This Week in New Haven (March 27 – April 2)

R eturning from spring break, Yale hits the ground running, to a score featuring natural performers, wily percussionists, jazz big-leaguers and not one but two city orchestras.

Tuesday, March 28
Today and tomorrow at 4 p.m., Ben Wizner, litigator of “numerous cases involving airport security policies, government watch lists, surveillance practices, targeted killing, and torture” according to his ACLU bio, delivers a duo of lectures jointly titled “Above the Law, or Beneath It: How National Security Law Subverts Accountability and Weakens Democracy” at Yale’s Institution for Social and Policy Studies.

At 7:30, a free, registration-requested concert at Woolsey Hall features the Dallas Symphony Orchestra “perform[ing] composer-in-residence Angélica Negrón’s IMG_6087_1000
IMG_6087.JPG and Tchaikovsky’s Fifth Symphony.”

sponsored by

Hopkins School

Wednesday, March 29
The 2023 Environmental Film Festival at Yale’s four-day, six-event schedule begins today at 6 p.m. with a panel discussion, possibly supplemented by screenings, about “Hollywood’s role in influencing attitudes and actions on climate change.”

Speaking of the environment, the next concert in the Kallos Chamber Music Series conjures “Sounds of Nature” at the New Haven Lawn Club. The show starts at 7:30, with a pre-show reception offering complimentary refreshments at 7.

Meanwhile, “singing, dancing, lip-syncing, comedic skits, lively banter, unexpected surprises, fun games, audience participation, give-a-ways, door prizes, snack & drink specials” and somehow “a whole lot more” are the promises of The New Haven Layover with Robin Banks, a “one-woman comedy drag show” starting at 8 at Cafe Nine.

Thursday, March 30
“Pitches, prizes, and world-changing ideas” is the elevator pitch for Startup Yale, a two-day “crossroads for a new kind of innovation ecosystem” whose itinerary starts at 3 p.m. today.

Friday, March 31
At 6:30 p.m., the Area Two experimental brewing section at Two Roads in Stratford hosts Cask Fest 2023, where, among other things, a ticket gets you unlimited short pours from “over 30 original casks.”

The Yale Percussion Group performs at 7:30 at Morse Recital Hall, where, if history is any gauge, they’ll be aiming high and pushing boundaries.

Saturday, April 1
During a Young People’s Concert at 1 p.m. in SCSU’s Lyman Center, the New Haven Symphony Orchestra shows and tells. “Meet the orchestra! This free, interactive [and registration-required] program designed for kids will show off all the cool sounds that an orchestra can make. After the concert, kids can meet NHSO musicians in the lobby and try real orchestra instruments at the instrument ‘petting zoo.’”

Sunday, April 2
At 2 p.m. in Morse Recital Hall, marking jazz legend Charles Mingus’s 100th birthday, the “revered” Mingus Big Band joins with Yale students and Grammy-winning saxophonist (and Yale School of Music lecturer/jazz band leader) Wayne Escoffery “in a performance… of Mingus’s idiosyncratic jazz-orchestra epic, Epitaph. This rarely performed, enigmatic work reflects the genius of its composer while defying all categorization and offers the world an experience of the man himself and of the ideas that filled him.”

As of this writing, at least one spot remains for Elm City Social’s Pappy Van Winkle Dinner from 6 to 9. Six courses of food and drink include ouncely tastings of nearly the entire Van Winkle whiskey line, which, based on what you’d normally pay for those elusive pours at a bar, justify the $225 ticket price all by themselves.

Written by Dan Mims. Readers are encouraged to verify times, locations, prices and other details before attending events.

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Dan has worked for a couple of major media companies, but he likes Daily Nutmeg best. As DN’s editor, he writes, photographs, edits and otherwise shepherds ideas into fully realized feature stories.

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