KCMETROPOLIS.org
Kansas City's Online Journal of the Performing Arts

By Arnold Epley   Wed, Oct 22, 2008

The combination of Visitation Catholic Church and Octarium might seem to be a meeting of opposites, with the intimacy of the eight-voice chamber ensemble in such a large, open space.  The venue turned out to be a wonderful place for listening to Octarium's beautiful singing, with the near perfection of their latest recording now reproduced in a live performance. 

 Make no mistake; this is a Kansas City ensemble of national stature, joining the justly illustrious Kansas City Chorale in the message that this city's choral moment seems to be arriving.  What a joy they are!  Their next concert on the afternoon of December 7 at St. Elizabeth's Church in Kansas City is a not-to-be-missed appointment for the Kansas City music community.

  Krista Lang Blackwood's singers' work was secure and impassioned, ranging from delicate intimacy to the grandiloquent breadth that of the larger pieces called for, the essential sound of Octarium one of almost perfect balance. 

 The program's first half was modestly arched toward the Russian compositions of Rachmaninoff and Gretchaninov.  These two pieces were beautiful presentations, particularly the emphasis on Gretchaninov's often piquant harmonies, giving his music a sense of freshness, of emotion.

 Their breadth contrasted with the lively intimacy of Josquin's 15th century El grillo and Monteverdi's wonderfully calm and soothing madrigal Ecco mormorar l'onde.

 The beauty of Palestrina's Sicut Cervus made me wish the second part ( secundo pars) of the motet had been included to give it the breadth and balance it deserves.  To my ears the Palestrina and William Byrd's Mass for Four Voices excerpt presented some of the very best singing of the evening.

 The inward turning music of Duruflé and Stanford offered heavenly beauty and virtually perfect execution.  Ashley Elizabeth Winters sang Stanford's ethereal soprano lines in The Bluebird beautifully, if with a glint or two of edge through the middle voice.

 The second half of the concert aimed for a much higher apex of breadth and size of work, notably Samuel Barber's classic Agnus Dei.  The sheer concept of this piece, from its origins as a string quartet, expansion for string orchestra and Barber's final transformation for voices, adding the sometimes intrusive Agnus Dei text, dictates long, long soaring lines.  Blackwood's singers had to meet demands for quietest moments to the super-human extended thrilling climax, almost more than can be expected from single voices, returning to final cloudlike whispers of sound at the conclusion. It was clear that Octarium understood all this, providing a constant movement and intensity of tone.  One can understand if the loudest passage was difficult for the singers to maintain a perfect unity of ensemble even with their best efforts.  It was, however, even then both captivating and moving.

  Bruckner's devilish harmonic chromaticism gave the group their only frightening moment of the evening, but with a quick and successful recovery that kept this beautiful and exciting work alive.

  Bass Benjamin Winters offers Octarium a magnificent base around which to build its sound, even though his constant swaying can sometime be distracting. He and Brady Shepherd are a bass section of truly excellent tone and quality.  Sopranos Renee Stanley and Ashley Winters were appropriately flexible and most often exquisitely beautiful, while Leah Hamilton Jenkins and Andrea Coleman had some of the evening's best moments, full of warmth and beautiful sense of line.  Tenors Jason Parr and Jay Von Blaricum sing with admirable and most often beautiful blended tone, though exposed melodic lines were very occasionally marked by moments of "almost" blurring, with top notes in arched patterns just under the pitch - just enough to be distracting.

 For this listener it was, at least part of the time, easier to listen to Octarium than to watch them.  No one could or should sing this music frozen in place, but a constant and overt activity (especially in the liturgical works) of some of the singers left me to wish for more moments when they and we could be lost in the music itself, without the intervention of personalities.

Octarium is a first-class musical ensemble and, I trust, all of us are glad to be a witness of their early years.  More to come.  Watch this space.  

By Gayle G. Hathorne   Sun, Oct 12, 2008

The Friends of Chamber Music opened its 2008-09 concert season Friday evening at the Folly Theatre with a pre-concert reception and art exhibit titled appropriately, Art of Unrest.Key to the evening's program, presented masterfully by the Brentano String Quartet, was the central piece, Howl written in 1993 by composer Lee Hyla, a quartet written to accompany the recorded voice of Alan Ginsburg reading his strident poem of that title which catapulted him to fame when he first read it in public at a San Francisco art gallery in 1955. The exhibit of edgy artwork ranged from a collage of 9/11 events to images of homeless people, and from a display of pairs of shoes belonging to people of all ages killed in the Iraq War, to banners with statistics about the cost of that war in terms of lost college educations for Americans. Before one note of the program sounded, the stage was set to challenge listeners to embark upon this year's theme, "An Epic Journey."

Celebrating its 33rd season, President and Founder of The Friends, Cynthia Siebert, offered her greetings from the stage, and prepared the audience to receive this controversial work within the framework of her artistic vision: to inform and expand the listeners' ability to discern and appreciate the beauty and art of chamber music. Siebert remarked from the stage that the art on exhibit took its theme and title, Art of Unrest, as a complement to the music presented in the program. Like a nurturing muse grooming her progeny, she gently suggested that the art of unrest "stems from some creative urge that you feel has not been defined before." Elaborating the point, she mentioned that the composer revered today as "Papa Haydn" was in his day considered a revolutionary, as was Schumann, and she encouraged the audience to hold this music within that expanded context.

"Papa Haydn" was in his day considered a revolutionary, as was Schumann...

The program opened with Haydn's String Quartet No. 26 in G Minor, Op. 20, No. 3, which introduced the audience to the elegant blend of the Brentano String Quartet and its immaculate attention to direction of line. The Quartet, whose name honors the "Immortal Beloved" of Beethoven, Antonie Brentano, held the audience spellbound to the lastpianissimo note of the first movement, met by a hushed "wow!" that escaped someone's lips in the dark of the concert hall. The quartet seemed to open into the space of the hall in the lighter second movement, revealing exquisite balance throughout, and delivering a fluid B section. The third movement, poco adagio, showcased the ensemble's seamless blend of sonority, but was taken in a tempo that moved a bit too quickly to allow complete expression of its profound depth, which violist Misha Amory, alone brought out in his statement of the melodic line. Remarkable in the fourth movement was the blend of sound so equal in tone that one had to look at the performers to discern which instrument was playing. Performed in a rousing allegro with edge-of-the-seat excitement, this movement, too, ended in a vanishing diminuendo. It was revolutionary, indeed, to find pianissimoendings in every movement of the work.

Sandwiched between the sublimely beautiful Haydn quartet, and the expressively romantic Schumann String Quartet in A Major, Op. 41 No. 3, that comprised the second half of the program, the Hyla Howl for Narrator and String Quartet (un)easily stole the show. At the beginning of Howl, for several minutes the angry and annoying tenor of Alan Ginsberg's incessant raving, spewing rant of invectives cut above the jagged string accompaniment and caused one to wish that the Quartet would drown away his noise. The tension created by Ginsberg's words and delivery was palpable, slapping at the audience with raw rude rhetoric. In tandem to that source of irritation was an equally disjointed jabbing of strings, in howling competition with Ginsberg's rhythms, and independently annoying. Howl is a long one, lasting 25 minutes. As the barrage of aural assault continued, the initial shock of hearing so many obscene words shouted above a string quartet gradually yielded to the awareness that when Ginsberg's voice slowed down, the Quartet mellowed their atonal exclamations and modulated into a quieter morph of sound. As he increased his volume again, shouting about Brooklyn buildings, jails and war, the Qrtet again breathed fire with him. As he yammered on and on, the thought occurred that this sounds like rap - with string quartet. In fact, this poem ushered in the Beat movement in 1955. By the time Ginsberg's recorded voice reached the passage about stumbling into unemployment offices, suicidal, the strings became a quiet background companion, and the realization hit that the quartet was accompanying his text masterfully, following his every nuance of breath and tone as masterfully as Gerald Moore would follow Dietrich Fischer-Dieskau - Hyla's art was realized perfectly by the Brentano Quartet. Their ensemble playing was genius-level virtuosity. String rhythms exactly mirrored the rhythm of Ginsberg's voice, then alternated juxtapositions of syncopated words, and finally faded the movement softly to its conclusion. The audience rustled uneasily, as faces turned to one another with expressions ranging from mirth to shock, annoyance to disbelief. Instead of rising for applause, the quartet members turned the pages on their stands to the next movement. In that hushed instant, a loud whisper emanated from an audience member warning, "We're not done," providing a moment of comic relief. The shorter second movement ended with a gradual softening of dynamics that finally faded into silence; the common thread to all the movements of the evening's program. 

Champagne and chocolates were provided to continue the opening night celebrations during the 20-minute intermission, affording members of the audience ample time to view the exhibit and to discuss the music. If the goal of the program was to open conversations to controversial issues, this concert program was wildly successful. The concert was rounded out by the sweet soothing balm of the Schumann quartet, beautifully rendered in the Brentano's superb organic blend.

REVIEW
Who: Brentano String Quartet presented by The Friends of Chamber Music
When: Friday, October 3, 2008
Where: The Folly Theatre
Attendance: 400
www.chambermusic.org

By Beau Bledsoe   Wed, Oct 29, 2008

  La Puebla de Cazalla

In my twenties, I made a promise to myself I would visit Spain before turning 30 years old. Therefore, at the age of 29, I set out for Andalucia. I was looking for the literary experience I had read about for so many years in the books of Washington Irving, James Mitchner and Federico García Lorca. I headed for the hotbeds of flamenco all of my heroes seemed to be from: Sevilla, Jerez and Cádiz. I searched high and low throughout the streets and bars only to end up in the cold and impersonal tourist flamenco tablao. I soon learned you can't just blow into town and expect to have a profound flamenco experience by simply asking folks where the good stuff is. So, leaving Andalucia a bit dejected, I soon found out a lot of great flamenco artists move to the bigger cities of Madrid and Barcelona to make a living. I did manage to see some amazing things there. Since my return to the States, I have become more and more involved in the world of flamenco and ultimately opened my own flamenco school. I also direct a small flamenco cuadro in Kansas City that performs at least twice a week. There aren't many flamenco singers or "cantaors" in my neck of the woods, therefore it's something that I've always craved. I'm a big fan of the flamenco singing tradition, and it had always been a "before I die" dream of mine to simply sit next to a real flamenco singer, in Andalucia, and accompany a soleá. This past July, I obtained this dream within just a few hours of arriving in the wonderful flamenco town La Puebla de Cazalla.

"La Puebla", as the locals call it, is a flamenco aficionado's dream. I had no idea flamenco could be a lifestyle of an entire populace. I only met a handful of people that were somewhat indifferent to this art form. Most people seemed to breathe it and need it like oxygen in the air. La Puebla is definitely a singing town. Whether it is little children playing, old men sitting around in the plazas or even people working in the olive groves, they all sing in a most natural way. A mother calling her children sounds very flamenco to me. The sheer volume of the speaking voice makes it perfectly logical that this is one of the birth-places of flamenco singing.


La Puebla was formally the northern-most frontier of the Moorish territory of Spain, and the ruins of a Moorish castle can still be seen atop a hill. When the reconquest came about, these inhabitants either left or converted to Christianity and stayed. These people are the "Moroscas", which I gathered was a slightly derogatory term used by the neighboring Christian towns of Marchena and Morón de la Frontera. The principle component of flamenco in La Puebla is that of the Andaluz. I met no large gypsy flamenco dynasties here, just the descendants of a Moorish population that excelled in the singing of tonas, siguirilla, and soleá. The last two winners of the Festival International del Cante de las Minas ,Raúl Montesinos and Manuel González (Rubito hijo), are from La Puebla de Cazalla. Other flamenco giants from this town include Dolores Jiménez Alcántara (La Niña de la Puebla), José Menese, Miguel Vargas and Diego Clavel. Need I say more? I visited this town in July after Antonio Andrade, a guitarist from La Puebla, invited two of my friends and I to attend the first annual flamenco Concorso in La Puebla for flamenco dance and guitar. My friends already knew Andrade quite well from his extensive work in the states. These two self-professed flamenco addicts -Jerry Lubensky and Frank Hoffman, were my good friends and students at my flamenco school. Frank brought along his wonderful wife, Sandy, and Jerry brought his beautiful, now fiancé, Belin Campo.

 From the very beginning, we were spoiled beyond our wildest expectations. We were received at the airport in Málaga by a Mercedes sent by the ayuntamiento (city municipality). The courses were given each day inside an extraordinarily beautiful olive hacienda just outside town. This is also where the mythic Cante Jondo festival takes place which is now in its 38th year. Antonio Andrade was an incomparable host. He spent much of his time introducing us to all of the important people and sites La Puebla had to offer. Thanks to Antonio, within a week I made many friends and had my own little social routine. That gave me a fair amount of independence to study flamenco how I always wanted to - from the people. The day we arrived in La Puebla, Antonio immediately took us to the flamenco nerve center of the town -Bar Central. It is owned and operated by the king of flamenco aficionados -Fernando, who is also a very good singer. This place operates as an authentic museum of the genre in which conversations about flamenco singing are daily events. They also serve the best carne frita in the world.

After this I was taken to the Thursday night "Reunión" of flamenco aficionados in a small community center where guitarists and singers meet and practice their craft. There was no commercialism, alcohol or even talking for that matter. This was obviously a very serious pastime for all involved. Here skill and virtuoso abilities were secondary to feeling and intention. After about two hours of this, I simply had to get my guitar. I played with them that night and every Thursday night thereafter. The first guitarist I met that night, José Frances, was a construction worker and the town accompanist for cante. We kept each other up for quite a while that night, trading buleria falsetas at another popular flamenco bar, " Zeppelin" (after Led Zeppelin). We were later joined by Andrade, as we drank and ate tapas in the night air in front of the bar until 5:30 am. This is more or less how every night in La Puebla played itself out. Soon after, we would awake with strong coffee at 9 am for our guitar lessons. Finally, a town with my kind of lifestyle! We made up for the lack of sleep with the time-honored siesta

From the very beginning, we were spoiled beyond our wildest expectations. We were received at the airport in Málaga by a Mercedes sent by the ayuntamiento (city municipality). The courses were given each day inside an extraordinarily beautiful olive hacienda just outside town. This is also where the mythic Cante Jondo festival takes place which is now in its 38th year. Antonio Andrade was an incomparable host. He spent much of his time introducing us to all of the important people and sites La Puebla had to offer. Thanks to Antonio, within a week I made many friends and had my own little social routine. That gave me a fair amount of independence to study flamenco how I always wanted to - from the people.

The day we arrived in La Puebla, Antonio immediately took us to the flamenco nerve center of the town -Bar Central. It is owned and operated by the king of flamenco aficionados -Fernando, who is also a very good singer. This place operates as an authentic museum of the genre in which conversations about flamenco singing are daily events. They also serve the best carne frita in the world. After this I was taken to the Thursday night "Reunión" of flamenco aficionados in a small community center where guitarists and singers meet and practice their craft. There was no commercialism, alcohol or even talking for that matter. This was obviously a very serious pastime for all involved. Here skill and virtuoso abilities were secondary to feeling and intention. After about two hours of this, I simply had to get my guitar. I played with them that night and every Thursday night thereafter. The first guitarist I met that night, José Frances, was a construction worker and the town accompanist for cante. We kept each other up for quite a while that night, trading buleria falsetas at another popular flamenco bar, " Zeppelin" (after Led Zeppelin). We were later joined by Andrade, as we drank and ate tapas in the night air in front of the bar until 5:30 am. This is more or less how every night in La Puebla played itself out. Soon after, we would awake with strong coffee at 9 am for our guitar lessons. Finally, a town with my kind of lifestyle! We made up for the lack of sleep with the time-honored siesta during the hottest hours of the day. 

Although there are many flamenco concoursos in Spain that have been going on for much longer, I recommend that anyone considering such an undertaking consider the concourso available in La Puebla de Cazalla. I have no doubt I received a most personal experience and was given very challenging material and a tremendous amount of personal time with Andrade. Due to the fact this was the first concourso of its kind in La Puebla, there were only about eight guitarists and five dancers. However, the quality of instruction was very high. I've heard horror stories from people that attended larger concoursos. Stories of people being herded with forty other students into a very impersonal situation with a very famous teacher, only to receive very little in the way of learning. The people from the ayuntamiento that organized the concourso were unbelievably accommodating and kind. I've never experienced such treatment anywhere else. I felt more like an important foreign diplomat than a guy coming over for some guitar lessons. They threw a few great parties for us, as well. The real beauty of the concourso was that, if wanted, I could always supplement my course work by simply stepping out into the streets of the town. I was always playing with other local guitarists and singers. I also made some really great friends that I know I'll have for the rest of my life. Antonio and the helpful souls from the ayuntamiento made sure I had the opportunities to move about this great cultural environment as if it were my own. I'm definitely going back next year.

The Concourso is held at the same time as the Cante Jondo festival (admission included in the price of the course). The festival was founded in 1967 by the artist Moreno Galván and José Menese. This is by far the most artistic and aesthetically pleasing environment for flamenco I've ever been to or imagined. Every effort was made to give an air of flamenco art to this event. They even had a man whose soul job was to cut up rosemary and thyme, then spread it over the brick in the courtyard, the day before the festival, to give it the right "flamenco" aroma. Rosemary was also bundled around the stage to aromatically cradle the performers. Read a review here. We also took many day trips in a rented car to corresponding festivals in Córdoba, Lebrija and Sanlúcar (I highly recommend driving in Andalucia). However, we would always return slightly homesick to our beloved Puebla de Cazalla. Our ongoing mantra was "This alone was worth the trip here!" or "Surely it can't get better than this!" Fortunately for us, it always did.

Photos by Sandy Sanders, Belin Campo and Beau Bledsoe

By KCM Staff   Sun, Oct 05, 2008

By Sandy Eisenberg   Sun, Oct 26, 2008

We are so fortunate to have Savion Glover performing again in Kansas City.  This time he will be sharing the stage with two other talented hoofers, Marshall Davis Jr. and Maurice Chestnut, bringing us Glover's latest production, "Bare Soundz".  

As the title suggests, Glover and his colleagues will be performing this program a capella.  So, don't expect a band of musicians or piped in recorded music - expect an exuberant celebration of tap dance to sound, and sound to dance.  Glover explains that tap dance is an acoustical instrument and that he will "merge acoustical vibrations in a music mosaic hosting sounds explaining Jazz, Caribbean beats and other contemporary musical genres."  

Freelance dance critic Rachel Howard wrote that Glover's style "is musically pure, striving for percussive complexity, not visual flash.  There is little use of the upper body ... and no decorative flourishes."  To be sure, Mr. Glover's energy and physicality as a dancer will be on full display, but the main emphasis of "Bare Soundz" is on Savion the musician.  

The three hoofers will create this evening of music through dance tapping on three - four-by-eight foot tap floors.  Microphones are attached to the underside of the floor board panels for amplification.  Traveling with Glover for this tour is his sound engineer, Glenn Webb, who Mr. Glover says, "is the best sound person for tap that anyone could ever hope for".  

Savion Glover, still very youthful in his mid-30s, has put together a remarkable resume.  He is a Tony Award-winning dancer, choreographer, actor, director and producer.  His Broadway credits include The Tap Dance Kid, Black and Blue, Jelly's Last Jam, and Bring in 'da Noise Bring in 'da Funk.  He co-starred in the movie Tap with Gregory Hines and Sammy Davis, Jr., and he choreographed the Academy Award winning 2006 Warner Brothers film Happy Feet, in which he also danced the character "Mumble".  He starred in Spike Lee's Bamboozled, and says of working with Lee, "he was fun, he was cool, and he was committed." Many younger audience members (and their parents) will know Glover from his five seasons of regular appearances on Sesame Street.  Others may have caught his annual New York season at the Joyce or Variety Arts Theatres.

