Lehman Center for the Performing Arts

On the Lehman College campus in the north-west Bronx, this hall has spent more than four decades attempting something few American concert venues do: presenting international work at prices its own neighbourhood can pay. Latin music is its backbone, alongside an International Series that has brought Chinese acrobats, Japanese taiko drummers, African gospel choirs and Mexican folkloric ballet to Bedford Park Boulevard, and a Celebrity Series devoted to Black artists. Grand opera reaches it too — Puccini's Tosca has been staged there. For much of the borough it is the nearest place to hear any of it.