The Best in the World of Arts and Culture this September

The September 2019 Dandelion Chandelier Luxury Events Calendar for The Arts and Culture is a curated list of ballet and modern dance performances and classical concerts. Plus jazz concerts and art museum exhibits in September 2019. It’s the best in the arts and culture in September 2019. For the full September 2019 Luxury Calendar, click here.

the best in the arts and culture in september 2019

September marks the kick-off of several major performing arts organizations’ new seasons. Including Jazz at Lincoln Center, the Chicago Symphony Orchestra and the Paris Opera Ballet. The ballet performances alone are guaranteed to make September sparkle.

It also marks new beginnings and transitions in the visual arts. The arrival of fall brings the opening of the new Bauhaus Museum Dessau. The third and final session of the Setouchi Triennale. And a new sculpture installation entitled The New Ones, Will Free Us on the Metropolitan Museum of Art. And yes, you read that right – on the MET.

performing arts and culture august 2019 september 2019

best dance events in august 2019 september 2019

Alvin Ailey American Dance Theater heads to London’s Sadler’s Wells.  Highlights include the UK premiere of Rennie Harris’ Lazarus. The Call, which sees Ronald K. Brown offering up his love letter to Ailey set to the music of Bach. And Ella, Artistic Director Robert Battle’s celebration of the legendary singer – Sept 4 – 14

In one of the most beloved ballet performances in September, New York City Ballet will perform Balanchine’s Jewels at Lincoln Center – Sept 17 – 21

To celebrate the anniversary of the Paris Opera, the Academy, in collaboration with Juste Debout, will be offering the public a grand Battle Opera de Hip Hop at the Palais Garnier.  After regional heats, the winners will gather together on December 26th to compete in the finals on the stage of the Opera Garnier – Sept 19 – Dec 26

At Paris’s Palais Garnier, the Opening Dance Gala will be a wonderful series of ballet performances this September. Performers include the Étoile dancers and the Paris Opera Orchestra. The program includes Pas de deux and various excerpts from other major works – Sept 20

The New York City Ballet will perform All Balanchine.  The production will include the waltzes of Valse Fantaisie and the spiky Kammermusik No. 2. Performances close with the return of Union Jack – Sept 25 – Jan 29

2. best classical music concerts in september 2019

Michael Tilson Thomas’ 25th and final season as Music Director of the San Francisco Symphony will be celebrated at the San Francisco Symphony Opening Night Gala – Sept 4

Kelli O’Hara Sings Barber will feature Jaap van Zweden conducting Knoxville: Summer of 1915. The work is a nostalgic recollection of a time of innocence in small-town America.  The performance will also include a World Premiere by Philip Glass. And selections from Romeo and Juliet – Sept 18 – 21

The Boston Symphony Orchestra opens its 2019–20 season with the world premiere of the second BSO commission by the young American composer Eric Nathan, his Concerto for Orchestra, which highlights the virtuosity of the BSO’s various instrumental sections – Sept 19 – 21

Riccardo Muti opens his 10th season as music director of the Chicago Symphony Orchestra with two dramatic Russian works:  Alexander Scriabin’s first orchestral composition and Shostakovich’s Sixth Symphony. The Norwegian pianist Leif Ove Andsnes will also be there to perform Edvard Grieg’s treasured Piano Concerto – Sept 19

3. best opera performances in september 2019

The Opéra Bastille production of Puccini’s tragic and intense Madame Butterfly promises to be ethereal – Sept 14 – Nov 13

James Robinson’s stylish new production of the Gershwins’ American classic Porgy and Bess at the Met will transport audiences to Catfish Row on the Charleston waterfront. Eric Owens and Angel Blue star in the title roles – Sept 23 – Feb 1

London’s Royal Opera will bring life to one of Handel’s early operatic successes, Agrippina – Sept 23 – Oct 11

The Met will present Manon, a quintessentially French tale of the beautiful young woman who is incapable of forsaking both love and luxury – Sept 24 – Oct 26

4. best jazz and new music concerts this september 2019

The Jazz at Lincoln Center Orchestra with Wynton Marsalis kicks off Opening Weekend in Rose Theater with The South African Songbook, a musical celebration of South Africa’s 25 years of democracy after apartheid.  Top South African musicians will join the orchestra to perform essential South African music. Each song will be chosen by a guest performer and newly arranged for the show by the JLCO – Sept 12 – 14

Heading to Paris this fall?  Each year, the French newspaper L’Humanité organizes a festival, Fête de l’Huma, in Paris for a weekend full of debates, exhibitions and concerts – Sept 13 – 15

Arca, the pseudonym of shape-shifting Venezuelan artist, singer, DJ, performer, and experimental music composer Alejandra Ghersi, will be at The Shed in the newly opened Hudson Yards. In one of the most innovative jazz concerts in September 2019, he will perform a new, four-part experimental performance cycle titled Mutant;Faith. The work includes three unique live shows entitled Gestation, Aftercare, and Ripples – Sept 25 – 28

