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Over the past three seasons, The Metropolitan Museum of Art has seen some of the most intriguing and unexpected performance offerings around—often inviting audiences to engage with their surroundings as well as the performances. Leading with curiosity and innovation, the 2015-2016 season of Met Museum Presents continues this line of inquiry featuring a roster of powerful performances, new commissions, and fearless artists, all taking the Metropolitan Museum as a starting point.
Free from program models of more traditional performing arts venues, Met Museum Presents reinvents itself each season, spotlighting some of today’s most relevant performers and thought-leaders, and engaging the Met’s galleries in dynamic ways. Beginning in spring 2016, performances and installations will also be presented at The Met Breuer, as part of the first season of programming in the landmark building by Marcel Breuer. In her fourth year as General Manager of Concerts & Lectures, Limor Tomer brings meaningful and authentic live arts to the Met, from performances by Tan Dun and Jordi Savall; to an innovative installation by Reid Farrington; and signature events like TEDxMet.
“It is thrilling to see our galleries activated by these performances,” said Thomas P. Campbell, Director and CEO of The Metropolitan Museum of Art. “Limor continues to break all the rules while still remaining true to what is singular about the Met: the breadth and quality of its collections and expertise. She has simultaneously introduced a whole new audience to the Met, while showing our most dedicated visitors a Met experience they never knew was possible.”
A highlight of the past three seasons is the Artist Residency, a year-long, multi-disciplinary exploration of the Museum by a visionary artist; an opportunity to dive deeply into the Met’s collection and iconic spaces and to bring fresh relevance and scholarship to the collection. In the past, DJs, musicians, and actors have made the residency a singular fulfillment of what Met Museum Presents is: a series that connects the contemporary cultural landscape with the vast treasures and galleries of the Metropolitan Museum.
For 2015-16, the renowned jazz pianist Vijay Iyer will step into the residency and inhabit the Museum creatively, and differently, than ever before. Iyer will bring his encyclopedic breadth of artistic practice to this ambitious residency, expanding the role of performance in museums beyond that of public programs, and further into the realm of cutting-edge live arts.
“If I had tried to invent him, I couldn’t have come up with a more complete artist,” Limor Tomer said. “This season will be a 360-degree look at this musician and thinker as he builds a body of new artistic content around a deep investigation of the collection.”
Artist in Residence Vijay Iyer: One Man, Many Worlds
“There’s probably no frame wide enough to encompass the creative output of the pianist Vijay Iyer.” —New York Times
Vijay Iyer has an encyclopedic range of diverse and impressive talents—composer, pianist, Harvard professor, MacArthur Fellow—although he prefers the description “collaborator.”
“I’m really excited about the residency. There’s really nothing like it in the arts world in North America, at least that I know of,” said Iyer. “A position with this kind of potential and this kind of flexibility…There are so many possibilities that I’m really excited to take on the challenge and make the most of it.”
Highlights of his intense, immersive year as the Met’s 2015-16 Artist in Residence includeHolding It Down: The Veterans’ Dreams Project, a multimedia collaboration with poet Mike Ladd; performances in the Musical Instruments Galleries on the Met’s 1830 Thomas Appleton Pipe Organ on October 30, 2015; and several new works still in the process of being created, including collaborative projects and commissions that will inaugurate The Met Breuer when it opens in spring 2016.
“I make music,” Iyer said. “That means a lot of things. It means that I listen to people. I create experiences. And those experiences are very collaborative, they’re collective, and they’re process driven. They have a lot of detail in them but they’re also very subject to the moment, which means they’re not fixed.”
Holding It Down: The Veterans’ Dreams Project
Thursday, November 12, 2015, at 7:00 p.m.
The Grace Rainey Rogers Auditorium
Tickets start at $40
(With a special free performance for veterans at 4:00 p.m.)
A compelling and provocative multimedia work of voice, video, and music that the Boston Globe called “a triumph of a genre that doesn’t yet exist,” Holding It Down is mined straight from the words of minority veterans of the post-9/11 wars in Iraq and Afghanistan.
“Veterans and civilians don’t often mix, and they don’t often share,” said Iyer. “Once you’ve been through an experience like that, it’s very hard to relate to people who haven’t. So we tried to create a context with this project where listening might be possible. And also where telling might be possible for the veterans.”
TEDxMet: The In-Between
A daylong celebration of what isn’t. Yet.
Saturday, September 26, 2015, 9:30 a.m. to 6:00 p.m.
Hosted by Thomas P. Campbell, Met Director and CEO
Marcel Breuer’s architectural masterpiece at 75th and Madison becomes The Met Breueron September 1, 2015. The transitional raw space of the building provides the backdrop for an unprecedented daylong celebration of gray areas and liminal spaces. From buildings in transition to lives in flux, ties that bind to connections that go unnoticed, singular stories from writers, scientists, performers, and Met curators are presented in the signature full-throttle TED style.
Tickets for the main stage at The Met Breuer start at $100.
Tickets for the live HD transmission in the Met’s Grace Rainey Rogers Auditorium, including signature live performances, start at $40.
All seats are general admission.
Made possible by Adrienne Arsht.
This individual TEDx event is operated under license from TED.
Quartet in Residence: Chiara String Quartet
Rebecca Fischer, violin
Hyeyung Julie Yoon, violin
Jonah Sirota, viola
Gregory Beaver, cello
The energetic musicians of the “truly breathtaking” (Washington Post) Chiara String Quartet have established themselves as one of the most powerful and passionate practitioners of the string quartet genre. For their Met residency, they will mine their strengths and stretch beyond them: as the “go-to” ensemble for the music of the “vigorous and inventive” (New York Times) composer Jefferson Friedman, they will perform his piano quintet, juxtapose Gabriela Lena Frank with Béla Bartók, and explore the far reaches of Schubert and Beethoven.
Brahms By Heart
Friday, October 2, 2015, at 7:00 p.m.
The Grace Rainey Rogers Auditorium
Tickets start at $50
Brahms: Complete String Quartets
Delve “inside the music, indivisible from the beauty of the playing” (Strings magazine), when Chiara performs all three quartets by Brahms from memory—the musician’s equivalent of working without a net.
Piano Quintets with Pianist Simone Dinnerstein
Friday, November 13, 2015, at 7:00 p.m.
