Celebrate Brooklyn!
Prospect Park proves it’s more than just a pretty space by housing one of the best summer concert series in the city. Slather on some sunscreen and go see Sonic Youth and Talk Normal July 31, The Roots July 11 or Kid Koala June 25, as well as an opening night kick-off concert by Norah Jones June 9.
June 9 through Aug. 8, Prospect Park Bandshell, ener park at 9th St. & Prospect Park West, Brooklyn, 718-855-7882; Free.

A summer tradition: the Philharmonic in the park.

Madison Square Music
When you’re not in Madison Square Park filling up on burgers, try catching one of its free concerts. Offer to bring a blanket and let your friend stand in line for snacks before seeing soul singer Ruthie Foster, who opens up the park’s Oval Lawn Series June 16, or the David Bromberg Quartet July 14.
June 16 through Aug. 4, Madison Square Park, enter park at Madison Ave. & E. 26th St., www.madisonsquarepark.org; Free.

River To River Festival
From the must-see rock shows at Pier 17 to the early evening concert series at Rockefeller Park, a July 4 concert in Battery Park and the Bang On A Can Marathon, River to River is an exhaustive behemoth of Downtown summer music. Check the website for a full schedule.
June 22 through Aug. 11, various locations, 212-732-7678, www.rivertorivernyc.com; Free.

RiverRocks
See more than the swells break at Pier 54 during Hudson River Park’s annual music series featuring indie rockers like series headliners Phosphorescent & Dawes July 8, The Antlers July 22 and Real Estate Aug. 12.
July 8 through Aug. 12, Hudson River Park, Perry & West Streets, 212-627-2020, www.riverrocksnyc.com; Free.

New York Philharmonic in the Parks
Starting July 13, city parks will be great places for something other than staring at sunbathers; something more classy like a free orchestra concert, including pieces from Tchaikovsky, Gershwin, Bernstein and Mozart, in Central, Cunningham and Prospect parks.
July 13 through 16, various locations, 212-875-5656, www.nyphil.org; Free.

Lincoln Center Out of Doors
It’s not officially summer until Lincoln Center Out of Doors opens, because this annual festival of live music is the touchstone telling us now it’s time to bust out the short shorts, sunglasses and zinc. Make sure to see, on July 31, “The Detroit Breakdown,” featuring The Gories, Dennis Coffey, Melvin Davis, Spyder Turner and more.
July 28 through Aug. 15, various locations, www.lincolncenter.org; Free.

Charlie Parker Jazz Festival
Head to Tompkins Square Park in the East Village and Marcus Garvey Park in Harlem to hear some of jazz’s biggest musicians perform for this two-day celebration of the music Parker held so close to his heart. The Frank Wess Quintet and Cedar Walton Quartet headline.
Aug. 29 & 30, Marcus Garvey Park, enter park at E. 120th St. & Madison Ave. and Tompkins Square Park, enter park at E. 8th St. & Ave. A; 3, Free.

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“It’s the only TV show I’m aware of that focuses exclusively on independent music,” explained David Schumacher, NYCMusicShow producer.

Read more about the new program here.

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“These bands, in my experience, tend to have a pretty wide appeal. Everybody from suit-and-tie to artists to hipsters,” Sobel said. “It tends to be pretty eclectic.” He anticipates plenty of indie rock fans migrating from as far away as Brooklyn for the event.

Haakon’s Fault, winners of last year’s Upper East Side Music Festival, will be performing again this year.

Sobel supports fledgling bands by booking a lot of rooms around the city, giving them a variety of venue options, and by putting together sets with bands that mesh stylistically.

“If you’re a folk rock band playing after a death metal band, chances are the metal fans aren’t going to like your folk rock, and vice versa,” Sobel said.

For the festival, Sobel booked a set of hard rock and metal bands for Feb. 6, but that’s the only night he would classify as fitting into any single genre.

“A lot of the bands today, they aren’t so specific, they pull from a lot of different influences,” from folk to progressive to techno, he said.

