This Article First Appeared In The Scroll On May 24, 2023
Since its opening in January 1921, the iconic Town Hall in Manhattan has hosted some of the world’s greatest musicians, such as Paul Robeson, Sergei Rachmaninoff, Billie Holliday, Nina Simone, Bob Dylan and Leonard Cohen. On a crisp October evening in 1962, it staged what was the first major Carnatic music concert ever held in the United States.
“One of the oldest living musical traditions, with all its color, exoticism, and age-mellowed subtleties, was heard at Town Hall Saturday Night,” The New York Times wrote in its October 8, 1962 edition.