The Grace Rainey Rogers Auditorium
Tickets start at $50
Brahms: Piano Quintet in F Minor, Op. 34
Friedman: Piano Quintet “The Heart Wakes Into”
Since its earliest days, Chiara has been championing composer Jefferson Friedman’s music, developing a deep and symbiotic creative collaboration. In this performance, the group is joined by the celebrated pianist Simone Dinnerstein, for the New York premiere of Friedman’s Piano Quintet, paired with Brahms’s Piano Quintet in F minor.
Bartók and Frank
Friday, March 18, 2016, at 7:00 p.m.
The Grace Rainey Rogers Auditorium
Tickets start at $50
Bartók/Frank: Piano Transcriptions for String Quartet
Bartók: String Quartet No. 4
Frank: Leyendas: An Andean Walkabout for String Quartet
Composer Gabriela Lena Frank draws on her Peruvian roots for Leyendas: An Andean Walkabout, written for Chiara. The group contrasts the piece with works by Bartók (Quartet No. 4 and piano transcriptions arranged for string quartet by Frank), who greatly influenced Frank in her passion for ethnomusicology.
Death and the Maiden
Friday, May 6, 2016, at 7:00 p.m.
The Grace Rainey Rogers Auditorium
Tickets start at $50
Beethoven: String Quartet No. 12 in E flat major, Op. 127
Schubert: String Quartet No. 14 in D minor, “Death and the Maiden”
Awe-inspiring meditations on death by two great masters: Schubert grappled with his own mortality in the haunting and dramatic String Quartet No. 14; Beethoven composed his String Quartet No. 12, the first of his groundbreaking “late” quartets, when he was utterly deaf and near the end of his life.
[Please note: Tickets for the Chiara String Quartet full series start at $170.]
The Met Asian Art Centennial 2015
In celebration of the 100th anniversary of the Department of Asian Art at The Metropolitan Museum of Art, Met Museum Presents a series of site-specific performance in galleries, new commissions, and collaborations featuring artists such as Hiroshi Sugimoto, Tan Dun, Lee Mingwei, and others.
Sonic Blossom
Friday, October 30, through Sunday, November 8, 2015, during Museum hours
The Blanche and A. L. Levine Court, Gallery 915 (Oct. 30–31 and Nov. 6–8)
Arthur M. Sackler Gallery, Gallery 206 (Nov. 1–5)
Free with Museum admission
“May I give you a song?” This question is at the heart of artist Lee Mingwei’s interactive performance work Sonic Blossom (2015). In the Met’s Modern and Contemporary Art and Asian Art galleries, trained singers will approach Museum visitors at random with the query. If your answer is “yes,” the vocalist will perform a Schubert lied. Mingwei compares the sporadic performances to “the folding and unfolding of a ‘Sonic Blossom.’”
Presented in collaboration with Asian Contemporary Art Week (ACAW).
Wave Movements (U.S. Premiere)
Friday, November 6, and Saturday, November 7, 2015, at 7:00 p.m.
The Grace Rainey Rogers Auditorium
Tickets start at $50
Composed by Richard Reed Parry and Bryce Dessner
Film by Hiroshi Sugimoto
CONTACT!, The New York Philharmonic’s New-Music Series
André de Ridder, Conductor
A new collaborative work by Richard Reed Parry of Arcade Fire and Bryce Dessner of The National for chamber orchestra and film takes as its inspiration the wave cycles of the world’s oceans. The music, composed directly to the actual rhythms of waves, is performed in sync with a film made by photographer Hiroshi Sugimoto, who created an iconic series of seascapes in the 1980s. Also on the program is Thomas Adès’s imaginative Chamber Symphony.
Co-commissioned by Met Museum Presents, and the Barbican Centre, Edinburgh International Festival, Cork Opera House, Sydney Festival, and Saint-Denis Festival.
Presented in collaboration with the New York Philharmonic.
Tan Dun’s Water Passion
Saturday, November 14, 2015, at 7:00 p.m.
The Temple of Dendur in The Sackler Wing
Tickets start at $75
Tan Dun’s work isn’t just heard and seen, it is experienced—and his powerful Water Passion is experienced as never before when the Grammy- and Academy Award-winning Chinese composer stages the piece in the shadow of The Temple of Dendur. Originally written as a response to Bach’s St. Matthew Passion, this astonishing work begins and ends with the sound of water emanating from 17 transparent, illuminated bowls.
The Grand Tour: Asia
Friday evenings, November 20 and 27, and December 4 and 11, 2015, at 6:00 and 7:30 p.m.
Free with Museum admission
Bringing “unexpected epiphanies” (New Yorker), the Met’s Grand Tour, which sold out in previous years, is reinvented for its third season. This must-attend event is a passport to the cultural treasures of multiple countries, allowing “travelers” to experience intimate performances in multiple spaces, as they journey from gallery to gallery.
This season, we offer The Grand Tour: Asia, a wholly original exploration of performance art from India to China, with dance and musical performances throughout the Florence and Herbert Irving Asian Wing.
In the Galleries
The Return, Created by Reid Farrington
Saturday, July 11, through Sunday, August 2, 2015, during Museum hours
Venetian Sculpture Gallery, Gallery 504
Free with Museum admission
The Return celebrates the groundbreaking restoration of Tullio Lombardo’s Adam (ca. 1490–95), one of the greatest sculptures of the Venetian Renaissance, which was recently completed by the Met’s conservators. This revolutionary interactive work invites visitors to investigate aspects of the decade long research and reconstruction dynamically, while considering the statue’s fall from its pedestal in parallel to Biblical Adam’s fall from grace. Hidden cameras, speakers, and microphones bring the statue to life, leading visitors through the work’s extraordinary story, and a digital “window” displays the restored Adam. In this unique setting, guests can speak directly to the figure and pose questions about his creation, travels, and return to the gallery.
Arvo Pärt at Eighty
Friday, September 11, 2015, at 7:00 p.m.
The Temple of Dendur in The Sackler Wing
Tickets start at $75
On the occasion of Arvo Pärt’s 80th birthday, the Met toasts the composer’s health and long life with a concert of his music led by Joel Sachs—world-renowned advocate for the newest of music, who originally introduced Pärt’s indelible voice to the West—directing the New Juilliard Ensemble. These superb young artists offer an evening of the composer’s magnificent chamber music, including works for string quartet, piano, and other solo instruments, as well as voice.