Last year’s winner, Haakon’s Fault, will be performing again. Bass player Doug Berns said the band is excited to perform at Bar East, where the small space provides an intimate setting for music.

“It felt like a real communal environment,” he said.

The unsigned band, which describes its sound as “epic,” got a big morale boost from last year’s triumph.

Sobel especially wants to help out Bar East, which has been struggling financially.

“Live music is a labor of love,” Sobel said. “There’s no doubt that DJs spinning hip hop, that kind of thing, tend to make more money for clubs.”

He cites places like The Continental, an East Village bar now known for its five-shots-for-$10 deal, which stopped hosting live music in 2006 due to the expense; it recently held a one-night reunion concert of live bands Jan. 17.

Despite the cost, Sobel said, “The ironic thing is that more and more clubs doing live music seem to keep popping up.”

That’s why he’s hoping this year’s festival will draw people to Bar East.

“It’s important for people on the Upper East Side to come check this out,” he said.

the progenitor and exporter of democratic ideals. But you wouldn’t suspect this based on how the national (and New York) Democratic Party has been behaving lately.

Democracy, by our definition, offers citizens strong choices and vibrant debates on ideas and policies, not uncontested primaries or people appointed to high office by one unelected leader.

Democracy requires—Sobel said.

For the festival, Sobel booked a set of hard rock and metal bands for Feb. 6, but that’s the only night he would classify as fitting into any single genre.

“A lot of the bands today,they aren’t so specific, they pull from a lot of different influences,” from folk to progressive to techno, he said.

Last year’s winner, Haakon’s Fault, will be performing again. Bass player Doug Berns said the band is excited to perform at Bar East, where the small space provides an intimate setting for music.

“It felt like a real communal environment,” he said.

The unsigned band, which describes its sound as “epic,” got a big morale boost from last year’s triumph.

Sobel especially wants to help out Bar East, which has been struggling financially.

“Live music is a labor of love,” Sobel said. “There’s no doubt that DJs spinning hip hop, that kind of thing, tend to make more money for clubs.”

He cites places like The Continental, an East Village bar now known for its five-shots-for-$10 deal, which stopped hosting live music in 2006 due to the expense; it recently held a one-night reunion concert of live bands Jan. 17.

Despite the cost, Sobel said, “The ironic thing is that more and more clubs doing live music seem to keep popping up.”

That’s why he’s hoping this year’s festival will draw people to Bar East.

“It’s important for people on the Upper East Side to come check this out,” he said.

–
Upper East Side Music Festival
Bar East nightclub
1733 First Ave.
(betw. 89th and 90th streets)
212-876-0203
Feb. 3 to 27
$10 cover charge

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“When I first started conducting, I did a Rossini opera at BAM in the early ’90s, and Caramoor asked me to develop opera productions in their Music Room,” said Crutchfield, an Upper West Sider. “We did that for a few years, then brought a good production to the Caramoor Festival in 1996: Rossini’s  La Cenerentola with mezzo-soprano Viveca Genaux. It got a great response and the following year we made ‘Bel Canto at Caramoor’ official—we’ve been going strong ever since.”

Conductor Will Crutchfield leads the Bel Canto at Caramoor series, featuring revivals of 19th-century Italian operas by Donizetti, Rossini and Bellini.

That strength is especially evident in this summer’s opera events: Donizetti’s popular comedy The Elixir of Love  was performed July 18, and Rossini’s dramatic—and rarely performed—Semiramide is scheduled for July 31. Since opera singers’ schedules are planned years in advance, operas at Caramoor are performed whenever Crutchfield’s ideal casts are assembled.

“One example is this year,” he said. “We wanted tenor Lawrence Brownlee, but his schedule is very full and getting fuller. He could finally sing for us this summer, and we gave him a role he has not done before: Nemorino in Elixir of Love. He’s in such demand for other roles that he has not sung this one. So he was the starting point for that opera, and the starting point for Semiramide was soprano Angela Meade, whom I first heard two years ago, and wanted to sing the title role, which would be a real showcase for her.”

