The Best in the World of Arts and Culture this October

The October 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 October 2019. It’s the best in the arts and culture in October 2019. For the full October 2019 Luxury Calendar, click here.

the best in the arts and culture in october 2019

The trees and their vibrant leaves aren’t the only ones putting on a show this month. All around the world there will be glittering performances and exhibitions making their debut.

In New York, there are plenty of new experiences to be had. Among our fav’s are BAM’s annual Next Wave Festival, which includes a reimagined Swan Lake. And the opening of both the American Ballet Theatre and Carnegie Hall’s latest seasons.  

We’re also keen to see a number of new museum exhibits, including JR: Chronicles at the Brooklyn Museum, Leonardo da Vinci at the Louvre, the newly-opened Ruby City. And the newly-expanded Museum of Modern Art. 

In San Antonio, the stunning new contemporary art center Ruby City will open to the public. Funded by the late collector and philanthropist Linda Pace and designed by Sir David Adjaye, it’s a must-visit. Like the fall foliage, many of these performances and exhibitions won’t last forever – so let’s go!

performing arts and culture august 2019 october 2019

1. best dance events in august 2019 october 2019

Fall for Dance, New York City Center’s beloved annual festival, celebrates its 16th anniversary this month.  Highlights include a pair of the best ballet performances in October 2019:  Kyle Abraham’s new work for Misty Copeland. And Kim Brandstrup’s for Sara Mearns and Taylor Stanley  – Oct 1 – 13

Another of the not-to-be-missed ballet performances in October 2019 is Kenneth MacMillan’s powerful Manon. The masterpiece will be danced by the Royal Ballet, set to music by Massenet – Oct 2 – Nov 6

The Brooklyn Academy of Music raises the curtain on the dance portion of its annual Next Wave Festival. In one of the most unusual ballet performances in October 2019, the Irish dance theater company Teac Damsa re-imagines Swan Lake. The lake is black plastic and the Prince is suicidal – Oct 15 – 20

The American Ballet Theater celebrates the opening of its fall season with its annual Fall Gala.  This year’s event will feature a program of new work by leading female choreographers – Oct 16

Following this season opener, the ABT will celebrate Herman Cornejo’s 20th anniversary with the company.  The evening will feature Balanchine’s Apollo, a piéce d’occasion and a world premiere by Twyla Tharp, choreographed in celebration of Cornejo’s anniversary – Oct 26

2. best classical music concerts in october 2019

Carnegie Hall opens its season with a visit from the Cleveland Orchestra – Oct 3 – 4

Every autumn in Brittany, period instruments played by great artists can be heard in beautiful surroundings. Each concert is given in a church, chapel, cathedral or theater with outstanding acoustics. The Lanvellec and Trégor Festival lets listeners discover and explore ancient music and its greatest composers in a splendid setting – Oct 4 – 20

Pianists Daniil Trifonov and Sergei Babaya will give a joint concert at Carnegie Hall – Oct 16

At the Cloisters in upper Manhattan, Les Arts Florissants will perform the exquisitely unsettling madrigals of Carlo Gesualdo, who got away with double murder thanks to his status as a prince – Oct 20

A highlight of the White Light Festival at Lincoln Center this year is Journey to the East. The work links two unique figures across the centuries: acclaimed early-music interpreter Jordi Savall. And St. Francis Xavier, the 16th-century Jesuit missionary who traveled from the court of Lisbon to Africa and Asia – Oct 24

3. best opera performances in october 2019

Saul at Houston Grand Opera is an extravagantly theatrical take on this Biblical oratorio – Oct 25 – Nov 8

The Metropolitan Opera stages La Bohème, Puccini’s classic tragedy of bohemian friends and lovers – Oct 25 – May 7

Paris’s Opéra Bastille schedule this month includes the dramatic intrigue of political, romantic and family conflicts of Verdi’s Don Carlo – Oct 25 – Nov 23

Fresh off two prestigious prizes – the Richard Tucker Award and the Met’s Beverly Sills Artist Award – soprano Lisette Oropesa will sing at the Richard Tucker Gala at Carnegie Hall – Oct 27

Zauberland makes its New York debut at the Gerald W. Lynch Theater at John Jay College. Composer Bernard Foccroulle and writer Martin Crimp seamlessly interweave 19 new songs with Schumann’s Dichterliebe, a Romantic song cycle infused with yearning and fairy-tale landscapes – Oct 29 – 30

4. best jazz and new music concerts this october 2019

In one of the most popular series of jazz concerts in October 2019, the theme of this year’s Le Monde Festival in Paris is “imagine”. Performances and activities will take place at numerous venues throughout the city – Oct 4 – 7

Boston Modern Orchestra Project will open its season with Sirens, a new concerto by Dalit Warshaw, as part of its Roaring Twenties production – Oct 4

