MET Date Nights: Exploring Black Dandyism Through Music

6 Jun 2025 · 2 min

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This content was created by The Piano Pod with Yukimi Song. This content was uploaded by The Piano Pod with Yukimi Song. This is a YouTube video titled "MET Date Nights: Exploring Black Dandyism Through Music" (uploaded 2025-06-06) from The Piano Pod with Yukimi Song. The spoken excerpt promotes two Met date-night concerts tied to the Met's Africa wing renovation and an exhibit linked to the Met Gala theme of Black dandyism. It describes the programming: June 13 will feature Sterling Strings performing Afro-pop/Afro-beats aligned with the African wing, and June 14 will feature the speaker alongside violinist Edward Hardy performing jazz and popular standards (e.g., Summertime, "It Don't Mean a Thing If It Ain't Got That Swing", selections by Edith Piaf) designed to evoke elegance, flair, and joie de vivre. The clip ends with a call to follow/subscribe to The Piano Pod with Yukimi Song.

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But what's really special about this date, these two date nights at the Met, is that the Met has been working to sort of reimagine its Africa wing, and so it's doing a renovation, and there's going to be a special exhibit. And if you're someone who pays attention to the Met Gala, you know, there's this exhibit, you know, Superfine about Black dandyism, and so that was the theme of the Met Gala. And so, June 13th is going to feature Sterling Strings, and they're going to do a lot of Afro-pop, which is going to sort of lean in to the African wing and Afro-pop and Afro-beats. So that's going to be the music that they're going to be playing on Friday the 13th. And on Saturday the 14th, violinist Edward Hardy and I are going to be playing a show that leans into Black Dandyism. And so we're going to be playing some beautiful— we're going to be playing Summertime and, you know, some jazz and It Don't Mean a Thing If It Ain't Got That Swing. We're going to be playing a little bit of Edith Piaf and we're going to be playing a little, you know, just really wonderful things that sort of lean into that sort of suave, elegant joie de vivre, you know, that kind of programming. And so it's going to be a lot of fun. To explore this idea of elegance and flair and style, but sort of explored in a sonic framework. Follow and subscribe to The Piano Pod with Yukimi Song, where tradition meets innovation in classical piano.