The program culminates with New York City Ballet Principals Amar Ramasar and Rebecca Krohn performing Christopher Wheeldon’s “wondrous” (New York Times) Liturgy, set to Pärt’s Fratres.
Quartet for the End of Time
Sunday, March 13, 2016, at 2:00 p.m.
The Temple of Dendur in The Sackler Wing
Tickets start at $65
New York Philharmonic Music Director Alan Gilbert is the violinist alongside Carter Brey, principal cello; Anthony McGill, principal clarinet; and pianist Inon Barnatan, the Philharmonic’s Artist-in-Association, in Olivier Messiaen’s poignant Quartet for the End of Time. Inspired by texts from the Book of Revelation, the work was composed during Messiaen’s internment in a German prisoner-of-war camp and premiered in 1941, performed by and for fellow prisoners. The Met’s Temple of Dendur provides the solemn setting for the work the New Yorker calls “the most ethereally beautiful music of the 20th century.”
Presented in collaboration with The New York Philharmonic.
La Dolce Morte (World Premiere)
Friday, April 1, at 7:00 p.m. and Saturday, April 2, 2016, at 2:00 and 7:00 p.m.
Vélez Blanco Patio
Tickets start at $95
A monodrama for chamber ensemble and countertenor
Suzanne Farrin, composer
Anthony Roth Costanzo, countertenor
International Contemporary Ensemble (ICE)
Michelangelo’s love poems to the young Tommaso dei Cavalieri are as physically intense as his sculpture. One of the most gifted artists who ever lived, Michelangelo was a painter, sculptor, architect—and poet. Written some 500 years ago, his highly physical, sensual love letters form the libretto for a new work by the “appealingly tart” (New York Times) Suzanne Farrin, in deep collaboration with the pioneering International Contemporary Ensemble (ICE) and the sizzling countertenor Anthony Roth Costanzo. Commissioned by Met Museum Presents, this monodrama in the voice of Michelangelo was designed for the Met’s 16th century Vélez Blanco Patio. Hear the passion of the great master’s highly visual, physical world.
“I see in your beautiful face, my lord, what in this life words cannot well describe…
…he who loves you faithfully rises to God above and holds death sweet.”
—Sonnet by Michelangelo for Tommaso dei Cavalieri, ca. 1534
Baroque Masters
New York Baroque Incorporated with Monica Huggett
Friday, October 9, 2015, at 7:00 p.m.
The Grace Rainey Rogers Auditorium
Tickets start at $30
The enterprising young musicians of New York Baroque Incorporated bring a special vitality to this exquisitely old-school, rare program of cantatas by J. S. Bach, J. C. Bach, and Telemann, plus J. S. Bach’s consummately baroque Brandenburg Concerto No. 6. They are joined by the preeminent British violinist Monica Huggett, a fervent champion of the baroque violin and an unparalleled expert in historical performance.
Il Pomo d’Oro
Friday, November 20, 2015, at 7:00 p.m.
The Grace Rainey Rogers Auditorium
Tickets start at $65
The emergent chamber ensemble Il Pomo d’Oro is a hot ticket in its native Italy and throughout Europe. In this New York premiere, founder and violinist Riccardo Minasi, “communicating his joy in music-making to us and to his ensemble…bringing the house down with his virtuosity” (Guardian), leads the group in an exuberant program of Neapolitan baroque music, accompanied by the phenomenal Croatian countertenor Max Emanuel Cencic.
Shakespeare and Cervantes
Juilliard415 with Jordi Savall
Saturday, January 30, 2016, at 7:00 p.m.
The Grace Rainey Rogers Auditorium
Tickets start at $75
Juilliard’s flagship early music ensemble, led here by Catalan viola da gamba virtuoso Jordi Savall, performs music from around the time of the Spanish Armada and the Anglo-Spanish War to commemorate the 400th anniversary of deaths of two literary giants, William Shakespeare and Miguel de Cervantes.
Venice Baroque Orchestra Performs Vivaldi
Saturday, April 9, 2016, at 7:00 p.m.
The Grace Rainey Rogers Auditorium
Tickets start at $65
Celebrate a striking 18th century collaboration: the close ties between the virtuoso court orchestra of 1700s Dresden and the legendary Red Priest of Venice, Antonio Vivaldi. Dresden concertmaster Johann Georg Pisendel studied composition with Vivaldi, who, in turn, wrote numerous rich, vibrant pieces for Pisendel and his bandmates. Hear theseConcerti con molti strumenti performed by the brilliant Venice Baroque Orchestra, conducted by Andrea Marcon.
Chamber Music, Theater, and Song
Salomé Chamber Orchestra
Friday, October 23, 2015, at 7:00 p.m.
The Grace Rainey Rogers Auditorium
Tickets start at $45
The exciting, virtuosic, and sexy Salomé Chamber Orchestra looks as spectacular as it sounds. Led by the founding Carpenter siblings—violinists Sean and Lauren, and violist David—this program includes Schubert’s Arpeggione Sonata, arranged for string orchestra and solo viola; the Paganini Grand Sonata; and the Kraus Viola Concerto, only recently discovered and recorded by Salomé’s superb David Aaron Carpenter.
Julia Bullock
Naumburg Foundation Recital
Tuesday, November 10, 2015, at 7:00 p.m.
The Grace Rainey Rogers Auditorium
Tickets start at $25
Hailed as “an impressive, fast-rising soprano” (New York Times) and “opulent and glorious” (Opera News), Julia Bullock won the 2014 Naumburg Vocal Award. She dazzles in repertoire ranging from Susanna in Mozart’s Marriage of Figaro to Josephine Baker.
Lincoln’s Favorite Shakespeare
Thursday, February 11, 2016, at 6:30 p.m.
The Grace Rainey Rogers Auditorium
Tickets start at $45
Harold Holzer, historian
Guests and stars of the stage
“I think nothing equals Macbeth,” wrote Abraham Lincoln. Growing up on the prairie, Lincoln memorized Shakespeare to learn reading, writing, and oratory. Decades later, serving as President during the bloodiest war in American history, he turned to Shakespeare repeatedly—in both books and at the theater—for solace and inspiration. This evening, actors perform the soliloquies that once comforted him, including his own perennial favorite, Macbeth. Historian Harold Holzer adds to the drama with anecdotes about Lincoln’s love of actors, stabs at theatrical criticism, and impromptu Shakespearian recitation.
