The linchpin of the city’s arts and culture scene will celebrate its 20th anniversary beginning Feb. 27, with a 10-day program clustered around a theme of “Legends, Luminaries and the Unexpected.”
The Artists
Postmodern Jukebox — Friday, Feb. 27
Postmodern Jukebox (PMJ) is a rotating musical collective founded by arranger and pianist Scott Bradlee in 2011, when he began shooting videos with friends from college in his basement apartment in Astoria, NY. PMJ is known for reworking popular modern music into different vintage genres, especially early 20th century forms such as swing and jazz. Postmodern Jukebox has amassed more than 1.2 billion YouTube views and 4 million subscribers.
Each week, Postmodern Jukebox releases a new video on YouTube. Although most were originally filmed casually in Bradlee’s living room, sets became more elaborate over time. The band has covered songs by artists ranging from Lady Gaga and the Strokes to Katy Perry and the White Stripes. Since their beginnings as a small group of friends making music in a basement in Queens, NY, Postmodern Jukebox has gone on to feature 70 different performers and tour six continents.
“Jurassic Park” with Live Orchestra — Saturday, Feb. 28, 7:30 p.m.
Relive the magic of “Jurassic Park” on the big screen accompanied by a thrilling, live performance from Festival Orchestra Boca. The action-packed adventure pits man against prehistoric predators in the ultimate battle for survival. Featuring visually stunning imagery and groundbreaking special effects, this epic film is sheer movie magic 65 million years in the making. You will experience “Jurassic Park” as never before: projected in HD on a massive screen with a full symphony orchestra performing John Williams’ iconic score live to picture.
Melanie Hamrick: A Night at the Ballet: From Tchaikovsky to The Rolling Stones — Sunday, March 1, 7 p.m.
Melanie Hamrick is a professionally trained ballerina whose onstage career spanned more than 16 years with American Ballet Theatre. A graduate of The Kirov Academy of Ballet, Hamrick has worked with Alexei Ratmansky, Christopher Wheeldon, Benjamin Millipede, Twyla Tharp, Kevin McKenzie and Mark Morris.
Conrad Tao — Friday, March 6, 7:30 p.m.
Conrad Tao is a pianist and composer celebrated for his boundary-defying artistry, as well as his powerful performances of traditional repertoire. Described by New York magazine as “the kind of musician who is shaping the future of classical music,” and praised by the New York Times for his “probing intellect and open-hearted vision,” Tao appears regularly as a soloist with leading orchestras and at major venues across the world.
In the 2025–2026 season, Tao returns to the Chicago Symphony Orchestra as both soloist and recitalist, performing Bartók’s Piano Concerto No. 3 with Karina Canellakis and later presenting a recital program featuring Gershwin song arrangements alongside works by Schoenberg, Strayhorn, Schumann and others. Recital highlights include debuts at Berlin’s Philharmonie and Hamburg’s Elbphilharmonie, as well as returns to Klavierfestival Ruhr, the Celebrity Series of Boston, and the Seattle Symphony with Poetry and Fairy Tales, a program blending works by David Fulmer, Rebecca Saunders, Todd Moellenberg, Brahms and Ravel.
Tao continues performing his own works, including “Flung Out,” an homage to Gershwin, which he played recently at the Aspen Festival, and “The Hand,” a companion to Beethoven’s Piano Concerto No. 1, which was commissioned and performed by the Kansas City Symphony. Tao’s acclaimed recordings include “Voyages,” “Pictures” and “American Rage” (all on Warner).
Time for Three — Saturday, March 7, 7:30 p.m.
Defying convention and boundaries, Time For Three stands at the busy intersection of Americana, modern pop and classical music. To experience Time For Three live is to hear the various eras, styles and traditions of Western music fold in on themselves and emerge anew. Bonded by an uncommon blend of their instruments fused together with their voices, Charles Yang (violin, vocals), Nicolas “Nick” Kendall (violin, vocals) and Ranaan Meyer (double bass, vocals) have found a unique voice of expression to share with the world.
