Tag: New York

creativity

Roll out the red carpet: Carnegie Hall opens the 2023–2024 season

Christa Avampato
Riccardo Muti with the Chicago Symphony Orchestra on opening night 10/4/23. Photo by Christa Avampato.

Last night I went to Carnegie Hall’s opening night gala with one of my best friends and my many talented colleagues. It was thrilling to hear the Chicago Symphony Orchestra under the expert baton of Riccardo Muti with the incomparable violin soloist Leonidas Kavakos, and to experience this gorgeous music with a packed house of nearly 3,000 people in this historic venue. The program included Tchaikovsky’s Violin Concerto in D Major, Op. 35 and Mussorgsky’s Pictures from an Exhibition orchestrated by Ravel. As an encore, Muti chose the brief and beautiful aria Amor ti vieta (Love forbids you) that appears in Intermezzo from Fedora by Giordano and Colautti.

Happy to be at Carnegie Hall’s opening night. Photos by Christa Avampato.

A performance at Carnegie Hall is a must-do for New Yorkers and visitors. This year’s season features Yo-Yo Ma and John Williams, Mitsuko Uchida, The Vienna Philharmonic, Jason Moran, The Hot Sardines with Alan Cumming, Lea Michele, Sutton Foster, Kelli O’Hara, Sheku Kanneh-Mason, Norm Lewis, Bryan Terrel Clark and Valisia LaKae with The New York Pops, Meow Meow, Patti Lupone, Emanuel Ax, Yuja Wang, Yannick Nézet-Séguin and The Met Orchestra, Tania León, and many, many more.

At 132 years old, Carnegie Hall is a stunning space in midtown Manhattan and the heart of its mission is to bring the transformative power of music to the widest possible audience. It’s a privilege to work with them and contribute to this organization’s legacy in my extraordinary city.

The Chicago Symphony Orchestra warms up for opening night. Photo by Christa Avampato.

One of my main projects at Carnegie is the subscription streaming channel Carnegie Hall+. We curate concerts, music festivals, dance, opera, and music documentaries from around the globe and deliver them to music lovers in the U.S. and 20 other countries. We have a lot of exciting developments underway for the year ahead. If you’d like to learn more, I’m always happy to chat about it. You can also find more details here: https://www.carnegiehallplus.com/

Happy opening, Carnegie Hall. I look forward to making more music available to more people in more places this season. 

creativity

At Brooklyn’s Green-Wood Cemetery, the circle of life continues

Christa Avampato

Brooklyn’s Green-Wood Cemetery is much more than a final resting place for over 600,000 people. It’s also an arboretum, wildlife sanctuary, and a community resource to mitigate climate change where life and death exist side-by-side. A 30-minute walk from my apartment, it’s a place I visit often as I get to know my new borough.

With 478 acres, Green-Wood is home to over 7,000 trees from 690 different species, 216 species of birds (including the Argentinian monk parrots who make their home in the architecture of the entrance gates!), and dozens of species of mammals, fungi, and insects, especially pollinators thanks to their beehives and wildflower meadows. Each new planting is selected for its climate adaptiveness, wildlife value, enhancement of the beauty of the landscape, and resilience. Every year Green-Wood’s living collection is responsible for sequestering 264,000 lbs. of carbon dioxide, removing 12,000 lbs. of pollution from the air we breathe, and mitigating 2,620,000 gallons of stormwater from overwhelming Brooklyn’s sewage system.

Founded in 1838, Green-Wood was Brooklyn’s first public park during a period of rapid urbanization. It became so popular, that it inspired the competition to build both Central Park in Manhattan and nearby Prospect Park in Brooklyn. Olmsted and Vaux won both competitions and designed both parks. After designing Central Park, they said that “Prospect Park is everything we wanted Central Park to be.” How very Brooklyn of them!

Green-Wood is also filled with gorgeous art. Inside the chapel, there’s currently a beautiful art installation paying homage to the stories of lesser known souls who are buried on its grounds. I’ve been to classical music concerts inside the crypt, whiskey tastings on its many sprawling lawns, and a Halloween Party that felt like a New Orleans carnival. It is one of the city’s treasures. No wonder it attracts over 500,000 visitors every year.

I love cemeteries and seek them out when I travel. If you find yourself in New York and want to get a sense of our history, ecology, culture, Green-Wood should be high on your list.

