Today’s Elite 8 NYC Events > SATURDAY/ FEBRUARY 22, 2020

“We search the internet everyday looking for the very best of What’s Happening, primarily on Manhattan’s WestSide, so that you don’t have to.” We make it as easy as 1-2-3.

For future NYC Events, check the tab above:  “February NYC Events”
It’s the most comprehensive list of top events this month that you will find anywhere.
Carefully curated from “Only the Best” NYC event info on the the web, it’s a simply superb resource that will help you plan your NYC visit all over town, all through the month.

OR to make your own after dinner plans TONIGHT, see the tab above;  “LiveMusic.”

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Have time for only one NYC Event today? Do This:

BILL FRISELL (Feb.18-23)
at the Blue Note / 8 and 10:30 p.m.; $20, $35
“Each of the ensembles Frisell has in store for this six-day run promises something rewarding. The challenge is deciding which to pick. For the first two nights, this folk-inflected experimental guitar hero will play in a trio with two of his frequent collaborators, the bassist Thomas Morgan and the drummer Kenny Wollesen. On Feb. 20-21, he will be in duet with the expert trumpeter Ambrose Akinmusire, and from Feb. 22 to 23 he will present a quintet featuring Akinmusire, Wollesen, the saxophonist Greg Tardy and the bassist Tony Scherr.” (NYT-GIOVANNI RUSSONELLO)

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7 OTHER TOP NYC EVENTS TODAY (see below for full listing)
>> Trio 3
>> Passport to Dance: Perfect skill
>> Renée Fleming Sings Björk
>> New York City Ballet
>> 2020 NYC Beer Week Opening Bash
>> Are We Alone? The Search for Other Life in the Universe
>> “Frick Perspectives: Northern Lights,” by Emma Capron

You may want to look at previous days posts for events that continue through today.

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Music, Dance, Performing Arts

Trio 3 (Feb.20-23)
Jazz Standard, 116 E. 27th St./
“The saxophonist Oliver Lake, the bassist Reggie Workman, and the drummer Andrew Cyrille—all veterans of a heady era when the basic conventions of jazz were morphing into challenging new forms—have now convened as Trio 3. For this engagement, they’re joined by Vijay Iyer, David Virelles, Marilyn Crispell, and Jason Moran, four of the most flexible and adventurous pianists working today, for an intergenerational meeting of aligned spirits.” (Steve Futterman, NewYorker)

Harkness Dance Festival
Passport to Dance: Perfect skill (Feb.21-22)
See work from an award-winning Korean choreographer
92Y/ 8PM, $35+
“At the 92nd Street Y’s Harkness Dance Festival, international choreographers present works that have never been performed in the United States. This weekend, you can catch Perfect Skill, choreographed by South Korea’s Jaewoo Jung and performed by Korean dance company Braveman, where Jaewoo is the artistic director. In Perfect Skill, four dancers are lit by ever-moving flashlights, revealing the body as a place of beauty, grace, and even — after a hilarious duet — absurdity.” (thrillist)

Hear Project 19
Renée Fleming Sings Björk (Feb.20-22)
New York Philharmonic with “America’s Diva.”
David Geffen Hall, Lincoln Center / 7:30PM, $29+
“Björk’s high, icy voice is so perfectly suited to her tunes that they practically meld in the mind, but the plush-voiced soprano Renée Fleming gives two of them new incarnations as orchestral songs. The program, part of the orchestra’s celebration of the 19th Amendment’s centenary, includes a world premiere by Ellen Reid.” (J.D., Vulture, NY Mag)

New York City Ballet (through March 1)
NYS Theater, Lincoln Center / 8PM, $78+
“Where would the art of ballet be without “Swan Lake”? Even this company, not known for its allegiance to evening-length story ballets, has a version (which it will perform Feb. 14-23). This staging dates back to 1996, when Peter Martins—the company’s former artistic director—created it for the Royal Danish Ballet. (A bit of trivia: the choreographer Alexei Ratmansky danced it when he was a member of the Danish company, in the nineties.) Three years later, Martins brought it to N.Y.C.B. The staging is swift and a bit dry, and it includes a second virtuoso male role, for a pesky jester who flits about the stage in great, flying leaps. It also includes some choreography by Balanchine, from a previous, one-act version. The abstract, color-coded designs are by the Danish painter Per Kirkeby.” (Marina Harss, NewYorker)

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Smart Stuff / Other NYC EventS
(Lectures, Discussions, Book Talks, Literary Readings, Classes, Food & Drink, Other)

Elsewhere, but this sure looks worth the detour:

2020 NYC Beer Week Opening Bash
Celebrate NYC Beer Week with unlimited brews
Brooklyn EXPO Center, 72 Noble St. / 12:30-3:30; 6:30-9:30; $75+
“NYC Beer Week is kicking off, and to celebrate, they’re throwing a gigantic party. At the opening bash, you can sip unlimited beers from over 75 breweries — from right here in New York City as well as around the world — and meet-and-greet the brewers behind your favorite drinks. There’ll be food from Stuf’d, Lager Dog, and Empanada Papa so you can soak up all that booze, plus limited-edition 4 packs of DDH IIPA from SingleCut.” (thrillist)