Though modest about his accomplishments in this area, Glover is also a generous and accomplished teacher.  Currently, while traveling the country, his teaching is focused on Tap Teaching workshops.  But in past years, this writer had the opportunity to watch Mr. Glover teach for one week each summer from 1998-2001 at the St. Louis Tap Festival.  This festival gathered together the legendary tap masters - The Nicholas Brothers, Henry LeTang, Cholly Atkins, Jimmy Slyde, Leonard Reed, Van "The Man" Porter and Dianne Walker, to name a few.  One year, Donald O'Connor was in St Louis for a MUNY production of Singing in the Rain, and he participated on a panel discussion, watched classes and made himself available to all the students at the Tap Festival. The week-long intensive festival consisted of dance classes from 9 a.m. to 6.p.m daily and then offered tap jams, panel discussions and plenty of opportunity to hang out and just learn for the accumulated talent each evening.  Glover's mother was always on hand, "mothering" students with plenty of hugs and it was familiar sight to see some aspiring young student engaged in animated conversation, sitting on her knee.  The atmosphere was of love and respect for the people and the history of Tap. 

When discussing this earlier generation of tap dance legends, Glover speaks with candor, and straight from the heart.  "The scene has changed.  I no longer have those men in my life - they are no longer here.  I feel so blessed to have learned from them.  Thankful for everything they did for me.  I now realize the special attention that I got from these men.  This is my 'Family'. Dianne Walker raised me. The Dance community is doing something different now.  I realize that I was never part of the Dance community or Tap community.  I was always part of this 'Family'.    

Glover speaks with great reverence for his "Family" while lamenting the passing of almost this entire generation.  Inside the famous Capezio store on 51st Street in midtown Manhattan, there is Pete's Shop.  Pete was the shoemaker that all the dancers in New York and many around the country relied upon.  He knew exactly how to install the taps on the shoes to get the best sound; he applied the rubber strips to keep the dancers from slipping; he knew how to build up the shoe; he had his craft down to an art form.  Pete died earlier this year and I asked Glover who he would now use.  He said, "I don't know what dancers will do if they don't have at least five pairs of Pete's waiting in their closet!  We are losing all these people."  

Knowing how gracious Glover has been in teaching and mentoring younger dancers, I asked him if he was going to pass the torch on to the next generation.  He replied, "If I have that torch, I want to hold onto the torch forever.  I will die with that torch."

If Fred Astaire or Gene Kelly was performing a concert in Kansas City, would you pass up the opportunity for you and your children to see him live?  Savion Glover is the best tap dancer of our generation, and he wants people "to come out and enjoy the evening, enjoy the theatre, and bring the whole family."   Excellent advice.

Savion Glover "Bare Soundz"
Saturday, November 1 at 8 p.m.
Carlsen Center at Johnson County Community College
For tickets call (913) 469-4445 or online at
http://www.jccc.net/home/depts.php/001440/site/Chronological_Listing

By Scott Easterday   Sun, Oct 05, 2008

I have known composer Ingrid Stölzel since she moved to the United States from Germany in 1991. I met Ingrid when we were both playing in bands and studying music at the Conservatory of Music and Dance at the University of Missouri-Kansas City.

She is currently working on her DMA dissertation at UMKC where she studies in a world-class department of music composition with James Mobberley, Chen Yi, and Zhou Long.

Ingrid and I sat down to talk about her music over dinner at the Record Bar before one of Jeff Harshbarger's Sunday night jazz concerts.

As a young music student, Ingrid would write different endings for her assigned piano pieces. Her teacher noticed this creative quality and decided it would be best to teach her musical notation.

Throughout her life, she has refined that vigorous creativity. She approaches music like an archaeologist. She studies the tiny details to fully understand the whole.

Music has always been the best way for her to express herself. She says, "Music is an abstract language that can express powerful emotions without the use of words."

Ingrid is adept in coming up with new ideas for her music. She doesn't rely on formulas. She breaks new ground with every new piece.

Ingrid describes herself as a melodist. She is someone concerned with the melody. She develops her compositions from motives, fragments of melodies, which come to her from seeing art, or just in everyday life.

She examines these fragments and develops her pieces by asking herself, "What does this melody want? What is it telling me?" Then she expands the motives into themes and passages that comprise her works.

Ingrid composes predominately for chamber ensembles. She enjoys the challenge of creating emotionally charged works for small ensembles. She also enjoys the intimate setting that chamber music provides.

In her compositions, Ingrid says she is "trying to slow down and savor the moment." She is not afraid to write pretty music, and she also writes powerful music. A wealth of emotion is transmitted from her music.

One of Ingrid's recent works, With Both Eyes, will be performed for the first time in Kansas City this coming November 1st. To me, it is about wonderment. The listener is cautious of what is around the next melodic corner, but anxious to see all the same. It has the sound of a baby's eyes in silent laughter. It moves seamlessly, delicate, but not fragile.

As an artist, Ingrid is concerned about the overpowering background noise in our world. She says, "To write something beautiful and delicate is in itself a response to much of what surrounds us." People are bombarded by a constant stream of media overkill. She believes that all artists have to fight their way through a "dense forest of noise" to be heard.

I remember listening to a CD of Ingrid's compositions, Suggesting Motion, some years ago. The final movement of the last piece whipped me into such frenzy and I had to push pause on the CD player. My heart was racing and I was out of breath like I had been running a race.

Ingrid composes in her studio working on the score, getting everything exact so that the language of the score reads implicitly to the performers. But she also loves the interpretive aspect of the performance. Each instrumentalist brings their own musical experience to the performance, and to see them sway and swoon to the arch of the melody is as much a part of the performance as are the sounds themselves.

With Both Eyes will be performed by members of the newEar ensemble, Saturday, November 1st as part of the concert Kansas City Connections at Unity Temple on the Plaza. The concert is the second of four installments of the newEar 2008 season and features a diverse collection of contemporary works. The concert starts at 8 pm and tickets are $20 or $8 for students and there are specials on Facebook and Myspace. Visit newEar on the web at www.newEar.org.

By Don Dagenais   Sun, Oct 26, 2008

Lyric Opera of Kansas City
Julius Caesar
Saturday, November 8 at 8 p.m.
Monday, November 10 at 7:30 p.m.
Wednesday, November 12 at 7:30 p.m.
Friday, November 14 at 8 p.m. 
Sunday, November 16 at 2 p.m. 
Lyric Theatre, 10th and Central,  Downtown Kansas City, MO

Beginning on November 8, and continuing with performances through November 16, the Lyric Opera will present its first-ever production of a Baroque opera, Georg Frideric Handel's Julius Caesar.  And for only the second time, the Lyric will feature a countertenor onstage...actually, two of them, singing both the title role and the role of Ptolemy (one of the bad guys in this opera.)

Kansas City audiences are unfamiliar with Baroque opera, since it is so rarely performed in these parts (the UMKC Conservatory of Music and Dance has put on a couple of productions, including this same Julius Caesar a couple of years ago).

So, perhaps an introduction is in order

George Frideric Handel
First, George Frideric Handel (1685-1759) is indeed the same person who wrote Messiah and many other great oratorios, but those came later in his career, years after he was a popular composer of Italian opera.

Although born in Germany, Handel spent his formative years in Italy, soaking up Italian tradition and learning the techniques of Italian opera. He migrated to England, eventually becoming an English subject, and became a theater impresario as well as a composer there. To today's audiences, Handel is remembered for his wonderful orchestral suites performed for official festive occasions (The Music for the Royal Fireworks and Water Music foremost among them), and his spectacular oratorios.

For most of his career, however, Handel was known primarily as a producer of operas. "Opera" in his day meant "Italian opera," for there was virtually no other kind of opera being created in that era. Handel's career as a mature opera composer started after 1710, after he migrated to England. His first opera, Rinaldo, premiered at the Queen's Theatre at Haymarket in 1711. So successful was this production that the public demanded others, and a long string of operatic successes followed. 

Eight years later, Handel founded his own Italian opera company based in the King's Theatre in Haymarket, and it featured among other operas, Radamisto, Tamerlano, Agrippina, Rodelinda and Allesandro. The greatest of his Italian operas, however, was undoubtedly Giulio Cesare in Egitto ("Julius Caesar" in Egypt), first performed in 1724, commonly known to English audiences simply as Julius Caesar.

The Story of Julius Caesar
Based upon Nicola Francesco Haym's libretto, Handel's opera tells of only a short series of events in Caesar's life: his adventures in Egypt following his pursuit of his enemy, Pompey, there in 48 B.C.E.

In the opera, as in actual history, the young Egyptian ruler Ptolemy XVII had Pompey assassinated upon his arrival in Egypt and proudly presented the trailing Caesar with Pompey's head upon Caesar landing in Alexandria. Far from receiving Caesar's thanks, however, Ptolemy found him disgusted with this hideous act, and the rest of the opera relates Caesar's real life victory over Pompey's forces as well as his infatuation with the Egyptian princess Cleopatra (like Ptolemy, a descendant of the Greeks).

The opera ends with a celebration of Egypt's "freedom" under Roman rule (a somewhat incongruous concept to modern audiences) and does not deal with the subsequent tragic events which were to envelop both Caesar and Cleopatra in the coming years.

The Music of Julius Caesar
Fascinating as this history is, the real glory of Julius Caesar lies in Handel's wonderfully expressive music. The role of Cleopatra is tailored for a great opera diva, as the soprano must sing in a variety of styles, as well as express a wide range of emotions ranging from utter despair to abiding love to ecstatic joy. The singer portraying Caesar, meanwhile, must sound both noble and romantic in various scenes. 

The primary plot movement in the opera is born by Cornelia, the widow of the assassinated Pompey, who is sung by a mezzo-soprano. She and her son Sesto, also a mezzo-soprano (a "trouser role"), are filled with a desire to avenge the death of the unfortunate Pompey.  Meanwhile the Egyptian ruler Ptolemy and his henchman Achillas are portrayed unsympathetically as bumbling plotters. Their love for Cornelia makes their hapless attempts at romance and military conquest seem almost ridiculous.

For each of the roles Handel, composed perfectly suited music, and it is the wide range of melodic expression, accompanied by modest but clever orchestral writing, that has preserved Julius Caesar as a favorite of today's audiences.

Castrato vs. Countertenor
In producing the opera, contemporary companies like the Lyric Opera face a difficult choice right off the bat: What do you do about the title role?  The role of Caesar, as well as the roles of Ptolemy and several lesser characters, were written by Handel for castratos, who were castrated male singers whose powerful voices sang in today's soprano range.

Today we have no castratos, of course (thank heaven), but these roles present a difficult choice for modern conductors: do you perform the role with tenors or basses, transposing the notes down, or do you have them sung in the original range by mezzo-sopranos wearing pants? Another alternative which has come to the fore in recent years is to use countertenors, male singers skilled at singing in a high falsetto voice in imitation of the castratos of old.

The Lyric Opera has opted for a countertenor for the role of Caesar, and is bringing in David Walker. Walker has sung in The Coronation of Poppea by Monteverdi and Ariodante, Theodora, Partenope, Radamisto, Agrippina and Flavio by Handel, with such companies as the New York City Opera, English National Opera, San Diego Opera and Opera North (United Kingdom). He has also sung countertenor roles in more recent operas, such as Britten's A Midsummer Night's Dream, Glass' Akhnaten and Jonathan Dove's Flight .(Yes, they're writing actual roles for countertenors these days.)

The Rest of the Lyric Opera's Cast
Cleopatra will be sung by soprano Christine Brandes, a fine soprano who previously sang with the Lyric in a very different kind of opera, The Turn of the Screw, in 2005. In addition to standard repertory roles, Brandes is also known for Baroque opera roles in such works asThe Coronation of Poppea, Semele, Ariodante, Alcina and Acis and Galatea with the opera companies of San Francisco, Glimmerglass, Central City and others.

The villainous Ptolemy is portrayed by another countertenor, Brazilian José Lemos, who previously sang the role with the Göttingen Handel Festival in Germany. Other Baroque roles to his credit are Purcell's The Fairy Queen, Handel's Agrippina, Monteverdi's The Coronation of Poppea and Landi's Il Sant'Alessio with Seattle Early Music, Boston Early Music Festival, London's Barbican Hall, Opera National de Lorraine, Theatre de Caen, Grand Theatre de la Ville de Luxembourg and the Theatre des Champs-Elysee in Paris.

The role of Cornelia, the aggrieved widow of Pompey, will be sung by mezzo-soprano Gloria Parker, whose roles include Maddalena (Rigoletto), Nicklausse (Les Contes d'Hoffmann), Lola (Cavalleria Rusticana), Hänsel (Hänsel und Gretel), and the title role in La Perichole, with the opera companies of Washington, New York City, Pittsburgh, Michigan, and many others. She has previously sung Cornelia with the Seattle Opera.

Sesto, the vengeful son of Pompey, is a trouser role, sung by a mezzo-soprano. This was originally intended by Handel.  Sesto is portrayed by Christine Abraham, whose credits include Rosina (The Barber of Seville) and Isabella (The Italian Girl in Algiers), as well as Stephano (Romeo and Juliet), Blanche (Dialogues of the Carmelites) and many others. She has appeared with the opera companies of Dallas, Arizona, Boston, Glimmerglass, New York City, Orlando and Tulsa, among others.

Achillas, the general to Ptolemy, is sung by Andrew Harris, a bass-baritone apprentice with the Lyric Opera, who sang the roles of Benoit and Alcindoro in the Lyric's recent production of La bohéme. 

The role of Curio will be sung by another talented Lyric apprentice singer, Scott Conner, who has sung roles with the Lyric and with the Wichita Grand Opera and who makes his international debut singing Colline (La bohéme) with Lviv State Opera and Odessa National Opera in the Ukraine later this year.

Julius Caesar is conducted by the Lyric's artistic director, Ward Holmquist, with lighting designs by Michael Baumgarten. Mark Streshinsky debuts at the Lyric as the stage director. Streshinsky, a longtime member of the San Francisco Opera stage directing team, has staged operas for the companies of Florida, Omaha, Cincinnati, New York City, Michigan, Dallas and Seattle, among others.

The Challenge of Julius Caesar
Julius Caesar is full of soaring melodies and wonderful moments, but the static nature of Baroque opera presents a real challenge to today's stage directors. Let's hope stage director Mark Streshinsky can keep the visual interest alive, just as Handel's music will surely keep our eardrums stimulated. It should be an historic evening in the theater for the Lyric Opera.

For tickets call 816-471-7344 or online at kcopera.org 

By KCM Staff   Sun, Oct 12, 2008

WaterFire Kansas City 2008

Designed by award-winning artist Barnaby Evans,WaterFire Kansas City is a unique, multi-sensory experience of music, fire and water. The moving art installation features more than 55 floating bonfires on Brush Creek. This year's event will be held Saturday, October 25.

WaterFire was originally created by Barnaby Evans in 1994 on the three rivers of downtown Providence, Rhode Island. The living fire sculpture has become a signature event for the city, attracting more than 10 million visitors and drawing praise as a moving symbol of Providence's renaissance.

The event begins with a series of boats that travel along Brush Creek through the darkness. They make their way with torches aflame in an enchanting display to ignite the braziers and bring all 55 pieces to life. Throughout the evening, boats return to the braziers, constantly feeding them with new wood and keeping the sculpture in its original form for the duration of the evening.

This powerful visual is reinforced by the fragrant scent of aromatic wood smoke, the flickering firelight on the anchored bridges, the silhouettes of the fire-tenders passing by the flames, the torch-lit vessels traveling down the creek, accompanied by beautiful recorded music and some great local entertainment with Quixotic dance company, opera favorites with mezzo-soprano Elaine Fox, soprano Sylvia Stoner, tenor Nathan Granner and guitarist Beau Bledsoe courtesy of Night of Song, some sexy tango music and other local performers. Food will be available for purchase from Plaza restaurants.

Music begins at 6:25 p.m. and runs to around midnight.
Fires light at 6:35 p.m.

By Jay Carter   Sun, Oct 12, 2008

The term 'oratorio' is a familiar one to modern audiences. When one hears the term, titles like Messiah and Elijah often are called to mind. The oratorio, perfected by Handel and reinvigorated by Mendelssohn, draws its' pedigree from a very different place and time than known to most contemporary audiences. .

Musicologists often argue about what work specifically constituted the first true oratorio. Some put forth Cavalieri's Rappresentatione di Corpo et Anima ("Representation of the Body and Soul") as the first definitive work, although others term the work an example of early opera. At this stage in research and scholarship it seems as though many have come to favor Carissimi's Jepthe as the first truly representative work in the oratorio genre, and Kansas City audiences have a rare opportunity to hear this definitive work. 

Dr. Ryan Board, acting director of choral activities at the Conservatory of Music, UMKC has put forth a number of excellent performances during his time here. Collegium Vocale, a new ensemble dedicated to pre-modern masterpieces, features Conservatory students and recent graduates working under Board's baton. This ensemble will be presentingJepthe in three back-to-back performances at the Nelson-Atkins Museum of Art on October 24. The work lasts 25 minutes, and is free of charge. One could even make this an early music evening, hearing the Collegium's performance and then making the short drive downtown for Jordi Savall and Hesperion XXI's performance of Don Quixote de la Manchafeatured in last week's column!

So what makes Jepthe a definitive work? It presents believable characters, such as Jepthe's soon to be sacrificed daughter, gracefully sung by soprano Kayleigh Fowler in last Saturday's performance. It also remains true to its' operatic heritage by presenting all the elements of good drama. A national crisis, and personal pact between Jepthe and God, a battle scene, and the gut-wrenching consequence of delivering on Jepthe's promise to God all combine for a compact, yet wildly dramatic series of events. Carissimi didn't shy away from using a number of 'special effects' such as the use of echoes in the style of Monteverdi. "It's a solo and instrumental work strongly reminiscent of opera and explores the contrast between national victory and agonizing personal sacrifice", says Dr. Board. Given these qualifications it seems very understandable why such a work resonated with a 17th century audience with a voracious appetite for musical drama, and remains especially meaningful for modern audiences. 

So here it is - a chance for our audiences here to fill their ears with the sounds of the genre that we've all come to know through later larger scale pieces. This writer is a die-hard Messiah fan, but there's no substitution for the raw drama inherent in this earlier work. So make an evening out of it. Read a brief article on the story of Don Quixote and the biblical tale of Jepthe, and have a terrific evening being transported somewhere else.

Cavalieri's Jepthe presented by Collegium Vocale with director, D. Ryan Board
Friday, October 24 at 6, 6:45 and 7:30 p.m. Nelson-Atkins Museum of Art
Free admission

Don Quixote with Jordi Savall, Hespèrion XXI and F. Murray Abraham, presented by The Friends of Chamber Music will perform at Grace & Holy Trinity Cathedral on Friday, October 24, 8 pm.
For tickets or information, call 816-561-9999 or online at www.chambermusic.org

By   Sat, Sep 22, 2012

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By KCM Staff   Sun, Oct 05, 2008

By KCM Staff   Sun, Oct 05, 2008

We love talking about the arts with the folks who make it happen. Sometimes people have a different opinion of what, say, opera is. General Director Evan Luskin gives us a little primer of what to expect when seeing a Lyric Opera of Kansas City production.

For more information about The Lyric, visit www.KCOpera.org

Take it away, Evan.

By Nicole English   Thu, Oct 30, 2008

BattleWorks Dance Company hit the stage like gangbusters on Saturday, October 25 in White Recital Hall of the Conservatory Performing Arts Center.  Patrons looking for something very different in dance were not disappointed. 

"This has been a very different experience for me...  the dance I am used to seeing was always moving, and flowing, and this was all very different," said Sharell Wheeler, a business major at Bloch School.  "The movements were different, the style was different....  but it was very entertaining." 

The choreography of Robert Battle tends to be very counter-intuitive to more traditional forms of dance.  Battle's style could almost be its own genre of dance.. 

Although he grew up in a household that supported the theatrical arts, Battle studied martial arts for several years in his teens before he became a full-time dancer in high school.  The influence of the martial arts in his work is very apparent.  He utilizes a variety of jumps, circle kicks, spins, flips, and full-body falls that could come directly from the martial arts.  But his choreography also seems to reflect the practice of martial arts in a much more profound way, such as keeping your opponent off-guard, doing the unexpected, deliberately alter your timing, and most importantly, not telegraphing your intended movements. 

