Emerging Music Festival Day One
The park's annual celebration of young indie, rock, folk, soul, and global bands returns with eight groups over two nights.
Friday: Chanel Beads, Mei Semones, Los Esplifs
Saturday: Horsegirl, Hannah Jadagu, Bloomsday, Greg Mendez, @
Chanel Beads — the project of New York-based musician Shane Lavers — recently released its debut album, Your Day Will Come, which marks Lavers’ arrival as a new force in experimental music. Throughout the album, Lavers captures the many contradictions of modern existence and the strange infiniteness of the digital world. Though he incorporates the scrappy sonics of post-punk, the gripping sentimentality of pop tunes, and the spectral artifice of electronic music, he blurs lines through unconventional song structures that build into transcendental climaxes. As he intentionally prints his songs down to embed fried artifacts and ghostly remains, the resulting songs have a time-collapsing quality, both transitory and timeless.
Mei Semones’ sweetly evocative blend of jazz, bossa nova and math-y indie rock is not only a way for her to find solace in her favorite genres, but is an intuitive means of catharsis. Semones chronicles infatuation, devotion, and vulnerability in her songs, complete with sweeping strings, virtuosic guitar-playing and heartfelt lyrics sung in both English and Japanese, that have all become part of her sonic trademark: ornately catchy, genre-fusing compositions serving as the backdrop to tender lyrics touching on the universalities of human emotion.
Influenced by Fania, fashion, and psychedelia, Los Esplifs blends nostalgic rhythms and sounds with progressive youth culture. Led by Bandleaders Saul Millan and Caleb Michel, this genre-bending, psychedelic “conjunto” is an instant explosive performance. With an EP and two full-length album releases in their arsenal, this six-piece Latin-Psych group is not slowing down.
Bryant Park Picnic Performances presented by Bank of America is a free outdoor festival that welcomes all New Yorkers to experience the city’s vibrant arts and culture. The series provides a platform for extraordinary artists and serves as a vital outdoor venue for a wide array of New York’s cultural institutions.
Bring your own picnic or purchase food and drinks from tents on the east side of the lawn. Attendees can enjoy cuisine from the five boroughs with a rotating line-up of artisanal vendors curated by Hester Street Fair.
Stout NYC also offers giant pretzels, gourmet popcorn and other light bites as well as a selection of beer, wine, and non-alcoholic beverages for purchase.
Bryant Park lends out hundreds of free blankets on a first-come, first-served basis, or bring your own cotton or fleece blanket. To protect the lawn, please do not sit on waterproof materials such as plastic tarps, yoga mats, or inflatable chairs.
Take a seat in one of the pre-set chairs on the lawn or grab a chair from the gravel. You can use a chair anywhere in the park except for the center lawn "blanket zone".
Find jugglers, hula hoops, giant Jenga, and more fun on the east side of the lawn at select events.
We love dogs, but dog urine can leave the lawn with bald spots. Dogs are welcome on the gravel and bluestone, but please do not bring dogs on the lawn.
Performances are cancelled when it is unsafe to be outdoors. In some cases, the lawn may be too wet to open but the performance may continue. Follow @bryantparknyc on Twitter and Instagram for day-of event updates. You can also check the lawn status on the bryantpark.org homepage.
