Lincoln Center’s summer festival of free programming will return for its third consecutive year, bringing nine weeks of concerts, food markets, art and visual installations to performance spaces across the arts organization’s sprawling campus on the Upper West Side.
The festival, called “Summer for the City,” kicks off June 12 with “Soundcake,” a drag opera starring Monét X Change and Sapphira Cristál from “RuPaul’s Drag Race.”
The piece was commissioned for the festival, and the production will be helmed by conductor David Bloom, artistic director of New York’s Queer Urban Orchestra.
Another new commission bookends the festival on closing night, Aug. 10. It’s a multimedia tribute concert to film director Melvin Van Peebles titled “MVP,” and will be led by his son Mario.
Summer for the City is an inheritor of sorts to the “Mostly Mozart” festival, which ran from 1966 until it ended last year.
This year’s festival features plenty of programming that would have landed under the former banner, including classical and new music offerings in David Geffen Hall from composers that include, yes, Wolfgang Amadeus.
But Summer for the City has also expanded Lincoln Center’s summer offerings beyond the classical and new music canons.
“The idea is always that the arts are for everyone, so how do we tell that story in the programming and beyond?” said Shanta Thake, chief artistic officer at Lincoln Center. “How we’re answering that right now is that it’s a much longer, bigger festival, really involving artists from all over the world telling stories that respond to all of the communities of New York.”
Along those lines, WNYC’s Public Song Project, which invites anyone to record a song using material from the public domain, will be staged at this year’s Summer for the City. (WNYC, like Gothamist, is owned by New York Public Radio.)
The 2024 festival also has a substantial movie program, including a triple feature pairing live scores with the documentaries of filmmaker Sam Green, whose “32 Sounds” was extended at Film Forum last year. Three of Green’s films will pair with live scores from JD Samson, Yo La Tengo, and the Kronos Quartet.
Damrosch Park, on the southern end of Lincoln Center’s campus, will again host its outdoor film series, though titles and schedules have not yet been announced.
July 10 through 14 marks five days of programming for “India Week,” which will include multiple dance programs, a silent disco curated by DJ Rekha, Rajasthani folk music, and a comedy night with Aasif Mandvi, Aparna Nancherla, Hari Kondabolu and others.
A new element is the food program, which will be open from 5 p.m. to 10 p.m. Wednesday through Sunday throughout the festival, with a night market featuring various vendors, including Manousheh, Taqueria al Pastor, Harlem Seafood Soul, Yakitori Totto and other rotating options.
There are more than 200 events throughout the nine weeks of the festival, and almost all of them are free. Some of the indoor performances at David Geffen Hall or other Lincoln Center spaces offer a “pay-what-you-want” presale starting at $5. Presale tickets for some of the indoor events open up on May 16 at noon.
The full schedule of events is available here.
This story has been edited to include details about WNYC’s Public Song Project.