 
"It really kept my attention...  I could not take my eyes off of the dancing... even to check the program," said Billie Mahoney, well-known dance teacher and performer.   "The dances are brutal...  because the movements seem to spring from nowhere...  with no preparation... jumping into superlative heights." 

As dramatic as the choreography is, it is sometimes difficult to watch for the same reasons it is so compelling.  The movements are executed in a manner so fast and furious, that the splendid technique of the dancers and the complicated choreography can be lost in a frenzy of movement.  There is so much perceptual information to absorb and appreciate all concentrated into a short experiential moment.  Because the movements are unpredictable, it keeps the viewer on edge for the entire performance, and while that does hold the attention, it can be draining in large doses.  Finally, the incredible stamina of the dancers is almost beyond belief, but exhausting to watch.  

That said, Robert Battle's complicated choreography is fresh, contemporary, exciting, and edgy.  Although one can point to various influences to his choreography, such as Alvin Ailey, Paul Taylor, Jose Limon, etc., his final product is entirely in his own, and told in his own artistic voice.  He often looks back to the founders of modern dance, (such as Ted Shawn, Ruth St. Denis, and Martha Graham), for inspiration and courage to be innovative. 

"When I look back at these courageous people in past, [making a radical break with traditional dance], stepping out like that, it is inspirational," says Robert Battle about the choreographers whom he admires.  "It makes me feel that I am somehow a part of that legacy of dance...  that I am not alone...  and it gives me the courage to be criticized and continue on...  for each of us has to tell our own truth." 

The show opened with a new composition, Reel Time, that was commissioned by the American Dance Festival as part of their 75th Anniversary Season.  An ensemble number set to the experimental music of John King, its frenzied pace set the tone for the entire concert.  The piece also featured rehearsal director, Erika Pujic, and established her as a remarkable dancer and difficult to miss with her unbelievable stamina and flurry of long blonde hair. 

"Erika is fantastic," said Jered Solace, a professional dancer and founder of the Solace Collective.  "She has it all together... grace, strength, emoting on stage... and definitely stamina."

The second number, Ella, was solo performed by Marlena Wolfe to the music of Ella Fitzgerald.  Her physical movements closely matched and articulated the verbal scat of the song, creating a new dimension for seeing dance. 

The third piece was Overture, set to music by Johann Sebastian Bach, which was another ensemble work that came the closest to what we think of as a traditional modern dance suite.  It used unusual combinations of movements, both slow and staccato, smooth and vibratory, in contrast to each other, suggestive of dancers engaging in a conversation of movement. 

"This piece was probably my favorite," said Jered Solace of the Solace Collective.  "I liked the contrast of the fast and slow... of combining creative timing and movement." 

After intermission, the show opened with another new work, In / Side, which was commissioned by Dance New Amsterdam as a part of the Company of Men.  This dark, brooding male solo stood out for its sensual masculine movement and range of emotional content, deftly executed by Samuel L. Roberts to the music of Nina Simone. 

"My favorite part was the male solo," said Tyrone Aiken, artistic coordinator of the Kansas City Friends of Alvin Ailey program.  "You can see when someone understands choreographer's style and understands choreographer's intent... that came through in the movements.. which were rich, full, sensual, and lush...  displaying many emotions about longing, wanting, striving...  and I also think that the music was incredibly beautiful....  it was really an incredibly wonderful piece."

The closing number was entitled Juba, a work and score that were originally commissioned by the Alvin Ailey American Dance Theatre, and performed to music composed by John Mackey.  This dramatic, energetic piece entailed much locomotion and running movements in a variety of floor patterns that were suggestive of folkloric dance at times. 

"I loved Robert Battle's composition of this piece, said James Jordan.  "His use of patterns, the circle in and out... the connection with the music." 

Even more telling, thought Jordan, was the energy of the choreography, and what it said of the choreographer and dancers.   

"The investment of energy was tremendous," added Jordan.  "it was just a powerhouse.... I cannot imagine how they sustain that on a tour...  where they have to pull out that energy every time they perform....  but they clearly do that ...  so Robert Battle must be able to inspire the dancers to reach that level of energy... and to me, that is a sign of a good director....  to be able to pull that kind of power from his dancers."   

The performance was innovative and a definite change of pace for the Kansas City dance community.  But it seemed to be a change of fare the community was willing to embrace, and may wish to indulge again at a future date. 

"This was our debut in Kansas City," said Robert Battle, the founder, choreographer, and artistic director for the company.  "But it has been a nice experience, and we hope to come back."  

REVIEW:
Battleworks Dance Company (UMKC Signature Series)
Saturday, Oct. 25 at 7:30 p.m.
White Recital Hall, Performing Arts Center, UMKC

Photos by Mike Strong, KCDance.com

By Nicole English   Thu, Oct 09, 2008

Kansas City audiences were treated to a delightful program of lighthearted, classical pieces presented by the Kansas City Ballet in the first concert of its 51st season. The three one-act pieces included "The Concert" (set to music by Frederic Chopin), "The Naughty Boy" (music by Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart), and Rodeo (Music by Aaron Copland). Even those who might think they do not like ballet, would enjoy these selections. This was a concert that the entire family could enjoy.

The program opened with "The Concert (Or, The Perils of Everybody)", a charade in one act, choreographed by the incomparable Jerome Robbins. Last performed by the KC Ballet in 2004, this rare comic gem should not be missed. Usually presented as a closing number, the Kansas City Ballet obtained permission to present it as an opening act of a very dynamic concert.

"We got special permission to open with the Robbins ballet, which is usually a closing ballet," said William Whitener, Artistic Director of KC Ballet. "I thought it would be a nice balance for 'Rodeo'... creating bookends, so to speak.... with the Trey McIntyre piece in the middle... the three pieces together on the same program present a nice evening of levity."

Set in the 1920s era, the narrative of "The Concert" features the interactions of various eccentric characters attending a piano concert, and takes a peek at the characters' fantasies about each other, as inspired by the music. Included is a short, humorous satire that recounts the trials and tribulations of being an under-rehearsed member of the corps de ballet.

"We really enjoyed this piece.... It was very comedic and theatrical," said Andrea Skowronek, dancer and teacher at City in Motion Dance Theatre. "It was a great ballet for my kids... they thought it was hilarious."

"It was hysterically funny," said Dale Fellin, a well-known performer and choreographer in the dance community. "It was an absolute joy."

The second selection was the Kansas City premiere of "The Naughty Boy", choreographed by Wichita-born Trey McIntyre. This tale of a mischievous cupid toying with the affections of various couples featured very complicated choreography and tightly coordinated partnering between dancers. This selection was one of the most challenging in technique to execute, despite its lighthearted subject matter.

"We had never seen this ballet before, and it was really nice to see something new," commented dancer Andrea Skowronek. "It was a very challenging piece with lots of tricky partnering."

"The technique for this piece was quite intricate," observed Jennifer Owen of Owen-Cox Dance Company. "It was quite interesting to watch."

The last act featured the stunning "Rodeo (The Courting at Burnt Ranch)", with choreography by the indomitable Agnes de Mille. Originally staged in 1942 for the Ballet Russe de Monte Carlo, this was the third presentation by the Kansas City Ballet. Not seen in Kansas City since 1996, this popular favorite was long overdue for performance, and it did not disappoint its enthusiastic audience. This majestic creation captures the imagery and iconography of Americana in its ranch-inspired choreography and simple narrative of a tomboy and her crush on a handsome cowboy.

The object of her affections, the Champion Roper, was played by new-comer, Michael Eaton, who was a big hit with audiences for his solo featuring clogging and tap dancing. This is Eaton's first season with the company, but he seems to have already made himself quite memorable in the minds of the audience members. Of the half-dozen or more children and guardians interviewed, his solo was cited most often as the favorite part of the concert.

"Michael Eaton is a fabulous tap dancer," said Jennifer Owen, echoing the comments of other audience members. "He had such energy," commented another. "He is someone to watch," said a third.

The cast received a standing ovation for its performance, and its share of hoots and hollers for a job well done. It was indeed a fine ballet program for an evening of levity and enjoyment, and well worth the price of admission. (more >>>)

Originally staged in 1942 for the Ballet Russe de Monte Carlo, this was the third presentation by the Kansas City Ballet. Not seen in Kansas City since 1996, this popular favorite was long overdue for performance, and it did not disappoint its enthusiastic audience. This majestic creation captures the imagery and iconography of Americana in its ranch-inspired choreography and simple narrative of a tomboy and her crush on a handsome cowboy.

The object of her affections, the Champion Roper, was played by new-comer, Michael Eaton, who was a big hit with audiences for his solo featuring clogging and tap dancing. This is Eaton's first season with the company, but he seems to have already made himself quite memorable in the minds of the audience members. Of the half-dozen or more children and guardians interviewed, his solo was cited most often as the favorite part of the concert.

"Michael Eaton is a fabulous tap dancer," said Jennifer Owen, echoing the comments of other audience members. "He had such energy," commented another. "He is someone to watch," said a third.

The cast received a standing ovation for its performance, and its share of hoots and hollers for a job well done. It was indeed a fine ballet program for an evening of levity and enjoyment, and well worth the price of admission.

By Steve Shapiro   Sat, Oct 25, 2008

August Wilson's legacy in the American theater is secure, but not, one hopes, safe. Safety in the arts means the decomposition of creative artistry into cultural artifice, where it is deemed appropriate to treat an artist's work like sacred texts. In the theater especially, remaking familiar productions is paramount to keeping works relevant. In August Wilson's oeuvre, the challenge is all the more pressing: his early death, at sixty, in 2005, has neither allowed for time to reevaluate his writing nor given directors or actors much chance to think things through anew. For now, we are seeing his plays as they were initially presented; fortunately, Wilson was such a gifted dramatist that following along the known path is enough. The production of Radio Golf  by the Kansas City Repertory Theatre, at Spencer Theatre in UMKC, which opened October 23rd (it will continue until November 9th), need only present itself to be as timely or even more so since it premiered.

The play opens on The Hill, in Pittsburgh, Wilson's half-real, half-mythical hometown, where the African-American community loomed large in his life and in his imagination. It is 1977, and a rising young developer, Harmond Wilkes (Kevyn Morrow), is running for mayor. With his old buddy, Roosevelt Hicks (a disarming performance by Wiley Moore), Harmond hopes to make a change in the old guard while moving on up for themselves. From the first, with a joke about parking their cars where Harmond and Roosevelt can see them, Wilson sets up the theme of how trouble brews when the thing that matters most is not being watched. Harmond and his wife, Mame (Julia Pace Mitchell), are as close politically as, well, Bill and Hillary; they trade jokes and suggestions about his campaign. She wants him to cut a part in his speech about police corruption that the local newspaper plans to print; after all, she says, he never knows when he will need their help. Harmond, mindful of his place in the campaign (and maybe history, too, but he shies away from that), refuses to relent. The audience can see trouble coming together long before the straight-talking Harmond; it makes the jokes batted out by the characters a bit nervier. There is no fifteen-minute intermission in real life.

Wilson draws together his plotlines and themes when an older black, Elder Joseph Barlow (Stanley Wayne Mathis), ambles into Harmond and Roosevelt's office to make himself known; before long, we learn that a derelict house that has been bought by the two developers-bought before everything was kosher--once belonged to Barlow, who still claims ownership and says he knows nothing about unpaid taxes leading to the sale. He has been having the house painted. When he discovers that Harmond and Roosevelt have plans to demolish his home, he leans into the younger black man with a mix of folksy homilies and fighting words.  The conversations between Harmond and Barlow are among the play's finest. The actors, directed by Lou Bellamy with easy assurance, react to each other like two strangers, like father and son, like the Law and the higher law. Suddenly, it seems that Harmond's decision-making is not as uniformly self-seeking as before, nor as morally pure. The campaign concessions of Barack Obama illuminate the background of Radio Golf: the audience cannot but consider the quickness with which a motivated individual's rising career and entire life can be bound by circumstances that define him (in Nietzsche's phrase) as human, all too human.

 Radio Golf is the last play in a wide-ranging cycle that encompasses Wilson's sense of the modern African-American experience. The interconnectedness of themes and characters (such as the invisible Aunt Esther, whose presence is invoked by the address of the condemned house) in ten plays-including the two Pulitzer-prize winning pieces Fences and The Piano Lesson-is rooted in Wilson's experience as an observer of the past and through his own experiences. (He was chased out of his Catholic high school as the only black student, and later dealt with a wary white establishment when he began to write). This play turns out to be an elegiac note on which to end both the cycle and August Wilson's career; in Harmond Wilkes' decision to better himself or do better for the African-American community, Wilson places the theme of self-interest squarely in a historical mode. It is a shame to always be looking back over one's shoulder. The joke about keeping an eye on one's car in the not-great part of town is tied to a plotline about playing golf-Roosevelt can see no higher prize than to play golf at an exclusive club with a prominent white businessman who pays for everything, "including the caddy." When someone breaks into Harmond's car and steals his clubs it is like a personal attack on him. His sense of self is driven off track. Like Chekhov's gun seen in the first act that will inevitably come back to haunt the characters in the last act, Harmond's missing golf clubs are a sign to him that he chooses to neglect. However important it is to keep one's eye on the prize, first and last, Wilson seems to be saying, keep an eye on one's car.

REVIEW: Radio Golf
Presented by Kansas City Repertory Theatre
Runs now through November 9
Runs Call or visit the website for performance times.
Spencer Stage, 4949 Cherry, Kansas City, MO
For tickets call 816-235-2700 or online at www.kcrep.org 

By Steve Shapiro   Sun, Oct 12, 2008

Don Quixote and Sancho Panza, the two enduring, endearing characters created by the novelist-short-story-writer-playwright Miguel de Cervantes, in 1605, for his novel, Don Quixote, are with us in that ineluctable way only the most creative, the most original, and the most complicated fictional creations can be. Like Santa Claus or Peter Pan, like Huckleberry Finn and Tom Sawyer, like Ahab, Babar, and Stuart Little, the self-anointed knight-errant and his proverb-spouting squire remain some four hundred years after their introduction to the Spanish public both themselves and a thousand other things. They represent the theoretical; through Cervantes's satirically sympathetic portrayal-one made crazy by reading ridiculous books, the other representative of the commonsensical (as least as far as his insights allow)-the universe can be nicely divided up between them: they are Kirk and Spock, Laurel and Hardy, Seinfeld and Costanza, arguing over nothing, and signifying everything.

If literature were a competitive sport, then Don Quixote is all the Olympic gold medals rolled into one, and Cervantes is Michael Phelps, able to do it all. With the upcoming Friends of Chamber Music presentation of Don Quijote De La Mancha, performed by the illustrious Hespèrion XXI with Jordi Savall on viola da gamba and special guest F. Murray Abraham reading excerpts, it is an appropriate time to collect some stats and consider this novel, known, indeed, as the first modern novel. After no less than the Bible, no other book has been delivered in so many forms and translations: by one count, seven hundred editions around the world have been published. Novelists as varied as Lawrence Sterne, Flaubert, Tobias Smollett (who translated one edition), Dickens, Melville, Dostoevsky, Nabokov, and Milan Kundera have been strongly influenced by its picaresque world-view. Faulkner reread it every year (and García Márquez read Faulkner, so in his prose the reader jumps four hundred years in a single sentence).

The strong characters have made for exuberant adaptations musically, from Richard Strauss's tone poem, operas by Mendelssohn, Massenet, and Georg Telemann, to orchestrations by Ravel and Henry Purcell. The great Russian choreographer Petipa worked with Léon Minkus on a ballet, later Balanchine made his own ballet, and both Nureyev and Baryshnikov danced the story. Movie versions have been made in the silent era (the first version, in 1898, was a year prior to the first filmed version of Shakespeare's plays) and the sound: famously, Orson Welles tried for years to finish his version (oddly, two private collectors in Europe have unseen footage); infamously, Terry Gilliam saw his film collapse when the set was destroyed-a documentary, Lost in La Mancha, confirms the heroic bumbler's cruel fate is reflected in the absurdities poured on his brethren. Even Disney views the world through 'don'-colored glasses: a rumor abounds that Pixar's next animated feature, Up, is one more adaptation. How can one complain, when, after all, every Don Quixote needs his Sancho, and everyone needs Don Quixote, perhaps now more than ever?

If some aspect of the novel appears in every art work influenced by its larger-than-life characters and their creator's perfect sense of timing-for tragedy as much as for its celebrated comedy-it is only natural. The version most people know, the musical Man of La Mancha written by Dale Wasserman, with its hummable hit "The Impossible Dream," incorporates the book's most famous scenes: Don Quixote thinking windmills are giants, wearing a wash basin for a helmet on his head, and defending his illusory love, Dulcinea. Yet these set-pieces, while memorable, only scratch the surface of the novel, which embodies life as fully as Ulysses and Remembrance of Things Past. Description, detail, delight: page after page, the reader comes across scenes and dialogue that might have been written yesterday, or tomorrow. Cervantes' proclaimed goal-to destroy the chivalric romances that had originated before the Middle Ages and included such classics as Beowulf, The Song of Roland and the Italian Orlando Furioso but by the 16th century had degenerated into standard heroic tales, like Hollywood comedies-was clearly achieved: within months of Don Quixote's initial circulation, no new chivalric romances were published and a new literary age set in. Cervantes brought psychology to the narrative form, in effect creating the novel as a distinct storytelling structure. Don Quixote and Sancho Panza, while built on the backs of hundreds of stock characters seeking adventures and proffering advice, were quickly understood as unique characters in their own rights. Because they are so open, so universal in their fictional portraits, artists from all kinds of other mediums have found them to be personal vessels.

Realistic interpretations, such as the engravings made by Gustave Doré in 1863, are one way to respond to Cervantes' imagination; musical interpretations are purer, still. Jordi Savall's method of researching music of the time creates a cause-and-effect; he takes us not so much into the novel but through it, back to Cervantes' age when Spain was the confirmed world power and the Church doctrine reigned supreme in the guise of the Inquisition. The famous book-burning scene in chapter six is but one example of Cervantes' stand against the authorities. Things have not changed much; Don Quixote's housekeeper, in whose eagerness to consign her master's library to the fire in the corral "she saved herself a trip down the stairs and tossed them all out the window," might well be the Nazis, the Taliban, or the telegenic Sarah Palin. Mad for all the world to see, armed only with his lance and a method to his madness, Don Quixote stands like a dark knight-errant against every enemy of the imagination. He does not stand alone.

Don Quixote with Jordi Savall, Hespèrion XXI and F. Murray Abraham, presented by The Friends of Chamber Music will perform at Grace & Holy Trinity Cathedral on Friday, October 24, 8 pm.
For tickets or information, call 816-561-9999 or online at www.chambermusic.org

By Steve Shapiro   Sun, Oct 05, 2008

Lana Turner is coming to Kansas City this fall, after a fashion. When a young Tennessee Williams, fresh from the failure of his first play and the halfway success of his next two works, traveled to Hollywood, in 1944, like so many serious writers before him and after in search of inspiration-or at least, some change in his pocket-he was set to work on a project for Lana Turner, at MGM. His contribution was perhaps ill-advised, like commissioning Beckett to write a screenplay for Sarah Jessica Parker; Williams referred to the movie as The Celluloid Brassiere, and his name is absent from the writing credits of Marriage is a Private Affair. But like so many other writer bees, he was working on something that would pay off off-screen: the drama he was remembering from his own life lent its autobiographical urges to what would become The Glass Menagerie, the first of his achievements on stage.

If the postwar Southern comfort of Williams' dreamy dialogue seems out-of-place in an out-of-control modern world, Kansas City theatergoers will find out soon enough. The Glass Menagerie (January 9-February 8, 2009) is but one of several classics to be staged this season by the Kansas City Repertory Theatre. Under the auspices of the Rep's new Artistic Director, Eric Rosen, the company will peregrinate between the classics and contemporary productions, such as August Wilson's Radio Golf, with a few hybrids of both.

