“New York City is definitely a haven for music lovers of all styles, modes, eras and genres.”
New York City for Music Lovers: From Classical to Unique Street Improv
By Ellen L Gilmer, Journalist-Correspondent, IPA
New York City is a haven of high notes and reverberating rhythms for music lovers of all types. Whether your passion is classical and opera, jazz, rock and pop concerts or funky street improv, you will truly find it all within the high-energy, creative heartbeat of the Big Apple. Whenever you visit Manhattan, regardless of whether your hotel, B&B or friend’s apartment is situated uptown, downtown or in midtown, just a short walk or ride away, you can lose yourself in the resplendent grandeur, complex tempos or discordant strains of your favorite music mode or mania.
If you happen to have an endless desire to hear and experience music of all types, you are in for an unequivocal treat of musical genres—a wide array of genuine gems, awesome odes and more than one funky pavement-performance puzzlement. You have definitely come to the right metropolis for a unique, intriguing and mesmerizing experience in music that is simply not to be missed.
Enthralling Classical and Opera
Enjoy an unforgettable evening at Lincoln Center for the Performing Arts on the city’s vibrant Upper West Side. See the fascinating Metropolitan Opera production of Così fan tutte, Mozart’s enthralling comedy of the sexes in updated carnival style. Experience a masterful concert of Bartók’s Concerto for Orchestra plus Debussy’s beautiful Fantaisie with piano soloist, Leif Ove Andsnes at the New York Philharmonic. At the Vivian Beaumont Theater, delight in the current production of the classic Lerner & Loewe musical, My Fair Lady, the engaging attempt by linguist Henry Higgins to transform Eliza Doolittle, the Cockney flower seller, into a mannerly lady.
Any and all of these dynamic performances will be major highlights of your adventurous music extravaganza in NYC. You may find yourself lingering after the curtain calls, wishing for a rerun of each night’s captivating performance. In fact, you may be compelled to purchase tickets for additional enticing performances during your stay in the city, but there is still much more to see and experience in other exciting venues.
Vibrant Jazz
The jazz scene is alive and in top form in New York City. Your first choice of venues may be uptown or down, but one must-do is a night at the Blue Note in hip and historic Greenwich Village. In this vintage club, you can mix with true jazz lovers from near and far along with those new to and curious about jazz. Catch outstanding sets by such well-known artists as vocalist Bobby McFerrin and the Bobby McFerrin Spirityouall, bass player Ron Carter and The Duke Ellington Orchestra. As one of the best known and most popular jazz clubs in the city, the Blue Note has a timeless ambiance and sensibility.
While taking in a full night of some of today’s very best players, groups and jazz performances, you will be transported back to earlier eras by the mesmerizing depth, pure spontaneity and original basic core of this empowering music art form. Heading back uptown to the Lincoln Center neighborhood, pay a visit to Dizzy’s Club Coca-Cola. At this West Side jazz hub, you can experience the ingenious vitality of such well recognized names as the Brubeck Institute Jazz Quintet, the Christian McBride Big Band and the Diva Jazz Orchestra for a night to be long remembered.
Rousing Rock and Pop Concerts
Want to go wild with Rock and Pop madness and Alternative Genres extravaganzas? You will get to be part of it all in New York. Join the crowd to welcome Billy Joel at Madison Square Garden and Bruce Springsteen on Broadway this spring. Cheer for Lorde at Barclays Center and catch Rapper Rico Nasty at the Knitting Factory. One event in the “To Die For” mode is definitely a night out with Alternative Rock Star, Pink, back at Madison Square Garden. You will be totally amazed by the awesome array of concerts, shows, festivals and club dates in which these and other super-cool Rock, Pop, Rap, Hip-Hop and Alternative Other icons push performance to a place way beyond your wildest dreams and expectations. As a fanatical fan of the contempo-rock-pop-and-other manic music scene in NYC, you can live it up as long as you can maintain a waking state or a reasonable facsimile thereof.
Funky Street Music
The street music scene in the Apple includes a wide spectrum of musicians and genres from Classical strains of Bach on flute or keyboard, drifting upward from the mysterious depths of the subway to curbside crooners and sidewalk saxophone-wailing sages. Of course, you will come across the occasional homemade washtub bass player or persistent percussionist pounding out rhythms on a cardboard box drum ensemble. Something for everyone—that’s what New York is famous for offering up to one and all as myriad music styles in a truly eclectic, charming and endless array.
New York City is definitely a haven for music lovers of all styles, modes, eras and genres. For first time visitors and returning travelers alike, there is elegance, joy, expertise and raw experimental fun echoing from concert hall, sound stage and street corner. Let all of these intriguing music modalities join to shake your sensibilities and soothe your soul as a warm montage of magical music to welcome you.
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