still fresh morning air with, in the background, horns, cooing pigeons and construction site noises. Behind the window of an abandoned store on New York’s Upper West Side, stood the music of Debussy.

Joggers, a few parents with strollers and the elderly stopped to listen and listen, through speakers, to the sound of Spencer Myer’s piano and Michael Katz’s cello.

No concert hall, no armchairs, a separating glass, but it is indeed a concert, the opportunity for two musicians “hungry” for human contact, as Spencer Myer says, to play together and find an audience. .

“We need this reciprocal relationship,” explains Michael Katz, who has already appeared in most of the great New York classic venues, after the fact. “Bringing music to people like we did is really unique and extraordinary.”

From April 2, theaters will be allowed to reopen to the public in New York, but with a tonnage limited to 33% or 100 people maximum. On April 14 and 15, the New York Philharmonic will be making a personal return to The Shed, a cultural space in midtown Manhattan.

But this will only be a taste, because the “Phil”, who has also organized small impromptu outdoor concerts since September, is already turned towards September, like the Metropolitan Opera or the New York City Ballet. .

In the meantime, the Kaufman Music Center, a venue for concerts and musical education, located in the Upper West Side district, has put together this program called “Musical Storefronts” (“the musical showcases”), which allows musicians to occur in the neighborhood, under the shelter of a glass wall.

– “As essential as water” –

The organizers prefer not to disclose the exact location of the famous showcase, nor to reveal the concert schedule in advance, to avoid too large gatherings, coronavirus requires.

“We try to program a bit of everything,” says Kate Sheeran, who runs the Kaufman Music Center, “from classical musicians to the people of Broadway. We even had experimental improvisation.”

The project “wants to highlight the artistic engine of New York and remind that artists need to work”.

Some 30% of New York City adults have already received at least one dose of the coronavirus vaccine, and with the onset of spring, hope is reborn.

The city “is like that all the time. When something serious happens, we improvise,” enthuses Terry Lieberman, who has come to pick up some melodies by Debussy, Beethoven, Mendelssohn and Boulanger. “People pull themselves together and walk away. It’s wonderful.”

“One of the lessons of the pandemic is the need for music, theater and dance, live performance in general that people have”, summarizes Michael Katz. “It’s as essential to them as food and water. It’s not just entertainment, or a commodity.”

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