As the recently ended Metropolitan Ensemble Theatre's production proved in the revival of The Homecoming, Harold Pinter's forty-year-old drama of familial fractiousness, the right kind of play ages as smoothly as a vintage wine. Combining timelessness with timeliness is one of art's roll of the dice; the play that can surface and resurface successfully beating the odds against culture's indifference to the past is the play that will always have something inherently worthy to offer.

 Eric Rosen's decision to turn back to three classics that in a certain harsh light could appear to be moth-eaten is a necessary step if serious theater-here or anywhere-intends to preserve its dignity in a world busy shrink-wrapping its truths for another day.
 

The Glass Menagerie, suffused like Williams's best work in the contradictions between the daydreams of the impractical and the nightmares of the inevitable, is an adult drama that has been reshaped over the years into the quintessential high school project, performed year after year, often with the mother character of Amanda no older than Amanda's fragile daughter, Laura. Numbing it down inevitably robs the play of its surprises and it will be up to Rosen and his cast to find a way to do more to hold the audience's attention than requesting that it turn off all cell phones. So much has happened since Williams wrote his play-he was still new as a playwright, still, in a sense, living out his plays-it is easy to view it as a museum piece. Yet, reading the script, feeling along with the narrator Tom's own mixed-up desires to satisfy his yearnings while being responsible to his detached mother and too-attached sister, Williams's mastery rises up: "Go to the moon, you selfish dreamer," Amanda tells Tom at one point. Like Hemingway's sing-song prose which was never intended to be realistic but rather a reach for a realism closer to life than to formal literature, Tennessee Williams wrote in a style that certainly could be bold (consider Stanley Kowalski's howls or Big Daddy's Zeus-like pronouncements), but it is more forceful, oddly, in his will-o'-the-wisp characters-the Blanche de Boises of the world.

Theatre is daydreaming; the question (or the answer) is, how big does one dream? In the new Charlie Kaufman movie, Synecdoche, New York, Philip Seymour Hoffman plays to perfection an over-earnest director of a local company for whom revisiting the classics (Death of a Salesman is invoked as the standard hack classic) becomes meaningless; in his case, he develops an increasingly larger and more elaborate series of sets and set-pieces which mimic his own life. Another of the Kansas City Repertory Theatre's staged classics this season, Georges Feydeau's 1907 farce, A Flea in Her Ear (May 15-June 7, 2009), will test audiences in a different way: how well does humor hold up through time? Feydeau is French like Pepe le Pew in the Warner Bros. cartoons, seeing the humor in romance, especially its missed moments. A Flea in Her Ear is his most famous play-for most people it is his only play-and, again, it will be interesting to see how a modern audience, raised (or lowered) on recent all-out-for-laughs comedies will sit for a simple bedroom farce about a suspicious wife. The essential story is not far removed (just turn on any TV channel or open the newspaper); but this is theater, so the language is of-the-time, and the Belle Epoque is, I imagine, getting harder and harder to translate into our green, global, Oprah age: do we have time to dream, anymore? The new adaptation, by the usually witty David Ives, promises to connect Feydeau's finger-wagging dialogue with a sensibility that we are comfortable with-but not entirely.

If Tennessee Williams's plays are ingrained in our national character, Sherwood Anderson's novel, Winesburg, Ohio, verges on our national neurosis. Published in 1919, set in a Midwestern town whose characters Anderson culled from his own hometown, the young hero of the work, George, recalls Tom of The Glass Menagerie, hoping to get away from his claustrophobic home-life yet drawn back each time by the inviting dreamers living around him. Eric Rosen's musical adaptation Winesburg, Ohio (March 13-April 5, 2009), ought to shake up our standard view of the work. Adding music and lyrics both forces the audience out of its hazy remembrance of the book from required high school reading to revisit what really happens, and makes the experience self-consciously theatrical. The best Hollywood and Broadway musicals throughout the Golden Age of the Thirties and Forties were able to withstand the characters bursting into song. How true to Anderson that Rosen and his collaborators are able to take the story will determine whether we can go back in time not merely to remember but, Proust-like, to be able to look ahead simultaneously.

Just how well the classics will sit with contemporary audiences, like a traditional holiday dinner, depends as much on the audience as on the playwright and the actors. Years ago, when Robert Altman was a guest on the old Dick Cavett Show, he explained his philosophy thusly: "The audience has to meet the filmmaker halfway." Altman's maxim goes for anything artistic: how many movies, novels, poems, plays, operas, dances, paintings, and whatnot have gone the way of Mozart's unmarked grave because they were not met halfway? The once avant-garde theater of Beckett and Pinter has given way to high school and regional productions: that is something to cheer. It reinforces the idea that the only new idea is an old idea in a new context. The Coterie Theatre's version of Our Town (coming next January) is one more oldie ever threatening to become a moldy, but so is the forthcoming Broadway revival of Pal Joey. It is the challenge of theater everywhere to prove the play's the thing, and the only thing.

For tickets and information to Kansas City Repertory Theatre, call 816-235-2700 or go to http://www.kcrep.org.

By   Sun, Oct 05, 2008

Google "Kansas City theatre" and it's easy to find numerous listings for local theatres, venues, presenters, home entertainment equipment, and movie plexus. The first couple of pages are dominated by larger companies; in fact, most of those organizations are listed more than once. Through a simple internet search it's quite apparent which theatre companies make a significant impact on the theatre scene. But, there are even smaller companies, the mom-and-and-pops to the big dogs, that are also creating exciting performances that often go under the radar. Regardless of the size, each company is adding their own flavor to the cuisine of Kansas City.

In the 1960s and 1970s, a movement was splashing its way across the country giving inspiration to mavericks that would allow good, solid theatre to be accessible to everyone living outside New York City. Arena Stage in Washington D.C. was the flagship for this non-profit theatre movement while Dr. Patricia MacIlrath (1917-1999) was the candle that gave the light to Kansas City.

Dr. MacIlrath - or "Dr. Mac" as she was often called by those who knew her - was appointed chairwoman of the UMKC Theatre Department in 1954 and formed the UMKC Summer Repertory Theatre, an endeavor to professionally train her theatre students and add to the culture of Kansas City. Theatre practitioners from all over the area and across the country converged to the newly formed theatre and participated in Dr. McIlrath's efforts. In 1968, Kansas City begot its first professional resident theatre when it was officially named Missouri Repertory Theatre and later renamed Kansas City Repertory Theatre in 2004 by their Board of Directors.

Dr. MacIlrath was the inspiration for many theatre professionals who currently work in theatres from coast-to-coast and right here in Kansas City. It was from that inspiration some of her students founded theatres like Unicorn Theatre and The Coterie Theatre - both of which are celebrating their own milestone years respectively.

Kansas City is also home to other noteworthy theatre companies. Theatre for Young America, enjoying their 35th season this year, has been a child's introduction to theatre and the training ground for several local actors during their days of youth. Their current home is in Union Station's H&R Block City Stage where many afternoons an observer can find lines of school buses waiting for their cargo.

Visiting Just Off Broadway Theatre Association (www.justoffbroadway.org) you will find numerous member companies calling the black box style theatre in Penn Valley Park their home. A company such as the ever youthful Eubank Productions has garnered great success with their musical productions as they continue their mission to foster "fresh, aspiring talent and theatre artists...with the hope of broadening Kansas City audiences' horizons."

Thin Air Theatrics (www.danieldoss.com/thinairtheatrics), headed by producing artistic director Daniel Doss, has mounted new original musicals on the Just Off Broadway stage while Minds Eye Theatre (www.mindseyetheatrekc.com) produces works to educate audiences "about issues of sexuality, gender, age, and disability."

Kansas City is also home to numerous community theatres offering innovative programming. The Barn Players (www.thebarnplayers.org), who produce contemporary musicals and plays in Mission, KS, also offer Barn Junior, an opportunity that allows "kids in grades 7-12 to work with experienced theatre professionals to put together performances of material geared toward a younger age range."

North of Kansas City, families can attend the only free summer theatre in town at Oak Grove Park with Gladstone Theatre in the Park (www.heartoftheweb.net/gladstonetip). Celebrating their 21st season this past summer, Gladstone Theatre in the Park brings together adults and youth to entertain the Kansas City community with Broadway classics like The King and I and Fiddler on the Roof.

Kansas City may not always receive national acclaim, though American Theatre Magazine did feature (the) City in 2004, we are not far off from establishing our presence. With the addition of Actors Theatre of Kansas City, Metropolitan Ensemble Theatre and Kansas City Repertory Theatre's production of Clay moving to New York, we are one step closer to becoming a key city for national notoriety. Missing, however, are exclusive theatres for minorities like San Francisco's Asian American Theatre Company or Chicago's Black Ensemble Theatre, as well as theatre companies for local playwrights to develop their careers like Boston's Playwrights Theatre and Pittsburgh's Playwrights Theatre Company. Despite these missing components, it is clear that Kansas City has a wealth of talent and opportunity that makes it a cosmopolitan and thriving town for the performing arts.

Dr. MacIlrath may not have directly influenced everyone to do the work we see today, but she did open the door for possibility. Dr. Felicia Hardison Londré, University of Missouri Curators' Professor of Theatre, from the Western Historical Manuscript Collection of her Charles N. Kimball Lecture in 2007, stated that Dr. MacIlrath believed "people need live theatre, even when they don't know they need it."

In this time of economic uncertainty, theatre has the opportunity to thrive and grow. Ken Davenport, a theatre producer in New York and author of www.ProducersPerspective.com, mentioned in his blog on September 18th that one of his investors thanked him "for giving him the opportunity to get in (as an investor), because if he hadn't sunk money into the show ("13" currently on Broadway), he would have sunk it in a stock...and that stock would have sunk and sunk and stunk." Like Wall Street, theatre is a gamble, and according to Davenport "a dip in one market means it could be time to go shopping in another."

Beyond all that, the everyday person - the plumber and office manager - needs a place to go, for whatever reason, to be entertained, to get answers to growing questions, to gain perspective on life events, to leave the theatre a different person than when they came in; what better than theatre could give that and at an arms length away? Antonin Artaud, from his book The Theatre and Its Double, said, "It has not been definitively proved that the language of words is the best possible language. And it seems that on the stage, which is above all a space to fill and a place where something happens, the language of words may have to give way before a language of signs whose objective aspect is the one that has the most immediate impact upon us."

By Gayle G. Hathorne   Sat, Oct 25, 2008

The Kansas City Symphony has come a long way from the orchestra I knew in the 60s and 70s.  Its niveau of excellence has impressed me so in its current incarnation, that I seldom miss a program.  That being said, the concert Saturday night, Oct. 25th at the Lyric Theatre, was one that left me more earthbound than spellbound, even through the standard of performance mostly met its mark, and the ingredients for an evening of great music were at hand.  The program offered two masterworks which are seldom heard in the concert hall, Haydn's Symphony No. 84 and Berlioz's Te Deum, paired with a modern nova of great beauty, Kernis' Musica Celestis and Wagner's transcendental Prelude to Act I of Lohengrin.

Stern noted that the works in the program were "spiritually connected" thematically and by sonority.  Two of the works received premieres in Paris.  Haydn's Symphony No. 84, completed in 1786, premiered most likely in March 1788 at the Masonic Loge Olympique during the time of Haydn's own Masonic initiation.  Berlioz completed his Te Deum in October 1849, and presented its premiere on April 30, 1855 in Paris at the gothic Church of Saint Eustache.  Around that same time, Wagner completed his Prelude to Act 1 of Lohengrin in April 1848, and it received its premiere at the annual celebration of Goethe's birthday on August 28, 1850, in the Court Theater at Weimar, conducted by Franz Liszt.  Like Wagner, American composer, Aaron Jay Kernis drew inspiration for his Musica Celestis from medieval mysticism, and, in particular, from the "soaring work of Hildegard of Bingen" (1098-1179).  His work premiered on March 30, 1992 in San Francisco, to critical acclaim that continues to deepen with appreciation as it becomes better known through recordings and performances in concert halls.

Wagner's Prelude opened with the sweet shimmering tones of the strings beautifully depicting the essence of the temple of the Holy Grail, from whence, in Wagner's opera, a swan appears bearing Lohengrin, Knight of the Swan.  With the entry of the woodwinds, Stern achieved a blend that ethereally matched the tones of the strings, resulting in a sublime sonority.  However, as the opening developed, Stern increased the dynamics too soon, which muddied Wagner's well-orchestrated contrast between the glimmering string/woodwind opening and the earthy glow of the full orchestra with robust celli, basses, and lower brass, a moment meant to musically portray the reception of the radiant spirit into the being of man.

The arrival of the trombones and trumpets snapped the audience suddenly from the mystical spell of the Holy Grail into the here and now of the acoustical dilemma of the orchestra performing on a stage engineered for opera.  Sound from the string section disappears into that cavern of space directly above the Lyric stage, a condition that prompted the Symphony to attempt a remedy this season by installing individual platforms arranged in rising tiers for the string players and winds who sit farther away from the audience - to some success.  By elevating the rows of strings, woodwinds and horns, the audience can better see those players, and more of their sound carries forward into the audience, all to the benefit of the orchestral balance.  However, although the acoustical characteristics of trombones and trumpets, with their forward-pointing bells that deliver immediate sound directly into the audience, require no amplification, they have been raised on a platform above all the other instruments, resulting in sporadic overpowering blocks of sound that detract from the integrity of the music.  It must be said that this is not any failing of the excellent brass section of the Symphony, whose beauty of tone, intonation and musicality are consistently commendable, but rather, the unavoidable result of a poor seating arrangement.
 

The Kernis Musica Celestis connects eerily to Wagner's Prelude, 
as Stern remarked from the stage...

 The Kernis Musica Celestis connects eerily to Wagner's Prelude, as Stern remarked from the stage before the concert began, in that it, too, opens with strings played divisi in the high range.  Stern was so impressed by the similarities that he chose to perform Wagner followed without interruption for applause by the Kernis piece, so that the audience could share his discovery that the last two chords of the Wagner Prelude are exactly the same as the first two chords of the Kernis Musica Celestis.  Although his point was inescapable, I felt that Kernis' celestial jewel would have shone more brilliantly had it opened the evening's program, instead.  With its simple American syntax and lines, it suffered in the comparison to Wagner's mastery of rich, complex harmony and line.  It took a full three minutes for me to finally shift into the musical language of Kernis that contained expressive lyrical solo passages from the first cellist, first violin and first viola players.  An impressive and accessible work of tonal colors and clusters of chords, the piece ended with a two-note sigh from the solo violin echoed by the solo viola.
 
Haydn's Symphony No. 84 elicited from the strings of the orchestra a compelling full sound in the slow prelude opening, followed by an elegant warm allegro.  The 38 strings of the Symphony fell far short of the 70 strings that played the premiere of the work in 1788, but what they lacked in number was delivered with rich vibrant tone.  Well developed phrasing brought life to the second movement, followed by an energetic 3rd movement Minuet, and a brilliantly fast 4th movement.

The second half of the program was devoted to the Berlioz Te Deum, and marked the debut of the new Director of the Symphony Chorus, Charles Bruffy. 

 Although Bruffy's photo graced the glossy cover of the program, and his bio appeared prominently within its folds, he did not step on stage that evening to grant the audience the opportunity to applaud his success, a fact that prompted buzzes of speculation among concert-goers.  However, like the equally absent Berlioz, Bruffy left his indelible impression upon the evening via the excellence of his work.  The Chorus made a strong impression before a note was sung by their presence on the stage, where the alto and soprano sections symmetrically flanked the men donned in tuxedo attire in the center.  The work was composed for full orchestra, three choirs and the immense 8,000 pipe organ of the Church of Saint Eustache, with explicit performance instructions in the score from Berlioz indicating that the orchestra and choirs were to be placed at the east end of the nave opposite the organ at the west end to exploit the acoustical possibilities of the vast space of that church.  Berlioz presented the work with 950 musicians, 600 in the children's choir, 100 singers in each of the two adult choirs, and an orchestra of over 100 in a spectacular show of forces.  Stern presented the Symphony's version with about 80 orchestral players, the 120-member chorus, and one electronic Rodgers organ (played very capably by David Diebold) whose sound emanated not from a distance, as indicated in Berlioz's performance instructions, but from two black speaker boxes placed on each side of the chorus.  Missing were the children's choir and a reverberation that would have lasted at least six seconds in the church.  Those restrictions aside, the performance had much to recommend it.

The chorus projected rich golden warmth from the altos that blended beautifully with the round luster of the sopranos and with the strong bass section, and displayed overall a full vocal range and control of dynamics, with uniform Latin diction and crisp ending consonants.  The sight and sound of five snare drums and four cymbals were a focal point on stage with the orchestra towards the middle of the work.  Tenor soloist, Phillippe Castagnet, delivered with intensity and a tight vibrato a poignant prayer in the Te Ergo Quaesumus, met by a good balance with the orchestra.  The movement concluded with a very expressive solo chorus passage in pianissimo punctuated at its conclusion by two pizzicato tones from the lower strings.  Flourishes of trumpet fanfares capped the final movement after a successful dynamic and dramatic build-up of choral and orchestral forces that brought the colossal work to its welcome conclusion.

REVIEW
Kansas City Symphony, Michael Stern, Music Director
Kansas City Symphony Chorus, Charles Bruffy, Chorus Director
Soloist: Phillippe Castagnet, Tenor
Saturday, October 25, 2008 at 8:00 pm
Lyric Theatre, Downtown Kansas City, MO
www.kcsymphony.org

By Steve Shapiro   Fri, Oct 24, 2008

Concert-goers who filed into the pews of Grace and Holy Trinity Cathedral, in Kansas City, Friday night, October 24th, for a performance by Jordi Savall and his medieval music group Hespèrion XXI were greeted by a statement illuminated against a black backdrop: The author of the remark is Sancho Panza, squire to Don Quixote, that memorably backward knight-errant in Miguel de Cervantes' landmark novel, Don Quixote. For Savall who explored the music of the era-  16th century Spain - for his adaptation, Don Quijote de la Mancha: Ballades and Music, Sancho's remark, like Cervantes' novel, is full of multiple meanings. The evening's performance had its share of lightness, even a mischievous turn toward the end, but the overall mood was one of melancholy; Don Quixote, however comic by turns, is at heart a deeply serious work about love, justice, death, reality and illusion. Savall's subtle interpretation matched the original in its own original manner.

The performance was the first in this season's Friends of Chamber Music's Early Music Series; in her introduction, Cynthia Siebert, the founder and artistic director, spoke of the novel's reminder to us of the "necessity of imagination." Cervantes wrote Don Quixote (in two parts, published in 1605 and 1615) in response to a literary tradition hundreds of years old, the chivalric romance, which had eroded into stereotypical tales of heroes-on-horseback. Warfare was paramount then, as now; Spain was considered the greatest world power, and its influence was political, cultural, and liturgical. Cervantes interwove familiar stories of maidens mourning and lost lovers found with a new, modern tone represented by the frail self-made knight and his proverb-bearing sidekick, who together questioned the idea of things as they were while demonstrating things as they could be. Jordi Savall's program did not follow the novel per se; it was a musical exploration of the novel's themes, through the music of the time and Savall's own compositions, played by musicians on instruments of the time, such as the oboe-esque shawm and the trombone's predecessor, the sackbut. Flute, kettle drum, guitar, cello, and Savall's own exquisitely handled viola de gamba added to the musical measure, alternating between brisk marches and saturnine songs delicately delivered by La Capella Reial de Catalunya.

To flesh out the alternating instrumental and vocal parts, brief scenes from the novel were dramatized by F. Murray Abraham, out of costume but in a Quixotic goatee. With his own amiable charm and dashes of characterization, the actor illuminated the novel's narrative, emphasizing its madness of reason in a world routinely given over to bloody revenge and book burnings. (At evening's end, Savall spoke briefly, discussing the method of musicians in the 15th and 16th centuries to end pieces on four notes, which he played, before the entire group burst into a chorus of "Happy Birthday" toward a surprised and laughing Abraham.)

