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Kansas City's Online Journal of the Performing Arts

UMKC Conservatory of Music and Dance
UMKC Conservatory Spring Dance Concert
Thursday, April 15 at 7:30 p.m.
Friday, April 16 at 7:30 p.m.
Saturday, April 17 at 7:30 p.m.
White Recital Hall
4949 Cherry, Kansas City, MO
For tickets call 816-235-6222

Now that your income tax return is in the mail, celebrate by enjoying the UMKC Conservatory of Music and Dance Spring Dance Concert this Thursday through Friday.  Featuring both faculty and student dancers, this concert will include a series of dances, including Langston Suite choreographed by Sabrina Madison-Cannon, The Other Side choreographed by Rodni Williams, Shostakovich Jazz Suite choreographed by Ronald Tice, and Unplugged choreographed by dance faculty chair Paula Weber.

The leading dance of the evening is Valse-Fantaisie with choreography by George Balanchine, presented by arrangement with The George Balanchine Trust and produced in accordance with the Balanchine Style® and the Balanchine Technique® Service standards established and provided by the Trust.

Also included is Afternoon of a Faun choreographed by Salvatore Aiello and choreographer Josh Beamish's Les Oiseaux.



Kansas City Electronic Music and Arts Alliance
Quadrivium Novum  
Friday, April 16 at 7:30 p.m.
Unity Temple on the Plaza
707 West 47th Street, Kansas City, MO
Tickets available at the door.  Information available at www.kcema.net

Kansas City Electronic Music and Arts Alliance is a three-year-old organization which was founded "to encourage and develop understanding and appreciation of electronic music and to create an expansive sense of community for electronic musicians and other artists in the Kansas City Area."

In this concert, the group presents a four-person ensemble consisting of local musicians Rebecca Ashe, Kari Johnson, Cheryl Melfi and Mark Stauffer, who present several works.  On the program are Christopher Biggs' Bioluminescence, which "abstractly reflects marine phenomena in audio and video," Jason Bolte's Scrap Metal, an electro-acoustic work that explores relationships between sonic material produced on the piano and various metallic sounds, and a composition for cellist Mark Stauffer by William Lackey called the world falls asleep. This was inspired by the works of the French poet Baudelaire.



Kansas City Chorale
Spring Concert
Saturday, April 17 at 5:30 p.m.
Kirkwood Hall
Nelson Atkins Museum of Art
4525 Oak Street, Kansas City, MO
For tickets call 816-751-1ART, or online at www.nelson-atkins.org

This Kansas City Chorale concert is part of the Mary Atkins Lecture Series at the Nelson Atkins Museum.  No information about the programming for the concert is available in the publicity material for the concert, but if you haven't heard the sounds of the Chorale reverberating throughout the central court of the Nelson Atkins Museum, you have missed one of Kansas City's most interesting classical music aural experiences.



Kansas City Civic Orchestra
Heroic Finale
Saturday, April 17 at 7:30 p.m.
Folly Theater
12th and Central Streets, Downtown Kansas City, MO
Free admission. 

For the Civic Orchestra's last concert of the season director Christopher Kelts has chosen Beethoven's Symphony No. 3, the "Eroica" ("Heroic"), originally dedicated to Napoleon Bonaparte, thought by the composer and many others to be a great liberator of oppressed peoples in Europe.  The story goes that after Napoleon had himself crowned Emperor and Beethoven discovered that the French general was just another conqueror, he viciously scratched out the dedication on the front page, but left not a note of the music changed.  Now it is a tribute to unknown heroes everywhere, and retains and grandeur and hope which has inspired generations.

It is an ambitious work for an all-volunteer orchestra, but the Civic Orchestra has never shied away from difficult challenges before, and is hardly doing so this weekend.

Also on tap for this concert is Max Bruch's interesting Double Concerto for Violin and Viola. Soloing with the Civic Orchestra are Sarah Gentry and Kate Hamilton.  Bruch, a late Romantic German composer who died in 1920, is known primarily for his early and justly famous Violin Concerto, a piece he never surpassed despite a lengthy compositional career.  The Double Concerto came many years later, and like the Violin Concerto contains some lovely tunes, but was definitely a throwback to an earlier age of Romanticism and a reject of much of what was taking place in modern music at the time, particularly in Germany.  Long rejected as a relic of a bygone age, it has undergone something of a reevaluation in recent decades, and is definitely worth a year. 

Sarah Gentry, an associate professor violin at the University of Illinois, is a frequent soloist with orchestras throughout the country. Kate Hamilton, the violist, is a professor at Minnesota's Concordia College and has taught and performed with many music festivals throughout the United States and Europe.



Liberty Symphony Orchestra
Masterworks 4: Piano and Choral Spectacular
Saturday, April 17 at 7:30 p.m.
Liberty Performing Arts Center
1600 South Withers Road, Liberty, MO
For tickets call 816-439-4362. For more information visit www.libertysymphony.org

The Liberty Symphony wraps up its concert season with a performance of the full orchestra version of Finlandia by the Finnish master Jean Sibelius, one of the most moving and dramatic works in the entire repertoire.  Although this is the national anthem of Finland, expanded to full orchestral length by its composer, you don't need to be from northern Europe to appreciate the sweet and majesty of the composition, always a crowd pleaser.