Salzburg Marionette Theatre
Saturday, March 5, 2016, at 1:00, 3:30, and 6:00 p.m.
The Grace Rainey Rogers Auditorium
Tickets start at $40
Straight from Europe’s musical mecca, the Salzburg Marionette Theatre has been delighting audiences for more than a century. Now is your chance to see this celebrated troupe in a new production of Sergei Prokofiev’s Peter and the Wolf (1936) plus Little Red Riding Hood.
Masters at the Met
Memoria Antigua: Flamenco
Wednesday, September 30, 2015, at 7:00 p.m.
The Grace Rainey Rogers Auditorium
Tickets start at $65
Fiery and primal, flamenco conjures the most passionate of emotions. Straight from the heart of the dance form’s birthplace of Spain, award-winning dancer/choreographers Patricia Ibáñez and Abel Harana perform Memoria Antigua (“Ancient Memory”). This piece explores flamenco’s vivid and seductive music and styles, which are steeped in mystery and rich in cultural relevance.
Kassé Mady Diabaté, Featuring Ballaké Sissoko
Thursday, October 1, 2015, at 7:00 p.m.
The Grace Rainey Rogers Auditorium
Tickets start at $35
Majestic Malian vocalist Kassé Mady Diabaté electrifies in concert with his supergroup of Malian traditional acoustic musicians (Ballaké Sissoko on kora, Lansiné Kouyaté onbalafon, and Badjé Tounkara on ngoni). As a griot (tradition keeper), Kassé Mady Diabaté is called upon to arbitrate community disputes by channeling their emotions into song. The result? Music with a “palpable, almost touchable beauty” (Arts Desk, London).
Presented in collaboration with World Music Institute.
Acoustic Africa: Habib Koité and Vusi Mahlasela
Wednesday, April 13, 2016, at 7:00 p.m.
The Grace Rainey Rogers Auditorium
Tickets start at $35
Two top artists collaborate on a riveting evening celebrating their African roots. Rolling Stone calls Habib Koité “the biggest pop star in Mali;” full of wit and wisdom, the composer and guitarist is a modern troubadour. Vusi Mahlasela—known in South Africa simply as “The Voice”—is a singer-songwriter, poet, and activist who performed at Nelson Mandela’s inauguration. Together, they recall rich traditions of voice and song.
At the Heart of the Met’s Collection
John Singer Sargent and Decoda
Saturday, October 3, 2015, at 7:00 p.m.
The Grace Rainey Rogers Auditorium
Tickets start at $40
Throughout his career, John Singer Sargent painted other artists, writers, actors, and musicians, many of whom were his close friends. Inspired by the Met’s exhibition Sargent: Portraits of Artists and Friends (June 30–October 4, 2015), the brilliant young performers of Decoda—an Affiliate Ensemble of Carnegie Hall—curate a fascinating program of musical portraits by Britten, Lang, Rorem, Ravel, and others.
Sight and Sound
Sundays, December 6, 2015; February 7, 2015; and May 22, 2016 at 2:00 p.m.
The Grace Rainey Rogers Auditorium
Tickets start at $30; series, $75
Leon Botstein and The Orchestra Now
Conductor and music historian Leon Botstein and The Orchestra Now explore the places where musical and visual expression meet, pairing orchestral works with masterpieces from the Metropolitan Museum’s collection.
Beethoven, Boilly, and the Heroic Style
Sunday, December 6, 2015, at 2:00 p.m.
Beethoven: Symphony No. 3, Eroica
Boilly: The Public Viewing David’s “Coronation” at the Louvre
Beethoven dedicated his Eroica (“Heroic”) symphony to Napoleon, but tore up the dedication page once the French leader declared himself emperor. Boilly’s work depicts a crowd observing David’s famous painting of the very coronation that sent Beethoven into a rage.
Strauss, Watteau, and Nostalgia
Sunday, February 7, 2016, at 2:00 p.m.
Strauss: Le bourgeois gentilhomme
Watteau: The French Comedians
Old-fashioned characters take the stage in Watteau’s 1720–21 painting of a theater scene. Strauss, who was obsessed with the past, wrote music for a 1912 update of Molière’s play Le bourgeois gentilhomme, which he later formed into an orchestral suite.
Mendelssohn, Turner, and Romantic Imagination
Sunday, May 22, 2016, at 2:00 p.m.
Mendelssohn: Symphony No. 3
A Work by J. M. W. Turner
The work of legendary British artist J. M. W. Turner, who was portrayed in the Oscar-nominated film Mr. Turner (2014), could easily have inspired the composer Mendelssohn, who began work on his “Scottish” symphony after an 1829 trip to Britain.
Surface Tension
Wednesday, February 10, 2016, at 7:00 p.m.
The Grace Rainey Rogers Auditorium
Tickets start at $30
The Met is both the springboard and setting for this concert. The “magnificently energetic” (New York Times) Irish composer Donnacha Dennehy has created Surface Tension, a new work written for and inspired by the Museum’s percussion collection. The performance is by Third Coast Percussion, the Chicago-based ensemble known for its groundbreaking collaborations and hard-driving style. The musicians return to the Met for what’s sure to be a vibrant evening of superb music.
In the Salon of Vigée Le Brun
Friday, April 8, 2016, at 7:00 p.m.
The Grace Rainey Rogers Auditorium
Tickets start at $65
Jolle Greenleaf, soprano
Robert Mealy, violin
Jory Vinikour, harpsichord
The most important woman artist of her time, 18th century French painter Elisabeth Louise Vigée Le Brun was a favorite of Marie Antoinette and a contemporary of many famous composers. Her letters and diaries refer to musicians she knew personally, and others she met on travels through Vienna, Russia, and London. The mesmerizing harpsichordist Jory Vinikour presents a program of their music—including works by Haydn, Beethoven, Grétry, and Gluck—accompanied by the delicate vocals of soprano Jolle Greenleaf, in a performance coinciding with the Met’s exhibition Vigée Le Brun, opening February 9, 2016. Violinist Robert Mealy rounds out the program.
