MUSIC

Harlem Chamber Players: Black History Month Celebration

WEDNESDAY & SUNDAY, FEBRUARY 23 & 27, 2022
6:00 PM WEDNESDAY
4:00 PM SUNDAY

WEDNESDAY: Harlem School of the Arts
645 St. Nicholas Avenue, Harlem, Manhattan
SUNDAY: Central Library, Brooklyn Public Library
10 Grand Army Plaza, across the street from Prospect Heights, Brooklyn

WEDNESDAY: $20; $15 students/seniors advance
TICKETS + INFORMATION
SUNDAY: Free
TICKETS + INFORMATION

The expert and exciting Harlem Chamber Players conclude their Black History Month celebration with two overlapping-but-not-identical recitals. In both shows, you get some new (including brand-World-Premiere-new) pieces from the excellent Nkeiru Okoye, and something by the Grand Old Man of African-American mainstream classical music, William Grant Still (unbelievably still underplayed). Wednesday you also get something from late 20th Century composer David Baker, whose jazz-inflected music sounds great, if maybe just a tiny bit staid, right now (it’s also unaccountably underplayed) (well, OK: accountably; let’s not let anyone off the hook). On Sunday, you get the sizzling Jessie Montgomery’s very greatest hit — and Dvorák (who whatever else you want to say about him was an ardent supporter of African-American classical music — and advocate for a strong African-American influence on classical music — at a time when you wouldn’t have expected someone on his way to becoming a Dead White Male to take those positions).

MAKE A NIGHT OF IT: Wednesday Uptown, go to ROKC — Ramen, Oysters, Kitchen, Cocktails — and just try not to be totally charmed. Sunday in Brooklyn, try longtiime neighborhood standby The Islands, long one one the best Jamaican restaurants in New York City (but be warned that a friend recently had a bad service experience there recently — to be sure, the service has always been on Island Time).