Earning praise from NPR, NBC, the Wall Street Journal and the Chicago Sun-Times, to name a few, the band has become renowned for its charismatic and energetic performances. The trio has graced the stages of Carnegie Hall, the Kennedy Center and Royal Albert Hall, and its inimitable and mutable style fits equally well in an intimate club setting, like Joe’s Pub in New York or Yoshi’s in San Francisco. In 2016, Time For Three was featured on the famed “Night of the Proms” tour, sharing the stage with such artists as Chaka Khan and Ronan Keating, playing arenas throughout several European countries.
Time for Three has collaborated with artists as diverse as Ben Folds, Branford Marsalis, Joshua Bell, Aoife O’Donovan, Natasha Bedingfield and Arlo Guthrie, and has premiered original works—written for the band—from composers Chris Brubeck and Pulitzer Prize winners Jennifer Higdon and William Bolcom.
Patti Lupone: Matters of the Heart — Sunday, March 8, 7 p.m.
Patti Lupone is a three-time Tony Award winner for her performances as Joanne in Marianne Elliott’s gender-swapped award-winning production of the Stephen Sondheim-George Furth musical “Company,” Madame Rose in the 2008 Broadway revival of the Jule Styne-Stephen Sondheim-Arthur Laurents classic “Gypsy,” and the title role in the original Broadway production of the Andrew Lloyd Webber-Tim Rice production of “Evita.”
LuPone launched her concert career in 1980 at New York City’s legendary nightclub Les Mouches, performing late night on Saturdays for 27 weeks while also performing in “Evita.” Since then, she has continued to tour extensively, captivating audiences across North America, London’s West End, Australia and Broadway. Her celebrated concert repertoire includes “Don’t Monkey with Broadway,” “Far Away Places,” “A Life in Notes” and the upcoming 2026 tour of “Matters of the Heart,” marking the 25th anniversary of that beloved show.
LuPone is a founding member of both the Drama Division of the Juilliard School and John Houseman’s The Acting Company, and the author of the New York Times bestseller “Patti LuPone: A Memoir.”
Authors & Ideas
Doris Kearns Goodwin — Monday, March 2, 7 p.m.
Doris Kearns Goodwin is a world-renowned presidential historian, public speaker and Pulitzer Prize-winning, New York Times No. 1 bestselling author. Her eighth book, “An Unfinished Love Story: A Personal History of the 1960s,” was published in April 2024. Artfully weaving together biography, memoir and history, this new book takes readers on the emotional journey Goodwin and her husband, Richard (Dick) Goodwin, embarked upon in the last years of his life as they delved into more than 300 boxes of letters, diaries, documents and memorabilia that Dick had saved for more than 50 years.
Goodwin’s previous books include the critically acclaimed and New York Times bestselling “Leadership: In Turbulent Times,” which incorporates her five decades of scholarship studying Presidents Abraham Lincoln, Theodore Roosevelt, Franklin Roosevelt and Lyndon Johnson. The book inspired the History Channel’s miniseries events “Abraham Lincoln,” “Theodore Roosevelt” and “FDR,” which Goodwin executive-produced through her production company, Pastimes Productions, Inc.
Well known for her appearances and commentary on television, Goodwin is seen frequently in documentaries and on television news, cable networks and late-night talk shows. She even portrayed herself on an episode of the enduringly successful television show “The Simpsons.”
Walter Mosley: The Only True Race is the Human Race — Tuesday, March 3, 7 p.m.
Walter Mosley is one of the most versatile and admired writers in America. He is the author of more than 60 critically acclaimed books that cover a wide range of ideas, genres and forms, including fiction (literary, mystery and science fiction), political monographs, writing guides including “Elements of Fiction,” a memoir in paintings, and a young adult novel called “47.” His work has been translated into 25 languages.
