Roxy Bar Presents: Pianist Michael Garin

Michael Garin, Roxy Bar's resident pianist, plays a solo evening set. His program treats the piano less as a fixed repertoire instrument than as a running conversation between songs, requests, and sharp shifts in reference: the venue describes a mix spanning Shaggy, Om Kalthum, Rossini, Jobim, Zappa, and Raymond Scott. It is a post-work performance shaped by Garin's playful stage habits, including inviting children to join him at the keys and taking requests from what he calls his “office.”

A Drama Desk Award winner, Garin has been a New York nightlife presence for decades. His résumé includes Elaine's, the Monkey Bar, the Rainbow Room, and Limelight's VIP Room, while his work has also extended to acting with Spike Lee. He co-created and co-starred in Song of Singapore, the environmental musical that earned him the award, and hosted midnight burlesque shows in the mid-1990s that helped launch the burlesque revival. Pianist, songwriter, singer, poet, actor, and song-and-dance man, he brings that broad performance history to a style the venue calls a “goofy, stylish, and very smart stream of musical consciousness.”