Rounding out the Semiramide cast is Viveca Genaux, who is coming back to play Arsace, and Brownlee, who will return to sing Idreno.

“So we have the world’s three best Rossini singers in one Rossini opera!” the conductor said.

Crutchfield doesn’t see any disadvantages to performing operas at the festival’s outdoor Venetian Theater.

“The atmosphere is great, of course, and it also has good natural acoustics,” he said. “We use no amplification at all, and the sound is fresh and pleasant—we can perform as if we’re inside a concert hall with good acoustics. Happily, we are able to avoid the frustration of many outdoor spaces.”

This October, Caramoor plans to hold its first Fall Festival, a weekend of concerts that begins with the New York Philharmonic and culminates with a solo recital by soprano Sumi Jo, whom Crutchfield is accompanying on piano. He hopes that opera will also become a part of future Fall Festivals.

“We may do some small-scale operas in the fall, perhaps even returning to The Music Room,” he said.

His Caramoor conducting career would then come full circle.

–
Bel Canto at Caramoor, on July 31, is part of the Caramoor International Music Festival in Katonah, N.Y., which runs through
Aug. 5. For information about round-trip bus service from Manhattan, call 914-232-5035 or visit caramoor.org.

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So is taking on the title role in Alceste, a baroque work by Christoph Willibald Gluck that will be performed by The Collegiate Chorale on May 26, a true departure for her?

“That would be absolutely correct!” the Upper West Side resident laughs in response. “I learned this role nearly 20 years ago when I understudied for Jessye Norman at The Lyric Opera of Chicago. She seemed to be sick every day, but she never got quite ill enough to cancel, so I never sang the part.”

Making her role debut in Alceste came about because Voigt was asked what opera she would be interested in singing with the Collegiate Chorale, and she didn’t hesitate to mention this Gluck work.

“And it has a lot of choral parts, which fits the Chorale perfectly, so it works for everybody,” she said. “It’s quite a dramatic role for me: even though it’s not like the Wagner or Strauss roles I usually do, it’s a vocal challenge and I enjoy singing it. Temperamentally, Alceste is similar to those other heroines I play. She’s sacrificing her life for her husband—it doesn’t get much more dramatic than that.”

Deborah Voigt, a regular with the Metropolitan Opera, takes a break to sing with the Collegiate Chorale.

When asked whether she prefers the original Italian version or the French revision that Gluck prepared in 1776 (which is what she will be performing on May 26), the singer responded, “It makes absolutely no difference because I’ve had to relearn the whole thing! But my French teacher tells me I’m très bon, which helps.”

Usually, when Voigt sings operas in New York, it’s on the Metropolitan Opera stage, where she’s been a regular for several years. And next season, she returns there to sing operas by—whom else?—Strauss (Elektra) and Wagner (The Flying Dutchman).

“I was the first one who sang Chrysothemis in the current Met production of Elektra, so that will be a nice trip down memory lane,” Voigt said. “I’ve also recorded it with Maestro Levine and his band. However, doing Dutchman will be a first for me there, and Senta is a role I’ve not sung a lot, so it will be interesting to finally do that at the Met.”

The Chicago-born soprano wants to be known for more than the heavy-duty roles that have made her famous.

“I thought that at this point in my career, I’d be on autopilot and singing my same five roles around the world,” she joked. “No, really I would like to do more cabaret and American Songbook-type concerts,” she added, referring to the Lincoln Center song series in which she performed last season. “The luxury of having that microphone to croon into is always a wonderful thing, but it’s hard to balance all of this music—to be a Wagner and Strauss soprano takes up a lot of my time and my voice.”

But a girl can continue to dream: “I’m hoping to finally put out my Voigt Where Prohibited CD of cabaret songs,” she says. “Someday!”
–
Gluck’s Alceste
May 26, 8 p.m.
Rose Theater,
Jazz at Lincoln Center
For tickets ($25 to $120), visit www.collegiatechorale.org

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How about this storyline: the nice, multi-tasking Jewish girl from affluent Tenafly, N.J., went on to graduate from Sarah Lawrence College (major: English and American Literature) and rack up another two dozen or so hits. When that gig waned, she turned to acting in summer stock, singing on the club circuit and discovering that she’s gay. At 29, she and younger brother Michael co-wrote “Out Here on My Own,” an Oscar-nominated song from the 1980 hit movie Fame.