The Monterey Jazz Festival at the County Fair and Event Center in Monterey, California rounds out the top 10 best summer jazz festivals in the world.  Now in its 62nd year, it was founded by jazz radio broadcaster Jimmy Lyons. This year’s lineup features Diana Krall, Snarky Puppy, Chris Botti, Larkin Poe, Allison Miller and Derrick Hodge – Sept 27 – 29

Grammy, TONY and Emmy Award-winner Ben Platt will perform at Radio City Music Hall – Sept 29

visual arts and culture in september 2019

1. best art museum exhibits in europe, middle east and africa in september 2019

Austria’s Albertina Museum is marking what would have been the one-hundredth birthday of Maria Lassnig with Maria Lassnig:  Ways of Being – Sept 6

Celebrations of the centenary of the Bauhaus movement have been taking place across Germany all year.  The standout celebration, however, will be the new $31 million Bauhaus Museum Dessau.  Designed by Spanish architectural firm González Hinz Zabala, the building’s steel-block top floor will spotlight furniture, textiles, models and artwork. They’ll be selected from the museum’s permanent collection of more than 49,000 artifacts. The lower section will be home to temporary exhibitions and events – Sept 8

William Blake: The Artist at the Tate Britain will be the most comprehensive survey of the artist’s work since 2001 – Sept 11 – Feb 2

Acclaimed sculptor Antony Gormley presents his most significant solo exhibition in over a decade at the Royal Academy of Arts in London.  A conversation between old works and new, Antony Gormley will span his wide-ranging practice and exploit the scale and light of the RA’s architecture – Sept 21 – Dec 3

The Musée d’Orsay is opening Edgar Degas: The Orchestra at the Opera which examines not only Degas’ passionate relationship with the House and his musical tastes, but also the infinite resources of this marvelous “toolbox” – Sept 24 – Jan 19

2. best art museum exhibits in north and south america in september 2019

united states

Kenyan-American artist Wangechi Mutu has been selected to create sculptures for The Met’s Fifth Avenue facade niches. In the first-ever such installation on the Museum’s historic exterior, his work will inaugurate a new annual artist commission series.  The first installation is entitled The New Ones, Will Free Us – Sept 9 – Jan 12

Photographs that depict women and their powerful connection to the natural world will make up Live Dangerously at the National Museum of Women in the Arts in Washington, DC. Featuring work from preeminent photographers such as Janaina Tschäpe, Louise Dahl-Wolfe and Justine Kurland, the exhibition depicts women both at peace with nature and at war with it in their battle against patriarchy – Sept 19 – Jan 20

Vija Celmins at the Met Breuer will provide a comprehensive view of the artist’s career through a selection of approximately 120 works. The exhibit will span from her earliest paintings made in Los Angeles in the 1960’s to objects completed in New York in the last five years.  If you go, be sure to stop by Flora Bar to pair some fine dining with your fine art – Sept 24 – Jan 12

Generations: A History of Black Abstract Art at the Baltimore Museum of Art celebrates the ways in which African American artists have used gestural painting, shapes and colors to convey personal and political statements. The exhibit will include works by prominent contemporary artists such as Kevin Beasley, Mark Bradford, Martin Puryear and Lorna Simpson. Joined by pioneering artists dating back to the 1940’s, including Norman Lewis, Alma W. Thomas and Jack Whitten – Sept 29 – Jan 19

canada

The inaugural edition of the Toronto Biennial of Art launches this month.  Curated by Candice Hopkins and Tairone Bastien, the program will be informed by the diverse and multilayered city of Toronto. It’s “a significant site for exchange with 15,000 years of continuous Indigenous presence” and one where more than half its residents were born outside of Canada – Sept 21 – Dec 1

3. best art museum exhibits in asia in september 2019

Queensland artist Shirley Macnamara is an inspirational figure in Indigenous Australian art. The Queensland Art Gallery and the Gallery of Modern Art exhibition will highlight her unique sculptural pieces. They’re crafted from the spinifex plant and its runner roots. The exhibit covers the full span of her practice from 1997 to present – Sept 21 – Mar 1

The third and final session of the Setouchi Triennale begins this month. It’s just one of the many reasons why the Setouchi Islands are one of our top destinations for a fall vacation this year – Sept 24 – Nov 24

Now open for viewing  at the National Gallery of Victoria is the Krystyna Campbell-Pretty AM and the Campbell-Pretty Family Suffrage Research Collection. The collections examine the women’s suffrage movement in the United Kingdom.

the best in the arts and culture in september 2019

That’s it. Some of the top ballet performances, jazz concerts and art museum exhibits in September 2019. They’re our top picks for the best new events in the world of the arts and culture in September 2019.Have a dazzling month.

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 Jillian Tangen is the Head of Research at Dandelion Chandelier and a former Senior Research Analyst at McKinsey & Co and Analyst at Shearman & Sterling. She is an avid fan of Nordic design, having owned an independent lifestyle store and sales agency focused on emerging Scandinavian design. Jillian lives in New York and is married with three young children. She loves cross-country skiing, the New York Rangers, reading, travel and discovering new brands.

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