The adaptations by the Catalan translator Manuel Forcano focused very little on the trademark comic passages in the novel such as Don Quixote's thinking windmills are giants, preferring to bring out the elegiac atmosphere in the romances of lands and loves conquered or spurned. As the lyrics filled the screen behind the stage with the language of memories and "tears of love," it was easy to read the selections as modern parallels; the name Charlemagne might be easily rendered as George W. Bush. "It's already time to pick up/Soldiers of my memory," reads one ballad sung. "Escaped and defeated/In so crazy battle." The night's music was as old as knights  but the sentiments expressed were as recent as a cable news ticker at the bottom of your TV screen. 
 

REVIEW: The Friends of Chamber Music presents
Don Quijote De La Mancha, performed by Hespèrion XXI
directed by Jordi Savall and featuring F. Murray Abraham as the Narrator
Friday, October 24 at 8:00 p.m.
Grace and Holy Cathedral, Kansas City, MO

By Gayle G. Hathorne   Fri, Oct 10, 2008

 The Lawrence Chamber Orchestra opened its 2008-2009 Season Sunday afternoon, October 12, in a program titled "Faith Meets Philosophy". The short 45-minute drive from downtown Kansas City past miles of open prairie fields to Plymouth Congregational Church in Lawrence was rewarded by the heavenly sounds of great music performed by this cracker jack of an ensemble, led with humor and intelligence by Music Director, Steven McDonald. Providing insightful commentary from the podium before the performance of each of the three works, McDonald ably shared his artistic vision that informed his interpretations.

The program opened with Mozart's rarely performedAdagio for English horn and Strings, K 580a, aptly described by McDonald in his program commentary as "wistful, tender and evocative," and featured soloist Margaret Marco, whose beautiful tone and masterful nuance of phrasing were exquisite.

Written late in Mozart's life at the same time he was sketching the Requiem, this Adagio was composed one year prior to the well-known sacred choral piece, Ave verum corpus,whose melody is incanted in the opening measures of the Adagio through the plaintive voice of the English horn. Tying together the theme of the program, "Faith Meets Philosophy", McDonald noted that this short secular instrumental piece is the ancestor of the beloved sacred choral jewel.

Using his hands without the baton to direct this intimately scored piece, McDonald's sensitive direction elicited a seamless blend and responsive balance from the string accompaniment that was perfectly attuned to Marco's soulful interpretation of the melodic line, rising to support her swells into the fullness of a phrase, and slipping gracefully back into infinity in the meticulously tapered diminuendos. Her rich, complex tone shimmered through a well-controlled vibrato that was mirrored exactly in the subtle vibrato of the strings, catapulting this performance into that rarest of moments of which it may be said was perfect, soul-wrenchingly beautiful music.

Written in church sonata form, McDonald informed the audience that Haydn's Symphony No. 22 in E-flat holds the distinction of having earned its nickname "The Philosopher" in Haydn's own time, the only one of his 104 symphonies to have done so. This title, he explained, is apparently due to the rock steady walking rhythm of the strings in the first movement, which conjures an image of a philosopher slowly pacing back and forth while deep in thought, or of the slow passage of time as marked by a ticking clock. Upon hearing the work, these images were inescapable. A pair of horns opened the adagio first movement in a simple ascending triad figure played in octaves above the walking figure of the muted strings, with the completion of the chorale-like phrase passed to the pair of English horns in unison, like a brilliant idea born, faded, and contemplated before returning again for development. Notable were the flawlessly executed lip trills by horn players, Paul Stevens and Kyra Sims, whose soaring sparkling tones resounded brilliantly in the expanse of the hall. 

 In playful contrast to the contemplative opening movement, the short second movement bubbled with exuberant humor. Bouncing springing figures in the strings playfully interwove amid lively melodic lines supported by a sostenuto harmonic texture provided by the English and French horns in their lower registers.

 English horns and strings opened the Minuet with the melodic line in the low registers of those all-wooden instruments to create an unusual blend of sonority reminiscent of a soft low breeze breathing among gently falling autumn leaves in three-quarter time. The glorious tones of the golden horns floated brilliantly into the stratosphere with the Trio, proclaiming Haydn's love of the beauty of high horns, completed in quartet setting by the pair of lower voiced English horns.

As noted in McDonald's commentary, the fourth movement began with the soft staccato of horn calls in the distance announcing the royal hunt, a favorite pastime of Haydn. This chase took off at breakneck speed. Tight ensemble playing from the strings was matched by a rapidly tongued rhythmic figure in the winds that brought the piece to its thrilling conclusion.

The program was rounded out with the richly romantic Organ Concerto No. 1 in F major, Op. 137 by Josef Gabriel Rheinberger, featuring organist, Michael Bauer whose exceptional musicality worked beautifully with that of the orchestral ensemble. Maestro McDonald elicited smiles as he began his introduction with the parodied question, "Who in the world is Josef Rheinberger?" The answer was likely known to the organists among the audience via his 20 organ sonatas composed in different major and minor keys. Born in Liechtenstein in 1839, Rheinberger composed about 200 works, and is credited with reviving the organ from relative obscurity in the concert halls of the 19th century. He served his first post as parish organist at Vaduz at the tender age of seven, was appointed Court Director for church music by King Ludwig II of Bavaria, and was highly regarded as professor of organ and music composition at the Munich Conservatory, where his students included Humperdinck, Wolf-Ferrari and Furtwängler. 

 The concerto began with three chords of what McDonald termed "pure unadulterated joy" played together by organ and orchestra, and upon which the entire composition was based. McDonald explained that these three beginning notes found their origins in plainchant. Infused in the exuberant romanticism of this work, his observation that this work is the result of faith meeting with philosophy to create lebensfreude (joy in life) rang true.

Scored for three horns and strings, the orchestral colors blended seamlessly back and forth with those of the organ in an equal teamwork of music making, creating a bright full sound that reverberated an optimistic tone. Throughout the movement the mood was of soloist playing with the orchestra, not in competition, with the organ at times completing the phrases begun by the orchestra, and vice versa. Balance between the two was immaculately maintained.

The Andante movement in 3 began with a subdued organ solo answered by the horns, and was developed with lush romantic harmonies by the strings. At times it was hard to believe that such a small number of players could produce the rich full sounds that filled the space with complex harmonies and gorgeous blends of textures, where, in spots, could be heard a foretaste of the forest scene in Humperdinck's Hansel and Gretel.Full expression of musical line and harmony were evident throughout, and underscored the tasteful command of dynamics and musicality that Bauer achieved on the organ, which he maintained in perfect balance with the orchestra. The movement concluded with a pianissimo chord released together by the orchestra and organ, under which a very soft low rumble echoed from the sustained organ pedal.

The bright Finale opened to sustained chords in the organ, contrasted by rhythmical figures in the strings and completed by the sounds of the trio of horns. It was in this movement that soloist Michael Bauer was allowed to showcase his virtuosic technical command. In a prolonged solo passage in which Bauer's feet danced nimbly over the pedals of the Reuter organ while his fingers flew among the keyboards, the audience was shown that even without the artistic input of the chamber orchestra, this king of Instruments could reign with its own majestic power and romantic musicality. The audience expressed its enthusiastic admiration with a standing ovation.

Who: Lawrence Chamber Orchestra with Steven McDonald, Music Director,
Presented by the Lawrence Arts Center
Soloists: Margaret Marco, English horn and Michael Bauer, Organ 
When: Sunday, October 12, 2008 at 2:00 pm
Where: Plymouth Congregational Church, 925 Vermont Street, Lawrence, KS
Attendance: ca 200
www.lawrencechamberorchestra.org

By Gayle G. Hathorne   Wed, Oct 08, 2008

Musical icon, Itzhak Perlman packed a full house Saturday evening at the Folly Theatre as he presented the opening concert of a rich line-up for the new Harriman-Jewell concert series. 

Perlman, a favorite and frequent performer to the stage of the Folly, opened the program by dedicating the concert to journalist, Daniel Pearl,who would have celebrated his 45th birthday on October 10th-had he not been killed by kidnappers while on assignment in Pakistan in 2002. The heartfelt dedication helped Perlman to set a conversational tone with the audience, which he drew upon extensively in the second half of the program.

The first piece presented was LeClair's Sonata No. 3 for Violin and Piano in D Major, the same sonata this reviewer had the pleasure to hear three weeks ago performed by Kansas City Symphony Concertmistress, Kanako Ito and Lolita Lisovskaya in recital at Park University. Perlman's famous gorgeous full tone with its glossy sheen filled the space of the Folly to the able accompaniment of pianist Rohan De Silva. Perlman's iron-steady bow arm supported clean double stops and easy slides with complete mastery of technique throughout the evening. The second movement allegro was marred only by the imbalance of dynamics with the piano. This was not due to any lack of sensitivity in De Silva's accompaniment, but to the unfortunate circumstance of the open lid on that mighty Steinway, presenting an acoustical challenge that not even Perlman's resounding fullness of tone could overcome.

The slow Sarabanda of the third movement, although executed effortlessly, came off a tad wooden in Perlman's interpretation. In fact, that turned out to be the case for the remainder of the pieces printed in the program. Despite every effort from De Silva to impart fresh inspiration to the works, and in spite of Perlman's impressive technical command that never once faltered, and the beauty of his sweet tone, musically, it seemed that Perlman was on auto-pilot. Not a note was missed, not a trace of imperfect intonation slipped into even one of the millions of notes that flew from his fingers through the double stops, artificial harmonics and virtuosic pyrotechnics he drew from his violin. Despite his formidable accuracy, brilliant technique and inspiring tonal beauty, this was not an evening that challenged Perlman to reveal the divine inspiration locked within the notes of the composers. A key (technique) may unlock the box of treasure, however, it is the treasure within (divine inspiration) which one seeks and values.

Beethoven's Sonata for Violin and Piano No. 7 in C minor, Op. 31/2, showcased the stunning virtuosity of pianist De Silva, who brought forth a rich deep sonority in the low register, matched Perlman technically, and overall stole the spotlight in this piece, as Beethoven must have intended.

Stravinsky's Suite Italienne for Violin and Piano, a transcription of his Pergolesi balletPulcinella, opened the second half of the program. It was the best of the night, highlighted by Perlman's lyrical phrasing and rich palette of tonal colors, and De Silva's uncanny simulation of the original orchestral tutti tremolos and pizzicato chords. The presto, enlivened by flashy spicato bowing, drew titters from the audience at its unexpectedly sudden ending. After the breathtaking pianissimo conclusion of the fourth movement, Perlman slipped back into technically flawless but artistically uninspired straight-ahead delivery, with scant tapering of the phrases, but he rallied back at the conclusion of the piece with a dazzling series of trills to the piano melody, which brought the audience to its feet.

The music that followed when the pair re-emerged on stage finally delivered the charge of excitement that had been so keenly anticipated for this evening with Perlman. It was in this music that Perlman showed all his stuff. His luscious sweet tone shone with beauty no matter how high the notes ascended in the Kreisler concoctions - playful music-making that was pure entertainment. The Tchaikovsky Humoresque conjured wistful images of the Russian soul of a by-gone era, and never was Perlman more relaxed than in the light Tchaikovsky Chanson sans paroles with its artificial harmonics played in clean double stops. Arensky's Serenade was Salon music at its most elegant, abundant with oily slides and warm emotion. The Bazzini Dance of the Goblins completed the program in a virtuosic display of technical prowess that was sheer artistry.

REVIEW
Who: Itzhak Perlman in recital presented by the Harriman-Jewell Series
When: Saturday, October 4, 2008
Where: The Folly Theatre
Attendance: 1079 (Sold-out)
www.harriman-jewell.org

By Lee Goodman   Sun, Oct 05, 2008

Ever since the Metropolitan Opera hired Peter Gelb as its General Manager, he has instituted many changes in the stodgy old Met attitude, none more dramatic than the series of The MetLive in HD in thousands of movie theaters across America and the world. In its first full season, the movie casts were seen by over 300,000 paying customers watching a live broadcast, not on their home television set but on a huge screen at their local movie theater seen in High Definition with Digital sound. Many movie casts draw more paying customers than first run Hollywood movies.

I have been at The Met on a couple of occasions when they were filming these movie casts. Unlike the old telecasts on PBS' Great Performances or Live from the Met, these new movie casts use three times the number of cameras. The cameras are all over the auditorium and many of them move vertically and/or horizontally so as to get better camera angles then just a straight shot. The resulting close-up images and sound are breathtaking.

This seems to be a win/win/win for everyone. The Met, while saying that the movie casts have not quite yet made money, surely believes that a profit is just around the corner either in ticket revenues or eventual DVD sales. At worst, these movie casts have immeasurably raised the image of the Met to such an extent that many other opera companies have tried to copy these movie casts to lesser results. The movie theaters are happy to fill up one or two auditoriums during the usually slow Saturday matinee time slot and sell lots of concessions. The audience pays $20 for a ticket instead of $250 at the Met for the best seat in the house for HD images and digital sound and they don't have to fly to New York. Many audiences are so thrilled by the performances that they break out into spontaneous applause as if in the opera house.

Not to be the fly in the ointment...I do worry about local small opera companies. I wonder if they will be hurt in the long term. Why go to the Lyric Opera of Kansas City's production of La Traviata if you can see Renee Fleming and Ramon Vargas for $20 in a Met production. So far, The Lyric Opera of Kansas City seems to be unaffected. Maybe this will only whet the public's appetite for more live opera and The Lyric will benefit long term.

In the meantime, any opera lover would be crazy not to go see several of the offerings this season. Here is the list of this season's movie casts along with my highly opinionated thoughts on each one.

Salome – Strauss
Saturday, October 11, 2008, Noon
Starring Karita Mattila as the Biblical sexpot. Not one of my favorite operas but Mattila should be great in the role.

Doctor Atomic (Met Premiere) – Adams
Saturday, November 8, 2008, Noon
This has been critically acclaimed as a modern masterpiece about the history and creation of the first atomic bomb. However, there is no way I will subject myself to 3+ hours of John Adam’s minimalist music garbage.

La Damnation de Faust (New Production) – Berlioz
Saturday, November 22, 2008, Noon
I could be wrong, but I think this was written more as an oratorio than an opera. However, not only do I love Berlioz’ music but Susan Graham and Marcello Giordani star as Marguerite and Faust and I think they are tremendous talents who do not get near the publicity and acclaim they deserve. This should be great and I plan to be in the theatre for this one.

Photo Ken Howard/Metropolitan Opera

Thaïs (New Production) – Massenet
Saturday, December 20, 2008, 11:00 a.m.
Thais is probably Massenet’s third most popular opera after Manon and Werther. It is a very lovely opera (with the famous Meditation) and the soprano part is supposedly extremely difficult. This performance features Renee Fleming and Thomas Hampson. I’ll be there for this one.

La Rondine (New Production) – Puccini
Saturday, January 10, 2009, Noon
This rarely performed Puccini opera has one of Puccini’s most gorgeous soprano arias (Doretta’s Dream) and this opera stars the glittery husband/wife team of Angela Gheorghiu and Roberto Alagna. This opera is quite short and you should be out the door in a couple of hours.

Orfeo ed Euridice – Gluck
Saturday, January 24, 2009, Noon
I am not going to miss this one. While Gluck may not be everyone’s cup of tea, the cast includes Stephanie Blythe (wonderful mezzo) and Danielle de Niese (coming soon to a William Jewell recital at The Folly Theater) and is choreographed by Mark Morris. I don’t know if I will like this, but with a great cast and probably great direction, I think this is worth the time and money. Besides, how many chances will you get to ever see this again.

Lucia di Lammermoor – Donizetti
Saturday, February 7, 2009, Noon
This stars Anna Netrebko (who recently married to barihunk Irwin Schrott and who just delivered a Schrott tot) and Rolando Villazon (hopefully recovered from a vocal crisis last year) in a production updated to around 1880 or so. I saw this last year with Natalie Dessay in one of the greatest performances, both vocally and dramatically, I have ever seen despite an anachronistically odd production.

The problem is The Met should have broadcast this last year with Dessay who has the vocal chops to handle Lucia (and anything else she wants). Netrebko has a wonderful voice and is an equally great actress, but she really doesn’t have the coloratura technique to handle these type of roles (as evidenced by her Puritani a year or so ago). I would love to hear Netrebko do Boheme, Tosca, any number of Verdi or French roles. But it is an effort for her to sing coloratura and it should sound effortless. Anyway, I expect the theaters to be sold out for this one.

AMC Barrywoods 24 at 8101 NW Roanridge Road, Kansas City, MO

Madama Butterfly - Puccini
Saturday, March 7, 2009, Noon
I saw this cast and production two years ago in New York. I was never much of a Butterfly fan until that performance. To begin with, the production was absolutely stunning (you will just have to see it because I could take up a page writing about it). There was some controversy about the use of a puppet to play the child but I found that just fine. Christina Gallardo-Domas does not have one of the great soprano voices but her acting was so incredible, that I was swept into this tragedy. She was partnered by one of my favorite and underrated tenors, Marcello Giordano. The combination of the production, the music the drama and vocalism just blew me and the whole audience away. DO NOT MISS THIS ONE!

La Sonnambula (New Production) - Bellini
Saturday, March 21, 2009, Noon
When I saw Natalie Dessay in Lucia, I not only thought she was a great vocalist but one of the great dramatic actresses I had ever seen. Then I saw her in Daughter of the Regiment and thought she was one of the great comic actresses I had ever seen. So as far as I am concerned, I will go hear Natalie Dessay recite the White Pages. Her costar is the wonderful Juan Diego Florez. While La Sonnambula isn't my favorite opera, DO NOT MISS THIS ONE!

La Cenerentola - Rossini
Saturday, May 9, 2009, 11:30 a.m.
I don't care what anyone says, I am boycotting this performance because it does NOT star home-town heroine and world-class mezzo, Joyce Di Donato in one of her signature roles. But for the rest of the world, Elina Garanca should do a marvelous job as Rossini's version of Cinderella.

Cinemark 14, The Palace at 500 Nichols Road, Kansas City, MO
Kansas City 18 Cinemas at 3200 Ameristar Drive, Kansas City, MO
AMC Town Center 20 at 11701 Nall Avenue, Leawood,KS
Cinemark 20 (Merriam) at 5500 Antioch Road, Merriam, KS
AMC Olathe Studio 29 with IMAX at 12075 S. Strang Line Road, Olathe, KS
Southwind 12 at 3433 Iowa Street, Lawrence, KS

By Beau Bledsoe   Sun, Oct 05, 2008

The American "parlor guitar" in the Kansas City Museum collection typifies many transitional elements between European and American guitar building in the mid 19th century. Crucial differences between the two traditions are, arguably, superficial aesthetics and musical loudness. This guitar represents a very modest "no frills" design that began to typify American guitar building of the time. However, it retains the very light, sweet tone of the European guitar which was meant for close, intimate quarters. This particular instrument was built by an ingenious German immigrant who was ultimately responsible for much bigger and louder guitars designed to meet the rapidly-changing needs of a new and diverse American instrument market.

Christian Frederick Martin was born January 31, 1796, in Markneukirchen, Germany. He joined a long lineage of cabinet makers, entering the family trade at age fifteen when he was apprenticed to the renowned guitar maker Johann Stauffer of Vienna. It was soon apparent he was a gifted builder and was appointed to the position of foreman.

After marrying and starting a family Martin moved back to his home town to set up shop. There, he found himself embroiled in a bitter guild dispute between the cabinetmaker's guild, to which most guitar makers belonged, and the violin maker's guild. The violin makers objected to the cabinet makers' infringement into their markets. This occasioned C. F. Martin to immigrate to New York City in September of 1833.1.