Pergamon: The Romantic Obsession with Brian Zeger
Friday, April 15, 2016, at 7:00 p.m.
The Grace Rainey Rogers Auditorium
Tickets start at $65
Soprano Susanna Phillips and bass Shenyang join pianist and program curator Brian Zeger for an evening of Schubert lieder exploring the high Romantic imagination’s obsession with the Classical era, both historical and imagined, in conjunction with the exhibition Pergamon and the Art of the Hellenistic Kingdoms.
Holidays at the Met
Judy Collins
Friday, December 4, 2015, at 7:00 p.m.
The Grace Rainey Rogers Auditorium
Tickets start at $75
She burst onto the music scene at the height of the folk revival, and Judy Collins has never stopped exploring and expanding her repertoire, applying her distinctive voice to everything from Both Sides Now to Send in the Clowns, and a catalogue of songwriters from Jacques Brel to Kurt Weill. If it’s been a while since you’ve heard this peerless interpreter, this is the perfect opportunity to reacquaint yourself with Collins’s way with song.
Byzantine Pop-Ups
Fridays, December 11 and 18, 2015, at 4:00, 6:00, and 8:00 p.m.
Medieval Sculpture Hall
Free with Museum admission
It’s the perfect holiday soundtrack for the Met’s Medieval Sculpture Hall: a half-dozen pop-up concerts featuring hymns and carols of the Byzantine Empire. In these antiphonal works, performed by master cantors of the Eastern Orthodox community, the musicians alternate parts in multiple languages—from Russian to Armenian to Greek to Arabic—weaving an evocative sonic tapestry from an exotic past.
Sacrum Mysterium: A Celtic Christmas Vespers
Apollo’s Fire: The Cleveland Baroque Orchestra
Friday, December 11, 2015, at 7:00 p.m.
The Grace Rainey Rogers Auditorium
Tickets start at $65
Jeannette Sorrell, conductor
Meredith Hall, soprano
with Ensemble La Nef and Sylvain Bergeron
Praised internationally for “superlative music-making” (Telegraph, London), Apollo’s Fire returns to the Met with its beloved Christmas program, which is now a best-selling CD on the Billboard classical chart. This celebration of Celtic artistic traditions interweaves Scottish Gregorian chant with ancient pagan carols, Celtic fiddle tunes, and joyous dances—featuring highlights from the 13th century Vespers of St. Kentigern, Patron Saint of Glasgow. A colorful band of bagpipes, flutes, strings, and Celtic harp joins the group’s exquisite singers.
Chosen by BBC Music Magazine as one of the “Top 20 Concerts in North America” in 2012 and 2014.
American Boychoir
Wednesday, December 16, 2015, at 7:00 p.m.
The Grace Rainey Rogers Auditorium
Tickets start at $65
The matchless American Boychoir presents a cheerful program of holiday hymns and Christmas carols: a heavenly evocation of Christmases past, present, and future in this not-to-be-missed December event.
Tiempo Libre
Friday, December 18, 2015, at 7:00 p.m.
The Grace Rainey Rogers Auditorium
Tickets start at $65
Ring in the holidays in spectacular, multicultural style with Tiempo Libre. Based in melting pot Miami, the ensemble originally hails from Cuba, and blends R & B, pop, jazz, and Cuban son music, with guest appearances on the set list by J. S. Bach.
A Charlie Brown Christmas
Saturday, December 19, 2015, at 11:00 a.m. and 1:30 p.m.
Sunday, December 20, 2015, at 1:00 and 3:00 p.m.
The Grace Rainey Rogers Auditorium
Tickets start at $45
For 50 years, A Charlie Brown Christmas, with its gentle reminder of the true spirit of the season, has been delighting audiences young and old. In this screening of the timeless classic, Charlie Brown, Linus, Lucy, Snoopy, and the rest of Charles Schulz’s “Peanuts” family once again bring tidings of great joy, this time accompanied live by the delightful Rob Schwimmer Trio. The performance also includes a festive holiday sing-along.
(Children under four will not be admitted.)
Anonymous 4: The Final Concert
Tuesday, December 22, 2015, at 6:30 and 8:30 p.m.
Medieval Sculpture Hall
Tickets start at $75
After nearly 30 years of international touring and recording, Anonymous 4 has chosen the Metropolitan Museum as the location for its final performance, ever. Don’t miss this last chance to hear the bewitching, all-female a cappella ensemble sing its signature mix of ancient, traditional, and modern music in the Medieval Sculpture Hall, in front of the Met’s glorious Christmas tree.
The Little Match Girl Passion
Wednesday, December 23, 2015, at 7:00 p.m.
The Grace Rainey Rogers Auditorium
Tickets start at $65
A new holiday tradition: experience the “tender and mysterious atmosphere” (New York Times) of David Lang’s Pulitzer Prize–winning choral parable, The Little Match Girl Passion, based on the powerful eponymous story by Hans Christian Andersen. Conductor Julian Wachner leads the Grammy-nominated Choir of Trinity Wall Street in a performance that also includes Benjamin Britten’s popular A Ceremony of Carols, a euphoric welcome for “this little Babe” of Christmas.
Artist in Residence Vijay Iyer
The Met’s 2015-16 Artist in Residence, Vijay Iyer, will occupy The Met Breuer’s Lobby Gallery for 18 days—from March 10, 2016, the first day the Museum will be open to the public, through March 31, 2016. While installed there for 18 days, Iyer will highlight his full body of work with performances, continuously, all day throughout Museum hours. He will perform solo, with other musicians, dancers, and poets, and will also curate performances by fellow musicians and performers. Additionally Iyer will create sound installations specifically for the space, resulting in full-day performance experiences.
Vijay Iyer has also been commissioned by the Met to create a new piece specifically to resonate with and accompany the Nasreen Mohamedi exhibition. This work will be presented in The Met Breuer’s second-floor gallery. Throughout the spring season, Iyer will collaborate with performance artists including Wadada Leo Smith, Kyle Abraham, Miranda Cuckson, Okkyung Lee, Michelle Boulé, Tyshawn Sorey, and Jen Shyu. Program details will be announced at a later date.