All photos below were taken by me at Green-Wood. You’re welcome to use them as long as they are attributed to me. Thank you.

creativity

New York. What a character. My latest essay for Pipeline Artists.

Christa Avampato
Feature image from dikaya888 (Adobe)

If you know me, you know how much I love New York and how proud I am to be a New Yorker. To that end, this is my toast and roast to dear old New York. Essentially a love letter to my city, published by Pipeline Artists. You can read the full piece here.

An excerpt:
“Dearly Beloved,

We are gathered here today to toast and roast our dear old chum, someone who’s like no one, someone who’s a chameleon, a shape shifter. You may know them as the Big Apple, Gotham, the City So Nice They Named It Twice, the City that Never Sleeps, the Empire City. Many simply call it The City. Me? The nickname I like best is A Beautiful Disaster.

I give you the dynamic, the dastardly, the dreamy—New York.

I’ve left New York multiple times over the years, sworn them off for good, to never return, only to eventually make my way back. I’m not alone in this pursuit to try to live without New York only to find that New York lures me back just by existing.”

You can read the full piece here.

creativity

The Joy of Pizza with Rachel Josar

Christa Avampato
The Joy of Pizza with Rachel Josar

Pizza. The word alone brings an immediate smile to our faces. We can’t contain the joy it sparks, and nowhere is the joy of pizza more prevalent than in New York City. Rachel Josar, the creator and host of the They Had Fun podcast, joins the JoyProject podcast to talk about all things pizza, her weekly tradition with her husband, her passion for this incredible city, and the history and culture that is entwined with food. After 250 weeks of Friday night pizza, Rachel gives her expert opinion on where to get the best pizza in New York.

About Rachel
Rachel is the host of the podcast, They Had Fun, where she talks to real New Yorkers about the most fun they’ve ever had in the city. She’s lived in NYC for 16 years and enjoys fries at the bar, gallery walks, talking to anyone who will listen about why New York is still great, and of course, negronis and pizza on Fridays.

Topics discussed in this episode:

  • The best places in New York to get pizza
  • Rachel’s weekly pizza tradition with her husband
  • The history of pizza and it’s place in New York city culture
  • The quote about pizza in the New York Times that helped Rachel and Christa connect and become friends
  • Rachel’s amazing podcast, The Had Fun
  • Why New York City is the greatest city
  • New York’s restaurant scene and supporting restaurants through the pandemic
  • Christa’s favorite childhood memory about pizza

Links to resources:

creativity

My alive day — 13 years ago today

Christa Avampato

13 years ago today my New York City apartment building caught fire and I was almost trapped in the building. I used to think of this day as the worst day of my life. Now after all this time, I’ve made it into something that made me better. I became a writer and found Emerson. I learned the true value of my life. The PTSD I had got me into therapy so I could heal from trauma I’d had since childhood. It got me out of a terrible relationship and out of a job I hated. I adopted Phineas as an emotional support dog a year later.

A lot of people helped me in that immediate aftermath. They gave me a place to stay while I looked for a new apartment, helped me find my new apartment, gave me support at work, gave me the legal language to confront my landlord to get my deposit back and get out of my lease, let me borrow an air mattress, went to look at apartments with me, recommended a therapist, and 9 months before the fire had recommended rental insurance that saved me financially. So many checked on me regularly to see how I was doing. One recently checked on me after a large fire erupted in New York City earlier this year as he knows fires can still be a trigger for me. Healing takes a village, and I’m so grateful for mine.

Fire transforms everything it touches and it certainly transformed me. This healing was hard-won. I went through a lot of dark days to get here, almost ending it all at one low point. Though I’d never wish this experience on anyone, I wouldn’t wish it away for me. I have a few other big anniversaries of healing coming up. I’m not as at peace with those yet as I am with my fire. I hope time and distance will ease them, too.

creativity

The Rising—Scenes from the Roe vs. Wade Protest in NYC

Christa Avampato
My friend, Ashley, in NYC. Photo by Christa Avampato.

Yesterday we witnessed a horrific historic moment in the U.S. A majority of the SCOTUS decided guns and zygotes have more rights than women.

We lose 68,000 women every year to abortions that have been forced underground for those who have no access to safe clinics and hospitals.

My friend, Ashley, dressed as a handmaid for the protests at Washington Square Park and Union Square here in New York City. People were amused. They shouldn’t be. This is not a joke. This is not a drill.