After that, there was a quieter stretch of singing and songwriting. Until 2005, that is, when she came out publicly during the release of “Ever Since,” a collection of yearning ballads that showcased her sultry, mellow, grown-up voice. It was her first album in 30 years.

Now Gore, who turns 63 on Sunday, is getting ready to write the second act of her life. Literally. Her dream is to complete a one-woman performance piece for Off Broadway.

“I’d like to get the second act done by summer and present it in the fall,” she said during a recent phone interview.

Staying fresh by exploring new material is crucial to Gore’s reinvention. It would have been easy enough, she notes, to simply perform in oldies-but-goodies concerts from here to Vegas, with her yoga and meditation tapes in tow. But over the years, she’s also sought out smaller, more intimate places for all her songs.

Her newest venue will be Feinstein’s at Loews Regency. For her first time at this fancy supper club, she’s bringing new arrangements and works for her four-piece band and three back-up singers.

Of course, she’ll perform “It’s My Party.” But it won’t be the version created by her original producer; back then, he was a newcomer named Quincy Jones. Gore says he pushed her to sing at ever-higher octaves in search of a “young” sound. This is how he knew when Gore had hit the right key: “Quincy wanted to see the veins in my neck.”

That would be a good story for Gore’s one woman-show. Her project could also benefit from new buzz over Fame. A remake is scheduled to reach movie theaters in September. (Fiorello H. LaGuardia High School of Music & Art and Performing Arts, which is the new name for the original Fame school, holds its annual fundraiser on May 3. One of the items to bid on in the silent auction is lunch with Gore.)

Next, Gore says she’ll focus on writing that second act in the Upper East Side home she shares with Lois Sasson, her partner of 25 years and a jewelry designer with an exclusive men’s line at Bergdorf Goodman.

And if she decides not to work on the one-woman show after all, surely there will be other projects.

“This is a business—and life is a business—where you always have to challenge yourself,” Gore said.
–
Lesley Gore
May 5 to 9
Feinstein’s at Loews Regency
540 Park Ave. at 61st Street
$60 to $75 cover with $40 food/beverage minimum
For tickets call 212-339-4095 or visit www.ticketweb.com

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Tamara Mumford will also perform in the upcoming “Ring” cycle at the Metropolitan Opera.

“These are all composers that I listen to and love to sing,“ Mumford said in a recent telephone interview. “Ken and I talked about how we could arrange all of their songs in a way that would work.”
Although the Ravel, Haydn and Rachmaninoff selections are more familiar, it’s the works by Montsalvatge, Bolcom and Rorem that are especially close to the singer’s heart.
“We chose their songs because I absolutely love them,” she said. “Rorem’s ‘Lordly Hudson’ and ‘I Strolled Across an Open Field’ are lovely, as are Bolcom’s ‘Cabaret Songs,’ especially his ‘Amore,’ which is just so fun to do in front of an audience.
“I discovered Montsalvatge’s ‘Cinco canciones negras’ when I was doing my undergrad music studies at Utah State, and I just knew that they would become part of my repertoire.

Any chance I get, I try and sing them, because they evoke such immediate feelings and they’re simply great songs.”
While rehearsing for her Met Museum recital, Mumford is also preparing for an unusually busy spring on the other side of Central Park. At the Metropolitan Opera, not only did she take part in last week’s 125th Anniversary Gala, but she is also singing Flossilde, one of the Rhinemaidens, in the upcoming “Ring” cycle, the tetralogy of Richard Wagner operas that is concluding the opera house’s spring season. Since Wagner is not part of her usual repertoire, Mumford said she was surprised to find out that she was wanted for the role.
“I got a call from my manager that they wanted me to sing Flossilde,” she said. “And it’s great to be part of this Otto Schenk production, so I feel that I’m part of a little history doing this role.” (The production is being retired after this season.)
Does she find Wagner’s legendarily difficult music daunting to perform?
“It’s a good part for me to start singing Wagner, since it’s a little safer to sing,” she said.
Although she has sung in England, Italy and throughout the United States (including in Philadelphia in May and at Glimmerglass Opera upstate in the summer), returning to the Met Opera House is always a special event for Mumford.
“When I got into the Met Young Artists program, it was huge, since it allowed me to grow as an artist and a person,” she said. “It’s a really wonderful place, they care about me, believe in my talent and want to see me succeed.”