Soundwalk 9:09 by John Luther Adams
Launch date: March 10, 2016
Commissioned in celebration of the launch of The Met Breuer, the aptly titled Soundwalk 9:09 by Pulitzer Prize-winning composer John Luther Adams is nine minutes and nine seconds in duration, the time it takes to walk between the Met’s building at Fifth Avenue and 82nd Street, and The Met Breuer at Madison Avenue and 75th Street. The composition will be offered online and as a downloadable podcast at www.metmuseum.org/MetBreuer. It will include sounds recorded by the composer as well as around 100 more selected by him from submissions online, offering listeners a unique sonic experience. Details on how to submit sounds for possible inclusion in the final composition may be found atwww.metmuseum.org/MetBreuer and at Q2 Music’s website.
Klang by Karlheinz Stockhausen (U.S. Premiere)
March 26, 2016
Karlheinz Stockhausen’s fiercely original Klang (meaning “sound” in German) is an acoustic and electronic work so massive that it requires all day and all three of the Met’s iconic buildings to stage. This 21-part, unfinished composition was originally envisioned by Stockhausen as consisting of 24 individual compositions (one for each hour of the day), but the work was left unfinished at the time of his death. This performance will mark the U.S. premiere of Klang in its entirety, and will be performed at the Metropolitan Museum’s Fifth Avenue building, The Met Breuer, and The Cloisters museum and gardens. More details will follow.
Compelling Conversations
Navigating the West: George Caleb Bingham and the River
Wednesday, September 9, 2015, at 2:30 p.m.
The Grace Rainey Rogers Auditorium
Tickets start at $30
Elizabeth Mankin Kornhauser, Alice Pratt Brown Curator of American Paintings and Sculpture
The first great American artist based west of the Mississippi River, George Caleb Bingham was also one of the foremost American genre painters of the 19th century. His paintings—depicting fur traders and boatmen at work and play—chronicled the transformation of America’s western wilderness at the edge of the frontier, a departure point for explorers, adventurers, and pioneers. Met curator Elizabeth Mankin Kornhauser looks at this largely self-trained artist, who located his paintings and drawings along the great central north-south axis of the expanding country, the Missouri and Mississippi rivers, creating an indelible image of the American West. This lecture is presented in conjunction withNavigating the West: George Caleb Bingham and the River, the first major Bingham exhibition in more than 25 years.
Half the World and All of Time: Asian Art at the Met
Thursdays, October 1 and 8, November 19, and December 3, 2015, at 11:00 a.m.
The Grace Rainey Rogers Auditorium
Tickets start at $30; series, $75
Discover Asia through the eyes of The Metropolitan Museum of Art’s incomparable curatorial staff. This series examines the remarkable diversity and richness of the continent’s cultural traditions, as reflected in one of the finest and most comprehensive art collections in the world.
Thursday, October 1, 2015:
Maxwell K. Hearn, Douglas Dillon Chairman, Department of Asian Art, MMA
“How New Yorkers Brought Asia to the Met: A Brief History”
John Guy, Florence and Herbert Irving Curator of the Arts of South and Southeast Asia, Department of Asian Art, MMA
“Treasures from the Roof of the World: Rereading the Arts of Nepal and Tibet”
Thursday, October 8, 2015:
Soyoung Lee, Associate Curator, Department of Asian Art, MMA
“Gotham’s Korea: New Yorkers Envision the Former Hermit Kingdom”
Jason Sun, Curator, Department of Asian Art, MMA
“Harder Than Steel: China’s Enduring Passion for Jade”
Thursday, November 19, 2015:
Denise Leidy, Curator, Department of Asian Art, MMA
“Pilgrims along the Silk Road: Buddhist Art across East Asia”
Kurt Behrendt, Associate Curator, Department of Asian Art, MMA
“Gods and Goddesses: The Hindu Pantheon of South and Southeast Asia”
Thursday, December 3, 2015:
John Carpenter, Curator, Department of Asian Art, MMA
“A Millennium of Masterpieces: Mary Griggs Burke’s Japanese Art”
Joseph Scheier-Dolberg, Assistant Curator, Department of Asian Art, MMA
“A Century of Changing Tastes in Chinese Painting”
Beyond Face Value: The Portrait—from Napoleon to Jackie
Tuesdays, October 13, 20, and 27, and November 10 and 17, 2015, at 11:00 a.m.
The Grace Rainey Rogers Auditorium
Tickets start at $30; series, $125
Kathryn Calley Galitz, Associate Museum Educator, MMA
More than a simple likeness, a portrait can speak volumes about its artist and subject. Featuring iconic works by Ingres, Copley, Courbet, Van Gogh, Sargent, Warhol, and Sherman, this series explores major themes in portraiture since the 18th century: from the portrait as a public expression of power; to more intimate portrayals of families; to self-portraits, the original selfies.
William Kentridge in conversation with Andrew Hoyem
Tuesday, October 13, 2015, at 6:30 p.m.
The Grace Rainey Rogers Auditorium
Tickets start at $30
Renowned South African artist William Kentridge returns to New York for the premiere of his new production of Alban Berg’s Lulu at the Metropolitan Opera. At the Museum, he joins master printer Andrew Hoyem to discuss the limited-edition letterpress volume of Lulu that the two are creating for Hoyem’s Arion Press of San Francisco. The multitalented artist and the master printer discuss how design and imagery aid human imagination, whether by enhancing words on a page or orchestral sound in a theater. They touch upon the role of time in reading and performance, and the differences in the two versions of the Lulu plays by Frank Wedekind—Pandora’s Box (1904) and Earth Spirit (1895). These works were the basis both for the Alban Berg opera, and for the 1929 silent film masterpiece Pandora’s Boxby G. W. Pabst.
Isabella Stewart Gardner
Wednesday, October 14, 2015, at 2:30 p.m.
The Grace Rainey Rogers Auditorium
Tickets start at $45
Marlene Barasch Strauss, art historian
Surrounded by scandal and fascination, American arts patron Isabella Stewart Gardner (1840–1924) was a vivacious woman endowed with a voracious appetite for life. For years, her salon at Fenway Court was Boston’s liveliest—and she counted the most extraordinary artists of the day as her charges and friends. Art historian Marlene Barasch Strauss explores this captivating woman, who personally built one of the world’s great art collections.
