Today’s “Fab 5″/ Selected NYCity Events – WEDNESDAY, MAR. 04, 2015
“We search the internet everyday looking for the very best of What’s Happening on Manhattan’s WestSide, so that you don’t have to. We make it as easy as 1-2-3.”

sorry this is late! forgot to hit the publish button!  

Anat Cohen Quartet  —   Jazz    (7:30pm)   (10pm)     

Albert (Tootie) Heath  —  Jazz   (8:30pm)    (10:30pm) 

Synth Nights: Morton Subotnick  —  Electronic Multimedia   (8pm)  

Math Encounters  —   SmartStuff/ Mathematics Discussion     (4pm)   (7pm)

‘Semele’ —  Opera   (7:30pm)

For other useful and curated NYCity event info for Manhattan’s WestSide:

♦ “9 Notable Events-Feb.”, and “Top10 Free” in the header above.
♦ For NYCity trip planning see links in “Resources” and “Smart Stuff” in the header above.
♦ For NYCity Sights, Sounds and Stories visit out our sister site: nyc123blog.wordpress.com
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Anat Cohen Quartet (through March 8)
“Anat Cohen, a clarinetist and tenor saxophonist of irresistible rhythmic aplomb, has a new album, “Luminosa,” that covers some of her key interests, notably the music of Brazilian composers like Milton Nascimento. She draws from the album here, with an adaptable rhythm section of Jason Lindner on piano, Joe Martin on bass and Daniel Freedman on drums.” (Chinen-NYT)

This joint is not exactly on Manhattan’s WestSide, but it is Anat Cohen. I have said this before, I’ll say it again. Anat is one of NYC’s Jazz treasures and she is playing tonight at a classic NYCity Jazz Club. You gotta go – I’ll be there for the late set.
Jazz Standard, 116 East 27th St. (btw Park/Lexington ave)
subway: #6 to 28th St.; walk 1 block S to 27th St., 1/2 block E to club
At 7:30 and 10 p.m., with an 11:45 p.m. set next Friday and Saturday / $30
212-576-2232 / jazzstandard.net.

Albert (Tootie) Heath, Ethan Iverson, Ben Street (through March 8)
“The seventy-nine-year-old drummer has developed a terrific, knockabout familiarity with the pianist Ethan Iverson (of the Bad Plus) and the bassist Ben Street, two musicians nearly half his age. The trio’s winning effect is apparent on their new album, ”Philadelphia Beat.” Its mix of bebop classics and more far-reaching choices, including the disco hit “I Will Survive” and an adaptation of a Bach chorale prelude, points to the delightfully off-kilter sensibility that unites them.” (NewYorker)
Village Vanguard, 178 Seventh Avenue South, at 11th Street, West Village,
At 8:30 and 10:30 p.m./ $30
212-255-4037, villagevanguard.com.

Synth Nights: Morton Subotnick
“The Kitchen is consistently brilliant in its booking of avant-garde performances, but it outdoes itself with this series, whose curators have included Laurie Anderson and Nico Muhly. This installment features the pioneering composer Morton Subotnick, a godfather figure in the world of electronic multimedia. His first full-length album, “Silver Apples of the Moon,” was a defining release for Mr. Subotnick and his label, Nonesuch, in 1967. Ahead of his 82nd birthday in April, he presents this light and sound duet with the visual artist Lillevan.” (Anderson-NYT)
The Kitchen, 512 West 19th St., Chelsea,
At 8 p.m.,
212-255-5793 / thekitchen.org.

Math Encounters: Poetry, Drumming, and Mathematics with Majul Bhargava
Did you know that many modern mathematical tools used in probability and combinatorics, and applied in varied technologies such as those on NASA space missions, originated in problems encountered by linguists and musicians thousands of years ago? Princeton University Professor and 2014 Fields Medalist Manjul Bhargava looks at some of these ancient, poetic problems—and their remarkable solutions through the ages—to reveal much about the nature of human thought and the origins of mathematics.

Refreshments follow the afternoon presentation of Math Encounters; arrive by 6:30pm for refreshments preceding the evening presentation. Admission is free; registration required.
Museum of Mathematics, 11 E. 26th St.
at 4pm and 7pm / FREE
212-542-0566 / mathencounters.org.

Elsewhere, but looks worth a detour on the #2 or 3 subway:
‘Semele’ (also March 6, 8 and 10)
“Handel’s opera about a narcissistic goddess receives a brilliantly irreverent makeover by the director Zhang Huan in this production that blends European costume with Chinese theater, sumo wrestlers and a good dose of sex appeal. Christopher Moulds conducts a cast from the Canadian Opera Company led by Jane Archibald in the title role.” (Corinna da Fonseca-Wollheim-NYT)
Wednesday, next Friday and March 10 at 7:30 p.m., March 8 at 3 p.m.
Howard Gilman Opera House, Brooklyn Academy of Music,
30 Lafayette Ave. (btw St. Felix St. and Ashland Place)
subway: #2, 3, to Atlantic Avenue-Barclays Center (about 30 min from TimesSquare)
718-636-4100 / bam.org.