–
Tamara Mumford and Pianist Ken Noda
March 21, 7 p.m.
Metropolitan Museum of Art “Accolades” Young Artist Recital Series
Grace Rainey Rogers Auditorium
For tickets ($30), visit metmuseum.org

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“It’s all some sort of rock-based music,” Sobel said. “But you won’t find any bands that are just one type of thing. You’ll find funk, blues and rock mixed together; folk, psychedelic and hard rock mixed together—a mélange of rock styles.”

Lee Sobel says the Upper East Side Music Festival will feature “a mélange of rock styles.” Photo By: Daniel S. Burnstein

The groups will compete in the festival’s Battle of the Bands, and Sobel explained that the last band standing will need to do more than just pull in large crowds—they’ll also need to have tunes that inspire a certain boisterousness.

“If you have two bands that draw the same amount of people but one has a much more enthusiastic audience, that band would win the cash prize,” he said.

(That prize, incidentally, is $400, plus the band’s cut of the door entrance fees.)
The festival takes place at The_Underscore nightclub (at Bar East), on First Avenue between East 89th and 90th streets, for six nights starting Feb. 19.

Joe Clifford, The_Underscore’s managing partner, said that the venue hasn’t hosted anything quite like this festival before. The club tends to feature rock bands, but jazz, reggae, ska, country and Celtic groups also perform there.

“The venue takes on the characteristics of the night itself,” Clifford said, explaining there’s no particular demographic that frequents the nightclub.

He believes that what makes The_Underscore special is its high quality sound system, which allows it to compete with venues on the Lower East Side or in the Village.

“It rivals any of those chop shops downtown,” Clifford said.

The nightclub also has a practical approach to hosting live music, with Bar East, a more pub-style bar, upstairs, and The_Underscore downstairs. Revenue from Bar East’s selection of microbrews and craft brews, along with its games room, help offset the costs of putting on live music in the space below.

Sobel, who’s 46 and lives in Clinton Hill, Brooklyn, has been promoting indie rock bands for seven years and started booking lineups for the Upper East Side venue when it opened in 2005.

Known as New York’s “King of Swing Music,” Sobel previously made a career out of promoting swing music events during the genre’s massive revival in the 1990s. He began working as music promoter accidentally, after his film screened at the nightclub Downtime on West 30th Street (it’s since been renamed Rebel), accompanied by a variety of live music performances.

“I directed a movie, and I had seven bands from the soundtrack play live—all new young bands who were playing 50s-style rock ’n’ roll,” he said. “About 500 people showed up and I thought ‘Oh, I could do more of this.’”

He deejays and produces theater events as well, all the while ensuring he finds the time to support his wife, who’s five-and-a-half months pregnant.

“In the middle of the night my wife is trying to sleep and I’m sitting at my keyboard promoting my events and booking talent,” he said. “When I do something I do it well, but unfortunately to survive in the entertainment business in New York, you really have to bust your ass.”

Sobel’s expecting mainly the twenty-something crowd for the festival, however he mentioned that because the bands involved are just starting out, they’ll often enlist relatives, friends and teachers to help support the music, making for a broad age range at their shows.

“The festival [aims] to bring more attention to the venue,” Sobel said, “and to the fact that there is live music happening several nights a week on the Upper East Side.”
–
Upper East Side Music Festival and Battle of The Bands
Feb. 19, 20, 21, 26, 27 and 28
The_Underscore, 1733 First Ave., 212-876-0203, www.theunderscore.com
Starts at 7 p.m. on most nights, $10 cover

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Q: You certainly get around. You just had a gig at Carnegie Hall in October singing Kurt Weill’s The Seven Deadly Sins. And before that, you were on a European tour.