Great Cities and Islam
Wednesday, October 14; Tuesday, October 20; and Thursday, November 19, 2015, at 6:30 p.m.
The Grace Rainey Rogers Auditorium
Tickets start at $30; series, $75
From Istanbul to Cairo to Bombay, journey into the fascinating art and culture of some of Islam’s greatest cities. Your guides are expert storytellers and Nobel- and Pulitzer Prize–winning authors, poets, and journalists. Great Cities of Islam is part of the Met’s three-year investigation of contemporary Islamic culture.
CAIRO: Wednesday, October 14, 2015:
Mona Eltahawy, award-winning columnist and international public speaker
Yasmine El Rashidi, author of The Battle for Egypt: Dispatches from the Revolution, and a contributing editor to the Middle East arts and culture quarterly Bidoun
In the wake of the 2011 uprisings in Cairo, women are “invading” the public spaces long dominated by men, and using art to challenge age-old barriers to free expression. Journalist Mona Eltahawy, an Egyptian-American writer who covered the Arab Spring from the front lines, examines how women street artists, photographers, writers, and videographers are documenting the reality of female lives in the Middle East, while collectively—and creatively—demanding that their voices be heard. Author and editor Yasmine El Rashidi leads this compelling conversation about the power of art in times of conflict.
MUMBAI: Tuesday, October 20, 2015:
Suketu Mehta, author and Pulitzer Prize finalist
Lorraine Adams, novelist, critic, and Pulitzer Prize-winning journalist
“What is the city but the people?” Shakespeare asks in the tragedy Coriolanus. It’s a question also posed by Suketu Mehta, the O. Henry Prize-winning author and Pulitzer finalist for his work of narrative nonfiction, Maximum City: Bombay Lost and Found. Born in Calcutta and raised in Bombay (now Mumbai) and New York, Mehta delves into the human experience in the city: from migration and dislocation, to alienation and sadness, to the foundation of community. Mehta is joined by Pulitzer Prize–winning journalist Lorraine Adams for this thought-provoking look at the role of art—and the museums and institutions that safeguard and foster it—in telling and preserving urban stories.
ISTANBUL: Thursday, November 19, 2015:
Orhan Pamuk, winner of the 2006 Nobel Prize in Literature
Lorraine Adams, novelist, critic, and Pulitzer Prize-winning journalist
“At the heart of the ‘art of the novel’ lies the human capacity to see the world through others’ eyes,” Nobel laureate Orhan Pamuk told the New York Times. In this conversation led by Pulitzer Prize–winning journalist Lorraine Adams, we see the world through the eyes of Turkey’s most famous contemporary writer. Pamuk’s novels and his memoir Istanbul: Memories and the City, provide insight into questions of identity and the transformations of modern Turkish society. He is also a painter and museum curator—Pamuk’s Museum of Innocence in Istanbul is based on his 2008 novel of the same name.
Cuba: A History through Art
Wednesdays, October 21, and November 4 and 18, 2015, at 6:30 p.m.
The Grace Rainey Rogers Auditorium
Tickets start at $30; series, $75
Jerrilynn Dodds, Dean, Sarah Lawrence College
Cuba has nurtured vibrant and distinct artistic traditions—some with ties to Europe and North America, others unique to the island nation. Woven into the tapestry of its rich cultural heritage are Precolumbian arts and breathtaking colonial cities, powerful Afro-Cuban imagery, distinctive modernist and vanguard schools of painting and architecture, and a compelling contemporary arts scene recognized throughout the world today. This series provides an introduction to the arts and architecture of Cuba against the backdrop of the country’s complex political and social history.
Wednesday, October 21, 2015: From Precolumbian Cuba to the Creation of Colonial Havana
Wednesday, November 4, 2015: Afro-Cuban Traditions in Art and Society; Independence and the Vanguardia; Cuban Modernism
Wednesday, November 18, 2015: Art from the Triumph of the Revolution to Cuban Arts Today
Theme and Variations in Two Paintings by Andrea del Sarto
Thursdays, October 22 and 29, 2015, at 11:00 a.m.
The Grace Rainey Rogers Auditorium
Tickets start at $30; series, $50
Andrea Bayer, Jayne Wrightsman Curator, Department of European Paintings, MMA
Michael Gallagher, Sherman Fairchild Conservator in Charge, Department of Paintings Conservation, MMA
Recent technical examination and conservation of Andrea del Sarto’s The Holy Family with the Young Saint John the Baptist, one of the Metropolitan’s greatest Renaissance paintings, has revealed the work’s original brilliant color and design. Andrea del Sarto’s Borgherini Holy Family, on view through January 2016, allows for a comparison with a closely related painting, Charity (before 1530), now in the collection of the National Gallery of Art, Washington, D.C. In these talks, a curator and a conservator, both from the Met, discuss Sarto’s development of the compositions through drawings on paper and directly on the panels. They also examine how historic events— the dramatic circumstances of Florence's final republican years before the Medici took control again in 1530 —shaped the Museum’s painting and its meaning.
How Homer Matters
Tuesday, October 27, 2015, at 6:30 p.m.
The Grace Rainey Rogers Auditorium
Tickets start at $30
Adam Nicolson, author
Recognized for his provocative takes on some of the oldest tales known to humankind, Adam Nicolson broaches the profound meaning that Homer’s stories of wandering, war, loss, death, and love hold for us today. A British baron and heir to a distinguished literary family, Nicolson is also a seasoned television and radio presenter who knows how to make the ancient world come to life.
The Sartorialist
Thursday, October 29, 2015, at 6:30 p.m.
The Grace Rainey Rogers Auditorium
Tickets start at $30
Scott Schuman, blogger/photographer
“Global fashion takes on new meaning through [Scott Schuman’s] work: as his subjects confirm, compelling personal style knows no boundaries!” —Harold Koda, MMA
Blogger/photographer Scott Schuman started www.thesartorialist.com simply to share photos of people on the street who he thought looked great. Celebrating its 10th anniversary in 2015, the blog now receives more than 14 million page views per month. In his new book, The Sartorialist: X, Schuman continues to pay homage to the innate style found on the sidewalks and streets of traditional fashion capitals—New York, London, Milan—as well as locations off the beaten path, such as Bhutan, Bali, and beyond. Schuman’s discussion focuses on his popular publications and wide-ranging collection, which celebrates the cultures of pattern and color found across the world.
