The Metropolitan Museum of Art Announces the New MetLiveArts Season of Performances
Live performance returns to The Met's galleries and theater with a fall 2021 lineup that features an evening of music by Gavin Creel and more.
by Alexa Criscitiello Aug. 27, 2021 Â
The Met today announced a new season of live performances with in-person audiences beginning fall 2021 and a new Artist in Residence, the acclaimed dancer and choreographer Bijayini Satpathy. Beginning in October, performances will once again take place in galleries throughout the Museum, as well as in the Grace Rainey Rogers Auditorium, and will feature MetLiveArts commissions and leading international musicians and composers.
"MetLiveArts has always been an innovator in the field, producing compelling works that illuminate The Met's collection and galleries in new and often surprising ways," said Max Hollein, Marina Kellen French Director of The Met. "This season brings a range of powerful programs, and we are thrilled to again invite audiences back to the Museum to engage with the exhilarating performances we have ahead."
Limor Tomer, Lulu C. and Anthony W. Wang General Manager of Live Arts, commented: "After nearly a year and a half, we are so excited to welcome back our audiences to experience the visceral force and power of live performance and what it means to once again share energy and space with dynamic artists and fellow enthusiasts. We have always asked our performers to create works that challenge them, and this past year has put that invitation to the test for so many. This new season will include some of the most personal, unexpected, and inventive works of any MetLiveArts season."
Artists this season include Tony and Olivier Award-winner Gavin Creel (Hello, Dolly!; West End production of The Book of Mormon); a world-premiere work by Arvo Pärt at the Temple of Dendur; four-time Grammy Award-winner Angélique Kidjo in an intimate performance; the Dessoff Choirs and Orchestra with soprano Laquita Mitchell; and Heartbeat Opera's acclaimed original production of Beethoven's Fidelio.
During the past 17 months, MetLiveArts has presented virtual performances, including Sonic Cloisters, the popular ongoing series of electronic music concerts filmed in the galleries and courtyards of The Met Cloisters. While the Museum was closed to the public, there were new concerts filmed in the galleries amid the iconic art, as well as digital premieres of past performances-both of which have encouraged audiences from around the world to engage with brilliant musicians and The Met collection and spaces. The Museum's resident quartet, ETHEL & Friends, will continue their weekly virtual series, Balcony Bar from Home.
Performances will be ticketed and open rehearsals will be free with Museum admission.
Artist in Residence: Bijayini Satpathy
Hailed by The New Yorker as "a performer of exquisite grace and technique," the revered Odissi dancer Bijayini Satpathy will be the 2021-22 MetLiveArts Artist in Residence. She will premiere new site-specific works and collaborate with musicians, visual artists, and dancers. Satpathy launched her solo career in 2019, after 25 years as a principal dancer with the lionized Nrityagram Dance Ensemble based in Bangalore, India. As a soloist, Satpathy creates new works that reflect her interest in challenging the tradition and vision of Odissi, and for The Met she will explore that interest through performances in unexpected areas of the Museum's collection, with a special focus on works in modern and contemporary art. During her Museum residency, she will further expand her choreographic language beyond the Indian dance form and collaborate with a range of artists and Met curators.
Satpathy's residency will include in-gallery performances, extensive workshops with New York City-based students and professional dancers, and auditorium performances.
Open rehearsals will begin in January 2022 and take place in five gallery spaces throughout The Met, including the Astor Court; Galleries for the Art of the Arab Lands, Turkey, Iran, Central Asia, and Later South Asia; and the Fuentidueña Chapel at The Met Cloisters. All open rehearsals will take place during Museum hours and will be open to the public. Details about performances in spring and fall 2022 will be announced.
Fall 2021 and Early Winter 2022 Performances:
Gavin Creel: Walk on Through
Monday, October 25, 2021, at 6 and 8:30 p.m.
The Grace Rainey Rogers Auditorium
Tony and Olivier Award-winner Gavin Creel was a museum novice for most of his 20 years living in New York City. Invited to create a program for MetLiveArts, he spent countless hours over the past year exploring the Museum's galleries, finding inspiration, and falling in love with The Met. Experience Creel's newfound passion and sense of wonder for The Met in his newly composed songs that make the art sing.
Celebrating Arvo Pärt at The Met
Sunday, October 31, 2021, at 3 p.m., and Monday, November 1, 2021, at 7 p.m.
