Bits And Pieces 02.23.12

Verdi and Extreme

    Guild Hall’s next simulcast of the Met: Live in HD will feature Verdi’s early opera “Ernani” on Saturday at 1 p.m. Angela Meade sings the title role with Marcello Giordani as her mismatched lover, and Verdians Dmitri Hvorostovsky and Ferruccio Furlanetto. The cost is $22 and $20 for members.

    This week, Guild Hall will also continue to host the East Hampton Library’s Winter Film series with “Unbreakable: The Western States 100” on Sunday at 4 p.m.  The documentary features four undefeated endurance runners as they each run the oldest and most prestigious 100-mile footrace in the world.

Paula Deitz at Madoo

    Paula Deitz will kick off the spring lecture series at Madoo Conservancy in Sagaponack with a talk on Sunday at noon.

    Titled “A Garden Writer’s Journey,” it will feature a discussion of her 30-year career writing “intimate portraits of garden spaces and the people who tend them,” according to a press release. Ms. Deitz is the editor of the Hudson Review and has written essays for The New York Times, The Architectural Review, and Gardens Illustrated, among others. She has collected the essays in a book called “Of Gardens,” which she will sign after the talk.

    The cost is $30, $20 for members. Space is limited; reservations can be made through [email protected]. Talks take place in the winter house studio.

Open Rehearsals

    The Watermill Center will present three performances on Saturday at 3:30 p.m. The program will include work by Samita Sinha, Anna Telcs, and the Wet Weather Ensemble.

    Ms. Sinha’s new solo work, “Cipher,” will examine how sound is produced from her body. She will use the “nonsense” sounds of an Indian classical song genre invented in the 13th century that mixes Persian, Arabic, and Sanskrit syllables that are said to encode mystical meanings. The piece will be performed with a “band” of four electronic boxes and will last about 45 minutes.

    Ms. Telcs will present “The Dowsing,” her textile sculptures shown in a couture-style salon, as the fall 2012 collection of the fashion house Atelcs. The pieces use quilting techniques drawn from the Mennonite and Amish communities in the Americas and will be worn by models in a runway-style presentation lasting about 30 minutes.

    The Wet Weather Ensemble from Perth, Australia, will perform “Bird Boy,” inspired by a Russian boy who was raised in an aviary by his mother. For this piece, the ensemble has been experimenting with “bird calls, caged environments, mask work, video portraits, and puppetry of household objects,” according to the center.

    The program is free, but reservations are required through eventbrite.com.

Van Booy’s New Play

    Simon Van Booy, a frequent visitor to the South Fork, will premiere his first play, “Hindsight,” in New York City at the Drilling Company Theatre for new plays on West 78th Street.

    The play is set in 1950s Paris, where a young woman and a much older one strike up a conversation on a bench in the Jardin du Luxembourg. As their conversation continues it becomes apparent that their lives appear seamless, and that one offers the hindsight of the title to the other on a journey of choices, loss, fear, identity, sex, marriage, and forgiveness.

    The play will run for two weeks beginning March 8, with performances Thursday through Saturday at 8 p.m. and Sunday at 3 p.m. Tickets cost $18 and are available through smarttix.com.

St. Luke’s Concert

    On Saturday the second concert in the Music at St. Luke’s series in East Hampton will include selections from Haydn, Debussy, and Mozart, along with more contemporary selections by Samuel Barber and two of the performers, Jonathan Katz and William McNally. Mr. Katz and Mr. McNally will be joined by Christopher Schmitt, a graduate of the Julliard School of Music’s bachelor and master’s programs, who is now a doctoral candidate at the school.

    Mr. McNally, the organizer of the series, has been a frequent participant in Pianofest. He is pursuing a doctoral degree at the City University of New York Graduate Center in music arts as a recipient of the school’s Enhanced Chancellor’s Fellowship. He is a teaching fellow at Queens College and also teaches at the New York Music and Arts School. Mr. Katz is a Jacob Javitz Fellow and is also a doctoral candidate at the graduate center.

    Saturday’s concert will begin at 4 p.m. St. Luke’s Episcopal Church is on James Lane. Tickets are $20, free for those 18 and under.

Live at Crossroads

    On Monday, “On the Air at Crossroads,” will treat East End music lovers to the sounds of Klyph Black, Michael Weiskopf, Michael Pour, and Sara Hartman, who will be the spotlighted teenager.

    The performance will be at the Crossroads Music store at 160 Main Street in Amagansett, and will be hosted and recorded for WPPB 88.3 FM by Cynthia Daniels, a Grammy Award-winning sound engineer. Coffee and desserts will be served, with a $5 donation requested for the Springs Food pantry.

    The family-owned and operated music store also offers an open acoustic jam on Sunday afternoons from 1 to 4. Musicians are invited to take guitars; Crossroads provides the space, a bass, a keyboard, and a drums. Crossroads offers year-round instruction for most musical instruments, including voice, sound, mixing, and “just about anything associated with the music business,” according to the store’s Web site, crossroadsmusicstore.com. The store also carries a full line of guitars and musical accessories.