Ensemble Newsletter · September 21, 2026
Coltrane at 100, Mozart on the boardwalk, and Thana Alexa closes the week
NYC picks, jazz and classical, updated weekly
Three picks for the week of September 21: a six-night centennial for John Coltrane above Columbus Circle, Mozart relocated to a Coney Island amusement park at the Met, and a vocalist closing out Saturday downtown. Jazz on either end, an opera in the middle, and enough runway on all three that a slow start to the week costs you nothing. Here is where we would be.
John Coltrane Centennial Celebration — Dizzy's Club
Coltrane would have turned one hundred this week, and Geoffrey Keezer has built a six-night tribute that works through Crescent, Blue Train, Expression, and the Johnny Hartman sessions rather than reaching for A Love Supreme. A centennial invites the obvious, and this program mostly declines it. Two sets a night.
Event details →Così fan tutte — Metropolitan Opera
Phelim McDermott moves Mozart's comedy of fickle lovers to a 1950s Coney Island boardwalk, and the amusement park setting turns out to fit a plot built on people being talked into things. The score is among the most beautiful Mozart wrote, whatever you make of the wager at its center. The revival opens Wednesday and runs through October 23.
Event details →Thana Alexa — The Jazz Gallery
Alexa writes for four voices that also play their own instruments: Alejandra Sofia on keys, JC Maillard on guitar, Jacqueline Acevedo on percussion, everyone singing. It makes for arrangements with no clear line between the vocal and the band, which is the point. Two sets, seven and nine.
Event details →