In other notable jazz concerts in October 2019, Jazz at Lincoln Center will present top saxophonist Joe Lovano. He’s joined by his Universal Jazz Ensemble, an all-star group of seven artists – Oct 18 – 19

The 21st annual Shanghai International Arts Festival takes place this month, featuring local and international plays, concerts, and music and dance performances at various locations throughout the city – Oct 18 – Nov 17

Two artful guitarists, Mary Halvorson and John Dieterich, will come together in their live debut as a duo at Brooklyn’s Roulette to celebrate the release of “A Tangle of Stars,” their new album – Oct 28

visual arts and culture in october 2019

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

The Center for Fine Arts, known as Bozar, in Brussels is offering a season of Romanian art and performance.  One of the highlights is a retrospective of Constantin Brancusi – Oct 2 – Jan 12

Kara Walker will fill the central hall of Tate Modern with her urgent grotesques of American violence.  She is best known for her use of black cut-paper silhouetted figures, referencing the history of slavery and the antebellum South in the US through provocative and elaborate installations  – Oct 2 – Apr 5

At the Rijksmuseum in Amsterdam, Rembrandt-Velázquez: Dutch and Spanish Masters will present an outstanding selection of paintings by Dutch and Spanish masters of the 17th century. For the first time, some of the greatest masterworks will be in one show. Artists include Rembrandt van Rijn, Diego Velázquez, Frans Hals, Bartolomé Murillo, Johannes Vermeer and Francisco Zurbarán – Oct 11 – Jan 19, 2020

If you thought the Louvre was busy this past summer, just wait until its exhibition on Leonardo da Vinci – a decade-in-the-making, booking-required blockbuster, and the most significant exhibition this 500th-anniversary year of everyone’s favorite Tuscan-Milanese-French polymath and conspiracy wellspring – Oct 24

In Nigeria, Lagos Biennial, which two years ago won raves before getting evicted from a rail yard, is coming back – Oct 26 – Nov 30

2. best art museum exhibits in the united states in october 2019

New York

This fall, the Brooklyn Museum will present JR: Chronicles, largest solo museum exhibition of works by the French artist. The highlight is the debut of the monumental new work, The Chronicles of New York City. Similar to its San Francisco iteration, the New York mural presents a portrait of the city’s multifaceted population captured over a month roaming the five boroughs – Oct 4 – May 3, 2020

Nicolas Moufarrege: Recognize My Sign at the Queens Museum traces the effects the artist’s re-locations had on the development of his oeuvre – Oct 6 – Feb 16, 2020

The Jewish Museum in New York will open Edith Halpert and the Rise of American Art.  It’s the first exhibition to explore the trailblazing art dealer whose influence, eye and passion for American art championed the work of Stuart Davis, Yasuo Kuniyoshi, Jacob Lawrence, Georgia O’Keeffe – Oct 18 – Feb 2, 2020

Likely the biggest event of the fall art season is the reopening of the Museum of Modern Art after a comprehensive $400 million renovation. Forty-thousand extra square feet of space will accommodate solo presentations from Betye Saar, Pope.L and Haegue Yang. This fall there’s also a survey of Latin American art gifted to the museum by Patricia Phelps de Cisneros.  While you’re there, stop by one of our favorite restaurants in a museum, The Modern – Oct 21

Baltimore

The Baltimore Museum of Art kicks off a year of women-focused exhibitions including By Their Creative Force: American Women Modernists.  The exhibit includes Georgia O’Keeffe and Grace Hartigan, among others, to mark the centennial of women’s suffrage – Oct 6 – Jul 5

San Antonio

In San Antonio, Texas, the stunning new contemporary art center Ruby City will open to the public. Funded by the late collector and philanthropist Linda Pace and designed by Sir David Adjaye, it’s a must-visit – Oct 13

Denver

Claude Monet: The Truth of Nature at the Denver Art Museum is the only American venue for this show of the quintessential French Impressionist, organized with the Museum Barberini in Potsdam, Germany – Oct 21 – Feb 2

3. best art museum exhibits in asia in october 2019

Don’t miss Shiota Chiharu: The Soul Trembles at the Mori Art Museum in Tokyo before it closes at the end of the month.  Of particular interest is “Uncertain Journey”, a vast red Hokusai wave of wool cascading over delicate, metal-framed boats, capturing the transcendental force of nature – through Oct 27

The 7th edition of the Asian Art Biennial at the National Taiwan Museum of Fine Arts bears the theme “The Strangers from Beyond the Mountain and the Sea.”  The curators are artists Hsu Chia-Wei and Ho Tzu-Nyen. They envision elements of nature as visitors from afar bearing gifts of wisdom – Oct 5 – Feb 9, 2020

the best in the arts and culture in october 2019

That’s it. Some of the top ballet performances, jazz concerts in August 2019. Our top picks for the best new events in the world of the arts and culture in October 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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