Martin founded his guitar company at 196 Hudson Street on the Lower West Side. His storefront housed a guitar production shop and retail store selling everything from cornets to sheet music. He built guitars in the European style of his time, influenced by Stauffer's innovation and aesthetic. The unsophisticated American music market combined with a personal reaction against highly ornamented European instrument styles led Martin to make simpler instruments with humble ornamentation.2. His guitars were specifically aimed at a market of unostentatious immigrants seeking function and value over artifice. His conservative approach to instrument building was coupled with a spirit of radical innovation that nurtured emerging American music's sound throughout the country.

By 1838, the Martin Guitar Company was a modestly successful business selling approximately one guitar a week. The Martin family was by no means content in hectic urban New York City. There was talk of returning to the homeland but, on the advice of German-American friends Martin visited the Lehigh Valley of eastern Pennsylvania. This to his eyes looked as if he had been magically transported to his ancestral Germany. He immediately moved his family and shop to Nazareth, Pennsylvania where the Martin factory remains to this day.3.

During the following years the Martin Guitar Company implemented one of its greatest innovations. The internal "X" brace pattern was a response to the growing popularity of steel strings over "catgut" strings. Martin needed an instrument design that could structurally handle 180 pounds of steel string tension exerted on a guitar soundboard, as well as maintain an acoustically viable sound. The volume needs of the average guitarist of the time were growing due to the immense popularity of the banjo, mandolin and increasingly larger orchestral playing situations.4. This trend stretched the imagination of Martin and many other instrument builders of the time to design louder instruments, often sacrificing any recognizable tonal elements from the guitars of European ancestry. This race for greater sound volume eventually resulted in the introduction of the electrically amplified guitar of the mid 20th century.

The Martin guitar in the Kansas City Museum collection is from the aforementioned "X" brace period but retains a much lighter European "finger" or "fan" internal bracing pattern intended for gut strings. It is Martin's most unadorned model, identified by it size and decoration as a 2 ½, Style 17 from approximately 1850. This instrument, donated by Kansas City musician and educator Mike Morris, features Brazilian rosewood back and sides, spruce soundboard, ebony finger board, ebonized Spanish cedar neck and Jerome tuning machines with ivory tuner buttons. Other tell-tale dating clues are the "ice cream cone" heel and the flat "bar'" fret wire hammered into the fingerboard, both elements predating guitars from the 1860s. The guitar also shows sign of having been retrofitted with a tin tailpiece most likely in the 1930s when such "cowboy guitars" were in fashion. In 1979, it was given a new maple bridge plate as part of a series of restorations done at the Martin Guitar factory.

More than six decades after the Kansas City Museum guitar was made, Martin produced a second and most enduring innovation, the dreadnought guitar. In 1906, the British Royal Navy had shocked the world by launching a battleship, the HMS Dreadnought, considerably larger than any in service. Martin borrowed this byword for "enormous" for their new large guitar model.5. The greater volume and louder bass produced by this increased size were intended to make the guitar more useful as an accompaniment instrument for singers. The dreadnought became the guitar of choice for all American acoustic musical styles and is the most copied steel string acoustic guitar design to date. As compared to the guitar in the Kansas City Museum, the dreadnought design is almost twice the size all around and radically different in tone, although the materials used in the Martin dreadnought are very similar to its smaller cousin's.

The upsurge of innovation surrounding the work of C. F. Martin and his progeny completely altered the tonal landscape of American music, and music around the world. There are now such a dizzying number of variations of the "guitar" in production that the only real commonality is often six strings tuned in a similar way. The Martin Guitar Company is now celebrating 175 years in operation and is in its' sixth generation of family ownership, still in Nazareth, Pennsylvania. Their specialized "1833 Custom Models" workshop has recently begun to manufacture reissues of smaller Martin models from the mid 1800s.

About the project
The Community Curator program of Kansas City Museum invites historians and history educators to share their perspectives on artifacts they choose from the Museum collection. This provides fresh insight about artifacts and collections of Kansas City Museum and Union Station, and welcomes diverse input from the Kansas City history community. Community Curator lectures are presented the third Sunday of each month in Collections Storage at Union Station Kansas City, allowing the actual artifact to be presented with the observations of our Community Curator.

1. Walter Carter, The Martin Book: A Complete History of Martin Guitars. San Francisco, CA: GPA Books 1995, p.8-9.

2. David Bucher, Interview with Beai Bledsoe. Janaury 19, 2008. Interview transcript. Home of David Bucher.

3. The Martin Guitar Company "Our Story." Available from www.martincompany/history. Internet, accessed January 14, 2008.

4. David Wren, " 1840's Martin and Coupa." Available from www.12fret.com/VintageGallery/martincoupaPage.html. Internet, accessed, January 15, 2006.

5. Walter Carter, "The Martin Book: A Complete History of Martin Guitars." San Francisco, CA: GPI Books 1995, p. 35-38.

By KCM Staff   Tue, Oct 28, 2008

Sun, Oct 19, 2008

Kacico Dance Fall Repertory Concert
October 17-19, and October 23-25 at 7:30 p.m.
Kacico Studios West, 2540 W. Pennway, Kansas City, MO

Kacico Dance is a barefoot contemporary dance company that specializes in original works, and dance compositions that often interact or engage the audience, and appeals to all ages. One of the most prolific dance companies in the Kansas City Area, Kacico Dance is always innovative, interesting, and experimental. Kacico Dance will be presenting its Fall Repertory Concert in its new studio and performance space, located near the Crossroads Art District.
For more information visit www.kacicodance.org

 Siham Ali's Annual Middle Eastern Dance Concert and Seminar
 Concerts on October 24-25 at 7:30 p m and Seminars on October 25-26
Rodeway Inn, 15201 South 71 Highway, Grandview, MO 64030

Siham Ali's annual Middle Eastern Dance Concert and Seminar showcases a panorama of local and regional dance talent. The Friday concert usually highlights local talent, and the Saturday concert presents a completely different show that usually features out of town featured artists. This year's event features Karen Barbee from San Antonio, Texas, who is a talented, innovative Middle Eastern and Polynesian dancer, who adds a contemporary flair to her work.

For more information visit www.sihamali.com

Burlesque Downtown Underground (BDU)
Fridday, Octtober 24 and Saturday, October 25 both at 10 p.m.
Madrigal, 1627 Oak, Kansas City, MO 64108

Peek-a-BOO is a Halloween girlie extravaganza of Neo-Burlesque, and is the latest show to be presented by Burlesque Downtown Underground (BDU). BDU is the very successful Neo-Burlesque group that premiered in the 2007 Fringe Festival with the "Naughty Knickers" show. The show will feature performers Sweet Louise, Foxy Roxy, Ms. Kitty, Ginger Snap, Cherry Pop, Puss-N-Boots, and Madame. The show will be hosted by Mr. Clay Morgan. Doors will open at 8pm, and the show will start at 10pm. Patrons are advised to arrive early in order to get a good seat.
For more information visit www.myspace.com/burlesquedownunderground

 Battleworks Dance Company (UMKC Signature Series)
Saturday, Oct. 25 at 7:30 p.m.
White Recital Hall, Performing Arts Center, University of Missouri--Kansas City
Between 50th and Holmes, and 50th & Rockhill Road, Kansas City, MO 64110

Founded in 2001 by dancer Robert Battle, this relatively young New York modern dance company is known for its commissioned works of both new material and re-stagings of the Battleworks repertory. Battleworks was honored at the Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts in 2005 as one of the "Masters of African-American Choreography" and has received the Princess Grace Statue Award for dance achievement in choreography. The company has performed for prestigious dance venues, including the Dance Theater Workshop and Jacob's Pillow Dance Festival. Battleworks also regularly conducts residencies at universities across the country and abroad, and will be doing a residency locally at the University of Missouri--Kansas City Conservatory of Music and Dance, Oct. 20-24.

For tickets or more information visit www.umkc.edu/Performance

Quixotic Performance Ensemble at the Waterfire Fesival
Saturday, Octobe 25, 8 p.m. to Midnight
Plaza at Brush Creek, Kansas City, MO
Raindate: Nov. 1st.

The innovative and versatile Quixotic Performance Ensemble will be performing for this year's Kansas City WaterFire Festival, for a free outdoor performance. The festival is an annual event that features live entertainment in all its variety -- music, dancers, and fire artists. Performers for this year's festival also include students from the UMKC Conservatory of Music and Dance, Vesuvius Fire Tribe, KC Swing Dance Club, Sangre del Sol, and members of Lyric Opera's Night of Song. Food vendors will be supplied by four Plaza restaurants-The Capital Grille, Brio Tuscan Grille, Houston's and Plaza III, The Steakhouse.
For more information visit www.quixoticfusion.com

Sun, Oct 05, 2008

Who: Kansas City Ballet
What: Fall Program
When: October 9-12 (various times)
Where: Lyric Theatre, 11th & Central, Downtown Kansas City, MO

The Kansas City Ballet opens it 51st season with the premiere of Trey McIntyre's The Naughty Boy, Agnes de Mille's Rodeo and Jerome Robbin's The Concert. The Kansas City Symphony, directed by the Ballet's Concert Mistress Ramona Pansegrau, will accompany the ballets.

A comedy on the surface, The Concert's true and deeper subject explores the dreams and yearnings created from the joys and miseries of each character's life. Staged as a piano recital and featuring an ensemble of dancers, The Concert is set, appropriately, to the music of Chopin.

Set to Mozart's Violin Concerto No. 3 in G major, The Naughty Boy focuses on the romantic antics of four couples and the influence of a mischievous orange-and-plaid-clad Cupid. Presented through classical ballet, the dance showcases McIntyre's confident, sassy and breezy style.

Choreographed by American master Agnes de Mille and set to the music of another American genius, Aaron Copeland, Rodeo tells the perennial story of girl wants boy, or in this case, cowgirl wants cowboy. Throughout the five sections, Buckaroo Holiday, Ranch House Party, Corral Nocturne, Saturday Night Waltz and the ever-familiar and toe-tapping Hoedown, audience members are sure to be delighted with this piece of pure Americana!

For more information or tickets call 816-931-2232 or online at www.kcballet.org

One of "A Quarrelling Pair" from Bill T. Jones/Arnie Zane Dance Company

Who: Lied Center of Kansas
What: Bill T. Jones/Arnie Zane Dance Company in A Quarrelling Pair
When: October 10 at 7:30 p.m.
Where: Lied Center of Kansas, 1600 Stewart Dr., Lawrence, KS

Internationally recognized for exploring controversial themes through movement, music and dance, Bill T. Jones and Arnie Zane (1948-1988) founded their company in 1983. Exploring identity issues, form and social commentary in a new confrontational way, they have creatively collaborated over the past 25 years with a diverse array of artists covering classical music to jazz to redefine the face of American dance.

Using sound as art, multimedia images and the artifacts of activism, A Quarrelling Pair is a vaudevillian theatre-meets-dance production that centers on our role and participation in the world. Based on the surreal and interpretive staging of a 1946 Jane Bowles puppet play of the same name, the production tells the story of two argumentative sisters who cannot agree about their place in the world.

For tickets call 785-864-2787 or online at www.lied.ku.edu

Who: Owen Cox Dance Group
What: Canon Play (world premiere)
When: October 10, 6:30 and 8:00 p.m.
Where: Arts, Beats & Eats Festival, YWCA of Greater Kansas City,
1017 N. 6th St. Kansas City, KS 66101 Downtown KCK

This new piece by written by composer Brad Cox and choreographed by Jennifer Owen adds even more depth to this new, fresh dance company. The Festival looks like great fun too and, as it's in KCK, is a nifty change to the KCMO locale.

OCDG is sure to brace your imagination as well as fulfill your need for international level music.

The event is free so just show up and have a great time, though you will need some dough for chowing down on the metropolis' best area eateries.

Please visit OCDG at www.OwenCoxdance.org and the festival at www.kckartsbeatseats.org.

By   Fri, Oct 10, 2008

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By   Sun, Oct 05, 2008

Sitting in any coffee shop, one would be hard pressed to consciously notice that theater is occurring in the everyday moments and gestures of anyone enjoying a cup of coffee, but when it comes to the art of clowning, the person sitting just next to you has the potential to become a piece of true performance.

Clowning in America has been synonymous with Ringling Bros. and Barnum & Bailey, those circuses that made a business traveling through small towns over the past 100 years, and also with cowboy clowns that somehow keep the bull-riding cowboys out of harm's way. But, despite these traditions, a different type of clown has had a resurgence onto stages across the country. This kind of clown can be identified with a simple red nose, which, according to Jacques Lecoq (1921-1999), a French actor and mime, is "the smallest mask in the world that lets you explore fragility and naïveté and the possibility of laughing at oneself."

Heidi Stubblefield, a Kansas City actress and local clown, made her mark in the hearts of audiences through her first ensemble production "The Coppelia Project," at the 2008 Kansas City Fringe Festival, which was number two at the Fringe's box office. For Stubblefield, "Coppelia" was the artistic outing of her clown career.

After graduating from the University of Saint Mary in Leavenworth, KS., Stubblefield traveled to Blue Lake, CA and studied at Dell' Arte International School of Physical Theatre. "It was when I was cast as Milk Maid (August Strindberg's "Ghost Sonata") in college, a character who had no lines, that I was exposed to the power of physical presence and expression. It was the best thing that ever happened to me." Since her return from California, Stubblefield has been exposing Kansas City audiences and students to her "point-of-view" method of performing, while teaching acting classes at her alma mater in Leavenworth and at clown workshops throughout the region. Most recently she completed a workshop at City in Motion Dance Theater with Beth Byrd (of Byrd Production Movement Theater) and several other physical theater professionals. 
 

As a teacher, Stubblefield communicates to her students that she is teaching a "point-of-view," and just like the characters of any great play, clowns too have a point of view. "We (people) are reactionary to the world, city, community, family, and so on, and it's our own unique view that makes a clown unique." A clown character is drawn purely from a person's experiences and individuality. Actor training teaches students to recognize and remove personal traits and habits and to create new ones for the character they inhabit. "It's training to recreate humanity, but clowning asks you to use all you have and own it," says Stubblefield. "There is a lot of story going on that is good material."

Dido DiSanto, director of the Center for Movement Theatre in Washington, D.C., wrote in The New York Times (Sep. 12, 2008) that, "working on clown is in vogue right now with performing artists of all different walks." In most major actor training programs such as Yale School of Drama and UMKC Department of Theatre, "clown' has been inserted into the curriculum as an integral part of professional training. In the 1960s and '70s training programs like UMKC emerged and trained actors using new and innovative techniques. Stubblefield said that artists of an earlier generation had 'clown' as part of their education, "now those artists are mentors and leaders who find it important to incorporate what they had learned in today's training."

Anyone can benefit from clowning. According to Stubblefield, everybody is an individual, the art of clown celebrates exactly that. "Anyone can do it as long as you trust yourself and your instincts. She continues, "Clowning allows a person to become more confident of their physical presence, to become more aware of their habits and to show..." one how to present themselves to the world. Stubblefield has become more cognizant of the habits and traits that make up who she is as an individual. "We can all have clown experiences if you are aware," she says. "Clowning is unzipping yourself and exposing your insides."

Just like comedians use words to make the absurd moments of everyday life funny,
clowns point out those same absurdities through movement.

For example, "If your habit is to bite your nails, then we explore the many intensities of biting your nails - like maybe gnawing your fingers or chewing your hand. I ask my students to take their habits and use the hell out of them." Her approach to clowning as an artist and teacher is more philosophical and self-analytical, requiring her students to pull from their own experiences. As a clown artist, Stubblefield doesn't incorporate words into her performances, "To speak as a clown you have to know exactly what to say. I have no idea what to say." A school of argument says that in performance it's more important to show than to tell and that inspires the clowns she creates, "I'm more interested in what the audience can take away from my actions than from my own words."

Being only one of the few clown actors in Kansas City, Stubblefield doesn't feel pressured knowing that she is riding on the cusp of an emerging art, but her drive and motivation are rooted in her passion. "I want people to know and understand that the art (of clowning) is something that everyone can speak because everyone has their own view on life and the world and it's all valid." Richard Renner, a noted clown actor from Lawrence, praised Stubblefield for creating and cultivating an audience for what he does which allows him to continue his job as a clown. "That was one of the greatest compliments I've received."

Earlier this year in her production of "The Coppelia Project," the clown characters created by Stubblefield are retelling the story of "Der Sandmann" by E.T.A. Hoffman. In her adaptation, a doll maker creates three distinct dolls, each with flaws and imperfections, who learn to walk away from their past and move into the future. Even describing the story of "Coppelia," according to Stubblefield, is a point of view and is essential to what makes clowning so unique. "Just like comedians use words to make the absurd moments of everyday life funny, clowns point out those same absurdities through movement."

Recently "Coppelia" traveled to Lawrence and performed for the youngest audience they've had to date, "It was fantastic to see little children enjoying the show as much as their grandparents and the college students in the audience." To Stubblefield, each audience member had their own point of view of the story and took away what they wanted; it's why she believes this art form makes "Coppelia" and clowning so immediate.

As in every artistic movement, there will come a time when clowning will not be on the public's radar, but probably not in the near future. With characters like Captain Jack Sparrow from "Pirates of the Caribbean," Austin Powers, and actors like Jim Carrey and Bill Irwin, clowning will continue to seep into the threads of American entertainment in its own fashion. Like musical theatre and other theatrical genres, clowning continues to evolve. "The principles of clowning are rooted in truth," says Stubblefield, "in this time of speed and quick images flashing before our eyes, clowning doesn't accept being fake, you must invest your whole self or not; it makes the mind work to expose your own point of view and that's what makes clowning so important."

By Steve Shapiro   Sun, Oct 12, 2008

There is no mistaking Jacques Tati: tall, tilted forward, and customarily silent, Tati was France's answer to the small, scrambling, silent Chaplin, whose British humor influenced the world of screen comedy. But Tati (born Tatischeff, of Russian émigré parents, in 1907) is in many senses Chaplin's equal. Like the Little Tramp persona with his bowler and cane, Tati comes equipped with his own screen self, M. Hulot, armed, as it were, with his ever-present pipe (which is often employed to comic effect). By appearance, Hulot is indeed a bourgeois monsieur, but in his elaborate sets and set-ups he is as brilliant as a director-writer-actor and as, or more, incriminating as a social commentator than Chaplin. Tati's small, nurtured filmography-only six features over thirty years (including the Oscar-winning Mon Oncle)-are revolutionary, yet his name is increasingly fading in the jostling crowd of today's would-be comic geniuses. 

A chance to speculate on a true large-screen spectacle will be offered this Tuesday, October 14, in Janus 4, a series chosen from the hundreds of classics distributed Janus Films, co-sponsored by the Tivoli Cinemas and the UMKC Department of Communication Studies, which will screen Tati's Gestamkunstwerk, the 1967 Playtime. Three years in the making, during which an entire replica city (dubbed "Tativille") was constructed on the outskirts of Paris, Playtime is both delightfully subversive and eccentrically buoyant. Tati's gift is to take a non-story, really, and build it up in such interconnected fashion that the entire screen becomes a multitude of dominoes, all falling around M. Hulot, who remains his innocent optimistic self. Tativille is a world of tomorrow, as if Le Corbusier had gained his wish to remake Paris into a series of skyscrapers; glass, steel, boxy architecture all create a vista for Tati's vision of consumerism run sky-high. From the opening bit at the airport to the lovely, hilarious finalé, as a parade of cars run tighter and tighter together, the idea that we are being run by technology for technology's sake becomes ever more clearer and sinister. (Woody Allen's futuristic Sleeper bore similar slapstick indictments of the past.) To view this masterpiece on the big screen is to be taken back into the glorious past of French cinema, when it was as much dramatic theater as it was social and political theater, too.

Playtime will screen at the Tivoli Cinemas, in Westport, Tuesday, October 14, at 7 p.m. 
Tickets available on the day of the show: $3.00 for the general public; free to UMKC students with ID. 

