You would expect to hear classical music at the Brooklyn Conservatory of Music. But gypsy music and swing at a bar tucked in a brownstone? Folk music at a historical museum? In Park Slope, the music venues range from the familiar to the unorthodox, just as the music itself encompasses just about every genre you can think of.
Brooklyn Conservatory of Music
58 Seventh Avenue (at Lincoln Place)
Brooklyn Conservatory of Music. Image: JV Santore/Flickr
Though it was founded in 1897 as a traditional European-style music school, today the Brooklyn Conservatory of Music offers much more than classical music education—though yes, it offers that too. In addition to classes for children and adults ranging from chorale to klezmer, it provides music therapy and hosts a broad range of concerts. Among its recent performances was a jazz brunch by the Amy Winehouse Teen Jazz Ensemble, a group of 16 young musicians who perform throughout the city; it is funded in large part by the Amy Winehouse Foundation, which also provides an educational program at the conservatory. More jazz along with improvised music is performed as part of the school’s monthly Inside Out series; Phalanx Trio and Ryan Blotnick’s KUSH will be the April performers. Another series, the Parlour Room Sessions, features chamber music performances by the likes of the Parhelion Trio and woodwind quintet SoundMind Ensemble.
702 Union Street (between Fifth and Sixth Avenues)
Union Hall. Image: savagecats/Flickr
This 5,000-square-foot former warehouse is a music venue—plus a restaurant, a bar, a comedy showcase, and with two courts, a place to play bocce. Its expansive yet somehow cozy lounge area—think stately library meets Central Perk from “Friends” meets local pub—is an inviting hangout in and of itself. Then there is the downstairs space, however, showcases performers just about every evening. Comedy shows and stand-up make up the majority of the offering, but there is plenty of music to be heard as well. In April, for instance, rockers Fixtures, Sloppy Heads, P.I. Power Trio, and High Pony were scheduled to perform, and a Prince sing-along event was on the docket as well.
376 Ninth Street (at Sixth Avenue)
Barbès. Image: Cristina Bejarano/Flickr
This intimate bar is named after a neighborhood in northern Paris that gave birth to a renaissance of raï, an Algerian folk music, in the 1980s. Raï is just one type of world music you might hear at this watering hole, however. French gypsy-jazz guitarist Stephane Wrembel holds court on Sunday evenings. Brain Cloud, a Western-influenced swing band, kicks off Monday evenings, followed by Tropical Vortex, a showcase for music from Latin America. Slavic Soul Party, a nine-piece brass gypsy jazz band, takes the stage on Tuesday nights, while Guinean ensemble the Mandingo Ambassadors does the honors on Wednesday evenings, and the Crooked Trio play straight and not-so-straight renditions of the standards early Friday evenings. And those are just the performers with residencies. In April alone, additional scheduled bands included Ethan Lipton & His Orchestra (featured in “The Marvelous Mrs. Maisel”); Bombay Rickey, whose influences include spaghetti Westerns and surf guitar; klezmer group Sklamberg & the Shepherds; the Erik Satie Quartet; and Latin boogaloo band Spanglish Fly.
336 Third Street (between Fourth and Fifth Avenues)
The Old Stone House. Image: The Squirrels/Wikimedia
The Old Stone House is a 1934 reconstruction of the 1699 Vechte-Cortelyou House, where the Colonial militia met its downfall at the 1776 Battle of Brooklyn. Its primary purpose is as an interactive museum about that battle—the largest of the Revolutionary War—and Brooklyn life during that time. But it does host a variety of performances as well. The Brooklyn Traditional Slow Jam, an open acoustic-instrument jam session, takes place the first Wednesday of every month. Other recent shows included folk trio Gathering Time, a performance of works by Benjamin Britten and Dmitri Shostakovich, and “Frozen Tears,” a multimedia interpretation of Schubert’s “Winterreise” featuring mezzo-soprano Jazimina MacNeil and pianist Kathleen Tagg.