The multilingual Ute Lemper recently toured six European countries in three weeks. Copyright franjanik.com.

A: It was such a crazy tour through six countries in three weeks. We were in Poland, Germany, Austria, Italy, Greece and Cyprus. We went everywhere.

Q: You sing in German, French and English on stage. How did you get such a command of the French chanson?
A: My career actually started in France. In 1986 I performed the part of Sally Bowles in the musical Cabaret, and I was playing the part in French. I lived in Paris for many years. My first two kids were born in Paris. After living there, you feel more connected to the language and the culture. I spent hours and hours, and weeks and weeks, and years really with the French chanson.

Q: You first played Joe’s Pub back in 1999 right after you headlined in Chicago on Broadway. What do you like about Joe’s Pub?
A: It’s Downtown and different than any cabaret space Uptown. Joe’s Pub was also my first gig in town. I was doing Chicago and I said, ‘When I’m done with the show, Joe’s Pub is the place where I want to go.’ Then, funny or not, a month after I finished, the production people called and said, ‘Please come and perform in our cabaret venue!’

Q: Will you be sharing a few songs from your new album at Joe’s Pub?
A: I will include a few of them but not too many. In order to perform them properly I need a six-piece band. And that doesn’t fit on the Joe’s Pub stage. So I will perform the ones that work in an almost unplugged way.

Q: You have had an incredibly diverse career. What’s next?
A: I have just spent days in a studio to complete the French version of my album.  I have a run at the Chaillot Theater in December in Paris. I will be singing my songs in French on stage. And (laughs) I still have to learn the lyrics.
–
Ute Lemper in “Pirate Jenny Comes Back”
Joe’s Pub at The Public Theater, 425 Lafayette St.
Nov. 22, 28 and 29
www.joespub.com or 212-967-7555
–

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The hamburger is not good, the overflow crowd of tourists from Ellen’s Stardust Diner upstairs creates precisely the wrong vibe and the amplification seems excessive. But there’s a fantastic time to be had with the sweet combination of Capathia Jenkins and Louis Rosen, now playing at the Iridium Jazz Club.
She’s a blow-’em-away Broadway musical star who turns out to be a sophisticated and subtle musical artist. He’s a well-regarded songwriter with a charming, understated stage style. Together, they’re simultaneously adorable and smart. They delve bravely into challenging material.
At the moment, most of the material is from “One Ounce of Truth,” the name of both their Iridium gig and a new CD.
Rosen, the composer, uses the poems of Nikki Giovanni as a starting point. This sounds esoteric, even coming from a songwriter who has borrowed from Langston Hughes; but Rosen’s creations are moving and melodic. Putting Giovanni to music actually works. Especially with the fine musicians accompanying Jenkins and Rosen.
That’s true whether the poem/song is a funny evocation of a woman in crazy-love (“I Wrote a Good Omelet”) or a passionate celebration of African-American-and African-music (“The Black Loom”). Rosen takes us on a tour of more personal territory, too, accompanying himself on the piano for a number from an earlier CD, “South Side Stories,” which powerfully recalls his deep family connection to the Chicago neighborhood where he grew up. The flip, funny side of that passion for his hometown came when Rosen mentioned several times his affection for a certain Illinois Senator who is also raising a family on the South Side.
If Rosen is laid back, Jenkins is center stage. She deserves to be. She has great range, both in terms of music and expression. It’s fun when she belts, but here she’s proving herself a fine jazz interpreter, effective in both her enunciation and her phrasing, all without losing her girlish appeal. When an audience member shouts out that she’s hot, and she is, Jenkins takes it in. “I’m hot? I like that,” she says.
Together, Jenkins and Rosen are both hot-but also cool. They have a warm presence that draws an audience in, but they also have staying power and a willingness to take creative risks. They’re rich in talent. They’re upbeat, but also deep.

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