Thousands of people flooded New York City’s streets to demand justice for women. My friend Kelly and I were both proud and devastated to stand shoulder-to-shoulder with our neighbors.

We are now at the point of revolution. We must be. This attack on women cannot stand. Not now. Not ever. We will be as relentless as those who mean to send us back into the shadows.

This is not the end. This is The Rising.

Scenes from the New York City protests on June 24, 2022. All photos taken by Christa Avampato.

creativity

A Year of Yes: Social justice for our students

Christa Avampato

This week I’m speaking at a social justice event at a high school in New York. The basis of my talk is about mental health and healing. My main points are:

-We can say our weak things in a strong voice.

-The function of freedom is to free others by telling our story.

-We need to show up for others the way we want them to show up for us.

What do you think?

creativity

A Year of Yes: Today, I’ve been back in New York City for a year

Christa Avampato

A year ago today, I moved back to New York after a couple of years away living and working in D.C. My time in D.C. was very valuable and though I thought about making it my home, there really was never any place for me except New York. The rhythm of this place, the opportunity and dreams it holds, and its energy are all the right match for me. What feels really good is that in this magical year, I learned for the very first time what it feels like to be home. Sometimes you have to go away to find out how much something means to you. I’ve left New York City multiple times, and I’ve always eventually come back.

What I love most about this city is that we’re all having a collective, individual experience. You get to have your New York and I get to have mine. They’re the same streets, the same subways, the same sky. But no two people have the same New York. Every inch of this city has seen someone fall in love, and someone have their heart broken. Every inch has seen the whole span of human emotions from happiness to anger, from hope and to despair. I used to tell people that I’ve lived most of my adult life in New York City. Now I tell them I’ve lived many lives in New York City.

I was coming home from a trip to Ireland last week, and there was a man from Dublin looking around JFK airport, wide-eyed and completely lost. I asked if I could help him navigate his way into the city, and he happily accepted the help. He said to me, “It’s always been my dream to come to New York.” I told him it was mine, too, and that it still is, every single day. And before we parted ways on the subway he thanked me for my help and said, “You’ve already made me love America.” For him, America is New York. And that’s true for me, too. I’m a New Yorker first, and an American second, and I wouldn’t have it any other way.

I love this town with an unbridled, unrivaled passion. And as hard as some days are, I’m always grateful and fully aware of how fortunate I am to live here. Thank you to everyone who supported me and cheered me on as I made my way back here a year ago, and re-invented a new life for myself these past 12 months. I couldn’t have done it without you. Here’s to another year of discovery and transformation in our wondrous, turbulent city.

creativity

A Year of Yes: Can you hear the music?

Christa Avampato

“Because once you hear the music, you can’t stand still.” ~Billy Crystal, 700 Sundays

Sometimes I’ll walk down the streets of New York City and literally feel the rhythm of the city in my heart. I used to think there was something wrong with me because I found it so hard, almost painful and impossible, to be still. Especially in New York. I just don’t sit well. I make myself sit for 18 minutes a day for my meditation, and then that’s really it. Now I know there was nothing wrong with me. I was just hearing the music of this place. And as Billy Crystal so wisely explains, once we hear that music, we can’t stand still. We have to move with it. And so I do. And I smile.

creativity

A Year of Yes: The three New Yorks according to E.B. White

Christa Avampato

“There are roughly three New Yorks. There is, first, the New York of the man or woman who was born here, who takes the city for granted and accepts its size and its turbulence as natural and inevitable. Second, there is the New York of the commuter — the city that is devoured by locusts each day and spat out each night. Third, there is the New York of the person who was born somewhere else and came to New York in quest of something. 
…Commuters give the city its tidal restlessness; natives give it solidity and continuity; but the settlers give it passion.” ~E.B. White

Is there any more perfect description of New York and New Yorkers? I am solidly in this third group, someone who came to New York on a quest, who’s left several times, is back now, and is never leaving again. It took we a long time to learn to live with my passion for this place. That passion burned me up from the inside out several times. As I’ve gotten older, I’ve learned how to take a break, how to let my passion for this place fuel me and light me up rather than wear me down. It’s a process. Somedays I manage better than others, and I’ll say this: every day I get better and better at riding the wave here. And just when I think I can’t possibly love this city any more than I do, it does something magical that just makes me more passionate about working alongside other New Yorkers to make it a better place for all of us. I wouldn’t live anywhere else. This is home.