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Downtown Living: September 2017

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Dining: Restaurant Week – We Live To Eat!

 

Discussing the menu for lunch while at breakfast? Planning dinner at lunchtime? Extolling the virtues of last night’s meal, while tonight’s flavors are still lingering on your lips? If so, then you might be a New Orleanian. Visitors, locals and fanatics who just can’t leave, now is the time to take advantage of incredible deals for seven whole days while embracing the diverse, delicious dining to be had during Restaurant Week New Orleans (Sept. 11-17)! With an expansive list of participating restaurants, you can explore culinary destinations like Willa Jean, Domencia, Josephine Estelle, Public Service, Maypop and more. coolinaryneworleans.com/restaurant-week

Performance Art: Mondo Bizarro, The Way at Midnight
The Contemporary Art Center of New Orleans will be opening the 2017-18 season with The Way at Midnight, a multidisciplinary exhibition from New Orleans-based company Mondo Bizarro directed by Joanna Russo. Through theatrical performance by Hannah Pepper-Cunningham and Nick Slie, music by composer Peter Bowling and a visual installation of animations created by Miwa Matreyek, the piece delves into “confrontations of losing and being lost from the colonial period through the digital age.” cacno.org

Opera: María de Buenos Aires
On Sept. 9 and 10, María de Buenos Aires will be opening this season’s Chamber Opera Series at the JW Marriott New Orleans Ballroom. Astor Piazzolla‘s surreal tango masterpiece will be masterfully illustrated by artists Catalina Cuervo as Maria, a mystical figure born on the day God was drunk; Luis Alejandro Orozco as El Payador, a traveling ballad singer with a wide repertoire; and tango singer Milton Loayza as the Duende/Narrator. In an intimate theater-in-the-round, experience an evening of love, betrayal and tango. Maestro Robert Lyall will lead the Piazzolla orchestra, featuring the Polymnia Quartet, and tango favorites Daniel Binelli and Polly Ferman, renowned bandoneon player and tango pianist duo. The New Orleans Opera Association, in collaboration with Casa Argentina New Orleans, offers this exquisite production in support of their mission to enrich the cultural diversity of New Orleans. neworleansopera.org

Concerts: Old American Songs & Spirituals
Celebrating our country’s traditional songs and spirituals on Sept. 22 at the Orpheum Theater, the Louisiana Philharmonic Orchestra presents a suite of Weill’s Threepenny Opera, Aaron Copland’s Old American Songs and ragtime-influenced Treemonisha by Scott Joplin. The evening will culminate in an emotional finale by the New Orleans Black Chorale and Xavier University Chorus performing various moving, traditional spirituals. lpomusic.com

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Events: 2017 Downtown NOLA Awards
Created to distinguish noteworthy achievements of property owners, businesses, residents, workers and organizations that inspire, innovate and integrate the Downtown NOLA brand within their community, the Downtown Development District presents the 2017 Downtown NOLA Awards. For their extraordinary contributions to the development, progress and enrichment of the Downtown New Orleans community, the Downtown Development District is will honor this year’s recipients Sept. 22 at The Roosevelt New Orleans, a Waldorf Astoria Hotel. downtownnola.com/awards

Contemporary Arts Center
Founded in 1976, the Contemporary Arts Center is dedicated to the “presentation, production and promotion of the art of our time.” In addition to exhibiting artists and hosting performances, the center is deeply supportive the arts and artists in our community, offering public programs like arts camp for elementary and middle school children, and Artist Exchange field trips with professional local artists. Just recently, the CAC launched The Shop, 40,000 square feet of “artful, co-working space for the creative professional” developed and managed by The Domain Companies and designed by local architecture firm Eskew+Dumez+Ripple. cacno.org

Patty Gay/Preservation Resource Center
Since the Preservation Resource Center was founded in 1974, Patricia Gay has been the director and tireless advocate for the restoration, preservation and revitalization of New Orleans historic neighborhoods and architecture. Gay is a pioneer in her work protecting and restoring our urban landscape and has played an immense part in making the PRC the foremost organization of its kind in the country. prcno.org

New Orleans BioInnovation Center
A nonprofit business incubator, the New Orleans BioInnovation Center is dedicated to fostering entrepreneurship and innovators in the Louisiana biotechnology industry. Those supported by the center include start-up companies developing new medical devices, diagnostics, therapeutics and more. Located in Downtown’s rapidly growing medical district, the New Orleans BioInnovation Center offers state-of-the-art lab and office facilities, free business consulting services and educational events like the upcoming University Tech Showcase + BioChallenge Pitch Competition. neworleansbio.com

Operation Spark
Dedicated to offering a new road map to success for low-opportunity individuals, Operation Spark provides a fast track to careers in software development by offering intensive coding and design classes. In a little more than three years, Operation Spark has established itself as a leader and innovator in the development of our city’s next generation of high-skill workers. In New Orleans, where generational poverty is a problem, the organization seeks to not only give our city’s youth, strapped with college tuition debt and financial lack, a leg-up at a more profitable future, but also to aid the community and the state in its dire need for a larger pool of software developers. operationspark.org

Seaworthy
Seaworthy is a partnership between the Ace Hotel and Alex Pincus, Miles Pincus and Adrien Gallo, the trio behind New York’s award-winning Grand Banks restaurant. With interiors accented by a Victorian maritime design, the structure is an adaptive reuse of a 185-year-old Creole cottage spanning three floors, including a private dining room in a garret. Led by Executive Chef Kerry Heffernan and Chef de Cuisine Daniel Causgrove, Seaworthy features a raw bar with a variety of wild-caught oysters from Gulf Coast, East Coast and West Coast waters. The menu offers dishes like bowfin caviar from Assumption Parish, warm smoked cobia brandade with shaved truffle, seared red snapper with sweet-corn field pea succotash and butter poached black drum. seaworthynola.com

The Pythian
Green Coast, ERG Enterprises and Crescent City Community Land Trust have developed the century-old landmark Pythian Temple, formerly the hiring office of famed WWII boat-builder Andrew Jackson Higgins, into a mixed-use property with 20,000 square feet of office and retail space, and almost 70 apartments. The extensive renovation has restored the wide, high arched windows, grand entrances, elaborate cornice, and decorative brick and terracotta adornments, honoring the building’s history while contrasting the surrounding modern structures. thepythian-nola.com

In addition to the above Honorees, the Downtown Development District would also like to celebrate this year’s Downtown NOLA employees of the year; Fredrick Youngblood, DDD Clean Team Member of the Year; Melvin White, DDD Public Safety Ranger of the Year; and Aaron Harrelson, DDD Private Security Officer of the Year.

Join the Downtown Development District as it celebrates the singular individuals and organizations that make Downtown New Orleans a truly, exceptional experience. downtownnola.com