By Gus Saltonstall
Riverside Park Conservancy (RPC) will be hosting a new outdoor festival at the beginning of next month in Sakura Park in Morningside Heights.
The new festival, dubbed “Riverside Revue,” will take place at 6:30 p.m. on June 5 inside the park at West 122nd Street and Riverside Drive.
It should be noted that the event is meant to be a preview of the free programming offered by Summer on the Hudson, and a fundraiser for the Riverside Park Conservancy. The minimum ticket price is $250. Ticket packages then rise in price from $1,000 to $100,000, and come with a variety of perks and recognitions. The funds raised will be used to benefit Riverside Park Conservancy’s operations.
“Our Riverside Revue will be the West Side event of the season! I am so excited to welcome our neighbors and friends to Sakura Park for an evening of nature and celebration,” said Merritt Birnbaum, President and CEO of the RPC, in a news release. The festival will “celebrate the cultural vibrancy of the West Side and bring community members together to support their local parks.”
There will be local artists and performers, botanical cocktails, and even an appearance from one of the Riverside Park goats.
The festival will include the following performances:
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Charles Turner & Uptown Swing, a Harlem-based vibrant swing and vital blues band regularly seen at Birdland, Jazz at Lincoln Center, Django and other major jazz clubs around the city.
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Erin and her Cello, featuring singer-songwriter-cellist, Erin Hall, who philly.com referred to as “an NYC babe with a spunky personality and crystal clear voice who can rock a cello like it’s a Stratocaster guitar.”
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Cuban trumpeter-composer-arranger, Kali Rodriguez-Peña, a rising star of Latin Jazz who blends traditional sounds from his native country with elements of classic jazz, R&B and Hip Hop;
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And site-specific performances by Cassidy Haley Productions and the nonprofit Kinesis Project Dance Theatre.
On the menu will be raw oysters, vegetable tartines, Korean rice-balls, Mexican ice cream, and much more.
There will also be star gazing, water quality exploration, Riverside Park trivia, a watercolor demonstration, crafting of flower crowns, lawn games, and photo opportunities with the goat.
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Who are the neighbors they are welcoming with those ticket prices?
The charitable ones. Join them.
It’s a fundraiser. The rest of the summer is filled with free events and performances throughout the park.
It’s a fund raiser. It’s not a music festival. The organizers calling it a festival are fairly out of touch.