Name: Midtown Live
Start: 2026-05-01T20:00:00-04:00
End: 2026-05-01T21:30:00-04:00
Location: 15 E 40th St #12f

Midtown Live

THE BLANC is dedicated to promoting and advancing visual, performing, and creative art through a series of exhibitions, performances, presentations, panels, and outreach programs. Through the power of art, we contribute to our great city's diversity, creativity, and pioneering spirit. We are also committed to forging an innovative and inspiring art exchange platform to help young artists start their incredible art journey.

THE BLANC

Leonard will be joined by Román Díaz, Diego López, Rafael Monteagudo, and Uri Caine.

15 E 40th St #12f

Neil Leonard Presents Midtown LiveA Concert of works for saxophone, electronics, piano, percussion and video.May 1, 8:00 PMTHE BLANC, New York Composer, saxophonist, and transdisciplinary artist Neil Leonard presents Midtown Live, a concert of new works for saxophone, electronics, and video, developed during his inaugural residency at THE BLANC. The performance builds on ideas from his current installation Midtown Sound: Listening Legacy, tracing shifting urban soundscapes and the enduring debate over what counts as music and what counts as noise. Leonard will be joined by Román Díaz, Diego López, Rafael Monteagudo, and Uri Caine. 40th and Madison is a composition based on Leonard’s investigation of his family archive and articles on his grandfather, acoustician Paul J. Washburn, from period journals. In the video, Leonard reflects on how three generations in his family approached listening, and how this research at THE BLANC shaped a deeper awareness of his own identity. On the centennial of the first scientific noise measurements in New York City, the work questions modes of collective listening in our time and explores noise as a cultural construction. In Jasmine Midtown, Leonard revisits the original song on the opera’s 100th anniversary, incorporating newly commissioned performances by guest artists. Leonard invites soprano Junhua Chen to reimagine the folkloric melody and its impact on Western music in a new composition for electronics and saxophone. Event DetailsMidtown LiveConcert of new works for saxophone, electronics, and videoMay 1, 8:00 PMTHE BLANC, New York <h4>Musician</h4>

Neil LeonardNeil Leonard is a composer, saxophonist, and transdisciplinary artist whose work centers on collective listening and cross-cultural dialogue. He maintains active collaborations across the U.S. and in Brazil, Burundi, Cuba, Italy, Japan, Korea, Tanzania, and the UK. In 2025, Tate Modern featured his Matanzas Sound Map as a collection highlight. His multimedia works are held by MoMA, the Peabody Essex Museum, the Museum of Fine Arts, Boston, and the Museum of Modern Art of Bahia. Installations and performances with Fujiko Nakaya, Phill Niblock, Tony Oursler and Maria Magdalena Campos-Pons have been presented at documenta, the Venice Biennale, the Whitney Biennial andthe Getty Museum.New York presentations include Carnegie Hall, the Guggenheim, Issue Project Room, Roulette, and The Kitchen. Musical collaborators include Robert Black, Joanne Brackeen, Terence Blanchard, Alvin Curran, Richard Devine, Vijay Iyer, Los Muñequitos de Matanzas, Robin Rimbaud, Stephen Vitiello, Hal Wilner, and Amnon Wolman. Recent international performances include Donaueschinger Musiktage and the Venice Biennale.He founded the Interdisciplinary Arts Institute at Berklee College of Music, where he taught for three decades, and was a Research Affiliate at MIT.

