Piano World Home Page Forums Fun Stuff! - Parties, Tours, Projects & More... Forum Members Parties, Tours, Cruises, & Meetings new york city in october

well, bernard, perhaps a manhattan forum member will come to our rescue in the piano department. or possibly we could meet at a showroom like steinway or faust-harrison (even altenburg's is still exceedingly convenient from midtown). has anyone here bought from them and would you feel comfortable approaching them about hosting us?

it's crossed my mind to ask carl at beethoven's, but their showroom is very cramped, and carl is a bit absent-minded....

for myself, i would be very happy with the concert-and-dinner scenario. maybe it's because i haven't built up a huge repertoire since we last met! but also, for some people, meeting strangers for the first time in new york, it is more comfortable to meet in a public space. it also removes the pressure/burden for someone to do all the work of hosting.

what do others have to say about this?

perhaps, soon, we should post announcements in the other forums that people should come here to participate in the planning.... i'm not sure all our new york members are aware of this thread.

I'm up for anything.
Christian Zimerman is playing Beethoven 4 on Fri. Oct.31st at 8:00pm, at Lincoln Center. That's the best listing I've seen for the last two weeks of Oct.

oh, rats! i fly home the morning of october 30th.

phlebas, how do you find out what concerts are scheduled this far in advance? is there a website we could look at?

Pique,

I figured you had these sites:
www.lincolncenter.org
www.carnegiehall.org

I'll check others.

Maybe we can have it all! Or in the words of a recent Coffee forum thread "We can have our cake and eat it too!"

How about a PianoWorld NY evening on the town?

We could start by meeting in a central location for a wine and cheese reception; move on to visiting one or two wonderful piano stores, followed by dinner at some fantastic restaurant followed by a concert if possible, followed by dessert and coffee (or wine) at some trattoria.

Ooh la la.
I'll get to work right away on the concert schedules.

bernard,
that sounds perfect and quintessentially new york. why not take advantage of all the opportunities of the city? now we need others to chime in with restaurant and concert ideas. what if we started with a tour of piano row? maybe we could even call the proprietors and arrange for them to stay open a bit late for us, if need be?

wouldn't it be cool to compare the various pianos and discuss what we mean by "bright" "creamy" "mellow" and all the other fuzzy terms we've bandied about here for the past two years?

Here's a partial list of concerts between 10/15 and 10/25:

I probably don't need to say it, but time is of the essence, some of these events sell out quickly.

New York Philharmonic
Expensive, but it doesn't get much better than this.
Th 10/15, F 10/17, S 10/18 Alicia de Larrocha (Haydn, Falla, Nielsen)
T 10/21, Th 10/22 Buchbinder (Beethoven)
F 10/24 Zacharias (Beethoven)

New York City Opera
Always a charming experience.
Th 10/16 La Finta Giardiniere (Mozart)
F 10/17 The Magic Flute (ditto)
S 10/18 The Mikado (G&S)

Metropolitan Opera
T 10/14 Tristan und Isolde (Wagner)
F 10/17 La Traviata (One of my favorites) (Verdi)
S 10/18 Le Nozze di Figaro (Mozart)

Amato Opera
A must-do if you've never done it before. Very small--tiny theatre, very intimate. Unpredictable voices but usually good lead singers.
10/18 HMS Pinafore (G&S)

92nd St. Y
10/15 Mozart, Haydn, Rorem, Schubert
(Robinson, cello; Martin, flute; Rusinek, clarinet; Goeres, bassoon; Williams, horn; Uchida, piano; Phelps, violin)

Metropolitan Museum of Art
10/18 Beaux Arts Trio, Rachmaninoff (Op.9), Schubert (Op. 99)
10/20 Ivo Pogorelich "Celebrating a Birthday and an Anniversary" (It's his birthday the day of the performance)
Beethoven, Schriabin, Rachmaninoff
10/25 Guarneri String Quartet, Beethoven (Op.127, Op.18,#2, Op.59,#3)

Bargemusic
Enjoy it on an old barge by the Brooklyn Bridge.
F 10/17, S 10/19 Trio Mosaique; Bach, Martinu, Villa-Lobos, Crumb

lots of good choices, especially for friday the 17th and saturday the 18th. lucy says she can only do weekend nights. i wonder if frank is able to come in for a friday or saturday night out? frank?

does anyone have budget restrictions that make some of these options more favored than the others?

do people care if we go for opera over a piano recital? (i personally love opera and go every time i'm in nyc anyway). where's tomk? maybe his buddy placido can get us orchestra seats at the met?

Here's my 3 top picks:

1) Friday 10/17, La Traviata, Met Opera
2) Sat. 10/18, Alicia De Larrocia, NY Phil.
3) Sat. 10/18, Beaux Arts Trio, MMA

Hi, Pique,

Thank you for persisting with this thread ! I like all of the ideas presented so far, and October 17th and 18th are free for me. New York City is a musical treasure trove: maybe we could start out at a museum, have dinner, attend a concert and conclude (if there HAS to be a conclusion), with coffee and drinks. Then, perhaps, the bravest of the brave could convene at someone's home for an impromtu concert .

