HONK NYC @ Various venues
It’s the lucky 13th anniversary for the annual brass band extravaganza HONK NYC. This year’s fest features 200 musicians in 20 bands at 10 events over five days, from opening night at Market Hotel with Shikere Kapelye aka "The Inebriated Orchestra," Georgia's flamboyant Seed & Feed Marching Abominable, and the 70+ member L Train Brass Band, to the closing Brasstastic Blowout at Rubulad with Brazil’s Fanfarra Feminina, the all-female Pussy Grabs Back, and Afro-Brazilian percussion ensemble Mambembé. In between, see shows from Harlem to Washington Square Park to Staten Island to Newtown Creek, highlighting musicians and ensembles redefining brass music and parade culture.
Opens Tuesday, October 15th // Various venues // Various prices
Paris! The Show @ Town Hall
Brush up on your Français for Paris! The Show, an evening-length tribute to the French songs of the postwar era. Audiences will be transported to a Parisian cabaret for a love story set to the music of Edith Piaf, Josephine Baker, Jacques Brel, Yves Montand, Charles Aznavour, and many more. This show, which is all in French, is the follow-up to Gil Marsalla’s massively popular Piaf! The Show, which sold more than a million tickets in 50 different countries.
Thursday, October 17th, 8 p.m. // Town Hall, 123 West 43rd St., Manhattan // Tickets: $52
Experience New York in photos, voices, and music at Concrete Jungle
Concrète Jungle @ Invisible Dog Art Center
Perk up your ears for the world premiere of Concrète Jungle, composed by experimental sound musician Dan Siegler. The work is an assemblage of snippets of recorded conversations by hundreds of New Yorkers, “pointilistically sequenced” and layered with urban street noise that has been filtered through delay, reverb, and echo effects. The performance also includes improvised solos by dancers, singers, and musicians interacting with Siegler’s ambient noise, as well as projections of vintage New York photographs taken by Siegler’s father, whose battle with dementia inspired the composition.
Thursday, October 17th, and Friday, October 18th, 7:30 p.m. // Invisible Dog Art Center, 51 Bergen St., Brooklyn // Free (suggested donation: $15)
10 Years of Greenlight @ Greenlight Bookstore
Greenlight Bookstore has been a leading literary light in Brooklyn since 2009. Honor their incredible bookish decade at 10 Years of Greenlight, with 20% discounts in the whole store all day long. Then hit up their blowout anniversary party. They write: "Join us for kids activities and giveaways all day long, and stop by between 6:30 and 10 p.m. for drinks, refreshments, special guests, a live DJ, and more giveaways, as well as toasts to our friends and supporters." But that's not all, the afterparty will continue at another beloved local spot, No. 7.
Thursday, October 19th // Greenlight Bookstore, 686 Fulton St., Brooklyn // Free
Brooklyn Horror Fest @ Various venues
Scare yourself silly at the fourth-annual Brooklyn Horror Fest, with more than a dozen full-length and 40 short films screening across the borough over eight days. Highlights include the 100th-anniversary screening of German Expressionism masterwork The Cabinet of Dr. Caligari accompanied by a live score from the Flushing Remonstrance; Blood Quantum, which pits zombies against Indigenous Canadians; Slayed!, a night of queer horror shorts; and Depraved: Making Frankenstein in a Brooklyn Loft by indie filmmaking legend Larry Fessenden. Find those screenings and more everywhere from Nitehawk to LIU Kimble to Cobble Hill Cinema.
Opens Thursday, October 17th // Various venues // Various prices
Get your fill of creepy and creative carvings at Night of 1,000 Jack-O-Lanterns
Night of 1,000 Jack-O-Lanterns @ Governors Island
Take a jaunt down a spookily illuminated path at Night of 1,000 Jack-O-Lanterns. The family-friendly event features hundreds of hand-carved pumpkins, from the freaky to the fabulous, all lit up with LEDs. There will be a selection of “giants”—pumpkins weighing 100 pounds or more—that have been intricately carved and hand-painted with pop-culture fan art, externally carved pumpkin “sculptures” hidden throughout the trail, and even some live-carving demonstrations.
Opens Thursday, October 17th // Meet at the Governors Island ferry, 10 South St., Manhattan // Tickets: $26
Spooky Pumpkin Nights @ New York Botanical Garden
Bring the kids for an outdoor haunting plus a bit of trick-or-treating at the New York Botanical Garden’s Spooky Pumpkin Nights. Decorate a treats bag and then wander the garden’s twisted trails to find ghoulish gourds, scary skeletons, creepy creatures, and wholesome treats throughout. Plus plenty more activities, including a monster mash dance party, a parade of giant skeleton puppets, and hands-on learning stations about bats, spiders, owls, and more. Continues the next four Fridays.
Friday, October 18th, 6:30 p.m. // New York Botanical Garden, 2900 Southern Blvd., Bronx // Free with admission
Octfest 2019 @ Knockdown Center
Head out to Queens for a great big boozy musical day presented by beer culture site October in partnership with Pitchfork. For tunes, Octfest boasts indie, punk, and rock acts including two headliners: Brooklyn punk quartet Parquet Courts and Scottish rock outfit Mogwai, as well as supporting acts Screaming Females, Dungen, Lower Dens, and more. And then there’s the booze: beer from nearly 60 breweries, plus meads, ciders, spiked seltzers, hard kombucha, and on and on. Tickets include 18oz of sudsy samples.
Saturday, October 19th, 3 p.m. // Knockdown Center, 52-19 Flushing Ave., Queens // Tickets: $45
Ragas Live Festival @ Pioneer Works
Pioneer Works is back open after its summer hiatus, and there’s great programming in store for the fall, like the eighth-annual Ragas Live Festival, 24 straight hours of Indian classical music from 70 musicians in 23 ensembles. The fest includes both traditional presentations and cross-cultural collaborations, some featuring jazz legends, African virtuosos, minimalist composers, and more, and it will all be accompanied by durational videos curated by artist Nitin Mukul to match each different performance. The fest culminates in a Brooklyn Raga Massive on Sunday with 20+ musicians playing together.
Saturday, October 19th, and Sunday, October 20th // Pioneer Works, 159 Pioneer St., Brooklyn // Tickets: $30 per day; $50 for the weekend
Marvel at the majestic movements of the National Dance Company of Siberia
Russian Souvenirs @ On Stage at Kingsborough
Since 1960, the National Dance Company of Siberia has performed high-energy renditions of traditional Siberian dances in more than 70 countries. They’re here from Krasnoyarsk, Russia, to debut their newest show, Russian Souvenirs. The performance incorporates 50 lavishly costumed performers gliding, leaping, and doing fast footwork and acrobatic feats through a series of vignettes, all of which blend together into a “grand choreographic symphony.”
Sunday, October 20th, 3 p.m. // On Stage at Kingsborough, 2001 Oriental Blvd., Brooklyn // Tickets: $32
