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

 Music and Dance Preview through December 16 

Once again the KC music and dance scene is overflowing with riches this weekend - and merits top billing.  It is impossible to attend everything, but among the highlights are the elegant Tallis Scholars presented by The Friends of Chamber Music, the KC Symphony's annual holiday show ("How the Symphony Saved Christmas"), the Owen/Cox Dance Company's twisted version of "The Nutcracker," and the KC Chorale's always-gorgeous concert of holiday favorites. In addition, the Northland Community Chorus tackles Vivaldi's gorgeous Gloria, a perfect holiday choice.

If you're in the mood for something different, try the Fountain City Brass concert of Christmas tunes, or a most unusual take on Tchaikovsky, entitled A Kansas Nutcracker, performed by Lawrence's 940 Dance Company. If all of the holiday music offerings give rise to the "Bah, Humbug" in you, don't worry...there are a few non-holiday concerts to choose from, including pianist Boris Giltburg with the Harriman Jewell series (a free Discovery concert), and several fine-looking offerings from the UMKC Conservatory of Music and Dance.

Star Wars in Concert
Wednesday, December 9 at 7:30 p.m.
Sprint Center
1407 Grand Boulevard, Kansas City, MO
For tickets call 816-949-7000 or online at www.sprintcenter.com

We're not exactly sure this is "classical" music, but at this time of year the lines get pretty blurred because most traditional classic music organizations are performing holiday pops concerts, so we'll go ahead and blur the lines a little more and call the movie music of John Williams "classical" for purposes of this column.  Besides, according to the publicity event this concert features a "full symphony orchestra and choir."

Williams' music for the Star Wars double trilogy of movies has become one of the great favorites, and in this concert you will not only hear the music, but see clips from the movies on a huge screen, a spectacular light show and performance as well.  According to the publicity, "the live music and film elements are synchronized in order to create a full multi-media, one-of-kind Star Wars experience."

Accompanying the concert is an exhibit of Star Wars costumes, props, artifacts, production artwork and "specially created behind-the-scenes videos from the Lucasfilm Archives." The concert is narrated by Anthony Daniels, who somehow squeezed into that robot outfit as C3PO for all six of the movies.

UMKC Conservatory of Music and Dance
Conservatory Chamber Orchestra
Wednesday, December 9 at 7:30 p.m.
White Recital Hall
4949 Cherry Street, Kansas City, MO
Free admission.

Robert Olson will conduct the UMKC Conservatory's Chamber Orchestra in a program featuring Mozart's lovely "Posthorn" Serenade, the Serenade No. 9 in D Major, the Danses concertantes of Stravinsky, and a modern piece, Chain I, by Lutoslawski.  If you need a break from holiday programming at this time of year, this concert would be an excellent choice, and you can't beat the price.

 

The Friends of Chamber Music
The Tallis Scholars
Thursday, December 10 at 7:30 p.m.
Cathedral of the Immaculate Conception
416 West 12^th Street, Kansas City, MO
For tickets call 816-561-9999 or online at www.chambermusic.org

This listener recalls being first thrilled by the Tallis Scholars years ago while listening to KXTR radio during a morning drive, and hearing that wonderful otherworldly type of vocal music that seemed to come from all directions.  It turns out that the singers were the Tallis Scholars, a group of elegant vocalists who take their Renaissance music very seriously.  Borrowing its name from the Renaissance English composer Thomas Tallis, the group has come to personify the very best in Renaissance vocal performance standards.  Their recordings are almost always best sellers of their kind.

Thanks to the patronage of The Friends of Chamber Music, Kansas City audiences have been able to enjoy the Tallis Scholars a number of times in recent years, and the Scholars' holiday program is always a special delight.  In this program you will enjoy the music of Mosquin, Nesbett, Byrd and of course Tallis himself, celebrating the Christmas story as sung in Renaissance times.  If you are looking for exactly the opposite of holiday kitsch, look no further.  This is it.

Harriman Jewell Series
Boris Giltburg, pianist
Thursday, December 10, at 7:30 p.m.
Folly Theater
12^th and Central Streets, Kansas City, MO
Free admission, but tickets required. 
For tickets call 816-415-5025 or print your free ticket at www.harriman-jewell.org

The Harriman Jewell Series has a free series of concerts each year called the Discovery Series, but often the featured artists are just as impressive as the performers for whom audiences pay real admission.  Earlier this year the Harriman Jewell Series presented one of today's most impression young coloratura tenors, Lawrence Brownlee, in a Discovery concert.  This week it has enlisted Boris Giltburg, an outstanding young Russian pianist who is on every classical piano fan's "watch list" of up and coming stars of tomorrow.  The 25-year-old will perform music of Chopin, Beethoven, Rachmaninoff and Prokofiev in one of the few concerts this week not to feature holiday music.   The Apassionata sonata of Beethoven is especially anticipated. 