Are We Alone? The Search for Other Life in the Universe
The Watson Hotel, 440 W. 57th St./ 1:30PM, $95
“Columbia astronomy professor David Helfand, author of A Survival Guide to the Misinformation Age: Scientific Habits of Mind, reveals the explosion of new knowledge of the cosmos gleaned over just the last 20 years and questions whether humans qualify as intelligent life yet.” (ThoughtGallery)

“Frick Perspectives: Northern Lights,” by Emma Capron, The Metropolitan Museum of Art
The Frick Collection, 1 E. 70th St./ 12PM, $30
“Although the Frick is not usually associated with the art of the Northern Renaissance, it holds a small but outstanding group of early Netherlandish and French paintings from the fourteenth, fifteenth, and sixteenth centuries—one of the best in America. This lecture explores the making, meaning, and collecting of these exquisite works.”

Continuing Events

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COMING SOON (WFUV)

2/22 Live From Here with Chris Thile, Town Hall
2/22 Ms. Lauryn Hill, United Palace
2/23 The Woody Guthrie Center Presents “This Land Is Your Land,” The Town Hall
2/23 Altan, Symphony Space
2/23 Ari Hest, City Vineyard
2/24 Black Lips, Music Hall of Williamsburg
2/24 Wolf Parade, Brooklyn Steel
2/25 Stone Temple Pilots, Gramercy Theatre
2/25 Rhys Lewis, Mercury Lounge
2/26 Tibet House Benefit Concert, Carnegie Hall
2/26 Natalie Merchant, Jazz At Lincoln Center
2/26 Glass Animals, Music Hall of Williamsburg

♦ Before making final plans, we suggest you call the venue to confirm ticket availability, plus dates and times, as schedules are subject to change.
♦ NYCity, with a population of  8.6 million, had a record 65 million visitors last year and was TripAdvisor’s Traveler’s Choice Top U.S. Destination for 2019 – the ninth consecutive year. BUT quality shows draw crowds. Try to reserve seats for these top NYC events in advance, even if just earlier on the day of performance.

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WHAT’S ON VIEW
My Fave Special Exhibitions – MUSEUMS / Manhattan’s WestSide
(See the New York Times Arts Section for listings of all museums,
and also to see their expanded reviews of exhibitions)

‘AUSCHWITZ. NOT LONG AGO. NOT FAR AWAY’
at the Museum of Jewish Heritage (through Aug. 30).

“Killing as a communal business, made widely lucrative by the Third Reich, permeates this traveling exhibition about the largest German death camp, Auschwitz, whose yawning gatehouse, with its converging rail tracks, has become emblematic of the Holocaust. Well timed, during a worldwide surge of anti-Semitism, the harrowing installation strives, successfully, for fresh relevance. The exhibition illuminates the topography of evil, the deliberate designing of a hell on earth by fanatical racists and compliant architects and provisioners, while also highlighting the strenuous struggle for survival in a place where, as Primo Levi learned, “there is no why.” (Ralph Blumenthal, NYT)

‘Worlds Beyond Earth’
at the American Museum of Natural History. (thru Dec.31, 2024)

“The museum’s first space show in six years takes viewers on a tour of our solar system from the comfort of their seats in the Hayden Planetarium. Narrated by Lupita Nyong’o, the film explores the nature of the planets and moons in our solar system and the conditions that make life on Earth possible.” (NYT)   amnh.org.

‘T. REX: THE ULTIMATE PREDATOR’
American Museum of Natural History (through Aug. 9, 2020).

“Everyone’s favorite 18,000-pound prehistoric killer gets the star treatment in this eye-opening exhibition, which presents the latest scientific research on T. rex and also introduces many other tyrannosaurs, some discovered only this century in China and Mongolia. T. rex evolved mainly during the Cretaceous Period to have keen eyes, spindly arms and massive conical teeth, which could bear down on prey with the force of a U-Haul truck; the dinosaur could even swallow whole bones, as affirmed here by a kid-friendly display of fossilized excrement. The show mixes 66-million-year-old teeth with the latest 3-D prints of dino bones, and also presents new models of T. rex as a baby, a juvenile and a full-grown annihilator. Turns out this most savage beast was covered with — believe it! — a soft coat of beige or white feathers.” (Farago-NYT)

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In the Company of Harold Prince

A prince with no heir.
New York Public Library for the Performing Arts (through March 31)

“Losing Hal Prince this year meant the end of an era. No other producer-director will ever again have Prince’s string of stupendous hits; no one man will ever again become so closely identified with Broadway stagecraft. He worked on everything, from West Side Story to The Phantom of the Opera, from Cabaret to Sweeney Todd, and if not everything he touched turned to gold — nonetheless, he did have the golden touch. This exhibition at the NYPL is a dragon’s hoard of scripts, photographs, set models, and even re-creations of his paperwork. Study it closely and you might become the next great theatrical mind … if not a Prince, then possibly a really talented duchess.” (Vulture, NY Magazine-H.S.)

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For other selected Museum and Gallery Special Exhibitions see Recent Posts in right Sidebar dated 02/20 and 02/18.

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