By Steve Shapiro   Thu, Oct 30, 2008

Of all the movie genres developed by the studios and given Hollywood's mark-the big-pageant musical, the screwball comedy, the romance, the star vehicle-film noir turns out to be the most complex and satisfying. The virtuosity of the creative artists (directors like John Huston, Jules Dassein, Nicholas Ray, Edward Ulmer; actors such as Bogart, Burt Lancaster, Edward G. Robinson and Gloria Grahame) matched the ferocity of the stories (in Scarlet Street, a banker's messy marriage leads to extortion and a dead husband who pops up; They Live by Night deals with an innocent man in prison who escapes with a pair of bank robbers and agrees to do one last job to get money for his defense, only to have the thieves come back to haunt him). If the inner stories of film noir are messy-divorce, extortion, double-crosses, ex-cons trying to go good, mistresses ending up in bed, or dead-the outer look is immaculate: the celebrated black-and-white cinematography is a mixture of an eighteenth-century artist's chiaroscuro and a modernist's eye for revealing camera angles. There's a sheen to the screen. Dead people never looked so good.

Film noir came out of the B picture genre; I imagine when moviegoers first saw the likes of Fritz Lang's Fury or the smoldering couple John Garfield and Lana Turner in The Postman Only Rings Twice they didn't think twice. The stories were tight and the denouements inevitable (particularly throughout the Forties, when the War was a clear moral compass of right and wrongs, and the Fifties culture of disillusionment). To view them now, through decades of neglect and then rediscovery, at a time when culture is global yet also derivative whether from American art or European or elsewhere, still amounts to a jolt. Noir filmmakers directed with grit between their teeth. They pushed and pulled some of the best (and most conventional) actors to rise above themselves. And their stories, either written by or adapted from some of the finest streamlined authors-Dashiell Hammett, James M Cain, and Patricia Highsmith to Raymond Chandler-never played nice. Film noir was never about make-believe; it was about make-believe-this-is-not-happening.

The entertaining and informative Film Noir Showcase curated by the Tivoli Cinemas and the UMKC Dept of Communication Studies, running consecutive Thursday nights throughout October and November, is designed to give a modern moviegoer a brief history lesson in this most adaptable of film styles. The series began last week with the quintessential noir, Billy Wilder's 1944 Double Indemnity. It continues this week with Orson Welles' magical The Lady from Shanghai; The Third Man (October 30); Laura (November 6); before ending with Godard's subversive classic Alphaville (November 13). The selection provides an arc so that we can observe the styles and the themes of film noir, from the domestic to the exotic to the otherworldly to, in Godard's film, the foreign view: by the time the series turns to Alphaville, a futuristic film noir from 1965 made at the height of Godard's politico-mystical powers (the story revolves around a trench-coated private eye seeking to overthrow the computer Alpha 60 which rules Alphaville), the extent of film noir as an influence far beyond the movie screen should be obvious. Noir was not about showing something we had never seen before onscreen, like a Cecil B. De Mille spectacle or a technical fantasy like The Wizard of Oz; no, it was about revealing the other side of us, the side editorialized and preached against, if it was whispered about at all. Today, we live in a film noir world.

The sheer psychological drive of these films puts them closer to literature. We can see the desperate sweat on the screen; we can feel the desire to make the right choice, even if it turns out to be dead wrong. The Lady from Shanghai pivots on one of those twists: Welles himself plays a man whose involvement with a beautiful blond (Rita Hayworth) on a boat leads him into one compromising situation after another (first one man approaches him to fake his murder for money and then a second tries to manipulate Welles, who discovers he was set up originally to take the fall). The plot is similar to Double Indemnity, directed by Billy Wilder at his craftiest: Barbara Stanwyck seduces poor Fred MacMurray into killing her husband so she can collect on the double-indemnity insurance clause. Otto Preminger's stylish 1944 Laura takes its mystery beyond the grave; there is enough madness in these pictures to out-Hamlet Hamlet, if he were foolish enough to leave Denmark for Hollywood.

The phrase "film noir" is said to have originated with the French critic Nino Frank, in 1946, in an essay that pulled together what he viewed as an international sensibility toward darkness, toward the brutal underexposed side of humanity. Few American films had been seen in France during the Second World War; violent, intimately depicted dramas such as The Maltese Falcon and High Sierra were daring, an escalation from the studio cranked-out happy endings. This was a time of high art in low art for American art; every frame contained an existential decision. It is unsurprising that film noir has not lasted, apart from parodies and imitations; the screen has gotten smaller while the outer world has grown larger and directionless. Real drama is saved and captured on our cell phones-which is to say, après Godard, life is something we carry with us at all times, but only experience as entertainment. Film noir in its golden age cut through the comfortable see-no-evil-hear-no-evil bourgeois complacency to ask, What do you really know about your spouse, or your neighbor? Can you trust yourself? Is life only a movie?

Sun, Oct 26, 2008

Marilyn Maye
Special Engagement: Here's to Life
Runs November 5 - 15
Call or visit the website for times
Quality Hill Playhouse
303 W. 10th St., Downtown Kansas City, MO


The incomparable Marilyn Maye whom Johnny Carson dubbed "Super Singer" returns to Qaulity Hill Playhouse with a new performance of jazz standards and her signature favorites.

"Marilyn Maye in her current show ... demonstrates that she is, without peer, the Supreme Goddess of Music." - Cabaret World, September 2008

For tickets call 816-421-1700 or online at www.aulityhillplayhouse.com

OPINION: What Size Do You Wear?

With only one new play for this two week period, I thought I would take a look at what theatre means to the average person in Kansas City - "Joe the Plumber" so to speak...

When people are pinching pennies everything considered a luxury gets peeled away.  Those valued extras - Friday night pizza, fancy dinners or frequent movie excursions - go the way of the dodo bird.  

In light of this economic turmoil does theatre have a place to thrive?  Audience numbers are greatly fluctuating between record highs and lows across the country, and theatre companies here in the Metropolis are putting together package deals like two for one specials or discounted offers on single ticket purchases.  Is that just the norm when a season starts, or is it a reflection of the national crisis everyone is experiencing? 

In this very non-scientific survey, random Kansas Citians from the south to the north and crossing into midtown were asked: Considering our current economic situation, where does theatre fit in your life today?  Here are some of those responses.

Zachery N. from South Kansas City; 32:  "Theatre?  Maybe if tickets where cheaper."

Melissa T. from Gladstone; 44:  "I need to buy groceries for my kids and...I don't feel theatre can be on a list of priorities right now."

Shawnisha F. from South Kansas City; 33: "I love theatre.  Yes I do.  So I go to the cheaper places like the Unicorn because they're cheap...in the sense that I can afford their price.  I need my fix and that is where I go."Diane P. from Midtown; 27:  "You're really asking that question?  Well, I don't know where theatre fits.  I know I don't go as often as I should, but now not so much...Maybe if it wasn't so expensive I'd go, but I've got other things to spend my money on first, ya know?."

Catherine R. from Olathe; 36 - "My kids go to Theatre for Young America and...The Coterie...because their school takes them, and I'm glad for that.  I have four kids...tickets get expensive with myself and my husband are included.  Ben (the husband) and I used to go on our nights out together, but now we go the movies or maybe just to a nicer dinner other than Applebee's."

James A. from Grandview; 66 - "Theatre fits because my wife makes it fit.  It's a waste if you hate it...and good thing I don't or else I might fall asleep in those chairs.  Which I have a few times.  I suppose, maybe, if you want theatre or anything to fit you'll make it fit."

Sara L. from Midtown; 29 - "Theatre will always fit in my life.  There's always a place for Oreo cookies too -  that's why I buy them.  I think if you like something then you'll always make a place in your budget to get it or do it.  I think it's those people who are in the middle, who don't care one way or the other, are the ones that theatre can expendable."  

Sherrie O. from Blue Springs; 55 - "First of all, theatre is hard to get to because it's not everywhere.  Community theatre is more accessible and that's where I take my family.  Now, the kid's school takes them more often than I can...but when I want to take them I go to community theatre; it's cheaper, it's for the family and my kids seem to like it...I won't waste money on the more expensive theatres because if my kids won't sit through it then it's money I can't get back."

Albert T. from Midtown; 34 - "Theatre is for white people or for white people who want black people to spend money."

Kyle R. from Raytown; 41 - "Where theatre fits in my life is on occasion.  It's more of a special event rather than a regular night out.  Once you figure in dinner and maybe some drinks afterwards...the whole evening can be well over $200.  McDonald's and a movie tends to be more my speed these days"

Hattie U. from Midtown; 35 - "I've only moved here from New York a year and three months ago, and Kansas City has a great theatre scene going on and it is much cheaper than New York.  I have season tickets to several places this year and I love it."

Brad B. from Lee's Summit; - "I do my best to make it to a theatre production.  But not so much this year."

Nicholas M. from Dowtown; 38 - "There seems to be a lot happening in theatre in this town and I don't want to miss it, but being a businessman myself for 15 years now, I wonder if they've ever considered lowering their budgets to lower ticket prices?  We all have had to make fiscal sacrifices...but to ask customers to continue to pay the same high prices seems a little absurd.  I think if ticket prices were lower...then the consumer would consume that price and more would be made...than if the tickets were $40 or $50 bucks.  When the economy improves then they would have cultivated an even higher base than when the economy began to swoop downwards.  Think longevity rather than immediate."  

Marilyn Maye
Special Engagement: Here's to Life
Runs November 5 - 15
Call or visit the website for times
Quality Hill Playhouse
303 W. 10th St., Downtown Kansas City, MO


The incomparable Marilyn Maye whom Johnny Carson dubbed "Super Singer" returns to Qaulity Hill Playhouse with a new performance of jazz standards and her signature favorites.

"Marilyn Maye in her current show ... demonstrates that she is, without peer, the Supreme Goddess of Music." - Cabaret World, September 2008

For tickets call 816-421-1700 or online at www.aulityhillplayhouse.com

OPINION: What Size Do You Wear?

With only one new play for this two week period, I thought I would take a look at what theatre means to the average person in Kansas City - "Joe the Plumber" so to speak...

When people are pinching pennies everything considered a luxury gets peeled away.  Those valued extras - Friday night pizza, fancy dinners or frequent movie excursions - go the way of the dodo bird.  

In light of this economic turmoil does theatre have a place to thrive?  Audience numbers are greatly fluctuating between record highs and lows across the country, and theatre companies here in the Metropolis are putting together package deals like two for one specials or discounted offers on single ticket purchases.  Is that just the norm when a season starts, or is it a reflection of the national crisis everyone is experiencing? 

In this very non-scientific survey, random Kansas Citians from the south to the north and crossing into midtown were asked: Considering our current economic situation, where does theatre fit in your life today?  Here are some of those responses.

Zachery N. from South Kansas City; 32:  "Theatre?  Maybe if tickets where cheaper."

Melissa T. from Gladstone; 44:  "I need to buy groceries for my kids and...I don't feel theatre can be on a list of priorities right now."

Shawnisha F. from South Kansas City; 33: "I love theatre.  Yes I do.  So I go to the cheaper places like the Unicorn because they're cheap...in the sense that I can afford their price.  I need my fix and that is where I go."Diane P. from Midtown; 27:  "You're really asking that question?  Well, I don't know where theatre fits.  I know I don't go as often as I should, but now not so much...Maybe if it wasn't so expensive I'd go, but I've got other things to spend my money on first, ya know?."

Catherine R. from Olathe; 36 - "My kids go to Theatre for Young America and...The Coterie...because their school takes them, and I'm glad for that.  I have four kids...tickets get expensive with myself and my husband are included.  Ben (the husband) and I used to go on our nights out together, but now we go the movies or maybe just to a nicer dinner other than Applebee's."

James A. from Grandview; 66 - "Theatre fits because my wife makes it fit.  It's a waste if you hate it...and good thing I don't or else I might fall asleep in those chairs.  Which I have a few times.  I suppose, maybe, if you want theatre or anything to fit you'll make it fit."

Sara L. from Midtown; 29 - "Theatre will always fit in my life.  There's always a place for Oreo cookies too -  that's why I buy them.  I think if you like something then you'll always make a place in your budget to get it or do it.  I think it's those people who are in the middle, who don't care one way or the other, are the ones that theatre can expendable."  

Sherrie O. from Blue Springs; 55 - "First of all, theatre is hard to get to because it's not everywhere.  Community theatre is more accessible and that's where I take my family.  Now, the kid's school takes them more often than I can...but when I want to take them I go to community theatre; it's cheaper, it's for the family and my kids seem to like it...I won't waste money on the more expensive theatres because if my kids won't sit through it then it's money I can't get back."

Albert T. from Midtown; 34 - "Theatre is for white people or for white people who want black people to spend money."

Kyle R. from Raytown; 41 - "Where theatre fits in my life is on occasion.  It's more of a special event rather than a regular night out.  Once you figure in dinner and maybe some drinks afterwards...the whole evening can be well over $200.  McDonald's and a movie tends to be more my speed these days"

Hattie U. from Midtown; 35 - "I've only moved here from New York a year and three months ago, and Kansas City has a great theatre scene going on and it is much cheaper than New York.  I have season tickets to several places this year and I love it."

Brad B. from Lee's Summit; - "I do my best to make it to a theatre production.  But not so much this year."

Nicholas M. from Dowtown; 38 - "There seems to be a lot happening in theatre in this town and I don't want to miss it, but being a businessman myself for 15 years now, I wonder if they've ever considered lowering their budgets to lower ticket prices?  We all have had to make fiscal sacrifices...but to ask customers to continue to pay the same high prices seems a little absurd.  I think if ticket prices were lower...then the consumer would consume that price and more would be made...than if the tickets were $40 or $50 bucks.  When the economy improves then they would have cultivated an even higher base than when the economy began to swoop downwards.  Think longevity rather than immediate."  

Sun, Oct 12, 2008

IN PROGRESS
Who: New Theatre Restaurant
What: Joe DiPietro's The Last Romance
When: September 4 - November 9 
Place: 9229 Foster, Overland Park, KS. 

Under the helm of Artistic Directors Richard Carrothers and Dennis Hennessy, The New Theatre Restaurant's first show of their 2008-09 season is having its pre-Broadway run here in Kansas City. The Last Romance, written by Joe DiPietro (author and lyricist for the successful Off Broadway musical I Love You, You're Perfect, Now Change!) is a story about two people who meet and fall in love, but the twist is in their age: they're senior citizens! Marion Ross, from Happy Days fame, and Ralph Bellini, in a theatre career spanning over 50 years, star in this sweet tale of boy-meets-girl getting another chance at love.

For tickets call New Theatre Restaurant at 913.649. SHOW or online atwww.newtheatre.com

Friends of Anne Frank: Nathanael Card as Young Ed and Angela Cristanello as Young Eva in The Coterie Theatre's "And Then They Came For Me: Remembering the World of Anne Frank."

IN PROGRESS
Who: The Coterie Theatre 
What: James Still's And Then They Came for Me: Remembering the World of Anne Frank
When: September 16 - October 24 
Where: Crown Center (lower level) 

Beginning their 30th year, The Coterie Theatre presents its first production, And Then They Came for Me: Remembering the World of Anne Frank, directed by Unicorn Theatre's Artistic Director Cynthia Levin. 

Levin says the play "tells the story of the Holocaust in a very personal way, of two survivors who were with Anne Frank at different times." A docu-drama by playwright James Still, this multi-media production intertwines video interviews of two Holocaust survivors Eva Geiringer Schloss and Helmuth Silverberg, friends of Anne Frank, with live actors recreating scenes from their lives. About his play, Still says "This is not a 'history' play. It is a play about families and their histories. We will remember the Holocaust if we hear from the people who were actually there." In this unique production, actors and recorded footage will interact with each other creating an amalgamation of historical and personal accuracy. "It's about young people going through the Holocaust as teenagers and what they and their families had to do to survive," said Levin, "Whether they were in hiding or in a concentration camp, they fought back by surviving and living to tell about it. It is not a depressing story because it is ultimately about strength and hope." 

For tickets call The Coterie Theatre at 816.474.6552 or online at www.coterietheatre.org

IN PROGRESS
Who: Eubank Productions
What: Richard O'Brien's Rocky Horror Picture Show
When: October 3 - November 2
Where: Off Center Theatre (Level 3 of the Crown Center Shops)

The final show for the self proclaimed l'enfant terrible this year is being presented on the stage of Off Center Theatre in Crown Center. Eubank Productions will close their 10th anniversary season with Richard O'Brien's Rocky Horror Picture Show; the third show of their 2008 season to be presented in the same venue. A previous production of the same show was produced in 2006 to rave reviews and this one is sure to garner equal sentiments. In addition to their regular curtain time, late night performances are also scheduled for 11 p.m. on October 18th and 25th and at 11:30pm on October 31st and November 1st. As part of their "unofficial mission," Eubank Productions wishes "to entertain Kansas City audiences with stories told through live theatre, stories that take audiences, performers and other collaborators away from their daily strife and woe."

For tickets call Eubank Productions at 816. 842-9999 or online atwww.eubankproductions.com

IN PROGRESS
Who: Theatre for Young America (TYA)
What: Richard Scarry's Busy Town
When: October 7 - November 1 
Where: H&R Bloch City Stage (Union Station lower level) 

Kicking off their 35th anniversary of presenting children's theatre to young audiences, Theatre for Young America presents Richard Scarry's Busy Town. Based on Scarry's beloved children stories, this adaptation uses fantastic movement and puppetry to bring to life Huckle Cat and his friends as they give us a tour of Busy Town. This brand new musical is appropriate for all ages, including preschool children, and connects fun and play with lessons in arithmetic, measuring, counting, directionality, pattern making, and problem solving, reading and spelling. Cheaper than a movie ticket, TYA continues to introduce theatre to young people and delight audiences of every age and background. 

For tickets call Theatre fro Young America at 816.460.2020 or online atwww.unionstation.org

Angela Cristanello in "Night of the Living Dead." Photo by J. Robert Schraeder/Coterie Theatre

IN PROGRESS
Who: The Coterie Theatre's Coterie at Night
What: Night of the Living Dead
When: October 9 - October 29 
Where: Off Center Theatre (Level 3 of the Crown Center Shops)

The Coterie Theatre's 2007 production of Night of the Living Dead delighted audiences and will sure do the same this time around. Adapted by Lori Allen Ohm and based on the B-movie of the same title, this production is the first of a series titled "Coterie at Night" which is aimed to bring evening performances to an older audience, a switch from their usual youth and family focused daytime routine. Director Ron Megee said about this production, "We're bringing terror back with twice as many zombies and twice as many scares." He continues, "Performing in a new space (Off Center Theatre at Crown Center), the zombies will encapsulate you." 

For tickets call The Coterie Theatre at 816.474.6552 or online at www.coterietheatre.org

OPENING SOON
Who: Kansas City Repertory Theatre (The Rep)
What: August Wilson's Radio Golf
When: October 17 - November 9
Where: Spencer Theatre 

It's only been two years since August Wilson's death, but Radio Golf - his final play in his ten-play cycle spanning the 20th century (one play written for each decade from the 1900s - 1990s) - will be presented by Kansas City Repertory Theatre in a time that is very reflective of the world he created. In Wilson's story, mayoral candidate Harmond Wilks is attempting to secure his seat in office while having to choose between the goals of his career and who he is as an African-American man. Radio Golf, set in the Hill District of Pittsburg, was completed by Wilson while in Kansas City at the Rafael Hotel during The Rep's production of his play Two Trains Running in 2005, also completed here at the same hotel. Eric Rosen, Artistic Director of The Rep, said in choosing this play: "The most interesting thing...about this play is the way history moves and it makes plays suddenly really resonant and topical." He continues, "We had no idea when Wilson wrote this play that Barack Obama would be a candidate for President of the United States, and certainly that resonance gives the play a new life and a new vitality that it didn't have when it ran in New York two years ago." 

For tickets call Kansas City Repertory Theatre at 816.235.2700 or online at www.kcrep.org

Taking the prize: Cinnamon Shultz as Jackie, Jim Korinke as Sterling (left) and Darren Kennedy as Dennis (right) in Unicorn Theatre's "Maritius".