 

UMKC Conservatory of Music and Dance
Conservatory Wind Symphony
Thursday, December 10 at 7:30 p.m.
White Recital Hall
4949 Cherry Street, Kansas City, MO
For tickets call 816-235-6222 or online at www.umkc.edu/conservatory.

Conductor Stephen D. Davis leads the Conservatory Wind Symphony in a series of pieces that range from classical to modern.  The concert opens with Mozart's Serenade for Winds No. 10, the "Gran Partita," continues with Stravinsky's Octet for Wind Instruments, and includes the "Profanation" from Leonard Bernstein's Symphony No. 1, the "Jeremiah" Symphony.

Also on tap are two more recent numbers, Roger Nixon's Fiesta del Pacifico and the Commando March of Samuel Barber.

 

The Performing Arts Series at JCCC
Cantus
All is Calm: The Christmas Truce of 1914
Friday, December 11 at 8 p.m.
Yardley Hall, Johnson County Community College
12345 College Boulevard, Overland Park, KS
For tickets call (913) 469-4445 or online at www.jccc.edu

Cantus is an all-male chamber choir born at St. Olaf's College in Minnesota, an institution known for its outstanding music programs. The group's repertoire spans many periods and genres, including Gregorian chant, Renaissance motets, contemporary sacred works, art songs, world music, spirituals, and pop.

For this holiday program, the scene is the Western Front during World War I, on Christmas Eve of 1914. Out of the violence of the Great War's trenches comes a silence, then a song as a young German soldier steps into no man's land singing Stille Nacht. "Thus begins an extraordinary night of camaraderie, music, and peace," says the informational material for this concert.  This program was created by Peter Rothstein with musical arrangements by Erick Lichte and Timothy C. Takach. "Through new arrangements of European carols and war-songs, All Is Calm recalls the remarkable World War I truce between Allied Forces and German soldiers in no man's land on Christmas, 1914."

 

Owen/Cox Dance Group with The People's Liberation Big Band of Greater Kansas City
The Nutcracker and the Mouse King
Friday, December 11 at 8 p.m.
Saturday, December 12 at 8 p.m.
Sunday, December 13 at 2 p.m.
H & R  Block City Stage Theater at Union Station
300 West Pershing Road, Kansas City, MO
For tickets call 816-460-2020 or online at www.unionstation.org 

One the spunkiest and most entertaining of Kansas City's dance companies is the Owen/Cox Dance Group put together by former Kansas City Ballet dancer Jennifer Owen and her husband, composer Brad Cox.  This viewer enjoys the fact that the group always performs to live music, a welcome relief from those dance companies, particularly the ones on tour, that move only to recorded sound. 

This holiday season, Owen/Cox is teaming up with others to bring "new life into an old classic."  Don't expect the traditional Tchaikovsky sugar-sweetened version of E.T.A. Hoffmann's dark tale.  Hoffmann, who had more in common with Edgar Allen Poe than Mother Goose, told a grim tale which Owen/Cox will explore, along with original music and "radical rearrangements of Tchaikovsky melodies." 

Mark Southerland, Peregrine Honig, Peggy Noland and students from the Paseo Academy of the Performing Arts join the usual crowd in creating what is sure to be one of the more unusual dance experiences of the holiday season.

 

UMKC Conservatory of Music and Dance
Conservatory Wind Ensemble
Friday, December 11 at 7:30 p.m.
White Recital Hall
4949 Cherry Street, Kansas City, MO
For tickets call 816-235-6222 or online at www.umkc.edu/conservatory

Conductor Joseph Parisi will lead the Conservatory Wind Ensemble in a program featuring modern works, including Jennifer Higdon's Fanfare Ritmico, John Macke's Asphalt Cocktail, Michael Galdolfi's Vientos y Tangos and Jack Stamp's Symphony No. 1, In Memoriam of David Diamond.

 

 William Baker Festival Singers
Candlelight, Carols and Cathedral
Friday, December 11 at 8:00 p.m.
Sunday, December 13 at 2:00 p.m.
Grace and Holy Trinity Cathedral
415 West 13^th Street, Kansas City, MO
For tickets call 913-403-9223 or online at www.festivalsingers.org

The William Baker Festival Singers' holiday program, according to the publicity for this concert, features "a stirring set of Appalachian carols set for chorus and hammer dulcimer, works of English composers Kenneth Leighton and John Rutter, Russian works by Chesnokov and Gretchaninov, and favorite carols like Hark the Herald Angels Sing and O Come All Ye Faithful." 

