Text: Ewa Maria Slaska
Video: Iwona Schweizer

New York, 12th of Oct 2018. Two days earlier I came to America, but it is my first day in New York. We came with train from Ramsey. They are my first steps in NY sms  my first “meeting” with that incredible City after 27 years. And it is, what we see:

I do not know yet that music will be a very important element of my staying in NY this time.

Next day we go to Carnegie Hall to the concert of Singing Men of Texas (see here). During the break we go to the loo and we meet Maria, an almost blind Polish woman living in Manhattan. She invites us to the Piano Concert which is organized by New York Piano Society (NYPS) on the next day in Kaufman Music Center in Lincoln Hall. Elena Leonova, founder and artistic director of NYPS presents her students, all of them men of rang and position: a professor, a manager, a scientist, playing Bach, Chopin or Debussy.  They play very good, very professional, though as a matter of fact they are amateurs. On the website of NYPS I read, they are “pianists with non-musical careers”.

Some days later, on 17th of October we go to the Public Theater on the famous Lafayette Street. In Joe’s Pub we see Adrienne Haan, a…

chanteuse featuring in a Joseph Barry Production, A Tribute to Berlin’s Golden Age. Haan’s performance celebrated the 100^th anniversary of the end of World War I and the beginning of the Weimar Republic with musical selections that characterize Berlin during the 20’s and early 30’s as a time of change.  The program under the musical direction of  pianist Richard Danley included Spoliansky’s, It’s All a Swindle, Hollaender’s Falling in Love Again, Berlin’s Puttin’ on the Ritz and Porter’s Night and Day. Ms. Haan performed with the Grammy-award winning 1920’s Big Band, Vince Giordano and The Nighthawks. (…) With a diverse repertoire that ranges from chanson to jazz, blues, klezmer and Broadway, Haan has a passion for the music of the 20s and 30s.  Highlights of Haan’s 2018 season include appearances at the Théâtre National du Luxembourg, Senftöpfchen Cologne, Beethovenfest in Bonn, the Ruhrfestspiele Recklinghausen Festival, performances of her Cabaret Français in Warsaw, and Tehorah in Łódź, Poland, and a return to Asuncion, Paraguay. Her latest CD Berlin, Mon Amour, hailed as “engaging and unique,“ is a tribute to 20s and early 30s Germany.

Everywhere in New York we meet music. In the metro station 14th street on our way to famous Chelsea Market (Oreo were produced there!) and the fascinating High Line we see piano – everybody could come and play…

It was Friday. On Saturday we go to one of Off Broadway theaters to see This One’s For The Girls, a piece with four women of different ages and colors singing with amazing voices, as they call it, the “soundtrack of our life” – a new musical written by Dorothy Marcic.

Spanning over the last 100 years, This One’s For The Girls tackles what it means to be a woman through song. From mournful laments such as “A Bird in a Gilded Cage” to angry anthems such as “I Am Woman” and “You Don’t Own Me,” the new musical is a high-energy celebration of womanhood. Top 40 hits such as “RESPECT,” “Stand by Your Man,” and “Girls Just Wanna Have Fun,” are just a few of the tunes you can expect to hear throughout the performance.