From a forthcoming collection of short stories, “The Awkward Black Man,” to his daring novel “John Woman,” which explored deconstructionist history, and his standalone crime novel “Down the River and Unto the Sea,” which won an Edgar Award for Best Novel, the rich storylines that Mosley has created deepen the understanding and appreciation of Black life in the United States. He has introduced an indelible cast of characters into the American canon starting with his first novel, “Devil in a Blue Dress,” which brought Easy Rawlins, his private detective in postwar Los Angeles, and his friends Jackson Blue and Raymond “Mouse” Alexander, into readers’ lives.
Concerned by the lack of diversity in all levels of publishing, Mosley established the Publishing Certificate Program with the City University of New York to bring together book professionals and students hailing from a wide range of racial, ethnic and economic communities for courses, internships and job opportunities. In 2013, Mosley was inducted into the New York State Writers Hall of Fame, and he is the winner of numerous awards, including an O. Henry Award, the Mystery Writers of America’s Grand Master Award, a Grammy, several NAACP Image awards, and PEN America’s Lifetime Achievement Award.
Dr. Arthur Caplan: In Defense of Science — Wednesday, March 4, 7 p.m.
Dr. Arthur Caplan is the Drs. William F. and Virginia Connolly Mitty Professor and founding head of the Division of Medical Ethics at NYU Grossman School of Medicine’s Department of Population Health in New York City. Prior to coming to NYU Langone, Caplan was the Sidney D. Caplan Professor of Bioethics at the University of Pennsylvania Perelman School of Medicine in Philadelphia, where he created the Center for Bioethics and the Department of Medical Ethics. He has also taught at the University of Minnesota, where he founded the Center for Biomedical Ethics; the University of Pittsburgh; and Columbia University. He received his PhD from Columbia University.
Caplan is the author or editor of 35 books and more than 880 papers in peer-reviewed journals. His books include “Vaccination Ethics and Policy” with Jason Schwartz and “Getting to Good: Research Integrity in Biomedicine” with Barbara Redman. He has served on a number of national and international committees, including as the chair of the National Cancer Institute Biobanking Ethics Working Group; chair of the Advisory Committee to the United Nations on Human Cloning; and chair of the Advisory Committee to the Department of Health and Human Services on Blood Safety and Availability. He has also served on the Presidential Advisory Committee on Gulf War Illnesses, the Special Advisory Committee to the International Olympic Committee on Genetics and Gene Therapy, and the Special Advisory Panel to the National Institutes of Mental Health on Human Experimentation on Vulnerable Subjects. Caplan has served since 2015 as the co-chair of the Compassionate Use Advisory Committees (CompAC), independent groups of internationally recognized medical experts, bioethicists and patient representatives that advise Johnson & Johnson on the allocation of investigational medical products outside of clinical trials.
Dr. Danielle Gilbert: Life Lessons from Hostage Negotiations — Thursday, March 5, 7 p.m.
Dr. Danielle Gilbert is an assistant professor of political science at Northwestern University. Her research explores the causes and consequences of hostage taking in international security, including projects on rebel kidnapping, hostage recovery policy and hostage diplomacy. Her current book project examines why and how armed groups kidnap. It is based on her PhD dissertation, which received the American Political Science Association’s 2021 Merze Tate Award for Best Dissertation in International Relations, Law and Politics. Gilbert’s scholarship has been published in the American Political Science Review, Comparative Political Studies, International Studies Perspectives, Studies in Conflict & Terrorism, Terrorism & Political Violence, the Texas National Security Review, and the Journal of Political Science Education.
In 2023, Gilbert was selected to serve on the Bipartisan Commission on Hostage Taking and Wrongful Detention at the Center for Strategic and International Studies in Washington, D.C. Gilbert frequently writes public commentary in outlets like Foreign Affairs, the Washington Post, USA Today, War on the Rocks and Lawfare, and has been interviewed by outlets including ABC, the BBC, CNN, ESPN, NBC, NPR and the New York Times. She has advised the Australian, British, Canadian and U.S. governments and the United Nations on hostage recovery policy and spoken about her research at the Aspen Ideas Festival.