Life and Times
Tuesdays, December 1 and 8, 2015, at 11:00 a.m.
The Grace Rainey Rogers Auditorium
Tickets start at $30; series, $50
Rebecca Rabinow, Leonard A. Lauder Curator of Modern Art, Curator in Charge of the Leonard A. Lauder Research Center for Modern Art, MMA
Each lecture in this ongoing series delves into the unique and fascinating life of one particular masterpiece within the Metropolitan Museum’s collection. This season, the series begins with a study of André Derain’s vibrant depiction of the bustling Regent Street, London (1906). The focus of the second lecture is Constantin Brancusi’s iconic Bird in Space (1923), a sleek white marble sculpture that, despite its physical heft, seems to soar off its pedestal. Explore the unique personalities who created, contributed to, and cherished these extraordinary works of art.
Tuesday, December 1, 2015: Regent Street, London, 1906
Tuesday, December 8, 2015: Bird in Space
Mark Rothko from the Inside Out
A conversation with Christopher Rothko
Thursday, December 3, 2015, at 6:30 p.m.
The Grace Rainey Rogers Auditorium
Tickets start at $30
Christopher Rothko, artist Mark Rothko’s son, explores the range, meaning, and impact of his father’s oeuvre. Mark Rothko: From the Inside Out, Christopher Rothko’s recently published volume of essays, catalogues his gleanings from 25 years of work with his father’s art.
Wordplay: Matthias Buchinger’s Imaginative Drawings
Ricky Jay and Michael Kimmelman
Thursday, January 21, 2016, at 6:30 p.m.
The Grace Rainey Rogers Auditorium
Tickets start at $30
Standing only twenty-nine inches high, and born without hands or thighs, German artist, magician, and musician Matthias Buchinger was a great curiosity in the early 18th century. He performed for three successive German emperors, entertained kings, and was a frequent guest at noble houses; yet he was equally celebrated as a calligrapher and micrographer, creating inscriptions that described his physical condition as well as his artistic and personal triumphs. Ricky Jay, one of the world’s greatest illusionists, has spent a lifetime captivated by Buchinger’s life and remarkably delicate drawings. New York Times architecture critic Michael Kimmelman joins Jay for a look at the fascinating “Little Man of Nuremberg.”
Tickets for the Met Museum Presents 2015-16 Season of Events are Available Now:
For tickets, visit http://www.metmuseum.org/tickets or call 212-570-3949.
Tickets are also available at the Great Hall Box Office, which is open Monday-Saturday 11:00 a.m.–3:30 p.m.
Tickets include admission to the Museum on the day of the performance.
30 & Under Rush: $15 tickets for ticket buyers 30 years and younger, with proof of age, the day of the event on select performances (subject to availability).
Bring the Kids!: $1 tickets for children (ages 7–16) for all performances (except Salzburg Marionette Theatre and A Charlie Brown Christmas) when accompanied by an adult with a full-price ticket. For more information, visitwww.metmuseum.org/tickets, call 212-570-3949, or visit the box office.
The collaboration between the Metropolitan Museum and WQXR, Q2 Music will continue in the 2015–16 season with the recording, broadcasting, and streaming of a selection of concerts and events. This season, Q2 will broadcast Arvo Pärt at Eighty, Tan Dun’s Water Passion, and Quartet for the End of Time.
Credits for Exhibitions:
Korea: 100 Years of Collecting at the Met
The exhibition is made possible by Samsung.
Navigating the West: George Caleb Bingham and the River
The exhibition is made possible by The Peter Jay Sharp Foundation.
Additional support is provided by the William Randolph Hearst Foundation.
It was organized by the Amon Carter Museum of American Art, Fort Worth, Texas, and the Saint Louis Art Museum, Saint Louis, Missouri. It is supported in part by generous grants from the Henry Luce Foundation and the National Endowment for the Arts.
It is supported by an indemnity from the Federal Council on the Arts and the Humanities.
Sargent: Portraits of Artists and Friends,
The exhibition is made possible by The Marguerite and Frank A. Cosgrove Jr. Fund.
The exhibition is organized by the National Portrait Gallery, London in collaboration with The Metropolitan Museum of Art.
Masterpieces of Chinese Painting from the Metropolitan’s Collection
The exhibition is made possible by the Joseph Hotung Fund.
Celebrating the Arts of Japan: The Mary Griggs Burke Collection
The exhibition is made possible by The Miriam and Ira D. Wallach Foundation Fund.
Vigée Le Brun
The exhibition was organized by The Metropolitan Museum of Art, the Réunion des Musées Nationaux - Grand Palais, and the National Gallery of Canada.
Leadership support for Met Museum Presents provided by:
Adrienne Arsht
Brodsky Family Foundation
Adrian Cheng
Isabel C. Iverson and Walter T. Iverson
Mrs. Joseph H. King Fund
Muriel Kallis Steinberg Newman Fund
Stavros Niarchos Foundation
Mrs. Donald Oenslager Fund
Grace Jarcho Ross and Daniel G. Ross Concert Fund
The Giorgio S. Sacerdote Fund
Estate of Kathryn Walter Stein
Xerox Foundation
Dirk and Natasha Ziff
Additional major supporters:
Augustine Foundation
Bebe and Douglas Broadwater
Chester Dale Fund
Doris Duke Foundation for Islamic Art
Firebird Circle
The Arthur Gillender Fund
The Horace W. Goldsmith Foundation
The Rita and Alex Hillman Foundation
The Mr. and Mrs. Raymond J. Horowitz Foundation for the Arts
The Jerome Robbins Foundation
The Kaplen Brothers Fund
Tom and Leslie Maheras
Ministry of Culture, Taiwan (R.O.C.) and Taipei Cultural Center of TECO in New York
Lavori Sterling Foundation, Inc.
New York State Council on the Arts
Samuel White Patterson Lecture Fund
The Evelyn Sharp Foundation
The C. F. Roe Slade Foundation
Sarah Billinghurst Solomon
Nicki and Harold Tanner
Ann G. Tenenbaum and Thomas H. Lee
Mr. and Mrs. Ronald J. Ulrich
Anonymous (2)
Gifts of $10,000 and above, as of 4/15/15