 

940 Dance Company
A Kansas Nutcracker
Friday, December 11 at 7:30 p.m.
Saturday, December 12 at 7:30 p.m.
Sunday, December 13 at 2 p.m.
Lawrence Arts Center
940 New Hampshire Street, Lawrence, KS
For tickets call 785-843-2787.

940 Dance Company, the Lawrence-based modern dance troupe, will perform its own "Kansas" take on the traditional Tchaikovsky favorite.  According to Lawrence Arts Center, A Kansas Nutcracker tells the story of "Clara, a young girl whose family has settled in the Kansas Territorial community of Lawrence in the 1850s. At a holiday barn dance, Clara is charmed by her godfather, Drosselmeier, and his nephew. They arrive with magical toys for the children, and Clara falls asleep after the party dreaming of mice, toys, snow, grasshoppers and other inhabitants of the Kansas prairie."  Hmmm.  Grasshoppers on stage?

Performances take place over two weekends, so the production continues  December 18 through 20 as well.

 

Kansas City Symphony
How the Symphony Saved Christmas
Saturday, December 12 at 2 p.m. and at 7:00 p.m.
Sunday, December 13 at 2 p.m.
Lyric Theatre
11^th and Central Streets, Kansas City, MO
For tickets call 816-471-0400 or online at www.kcsymphony.org

For its annual family-oriented Christmas program, the Kansas City Symphony will serve up singing and dancing galore, with holiday favorites such as Jingle Bells, Santa Claus is Coming to Town, Rudolph the Red Nosed Reindeer and the like.  If you are used to seeing tuxedoed and black-dressed players seriously dealing with the challenges of the classical orchestral repertoire, this concert is something completely different.  Costumed characters, special lighting, and other effects will "make you feel like a kid at Christmas," according to the Symphony.  And how exactly is it that the Symphony saves Christmas?  Well, you'll just have to purchase a ticket to find out.

The Symphony's Christmas show will be led by Steven Jarvi, the associate conductor who is capable of much more serious stuff, a la the Symphony's series of chamber music concerts at Visitation Church, the latest concert of which was sold out last weekend.  He also has a popular side, and will undoubtedly lead the forces with élan and panache.  If those words are applicable to a light hearted holiday show.

 

Kansas City Civic Orchestra
Sounds of the Seasons
Saturday, December 12 at 7:30 p.m.
Atonement Lutheran Church
9948 Metcalf, Overland Park, KS
Free concert.

Details of this program have not been announced, but the Kansas City Civic Orchestra, one of the area's most talented community ensembles, usually presents challenging repertoire, so perhaps surprises await.  The Atonement Lutheran Chorus will join the instrumental forces in this performance.

 

Fountain City Brass Band
A Fountain City Holiday Celebration
Saturday, December 12 at 7:30 p.m.
Bell Cultural Arts Center
Mid-America Nazarene University
2030 E. College Way, Olathe, KS
For tickets call 913-971-3636 or email at bellboxoffice@mnu.edu

The Fountain City Brass Band is a local brass ensemble directed by Joseph Parisi, a professor at the UMKC Conservatory of Music and Dance.  The group has garnered many international awards, including three North American Brass Band championships and a U.S. Open Brass Band championship. It is resident at the Bell Cultural Arts Center at Mid-America Nazarene University in Olathe.

On December 12 the group will perform its annual holiday concert.  The program has not been announced, but if Christmas isn't the season for brass music, what is?

 

Lied Center of KU
Straight No Chaser
A Vocal Celebration of the Season
Saturday, December 12 at 7:30 p.m.
Lied Center, University of Kansas
1600 Stewart Drive, Lawrence, KS
For tickets call 785-864-2787 or online at www.lied.ku.edu

Okay, we're not really sure this is classical music, but then a lot of so-called "classical music" organizations perform a lot of popular tunes around the holidays.  So we'll let this one count.  An organization called Straight No Chaser, a You Tube phenomenon described as an a capella singing group that is "is neither strait-laced nor straight-faced," will perform "perfectly-blended Christmas classics from their 2008 album, Holiday Spirits."

 

Heritage Philharmonic
Holiday Pops Spectacular Concert
Saturday, December 12 at 7:30 p.m.
Performing Arts Center at Blue Springs High School
2000 N.W. Ashton Drive, Blue Springs, MO
For tickets call 816-224-2890 (Theresa) or order by email at tickets@heritagephilharmonic.org

Music Director James Murray III and the Heritage Philharmonic have invited the Delta Woods Honor Choir to join in their holiday concert this year. The Honor Choir is under the direction of Shirley Atkinson. The concert is billed as feature "carols, choral works, and the fun holiday pops music."

