7:00 PM | Rumsey Playfield, Central Park — enter at E 69th St & 5th Avenue, New York, NY 10021

A genuine event for longtime downtown art and music fans: avant-garde performance artist and musician Laurie Anderson, a fixture of the New York scene since the 1970s, makes her SummerStage debut on her “Republic of Love” tour, backed by the genre-defying jazz-funk ensemble Sexmob. Anderson’s live shows blend spoken word, electronic processing, violin, and visual elements rather than fitting a standard concert format. Free, Friday-night timing, and marquee enough that early arrival before the 6 PM gate is worthwhile.

Laurie Anderson is best known as an early pioneer of electronic music, but her wildly diverse catalog of ambitious multimedia projects encompasses not only music but film, visual projections, dance, and spoken and written word. Her early experimentations in composition and performance led to an accidental mainstream moment with her 1982 album Big Science and the hit single “O Superman,” which she followed up with continual exploration and thoughtful provocations. She holds a number of honorary doctorates, and in 2002, was appointed the first artist-in-residence of NASA. Her latest album Amelia, released in 2024, comprises twenty-two tracks about the aviator Amelia Earhart’s tragic last flight. “Republic of Love” was first conceived after an invitation to do a two hour talk on the relationship of government and love from a festival in Vienna. It’s a collection of songs and stories about the current state of America, with some history thrown in, reexamining works such as “Big Science” and “Language Is a Virus.” Backed by Sexmob, an instrumental jazz quartet that emerged from the Knitting Factory scene in the mid-’90s and known for raw improvisation and inventive arrangements, Anderson’s performance also features the words and thoughts of many Americans such as Bob Dylan, Lou Reed, John Cage, Gertrude Stein, William S. Burroughs and Allen Ginsberg. Anderson herself calls the work “a celebration of freedom.” A DJ set from amita will kick off the evening.