Central Park Music & Performance: Aug 3 – Aug 9 — Naumburg's August concert Tuesday, Andrew Bird Thursday, Funk Flex Friday

Hi music fans — three nights that matter this week and every one of them free. Nosky’s Baroque Band closes out Naumburg’s August at the Bandshell Tuesday, Andrew Bird brings the Wordless Music Orchestra to Rumsey Thursday for a twentieth-anniversary performance, and Funk Flex fills Friday with an R&B bill deep enough to be a festival on its own. Add free music on the Great Lawn Thursday and folkdancers at Jagiello Sunday and it’s a full week.

Weather this week

Monday is stormy at 81°F, Tuesday clears to 83°F and mostly sunny — perfect for an outdoor concert — and then the heat builds through 87°F Thursday to 88°F Friday through Sunday, each afternoon carrying a thunderstorm chance that mostly clears by evening. Tuesday’s Bandshell show should be dry; Thursday and Friday at Rumsey are the two to check socials on before you leave, since the storm risk is late-day both times.

Tue Aug 4, 7:30 PM — Nosky’s Baroque Band closes August at the Bandshell

Naumburg Orchestral Concerts, Bandshell Plaza, 7:30 to 9 PM, free. This is the 121st season of the oldest free outdoor classical series in the country, and Aisslinn Nosky’s band is a period-instrument ensemble that plays baroque repertoire with a lot more edge than the phrase suggests. No tickets, no queue in the usual sense — people arrive from around 6:30 and spread out across the Mall. Come early enough to get inside the shell’s acoustic and you’ll hear it properly; sit far back on the Mall and you’re mostly hearing the park. 83°F and dry, which is as good as an August evening gets.

Thu Aug 6, 8 PM — Andrew Bird and the Wordless Music Orchestra at Rumsey

SummerStage at Rumsey Playfield, free, with Surma opening. Bird is playing The Mysterious Production of Eggs in full for its twentieth anniversary, orchestrated by the Wordless Music Orchestra — which turns a record built on loop pedals and whistling into something with strings behind it. This is the highest-demand show of the week by a distance. Gates are the pinch: the 72nd Street entrance backs up from around 6 and the line runs toward the Mall. Get there by 6:30 if you care where you stand.

Earlier that day, two free SummerStage-history programs at the Arsenal are worth an hour: “Foundational Voices: The People Who Built SummerStage,” 4:30 to 7 PM, and the Jack Vartoogian photography exhibit “40 in Focus,” open 9 to 5 daily all week. Both indoor, both free, and the Arsenal is a ten-minute walk from Rumsey. And on the Great Lawn, free concerts run 7 to 10 PM if you’d rather have space than a stage.

Fri Aug 7, 7 PM — Funk Flex Birthday R&B Picnic at Rumsey

Free, SummerStage, Rumsey Playfield. The bill is Jon B, Fonda Rae, Taana Gardner, Strafe, Dres from Black Sheep, DJ M U, with Funk Flex on the decks — which is to say early-eighties dance records, nineties R&B and a hip-hop lineage all in one evening, played by the people who made them. 88°F and mostly sunny with a storm chance after dark. Same 72nd Street queue from about 5:30.

Mon Aug 3 and Wed Aug 5 — dark

Monday has free movies on the Great Lawn at 7 rather than music, and it’s a wet 81°F anyway. Wednesday has nothing programmed anywhere in the park, which happens perhaps twice a summer.

Sat Aug 8 — two small ones worth knowing about

88°F. Rumsey is dark. But Jack in the Park plays the Summit Rock amphitheater 4 to 7 PM, which is an underused natural venue and a good place to be on a hot afternoon, and tango runs at the Shakespeare Statue Plaza 6 to 9 PM — a weekly Saturday series through the end of the month, live-scored social dancing you can stand at the edge of. Arise New York holds Bandshell Plaza 10 to 6.

Sun Aug 9 — folkdancers all afternoon, and the Meer up north

88°F with storms building. The Central Park International Folkdancers take King Jagiello Plaza 11 AM to 8 PM — nine hours of it, open to anyone who wanders in. Up at the Harlem Meer, Uptown Royalty performs free at the Dana Discovery Center at 2 as part of Summer on the Harlem Meer, which runs 9 to 6.

Quick recap

• Tue 7:30 PM, Bandshell: Nosky’s Baroque Band, Naumburg’s 121st season, free. Arrive 6:30.
• Thu 8 PM, Rumsey: Andrew Bird with Wordless Music Orchestra, free, Surma opening. The week’s biggest — be there by 6:30.
• Fri 7 PM, Rumsey: Funk Flex Birthday R&B Picnic, free, Jon B / Fonda Rae / Taana Gardner / Strafe / Dres.
• Thu 7–10 PM: free concerts on the Great Lawn, if you want room instead of a stage.
• Thu 4:30 PM, the Arsenal: Foundational Voices; the Vartoogian exhibit is up all week, 9–5, free.
• Sat: Jack in the Park at Summit Rock 4–7, tango at the Shakespeare Statue 6–9.
• Sun 11 AM–8 PM: folkdancers at King Jagiello Plaza; Uptown Royalty at the Meer, 2 PM.
• Monday and Wednesday are dark.

Turn it up, The Central Park Guide