OPENING SOON
Who: Unicorn Theatre 
What: Theresa Rebeck's Mauritius
When: October 17 - November 9 
Place: 3838 Main Street 

Their second show of the 2008-09 season, Unicorn Theatre opens Theresa Rebeck's Mauritius, who was hailed by The New York Times as "a gifted writer with an expansive mind, willing to explore old terrain to find new paths." This hilarious comedy centers around two half sisters dealing with a potentially valuable inherited stamp collection that each one has their own reasons to lay claim to. Join the cast and directors for talk-back sessions after their performances on October 21st, 26th and 28th to learn more about the play and their process. An addition to their performance schedule, Unicorn Theatre now offers matinee performances at 3 p.m. on Saturday of the first weekend of their run. 

One more thing: 
Unicorn Theatre's "In-Progress New Play Reading Series" will be showcasing Bellwetherby Stephen Christopher Yockey on Sunday, October 19th at 7:30pm. The second of their series, Bellwether is about the abduction of a six-year-old girl from an affluent community and their suspicions of the girls parents involvement in her disappearance. Admission is free with a $5 donation at the door. This event offers Kansas City an opportunity to hear new works in progress; one of the few theatre companies in the metropolis supporting the works of new and veteran playwrights. 

For tickets call Unicorn Theatre at 816.531.PLAY or online at www.unicorntheatre.org

OPENING SOON
Who: Metropolitan Ensemble Theatre (MET)
What: Christopher Fry's The Lady's Not for Burning and Arthur Miller's The Crucible
When: October 23 - November 23
Where: METspace (3604 Main Street) 

Metropolitan Ensemble Theatre will continue their pursuit to extend "the theatrical cannon, inspire creativity and empower individuals and community through the transformational power of the arts," with two plays running simultaneously. Very few theatre companies in the metropolis take on such a task to produce shows in true repertory, but the MET is confidant and willing to take chances. Coming off a successful run of Harold Pinter's The Homecoming, their next series of productions will continue to support their belief "that exploration of personal creativity and opportunity for engagement in life long learning...critical to the health and happiness of people and our world."

For tickets call Metropolitan Ensemble Theatre at 816.569.3226 or online atwww.metkc.org

F. Murray Abraham

SPECIAL EVENT
Who: The Friends of Chamber Music
What: Don Quijote De La Mancha with Jordi Savall, Hespèrion XXI and F. Murray Abraham
When: Friday, October 24 at 8 p.m.
Where: Grace and Holy Trinity Cathedral 

Bringing the best the best of world in classical music to Kansas City is not only what The Friends of Chamber Music are all about, but also hosting the best in theatre and film. F. Murray Abraham, Academy Award Winner for his performance as Salieri in Amadeus, will appear in the role of Narrator in Don Quijote De La Mancha, directed by Jordi Savall and accompanied by his ensemble Hespèrion XXI. 

Nominated for two Drama Desk Awards in a career spanning eleven Broadway productions and over 91 films, and originating the role of Sterling in Theresa Rebeck'sMaritius (opening Oct. 17, 2008, at Unicorn Theatre), Abraham, along with the Grammy nominated Hespèrion XXI, will present an evening that brings the best of music and theatre together like never before; and will be sure to captivate theatre and music lovers combined. The Los Angeles Times praised the event as "an enchanting evening of passionate and lucid musical time travel." 

For tickets or information, call 816-561-9999 or online at www.chambermusic.org

One more thing: 
On October 24th from 4:00 - 5:30 p.m. The Friends of Chamber Music and Unicorn Theatre have partnered together to invite local college theatre students to visit with F. Murray Abraham, Unicorn Theatre's cast members of Maritius Cinnamon Schultz and Jim Korinke, and Artistic Director Cynthia Levin in a seminar exploring life as a theatre artist. This event is free, has limited seating, requires an RSVP and is being hosted at Unicorn Theatre (3828 Main). 

For questions on seat availability call (816) 561-9999 or email marketing@chambermusic.org.

Sun, Oct 05, 2008

Rhapsody in Gershwin

Through October 26
Quality Hill Playhouse
For tickets call 816.421.1700 
online at www.qualityhillplayhouse.com

Who doesn't love the songs of George Gershwin? And, no one in Kansas City can give those songs the intimate setting, the class and sophistication they need and deserve except J. Kent Barnhart at The Quality Hill Playhouse. A three piece combo, Lateesha McDonald Jackson, Melinda McDonald, James Wright and, of course J. Kent Barnhart, will bring to life such Gershwin Brothers classics asSomeone to Watch Over Me and The Man I Love.

There will be an unusual addition to Mr. Barnhart's usual formula of his tried and true, 'cabaret style revue'. Mr. Barnhart will perform Gershwin's 1926 Rhapsody in Blue, now in the realm of classical music; but the piece that Oscar Levant said, "made an honest woman out of Jazz."

The Lion King
October 2nd through November 16th
The Music Hall
Various ticket sellers - check the internet for availability

The most exciting theatrical news to hit Kansas City since Ethel Merman played the Folly is, at long last, the arrival of The Lion King to The Music Hall.

This is that once in a generation theater event that parents will clamor to take their children to; so children can grow up with a happy memory of family, theater and that ancient venue, The Music Hall downtown.

The first four minutes of The Lion King are nearly worth the admission price alone. The Circle of Life, when the procession of half- animal and half-puppet humans, followed by a full-size wicker elephant, gracefully move down the aisles and up onto the stage, as the African rhythms and the chant swells... why it's enough to bring tears of joy to the eyes.

The songs by Elton John and Tim Rice such as Be Prepared, They Live In You and the opening number, The Circle of Life, provide wonderful moments. But, it will be Hakuna Matata ("No Worries") that the kids will be singing in the glowing days after the show is over.

However, Julie Taymor should get most of the credit for all the fuss over The Lion King. She borrowed elements of Asian and African theater arts to blend with her own genius and give us the cleverest, most elegant and simple staging ever seen in a Broadway show.

Radio City Christmas Spectacular

December 19th - 21st
Sprint Center
For tickets call (816) 931-3330 or online at sprintcenter.com

Nothing says Christmas like New York's Radio City Music Hall Christmas Spectacular. Even when it is at the Sprint Center in Kansas City, (when it just goes by the name: Radio City Christmas Spectacular). The reason, is that this show is so unapologetically Christmas, which is tricky these days. For example, the name of Jesus is never uttered. But a tableau of the wise men, complete with camels, sheep and donkeys talks of "a man, born 2000 years ago that has changed the hearts of men and women like no other" - no one can argue with that approach.

This is a Christmas show like something you would have seen in the 1950s; it's quite square, with loads of cheese factor and corn, and just wonderful. And, I don't care how hip you are - your age or your religion or politics - you cannot take your eyes off the high-kicking line of The Rockettes. Wait till you see them dressed as toy soldiers marching in formation to something that sounds a bit like Hayden's Toy Symphony.

If you are not in the Christmas spirit when you leave the theater, then no one can help you.

Sun, Oct 19, 2008

Who: Kansas City Symphony
What: Elgar's Cello Concerto with
Daniel Muller-Schott, cello & Michael Stern, Music Director
When: Friday, October 17 & Saturday, October 18, at 8 p.m.
Sunday, October 19 at 2 p.m.
Where: Lyric Theatre, Kansas City, Missouri

Composers across the ages have written concertos (pieces for solo instruments accompanied by orchestra) for just about all of the orchestral instruments, and sometimes for combinations of several of them. Piano concertos and violin concertos remain the most popular. But for this writer, the rich tenor-range sound of the cello just can't be beat, particularly in the hands of a composer capable of extracting the rich, melodious sound of which the instrument is capable.

The estimable Sir Edward Elgar (1857-1934), was an English composer who lived and wrote during tempestuous times in classical music, when atonality and dissonance became all the rage and some composers went off on far-flung tangents of musicality, thrilling some but alienating many with their some difficult-to-absorb musical ideas.

Amidst all of this turmoil, Elgar was, quite simply, a throwback. With his musical foundations firmly rooted in the classical sounds of European Romanticism (as a composer he was largely self-taught), he produced as rich and melodious a series of compositions as almost any 19th-century master. This earned him the enmity of some professional musicians, but among audiences his works have always remained popular, no less so today than in his heyday.

So what do you get when you combine the beauty of the cello voice with the Romanticism of Sir Edgar Elgar? Quite simply one of the most ravishing cello concertos ever written. The Kansas City Symphony will feature it in this concert, played by Daniel Müller-Schott, a brilliant young German cellist who has captured many competition prizes and appeared with symphony orchestras throughout Europe and the United States. This is Müller-Schott's debut appearance with the Kansas City group, and should be one to remember.

The program also includes Ravel's breathtaking La Valse, one of the masterpieces of French Impressionism.

For tickets call Kansas City Symphony at 816.471.0400 or online at www.kcsymphony.org

ho: Richard Goode, Piano
When: Saturday, October 18, 2008 at 8 p.m.
Where: Folly Theater, 11th and Central Streets, Kansas City, Missouri

One is tempted to say that you haven't heard Bach if you haven't heard Richard Goode play Bach. Goode, a longtime favorite of Kansas City audiences, has been performing with The Friends of Chamber Music for years, and really made his mark on the international classical piano scene with his performance of Beethoven's complete cycle of piano sonatas hear a few years ago (he also deigned to perform them in New York City).

Goode's pianism has terrific emotional power and expressiveness; don't expect any shrinking violets here. His program will include works by Bach, Chopin and Mozart.

Goode also performs elsewhere, by the way, although Kansas City is one of his favorite venues. They have also heard him with the New York Philharmonic, the London Philharmonic, the Los Angeles Philharmonic, the Boston Symphony, and the Academy of St. Martin in the Fields with Sir Neville Mariner. He has given solo recitals in London, Vienna, Berlin and New York, and has appeared as a Resident Artist at the Edinburgh Festival.

For tickets call The Friends of Chamber Music at 816.561.9999 or online at www.chambermusic.org

Sun, Oct 12, 2008

Who: Octarium
When: Friday, October 17 at 7:30 p.m.
Where: Visitation Church, 51st and Main, Kansas City, MO
When: Saturday, October 18 at 7:30 p.m.
Where: Corpus Christi Church 6100 Bob Billings, Lawrence, KS

Octarium is the now well-known eight voice ensemble created and directed by Krista Lang Blackwood. Their upcoming local concerts are called Essentials - The Concert. The program is taken from their new CD release Essentials. Blackwood describes it as "a cappella music all lovers of the choral arts should know".

Of the eight Octarium singers, six have sung with Blakwood from the beginning. However, since some have active singing careers or live in other cities around the country (or both), the personnel sometimes changes from concert to concert, using the skilled and trained pool of young professionals Blackwood has assembled for her reserve forces.

The concert will reflect the program of literature from the recording. The material was selected from a large body of literature compiled from the singers themselves and from educator colleagues. As Blackwood explains about the music, "some are well known, and other should be well known".

If you like to peruse the program and notes before hearing Octarium in concert, go to www.octarium.org/essentials.html

For tickets call 816-729-6516 or online at www.octarium.org/home.html

Who: Musica Sacra
When: Sunday, October 19 (call for time)
Where: Visitation Church, 51st and Main, Kansas City, MO

Tim McDonald is bringing out his Musica Sacra Chorus and Orchestra in their season opener featuring two Mozart works plus the expansive and demanding Agnus Dei by Samuel Barber. Because of ongoing construction work at St Francis Xavier Church, their usual home, McDonald has moved this first program to Visitation Church, one of Kansas City's most acoustically hospitable venues.

Mozart's Dixit et Magnifiat, KV 193, are two vesper Psalms written in 1774. The still youthful Mozart was writing for liturgical use in Salzburg and used either plainchant psalms or polyphonic ones by other composers in the performances

The Trinitatis Mass in C, K. 167, is an even earlier composition. The seventeen-year-old Mozart also made this work his only mass setting to receive a dedication. Unusual in that no soloists are called for, this was one of Mozart's first works following the seating of Prince-Archbishop Colloredo, who was to have great effect on Mozart's compositions for the cathedral there. The Musica Sacra performance of the Trinitatis Mass will include an orchestral epistle sonata between the Gloria and Credo.

For tickets call the Central Ticket Office (816) 235-6222 or online at www.musicasacrakc.org/Home.aspx

Who: Kansas City Chorale
When: Sunday, October 19 at 2:00 p.m.
Where: Redemptorist Church, 3333 Broadway, Kansas City, MO
When: Tuesday, October 21 at 7:30 p.m.
Where: Church of the Nativity 119th and Mission

Kansas City lovers of choral music anticipate the concerts of the Kansas City Chorale each season. Even those who aren't closely checking the repertory list to spot some long-awaited performance of a work can count on the programs being varied, interesting, wonderfully sung and at the level of the best ensemble singing in the United States. Charles Bruffy, in a programming coup, is bringing to us music by one of the 20th century's legendary composers, yet one whose music most of us rarely, if ever, get to hear, either live or through recordings.

Ernst Krenek enjoyed an enormous reputation as a composer, writing several important operas and music in almost every genre. Even though he immigrated to America after the Anschluss of 1938, he was held in higher esteem in Europe than America, in part because of the narrower vision of American audiences. The Chorale will perform one of Krenek's important works, Von der Vergänglichkeit des Irdischen ("On the Transitoriness of Earthly Things"), a cantata for soprano, chorus and piano.

Bruffy is surrounding this challenging work with music by Mendelssohn and Brahms' Liebeslieder Walzer ("Love Song Waltzes") for chorus and four-hand piano, featuring Pamela Williamson and Robert Pherigo.

A new work for double chorus, Jonathan Dove's song cycle Passing of the Year , is made up of settings of poems as diverse as Blake, Dickinson, Peele, Nash and Tennyson.

For tickets call the Central Ticket Office (816) 235-6222 or online at www.kcchorale.org

Sun, Oct 12, 2008

Who: Richard Goode, Piano
When: Saturday, October 18, 2008 at 8 p.m.
Where: Folly Theater, 11th and Central Streets, Kansas City, Missouri

One is tempted to say that you haven't heard Bach if you haven't heard Richard Goode play Bach. Goode, a longtime favorite of Kansas City audiences, has been performing with The Friends of Chamber Music for years, and really made his mark on the international classical piano scene with his performance of Beethoven's complete cycle of piano sonatas hear a few years ago (he also deigned to perform them in New York City).

Goode's pianism has terrific emotional power and expressiveness; don't expect any shrinking violets here. His program will include works by Bach, Chopin and Mozart.

Goode also performs elsewhere, by the way, although Kansas City is one of his favorite venues. They have also heard him with the New York Philharmonic, the London Philharmonic, the Los Angeles Philharmonic, the Boston Symphony, and the Academy of St. Martin in the Fields with Sir Neville Mariner. He has given solo recitals in London, Vienna, Berlin and New York, and has appeared as a Resident Artist at the Edinburgh Festival.

For tickets call The Friends of Chamber Music at 816.561.9999 or online at www.chambermusic.org

Who: Kansas City Symphony
What: Elgar's Cello Concerto with
Daniel Muller-Schott, cello & Michael Stern, Music Director
When: Friday, October 17 & Saturday, October 18, at 8 p.m.
Sunday, October 19 at 2 p.m.
Where: Lyric Theatre, Kansas City, Missouri

Composers across the ages have written concertos (pieces for solo instruments accompanied by orchestra) for just about all of the orchestral instruments, and sometimes for combinations of several of them. Piano concertos and violin concertos remain the most popular. But for this writer, the rich tenor-range sound of the cello just can't be beat, particularly in the hands of a composer capable of extracting the rich, melodious sound of which the instrument is capable.

The estimable Sir Edward Elgar (1857-1934), was an English composer who lived and wrote during tempestuous times in classical music, when atonality and dissonance became all the rage and some composers went off on far-flung tangents of musicality, thrilling some but alienating many with their some difficult-to-absorb musical ideas.

Amidst all of this turmoil, Elgar was, quite simply, a throwback. With his musical foundations firmly rooted in the classical sounds of European Romanticism (as a composer he was largely self-taught), he produced as rich and melodious a series of compositions as almost any 19th-century master. This earned him the enmity of some professional musicians, but among audiences his works have always remained popular, no less so today than in his heyday.

So what do you get when you combine the beauty of the cello voice with the Romanticism of Sir Edgar Elgar? Quite simply one of the most ravishing cello concertos ever written. The Kansas City Symphony will feature it in this concert, played by Daniel Müller-Schott, a brilliant young German cellist who has captured many competition prizes and appeared with symphony orchestras throughout Europe and the United States. This is Müller-Schott's debut appearance with the Kansas City group, and should be one to remember.

The program also includes Ravel's breathtaking La Valse, one of the masterpieces of French Impressionism.

For tickets call Kansas City Symphony at 816.471.0400 or online at www.kcsymphony.org

Sun, Oct 05, 2008

Monthly Organ Column

by John Schaefer

"A mighty machine making magnificent music" - that is an apt description of the pipe organ. It is true that there are many small instruments that produce gentle sounds. For example, St. Luke's Hospital Chapel in midtown Kansas City has a three-rank instrument that is perfect for that small space. Nevertheless, the mechanical aspects of that instrument and of all pipe organs are complex, since there are so many parts that must work together, whether the key-desk (console) is right against the pipes or many feet away. It is possible, too, that those who love the sound of organ music really enjoy the amazing range of colors and wide dynamic range that are the hallmarks of larger instruments.

The American Guild of Organists has named 2008-2009 "The International Year of the Organ."

The first major celebration is Sunday October 19th; organ recitals too many to number will be held throughout the nation and the world. In our own community, the Greater Kansas City Chapter of the Guild will present its recital at the Community of Christ Auditorium in Independence. There one finds the largest organ in the area, a four-manual and pedal instrument built in 1959 by the Aeolian-Skinner Organ Company of Boston. The organ rises majestically above the platform at the south end of the building; the warm acoustics of the auditorium allow the organ to be heard easily in every one of the nearly 6,000 seats. The organ has 113 ranks and 6,334 pipes; one can delight in the enormous range of voices and dynamics, from the ultra soft Flauto Dolce to the formidable Trompette en Chamade at the north end of the building.

The 3 PM recital on October 19th features two of our finest local artists and the winner of the 2007 AGO Region VI Organ Playing Competition. Dr. Jan Kraybill, the principal organist of the Community of Christ Church, is to play music for organ and brass by the Belgian composer Flor Peeters; several works for violin and organ, one of which Ornament of Grace was the AGO Composition Competition winner; and Symphonie I by Alexandre Guilmant, a "show-stopper." Jan van Otterloo, a member of the organ staff at the Auditorium, will present Blithely Breezing Along, by Stephen Paulus; this work is the commissioned work for the International Year of the Organ. Adam Peithmann, the Competition winner, will play works by Leo Sowerby, William Bolcom and Franz Liszt; the Sowerby work, his Pageant, is a tour-de-force for the feet. I can attest that it is really HARD, but great fun.

Though the organ stops are the same for all three players, each artist will bring his or her own particular sound concept to the performance. The variety that you will hear will amaze you.

The International Year of the Organ Kansas City recital begins at 3:00 p.m. on the 19th. The Auditorium is located at River and Walnut Streets in Independence, two blocks south of Truman Rd. Admission is free.

Dr. Ann Marie Rigler of William Jewell College will also present a recital honoring the International Year of the Organ, on Sunday October 5th at Grace and Holy Trinity Cathedral, near Bartle Hall in downtown Kansas City. Her recital begins at 3 PM. In this writer's opinion, she is also one of the outstanding organists in this area.

By KCM Staff   Mon, Jun 16, 2008

Many thanks to ArtsJournal.com's editor, Douglas McLennan
~ Formerly an arts columnist and arts reporter with the Seattle
Post-Intelligencer and the Seattle Weekly. Doug writes on
the arts for a number of publications (in his abundant free time)
and is currently acting director of the National Arts Journalism
Program while it reinvents itself ~

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