Uri CaineGrammy-nominated pianist and composer Uri Caine began studying piano with Bernard Peiffer and composition with George Rochberg as a teenager in Philadelphia. He played in bands led by Philly Joe Jones, Hank Mobley, Grover Washington, and others, and studied at the University of Pennsylvania with Rochberg and George Crumb. Caine has recorded 33 albums as a leader, including projects performing arrangements of Mahler, Wagner, Mozart, and Bach's Goldberg Variations. He leads an acoustic trio (recorded Live at the Village Vanguard) and his electric Bedrock trio. He was nominated for a Grammy for The Othello Syndrome (2009).Recent compositions include Agent Orange (2017) for the Brussels Philharmonic and 4 Wunderhorn Songs (2017) for the SWF Orchestra. He composed The Passion of Octavius Catto for the Philadelphia Orchestra. Caine has received commissions from the American Composers Orchestra, BBC Concert Orchestra, Arditti Quartet, and Swedish Chamber Orchestra, among others. He was Composer in Residence for the Los Angeles Chamber Orchestra and Director of the Venice Biennale (2003). Caine has worked with Don Byron, Dave Douglas, John Zorn, Sam Rivers, and the Master Musicians of Jajouka.

Román DíazCuban-born master percussionist Román Díaz is regarded as a living repository of Afro-Cuban culture. Díaz has performed and recorded with Yoruba Andabo, Merceditas Valdés, Pancho Quinto, Michele Rosewoman's New Yor‑Uba Ensemble, Chucho Valdés, Henry Threadgill, Andrew Cyrille, Steve Coleman, Ravi Coltrane, Tomasz Stańko, Chris Potter, David Virelles, Jane Bunnett, Milford Graves, Giovanni Hidalgo, Danilo Pérez, Omar Sosa, Paquito D'Rivera, Pedrito Martínez, and Orlando "Puntilla" Ríos, among others.Díaz is a member of the Grammy Award-winning Original Broadway Cast Recording and the five-time Tony Award-winning Broadway production of Buena Vista Social Club. He was a featured soloist in Wynton Marsalis's Ochas with the Jazz at Lincoln Center Orchestra. He is featured in the acclaimed documentaries Calle 54 (2000) and Dame La Mano (2004). He has served as a guest lecturer at Berklee College of Music, Harvard, Yale, and Rutgers.

Rafael MonteagudoGrammy-nominated drummer, percussionist, and composer Rafael Monteagudo arrived in the US in 2000 from Havana, Cuba. In Cuba, he worked with Calle 42, Eddy Mesa, and the Conjunto Folklórico of the University of Havana. Since arriving in the US, he has toured with Yosvany Terry, Chuchito Valdés, Michele Rosewoman, and the Pedrito Martínez Band. He has worked with Greg Osby, Craig Taborn, Steve Turre, David Virelles, Francisco Mora Catlett, Ray Mantilla, Román Díaz, and Immanuel Wilkins. He has performed at Lincoln Center, the Kennedy Center, the Blue Note, and major festivals worldwide.Rafael performed in Ricky Martin's musical Cuba Libre. He recorded New York Is Now with Chuchito Valdés's band, which was nominated for a 2011 Latin Grammy. He has been a featured clinician at the Banff International Workshop, Coppin State University, and the Kingston Jamaica Jazz Festival. In 2009, he released his instructional DVD, Clave in Modern Drum Set Playing. He was featured in Modern Drummer magazine in October 2004.

Diego LópezDrummer and percussionist Diego Lopez was born in Milan, ItalyBy 1988 he was a staff member on Channel 5 (national TV). He relocated to Chicago in 1991, touring with blues legends Sugar Blue, Melvin Taylor, Pinetop Perkins, and Phil Guy.In 1999, he relocated to New York. He was a steady member of Gato Barbieri's band (2002–2008) and the Latin Jazz All Stars (2008–2018), a band that included Claudio Roditi, Steve Turre, and Dave Valentin. In 2019, he performed with M'Boom, the legendary ensemble founded by Max Roach, receiving an individual Congressional Award alongside original members Joe Chambers, Ray Mantilla, Eli Fountain, and Warren Smith. He has recorded or performed with Tito Puente, Paquito D'Rivera, Arturo Sandoval, Eliane Elias, Nana Vasconcelos, Grady Tate, Giovanni Hidalgo, Diane Schuur, and many others.

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Midtown Live

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