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♦ Before making final plans, we suggest you call the venue to confirm ticket availability, dates and times, as schedules are subject to change.
♦ NYCity (pop. 8.4 million) had a record 56 million visitors last year and quality shows draw crowds. Try to reserve seats in advance, even if just on day of performance.
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WHAT’S ON VIEW
My Fave Special Exhibitions – MUSEUMS / Manhattan’s Fifth Avenue
(See the New York Times Arts Section for listings of all museum exhibitions,
and also see the expanded reviews of these exhibitions)

Metropolitan Museum of Art:
‘Madame Cézanne’ (through March 15)
Cézanne’s paintings of his wife, Hortense Fiquet, have long stonewalled would-be psychologists, offering few indications of intimacy or interior life. (The poet Rainer Maria Rilke, enthusing over “Madame Cézanne in a Red Armchair,” focused on the work’s color scheme and called the chair “a personality in its own right.”) But assembled at the Met, and supported by more tender and informal graphite sketches, these portraits are more forthcoming. They suggest that numbing familiarity was actually, for Cézanne, a form of intimacy; that he could connect with portrait subjects only when they were as reliable a presence in his life as Mont Sainte-Victoire. 212-535-7710, metmuseum.org. (Rosenberg)

‘Thomas Hart Benton’s “America Today” Mural Rediscovered’ (through April 19)
The prickly American Regionalist Thomas Hart Benton had his share of detractors. But even they would probably acknowledge that his early mural “America Today” is the best of its kind, a raucous, cartwheeling, wide-angle look at 1920s America that set the standard for the Works Progress Administration’s mural program and has remained a New York City treasure. Now installed at the Met in a reconstruction of its original setting (a boardroom at the New School for Social Research), it captivates with period details (from the cut of a flapper gown to the mechanics of a blast furnace) and timely signs of socioeconomic and environmental distress (exhausted coal miners and hands reaching for coffee and bread). 212-535-7710, metmuseum.org. (Rosenberg)

Guggenheim Museum:
Guggenheim Museum: ‘On Kawara — Silence’ (through May 3)
The first retrospective of this Conceptual Art giant turns the museum’s spiral into a vortex suffused with the consciousness of time, life’s supreme ruler, in all its quotidian daily unfoldings, historical events and almost incomprehensible grandeur. The presentation of date paintings, “I Got Up” postcards and “I AM Still Alive” telegrams echoes Mr. Kawara’s exquisite sense of discipline and craft. This is an extraordinary tribute. 1071 Fifth Avenue, at 89th Street, 212-423-3500, guggenheim.org. (Smith)

Kandinsky Before Abstraction, 1901–1911 (through spring 2015)
Early in his career Vasily Kandinsky experimented with printmaking, produced brightly-colored landscapes of the German countryside, and explored recognizable and recurrent motifs. This intimate exhibition drawn from the Guggenheim collection explores the artist’s representational origins.

Cooper Hewitt Smithsonian Design Museum (continuing):
The stately doors of the 1902 Andrew Carnegie mansion, home to the Cooper Hewitt, are open again after an overhaul and expansion of the premises. Historic house and modern museum have always made an awkward fit, a standoff between preservation and innovation, and the problem remains, but the renovation has brought a wide-open new gallery space, a cafe and a raft of be-your-own-designer digital enhancements. Best of all, more of the museum’s vast permanent collection is now on view, including an Op Art weaving, miniature spiral staircases, ballistic face masks and a dainty enameled 18th-century version of a Swiss knife. Like design itself, this institution is built on tumult and friction, and you feel it. 2 East 91st Street, at Fifth Avenue, 212-849-8400, cooperhewitt.org. (Cotter)

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Museum Mile is a section of Fifth Avenue which contains one of the densest displays of culture in the world. Ten museums can be found along this section of Fifth Avenue:

• 110th Street – Museum for African Art

• 105th Street – El Museo del Barrio

• 103rd Street – Museum of the City of New York

• 92nd Street – The Jewish Museum

• 91st Street – Cooper-Hewitt, National Design Museum

• 89th Street – National Academy Museum

• 88th Street – Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum

• 86th Street – Neue Galerie New York

• 83rd Street – Goethe-Institut

Last, but certainly not least, America’s premier museum
• 82nd Street – The Metropolitan Museum of Art

Additionally, though technically not part of the Museum Mile, the Frick Collection on the corner of Fifth Avenue and 70th St. and the The Morgan Library & Museum on Madison Ave and 37th St are also located near Fifth Ave. Now plan your own museum crawl. ========================================================

For other selected Museum and Gallery Special Exhibitions see Recent Posts in right Sidebar dated 03/02 and 02/28.