F lowers and many other things bloom in the week ahead.
Monday, April 11
Donald Grant Mitchell, “the visionary architect of much of the city’s original park system” including East Rock and Edgewood Parks, is getting an extended Bicentennial Celebration courtesy of the New Haven Preservation Trust and seven other organizations. That celebration begins today at 6 p.m. with a birthday party at the not coincidentally named Mitchell Library (37 Harrison St, New Haven; 203-946-8117). RSVP here.
Speaking of parks, this year’s cherry blossoms in Wooster Square Park have started to peek, and now they’re ready to peak—possibly as soon as tomorrow, according to an update last Friday on Bart and Cheryl Szczarba’s Wooster Square Blossom Blog.
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Tuesday, April 12
“Quick-witted, fast-thinking, sometimes spicy, always inclusive comedy improv” is on the docket at Kehler Liddell Gallery (873 Whalley Ave, New Haven; 203-389-9555), where The Regicides, an offshoot of A Broken Umbrella Theatre, are performing a free 9 p.m. show intended for a “mature audience.”
Wednesday, April 13
From 5 to 7 p.m., the New Haven Museum (114 Whitney Ave, New Haven; 203-562-4183) hosts an opening reception for The Quantum Revolution: Handcrafted in New Haven, which spans artifacts from Yale’s singular, first-moving contributions to the field of quantum computing as well as artworks those contributions have inspired from seasoned melder of art and science Martha Willette Lewis. This event is part of a larger Quantum Week at Yale itinerary, and while most of it is accessible only to the Yale community, a light and sound show tomorrow at 8 p.m., which will be projected outside and onto Yale’s Quantum Institute (17 Hillhouse Ave, New Haven), is open to all.
Thursday, April 14
Director of Yale Bands Thomas C. Duffy knows the music for tonight’s spring show by the Yale Concert Band even better than usual—because he wrote most of it. One exception is Gershwin’s An American in Paris, to which the band responds with Duffy’s A Parisian in America. 7:30 p.m. in Woolsey Hall (500 College St, New Haven).
Friday, April 15
Passover dinner or Good Friday concert? Local synagogues are hosting community-oriented seders in New Haven tonight and Hamden tomorrow, while New Haven’s Youth & Recreation Department—which is surprising, given the ostensible divide between church and state—is sponsoring a “first annual gospel concert” at College Street Music Hall (238 College St, New Haven; $10; 6 p.m.). Performers, some of whom are local, include The Williams Singers, Kergyma Community Choir, Zak Williams & 1/Akord, Kevin Monroe & Devotion (who appeared at last summer’s Arts & Ideas Festival) and the Co-Op High School Choir.
Saturday, April 16
The day before the day, two community Easter egg hunts (1, 2) starting at 11 a.m. send kids scurrying like rabbits through Edgerton Edgewood Park, before a 1 p.m. hunt does the same at Kensington Playground (25 Kensington St, New Haven), where the Easter Bunny will be making an appearance. As if by magic, the Easter Bunny will also be at IKEA (450 Sargent Dr, New Haven), where a free “drive-thru meet-and-greet” lasts from 1 to 3 p.m.
Sunday, April 17 – Easter
Inviting “singers, musicians, poets and spoken word artists” to perform, a Sunday Service “open mic showcase hosted by recording artist STOUT” starts at 5 p.m. at Jazzy’s Cabaret (4 Orange St, New Haven; $10-20).
Meanwhile, at 7, a Live Coding Electronic Music Festival at The State House (310 State St, New Haven; $11.50) has “musicians and visual artists writ[ing] computer code as part of a live performance. Since October, New Haven-based electronic musician Carl Testa has been organizing free live coding workshops in New Haven as part of an Artists Respond grant. This concert is the culmination of some of that work and features artists coming from New Haven, Providence, RI, and New York City,” including Messica Arson, Roxanne Harris, Sadnoise, Sarah GHP and Carl Testa.
Written and photographed by Dan Mims. Image 1 features a family enjoying the cherry blossoms in Wooster Square Park in 2019. Image 2 features Martha Willette Lewis with some of her installation work during City-Wide Open Studios in 2017. Readers are encouraged to verify times, locations, prices and other details before attending events.
