Ensemble Newsletter · October 1, 2026
Five nights to plan your whole season around
A season guide to NYC jazz and classical, one email to save
Five nights to plan your whole season around: from a Lincoln Center marquee to the year's most magical curtain.
Immanuel Wilkins Quartet — Village Vanguard
September 29 through October 4. Wilkins is the most talked-about alto player of his generation and he has the band to justify it: Micah Thomas on piano, Ryoma Takenaga on bass, Kweku Sumbry on drums. Six nights at the Vanguard is where a young quartet either proves the case or does not.
Event details →Yo-Yo Ma and Gustavo Dudamel — David Geffen Hall
October 2. Ma plays Golijov's Azul, written for him and still the best argument for what he does with new music, alongside the Adagietto from Mahler's Fifth. Lang Lang takes the same stage the night before, so the Philharmonic is running two of the largest names in classical music on consecutive evenings.
Event details →Dizzy Gillespie Birthday with Jon Faddis — Dizzy's Club
October 21. The room named for Gillespie marks his birthday with the protégé who inherited the high register, leading a handpicked band through the bebop catalogue. Faddis has spent a career being more than an impersonation of his mentor. A birthday party with actual stakes.
Event details →Einstein on the Beach: 50th Anniversary Concert — Brooklyn Academy of Music
November 19 through 21. The Philip Glass Ensemble plays Einstein on the Beach fifty years on, in concert form, at the house that first staged it. This is the piece that broke opera open and it has been performed complete only a handful of times since. If one night here is the one people talk about for years, it is this one.
Event details →George Balanchine's The Nutcracker — David H. Koch Theater
November 27 through January 2. Forty-nine performances, which tells you what it means to this city. Balanchine's version is the one the rest are measured against, and the Tchaikovsky is better than its familiarity suggests: hear the celesta in the Sugarplum variation as writing rather than wallpaper. Book early or take a weekday matinee.
Event details →