Mixed Media The 92nd Street Y
New York’s 92nd Street Y conducts an impressive range of culturally oriented programs, offering more than 3,500 classes and 2,000 performances, literary readings, lectures, and discussions every year for children and adults. There’s also a robust series of activities centered on Jewish life — the “Y” in the organization’s title is short for Young Men’s Hebrew Association, the organization’s name when it was founded in 1874.
Many of the 92nd Street Y’s offerings are now available online. The performances, presentations, and discussions have an incredible talent pool from which to draw and are usually announced about two weeks in advance. Recent events included Saturday Night Live’s Colin Jost and Seth Meyers on comedy writing; “The Art of Broadway Orchestration,” with panelists like Jonathan Tunick, Stephen Sondheim’s favorite orchestrator; and “Remembering the Championship Knicks” with team greats Bill Bradley, Walt “Clyde” Frazier, and Willis Reed.
Visual arts events included “Chagall, Lissitzky, Malevich: The Russian Avant- Garde in Vitebsk,” which is inspired by a recent exhibit at New York’s Jewish Museum. Celebrated pianist Robert Levin offered an all-Mozart program enlivened by his specialty — an improvisation of the type Mozart regularly employed in his solo concerts and concerto performances. Levin also extemporized the conclusion of an unfinished sonata movement by Mozart and created an on-the- spot fantasia à la Wolfgang based on musical themes submitted by audience members.
While individual events like those cited above are announced 10 days to two weeks in advance, the more formally structured classes are scheduled farther out and demonstrate an equally eclectic range. Feeling some Zoom gloom about seeing yourself online? Sign up for “How to Become Photogenic,” taking place on Sept. 21. You can tap into your inner Ella Fitzgerald with classes in vocal jazz ( beginning Sept. 14) or scat singing ( beginning Sept. 15). Sondheim fans have the opportunity for deep dives into Company (Sept. 24), A Little Night Music (Oct. 15), and Pacific Overtures (Nov. 19). If you haven’t shaken your booty in a while, you can get back into that ’ 70s bell-bottoms-and-polyester groove with Solo Hustle and Disco, starting on Sept. 18.
Prices for most of the individual events range from $10 to $20. The cost of the classes varies more widely, based on the content and number of sessions, but typically ranges from $20 to $150. For more information, visit 92y.org. There’s also a large video archive of past programs available with a $5.99 introductory price at 92y.org/archives. — Mark Tiarks/ For The New Mexican