So many wonderful possibilities

Bernard,

Why did you have to come up with so many great ideas ? I want to attend EVERYTHING you listed. However, just to show that I CAN be selective, I would most like to hear Alicia De Larrocha play, especially since it is rumored that she is retiring . I can imagine that the tickets would be quite pricey, though, and it might be hard for us to get them in a block.

Lucy

lucy in the sky,
Oooh. That's the best yet. pique, we could all take a tour of the musical instrument collection at MMA!

This could give new meaning to the phrase "after hours club"!

P.S. to Bernard

We certainly seem to be on the same page. I just read your posts about a possible plan for an evening and your top three choices !

Oh, no, I hadn't heard. Then I may want to revise my top 3 list and switch positions 1) and 2).

Bernard,

I have the feeling that you are online right now. Maybe we are having some sort of telephathic communication with a little help from the telephone lines !

not to be overlooked also are the many wonderful concerts at music societies, churches, and conservatories. mannes college often has very interesting events. these events might prove to be easier and less expensive to get tickets to as well.

as for the events already listed, they ALL sound wonderful to me. i could happily attend any of them.

i'm especially intrigued by bernard's comments about the amato opera. if we don't do it for our piano world gathering, i may have to check it out for myself.

if we did do the MMA musical instruments collection, it might segue nicely into attending the concert there, depending on the schedule.

restaurants and bars in that neighborhood are less interesting, though, i'm afraid, and also very pricey.

for the adventurous, my old stamping grounds, ninth avenue in the 50s, has terrific ethnic restaurants, one right after the other, most of them dirt cheap.

one that is very nice (and not cheap, but not too spendy, either) is on the ground floor of the building i used to live in, on the corner of ninth and 56th. it's italian, wonderful atmosphere, service, and food, very gracious, and it's called "bella."

that's quite convenient to piano row. we would need reservations.

but i'm probably not the best person to recommend eating venues as the city changes so quickly, and it's been so long since i lived there.

lucy in the sky,

I can see some logistics... we start on the Upper East Side and end on the Upper West Side. We could eat on UES or UWS or midtown. If we eat midtown, we may be able to swing 'round to a few piano showrooms if there's time.

[edited] pique--I just saw your post and this would fit in nicely with eating on the west side.

Regarding eateries, I am not familiar with very many uptown restaurants, spending most of my time in lower midtown and downtown areas. I have however been to some of the places on Broadway across from Lincoln Center.

for some stupid reason, bernard, the area right around lincoln center is a wasteland when it comes to good restaurants. they are all overpriced and of poor quality. just my nsho.

since that was my neighborhood, and i did visit it and eat there last year (while sharing an evening at the met opera with a friend), i know that the situation is the same.

bella is still there. another favorite restaurant of mine, armstrong's, on 57th and 10th, has very sadly closed. if we go further south on ninth avenue, we get into the land of cuban chinese, ethiopian, afghani, chinese, and other eclectic mixes. most of these places are in closet-sized spaces, but the food is great and some of them are cheaper than eating at home.

bella's has the best atmosphere and is a wonderful place. i would have eaten there last year, but didn't have a reservation.

apropos of the "claim to fame" thread: one night i was eating at bella's and jerzy kozinsky was at the table next to mine.

my first apartment in nyc was not far from the met museum and my aunt and uncle still live near there, and i've visited recently. still a restaurant wasteland unless you want to shell out the big bucks.

oh, i just remembered, there used to be a wonderful indian restaurant on the top floor of an apartment building right on columbus circle. very exotic and spectacular views of central park. very festive, too.

we need more people to weigh in here, too. i've posted a notice on the piano forum, and also i've messaged a few new yorkers. hopefully we'll get a bigger response this week and can start planning and buy our tickets.

pique,
I think it's called 'tourism'?

Well, it sort of looks like this is going to happen.

OK, I like these ideas:

Saturday October 18th.

Start at Piano Row on West 58th, probably Beethoven's, early in the afternoon. I really want to hear some of you play. I want to play some myself. I can call Carl on Monday and ask him about arranging a time slot for us. There are three other stores on the block and Piano Piano only a short walk away. I don't know whether they will all be open but I'd bet they would be.

Next. Eat in a place like Bella on the West Side.

Attend the Alicia de Larrocha concert.

Retire somewhere after for whatever.

We should act fast on the tickets and buy a block of them if we still can. Someone should co-ordinate this and tell us where to send our checks. My pen is in my hand.

The sooner we get a head count the better. Right now I'm committed to do this. How about the rest of you?

Right now my calendar is clear. I'll have to see if I'm going to bring along a guest. I might.

I'd really like to get some of our friends from Philadelphia and New Jersey to join us.