 

Lee's Summit Symphony
Holiday Magic
Saturday, December 12 at 4 p.m. and 7:30 p.m.
Bernard C. Campbell Performing Arts Center
Lee's Summit High School
400 S.E. Blue Parkway, Lee's Summit, MO
Tickets available online at www.lssymphony.org or at the door.

The Lee's Summit Symphony performs its annual holiday concert twice on Saturday.  In addition to performing instrumental versions of Christmas favorites, the Symphony will be joined by the Lee's Summit Community Chorus and the Lee's Summit Youth Chorale for a vocal program.  In addition, dancers from Steppin' Out - The Studio, will perform choreography as part of the program.

 

Kansas City Chorale
Holiday Concert: A Ceremony of Carols
Sunday, December 13 at 2:00 p.m.
Redemptorist Catholic Church
3333 Broadway, Kansas City, MO

Tuesday, December 15 at 7:30 p.m.
Asbury Methodist Church
7500 Nall Avenue, Overland Park, KS
For tickets call 816-444-7996 or online at www.kcchorale.org

The Kansas City Chorale's holiday concert is always one of the most eagerly awaited events of this time of year. This year the Chorale will feature Benjamin Britten's beloved Ceremony of Carols, a collection of medieval Christmas texts beautifully arranged for chorus.  The accompaniment is a single harp.  Charles Bruffy is the director.

 

Northland Symphony Orchestra
Singalongs and Carols
Sunday, December 13 at 3 p.m.
Park Hill High School
4500 N.W. River Park Drive, Parkville, Missouri
Free concert.

The Northland Symphony Orchestra performs its annual holiday concert on Sunday afternoon at Park Hill High School.  The concert will feature a variety of Christmas favorites, and will feature the children's choirs from Clardy Elementary School, Northview Elementary School and Prairie Point Elementary School. 

 

Northland Community Choir
Holiday Concert
Sunday, December 13 at 3 p.m.
Graham Tyler Memorial Chapel at Park University
8700 NW River Park Drive, Parkville, MO
Suggested donation $10 per adult, children 12 and under free.

Another Northland organization scheduling a holiday concert at the same time is the Northland Community Choir, which will perform in the acoustically friendly Graham Tyler Memorial Chapel on the campus of Park University in Parkville. The choir will perform Vivaldi's Gloria, one of the classics of the Baroque repertoire.  Many marvelous masses, Magnificats and cantatas have been written over the ages, but there are few pieces to challenge the purely joyous sound of Vivaldi's Gloria, making it a perfect choice for a not-quite-traditional holiday concert. Conductor Noel Fulkerson will lead the forces, as accompanied by Adam Hulstine.

 

 Bach Aria Soloists
Holiday Hauskonzert
Sunday, December 13 at 7 p.m.
Private Home
Tickets available online at www.bachariasoloists.com

Tickets for the Bach Aria Soloists' elegant Hauskonzerts are often sold out, so this concert might be unavailable by the time this issue is published.  But don't let that discourage you from at least trying, because the opportunity to hear some of Kansas City's most refined musicians in outstanding performances at beautiful private homes is something that doesn't come along very often.

For its holiday concert, the Bach Aria Soloists, led by the brilliant violinist Elizabeth Suh Lane, will perform seasonal masterworks from the pens of Bach, Vivaldi and Handel, plus traditional Christmas carols in classical arrangements.

 

 Kansas City Ballet
The Nutcracker
December 16 at 7:30 p.m.
Also performed December 17 through December 27
Music Hall
301 West 13^th Street, Kansas City, MO
For tickets call 816-931-2232 or online at www.kcballet.org

The Kansas City Ballet's annual production of Tchaikovsky's The Nutcracker actually doesn't start until the publication date of next week's issue of KCMetropolis.org, but since it comes up so quickly we thought we would mention it here to make absolutely sure you didn't miss it 

The late Todd Bolender's choreography of the Tchaikovsky favorite is always a delight, and of course the music of Tchaikovsky is endlessly inventive and original; in this case, familiarity breeds anything but contempt.  Expect colorful costumes, life sized animals, plenty of leaps and twirls, and acrobatic performances all around.  This is an annual holiday delight for children young and old, and why not?  It just seems we can never get enough of The Nutcracker, and fortunately the Kansas City Ballet has not lost sight of that important fact.

If you're embarrassed going without a kid, then grab one or two of the neighbors' children and head on down to the Lyric Theatre.  You will have just as much fun as the children do.

 

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.