The Temple of Dendur is the setting for a world-premiere a cappella choral work from the beloved Estonian composer Arvo Pärt, composed to celebrate the reopening of St. Nicholas Greek Orthodox Church, which was destroyed on September 11, 2001. The Schola Cantorum choir are joined by Grammy Award-winning Experiential Orchestra in an evening of masterpieces composed over Pärt's career, which has spanned seven decades.
The Orchestra Now, Conducted by Leon Botstein:
Beethoven and Cristofori, The Piano's First Century
Sunday, December 5, 2021, at 2 p.m.
Beethoven's Piano Concerto No. 5 illuminates the transformation of piano music, which began with Bartolomeo Cristofori's breakthrough invention of the fortepiano. The Grand Piano (1720) by Bartolomeo Cristofori (Italian) is on view in Gallery 684 at The Met Fifth Avenue and is part of the Museum's Musical Instruments collection.
Stravinsky, Picasso, and Cubism
Sunday, February 20, 2022, at 2 p.m.
Featuring Stravinsky's Concerto for Piano and Wind Instruments and Pablo Picasso's Man with a Guitar.
Igor Stravinsky's deconstructed and reassembled music from the 1920s was heavily influenced by the work of his friend Pablo Picasso. One of his masterpieces from this period is this concerto, which Stravinsky loved to perform himself.
Dvořák, Macdowell, and Delacroix: The New World
Sunday, April 10, 2022, at 2 p.m.
AntonÃn Dvořák's Symphony No. 9, From the New World (Mvt. 2); Edward MacDowell's Suite No. 2, Indian; and Eugène Delacroix's The Natchez
From their earliest encounters in the New World, Europeans were mesmerized by the Indigenous peoples of North America. French artist Eugène Delacroix painted a Natchez family as they fled the massacre of their tribe up the Mississippi River. Edward MacDowell's Indian Suite incorporated Indigenous melodies and rhythms, and the second movement of AntonÃn Dvořák's New World Symphony was inspired by Longfellow's poem on Hiawatha.
All performances take place in the Grace Rainey Rogers Auditorium.
Tickets start at $30; $75 for the series.
Christmas with the Dessoff Choirs
Sunday, December 19, 2021, at 3 p.m.
The Grace Rainey Rogers Auditorium
Led by director Malcolm J. Merriweather, the Dessoff Choirs and Orchestra welcome the holiday season with two works by highly influential yet underrepresented composers: Margaret Bonds and Mary Lou Williams. The concert features The Ballad of the Brown King, a Christmas cantata by Margaret Bonds, and the great Jazz composer Mary Lou Williams's Black Christ of the Andes, along with some of Williams's other rarely heard choral works. The performance features internationally recognized soloists, soprano Laquita Mitchell, mezzo-soprano Lucia Bradford, and tenor Noah Stewart.
Angélique Kidjo at The Met
Monday, December 27, and Tuesday, December 28, 2021, at 6 and 8:30 p.m.
The Michael C. Rockefeller Wing
Four-time Grammy Award-winner and "Africa's premier diva" (Time) Angélique Kidjo performs an intimate site-specific program devoted to the Museum's collection of African art. Set in the galleries of the Michael C. Rockefeller Wing, which are currently closed in preparation for renovation and reenvisioning, Kidjo's performance anticipates the vision and reinstallation of the galleries, underscoring the aesthetic qualities, authorship, provenance, and cultural context of the art to be displayed.
Thursday, February 10; Saturday, February 12; and Monday, February 14, 2022, at 7 p.m.
The Grace Rainey Rogers Auditorium
Adapted and directed by Ethan Heard
Music arranged and directed by Daniel Schlosberg
New English dialogue by Marcus Scott and Ethan Heard
When a Black activist is wrongfully incarcerated, his wife disguises herself to infiltrate the system and free him, but injustice reigns. In this daring adaptation created by Heartbeat Opera, Beethoven's classic is reimagined in the time and context of the Black Lives Matter movement. The opera will feature the voices of more than 100 incarcerated singers and volunteers from prison choirs.
For tickets, visit metmuseum.org/performances, call 212-570-3949, or stop by any desk in the Great Hall at The Met Fifth Avenue.
Your ticket includes Museum admission on the day of the event.
MetLiveArts performances require all guests age 12 and older to show proof of full vaccination (at least 14 days after the second dose of a two-dose series vaccine, or at least 14 days after a single-dose vaccine). Children under 12 must be accompanied by a fully vaccinated adult. The Met may require additional safety measures for these performances and will communicate such measures to confirmed guests in advance. More information on The Met's comprehensive safety procedures can be found on metmuseum.org.