The Symphony will also perform the Piano Concerto of Samuel Barber featuring piano soloist Calvin Permenter, a professor at William Jewell College.  Barber's work is receiving many performances in Kansas City this season (the Kansas City Symphony has already performed the Violin Concerto and Knoxville: Summer of 1915), and a hearing of the Piano Concerto is always welcome. 

The William Jewell College chorus and soprano soloist Sarah Tannehill will join the Liberty Symphony for a choral number which is unidentified in the Symphony's promotional materials.  Tannehill, a member of the Kansas City Chorale, has a gorgeous voice and this listener never fails to appreciate her performances, both in opera and in recital.



Northland Symphony Orchestra
Young Artists' Concert
Sunday, April 18 at 3:00 p.m.
Park Hill South High School
4500 N.W. River Park Drive, Riverside, MO
Free admission.


The Northland Symphony Orchestra produces its spring concert this weekend featuring young artists in a series of ambitious works, including the Overture to The Abduction from the Seraglio by Mozart, the Eclogue for Piano and Strings by British composer Gerald Finzi, Jean-Baptiste Accolay's Violin Concerto featuring soloist Andrea Johnson, the Somerset Rhapsody by Welsh composer Gustav Holst, and Russian master Aram Khachaturian's Masquerade Suite. 

Accolay, a Flemish composer, wrote his one-movement Violin Concerto primarily as a pedagogical exercise, but its gracious melodies have made it a favorite among young violinists and it has occasionally been performed even by the likes of Itzhak Perlman.  The Somerset Rhapsody by Holst reveals this tender composer in a work much more typical of his output than the bombastic (but very popular) orchestral suite The Planets, for which he is best known.  Khachaturian is most famous for his ballet scores, including Spartacus, but the Masquerade Suite should be a welcome opportunity to hear some of his other music.  Meanwhile, Finzi is one of this listener's favorite composers. A Depression-era British Romanticist, he wrote lovely work which should get much more hearing than they do.

All in all, this looks like a very interesting collection of unusual works, and you certainly can't beat the price.



Musica Sacra
Charpentier and Mozart
Sunday, April 18 at 7 p.m.
St. Francis Xavier Catholic Church
52^nd and Troost, Kansas City, MO
For tickets call 816-235-6222 or online at www.rockhurst.edu/musicasacra

Director Timothy McDonald brings his Musica Sacra forces to the stage Sunday evening for performances of two of the most celebratory works in the choral repertory, Marc-Antoine Charpentier's Te Deum and Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart's Vesperae Solennes (commonly known as the "Mozart Vespers").  Dating from the 17^th and 18^th centuries, respectively, these two works are both known for their lilting melodies, brilliant choral writing, and stirring orchestration.

The Charpentier piece is well known to citizens of Europe, as its opening theme is used as the theme music for the European Broadcasting Union. It also shows up in occasional movie scores. Originally thought to be composed for victory celebrations for the Battle of Steinkirk in 1692, the Te Deum has gone on to have an enduring affection for musicians and listeners alike.

Mozart's Vespers is the first of two settings he made for early evening church services, where Vespers are traditionally performed, and it dates from the early Salzburg period of his life. Famed for the beauty of its solo soprano aria "Laudate Dominum" (from Psalm 116), the Vespers has remained one of Mozart's most popular writings for choir and orchestra, surpassed (by some estimations) only by his late Requiem.

 (Note: For fans of the Friends of Chamber Music who were planning to attend the Anonymous 4 concert on Sunday afternoon, April 18, please be advised that the performance has been canceled.  Hopefully it can be rescheduled for another season.)

By Don Dagenais

City Classics Music and Dance Columnist; Classical Contributor

A lifelong classical music fan, Don Dagenais is a frequent preview speaker for the Lyric Opera of Kansas City and has taught classical music and opera courses at several Kansas City venues. He has served on the boards of directors of a number of performing arts organizations including the Lyric Opera of Kansas City, the Lyric Opera Guild, UMKC Conservatory of Music and Dance, Opera Volunteers International, the Civic Opera Theater of Kansas City, Inspiration Point Fine Arts Colony, Octarium, and the Friends of the Symphony.  He has been the past president of most of these organizations and is current the president of the Friends of the Symphony. 

Dagenais co-authored a history of the Lyric Opera of Kansas City, published on the occasion of its 50th anniversary (2007) and has written books on the histories of both the Lyric Opera Guild and Opera Volunteers International, as well as an introductory book for opera novices (Your Passport to the Opera).  He has received several local and national awards for outstanding volunteer work for the arts, including a lifetime achievement award from The Coterie Theatre in 2000, the Kansas City Musical Club's annual award in 2001, a Partners in Excellence Award from Opera Volunteers International in 2002, a Bravo Award from Opera Volunteers International in 2004 and a community service award from the Daughter of the American Revolution in 2008 honoring him for his community service to the arts.

In addition to his music interests, Don is president of the board of directors for the Metropolitan Ensemble Theater and has served on the boards of The Coterie Theatre and the Heart of America Shakespeare Festival, serving as president of each organization.  He publishes newsletters for seven arts organizations.  When not involved in the performing arts, Don is a senior real estate attorney with Lathrop & Gage LLP in Kansas City, Missouri, where he has practiced law since 1976 after graduating from the Cornell Law School.