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Kansas City's Online Journal of the Performing Arts

The Friends of Chamber Music
Stephen Prutsman, pianist
Friday, February 12 at 8 p.m.
Folly Theater
12th and Central Streets, Downtown Kansas City, MO
For tickets call 816-561-9999 or online at www.chambermusic.org

Pianist Stephen Prutsman makes his Friends of Chamber Musical recital debut this weekend in a program of Haydn, Ravel, Chopin and Bach. Interestingly, his program also includes piano selections from the Stravinsky Petrouchka suite, one of two chances Kansas City audiences have to hear this Stravinsky ballet music (without the dancing) this weekend.  (See the Kansas City Symphony summary below.)

Prutsman, was a medal winner at the Tchaikovsky and Queen Elisabeth Piano Competitions and received an Avery Fisher Career Grant. He has since soloed with many of the world's leading orchestras including the Los Angeles Philharmonic and the symphony orchestras of San Francisco, Baltimore, Detroit, Indianapolis, Seattle, Dallas, Houston, and many others. He has recorded the Barber and McDowell concerti and recently released a recording of Tchaikovsky chamber music with his chamber trio Nobilis. For three years he was an Artistic Partners with the acclaimed St. Paul Chamber Orchestra.



Kansas City Symphony with Michael Stern, director
Valentine's Weekend with "Petrouchka"
Friday, February 12 at 8 p.m.
Saturday, February 13 at 8 p.m.
Sunday, February 14 at 2 p.m.
Lyric Theatre
11th and Central Street, Downtown Kansas City, MO
For tickets call 816-471-0400 or online at www.kcsymphony.org.

The Kansas City Symphony continues its classical series this with a couple of works by the Finnish master Jean Sibelius along with Igor Stravinsky's charming Petrouchka ballet score.

Sibelius (1865-1957), was born at the very height of music Romanticism, and received a mostly Germanic musical training, studying the music of such great Romantic figures as Beethoven, Schubert, Schumann, Mendelssohn and others.  By the time he achieved his real stride as a composer, however, around the turn of the 20th century and beyond, musical styles had progressed deeply into modernism, featuring such flamboyant figures as the young Richard Strauss, the famous Le Six in France and Arnold Schoenberg.

What was a Romantic composer to do? For Sibelius, the answer was to follow his own path, along traditional lines.  And for this his career was characterized by the excellent musical writer Harold Schonberg as being "Romanticism's coda," an appendix, if you will, to that great era of the 19th Century masters.

Sibelius' great orchestral work, Finlandia, is far more than "just" the national anthem of his native Finland.  It is a Romantic showpiece with moving melodies, demonstrating a glorious and colorful musical palette.  No listener, Finnish or not, can fail to be moved.

With the Violin Concerto, Sibelius turned his Romantic musical talents to one of the most traditional forms of composition.  Evoking the unabashed love of melody and rich accompaniment of his great predecessors Tchaikovsky and Dvorak, Sibelius wrote a masterwork which has become one of the favorites of the repertoire. Symphony audiences will hear it played by Canadian violin virtuoso Karen Gomyo.

In stark contrast to Sibelius, Stravinsky (1882-1971) was a precedent-shattering composer.  His composition on this program, however, is one of his earlier and less-revolutionary works.  Delightfully tuneful, it depicts a favorite story of Russian folklore, a mischievous puppet coming to life, evoking both the old and the new in a charming suite of music.



Heritage Choir of Mid America Nazarene University
A Festival of Singing
Friday, February 12 at 7:30 p.m.
Bell Cultural Center, Mid America Nazarene University
2030 E. College Way, Olathe, KS
Free admission.  For more information visit www.mnu.edu

The Heritage Choir of Mid America Nazarene University gives its winter concert on Friday night featuring music by Handel, Mozart, and English composer John Rutter, as well as a composition by the choir's director, John Leavitt.



The Performing Arts Series at JCCC
Philharmonia of the Nations
Saturday, February 13 at 8 p.m.
Carlsen Center at JCCC
12345 College Boulevard,
Overland Park, KS
For tickets call 913-469-4445 or online at www.jcc.edu/TheSeries

In 1995, Justus Frantz founded the Philharmonia of the Nations, an orchestra of talented young musicians from over 40 countries and five continents. Chinese musicians play next to Americans, and Syrians with Israelis. Their common language is music. The foundation of this orchestra was inspired by Leonard Bernstein's credo, "Let's make music as friends." The Philharmonia's musicians travel around the world playing together and gathering international experience.

This concert will feature Mahler's Symphony No. 1, justly named the "Titan" for its scope and length. It is a challenge for an orchestra of any size or age, and for a group of young musicians to tackle it is impressive. Also on the program is Brahms' Piano Concerto No. 1 with American pianist Jon Nakamatsu, a gold medalist in the Van Cliburn International Piano Competition in 1997.



Harriman Jewell Series
Rachel Lee, Violinist
Saturday, February 13 at 7 p.m.
Folly Theater
12th and Central Streets, Downtown Kansas City, MO
Free admission, but tickets are required.
Call 815-415-5025 or online at www.harrimanjewell.org

The Harriman Jewell Series presents outstanding young violinist Rachel Lee in a free recital featuring the Beethoven Sonata for Violin and Piano and Prokofiev's Melodies for Violin and Piano.  The evening also presents two unusual works by composers Anton Webern and George Enescu.

Lee is currently a student at Harvard and has studied with famed violinist Itzhak Perlman for ten years.  She has performed with the symphonies of Chicago, St. Louis, Houston and Seattle, among others, and is already enjoying an impressive recital career.



Fountain City Brass Band
Hymn of the Highlands
Saturday, February 13 at 7:30 p.m.
Bell Cultural Center, Mid America Nazarene University
2030 E. College Way, Olathe, KS
For tickets call 913-971-3636 or online at www.mnu.edu/events/bellcenter

This past November the Fountain City Brass Band became the first American band ever, and the first non-United Kingdom band in over fifty years, to win a major brass band competition in the United Kingdom.  This competition was the 2009 Scottish Open Brass Band Championships, and to honor this accomplishment the Band presents a concert of works inspired by Scottish traditions or its stunning landscape.

Hymn of the Highlands was commissioned by David King and the Yorkshire Building Society Band and premiered at the 2002 European Brass Band Championships Gala Concert in Brussels. The suite of seven movements, all named after places in the Scottish Highlands, features many of the band's fine soloists and comprises the entire first half of the concert. The second half features numerous smaller works centered on Malcolm Arnold's Four Scottish Dances.



Fine Arts Chorale
Heartfelt Voices
Saturday, February 13 at 7:30 p.m.
Grace and Holy Trinity Cathedral, Founders Hall
415 West 13th Street, Downtown Kansas City, MO

Sunday, February 14 at 3 p.m.
Mission Road Community of Christ
7842 Mission Road, Prairie Village, KS
Tickets available at the door or online at www.fineartschoralekc.org

Valentine's Day is the inspiration Terri Teal's Fine Arts Chorale's Heartfelt Voices. Soprano Ida Nicolosi joins the group for musical settings of love poems by Shakespeare, Shelley, Rossetti and e.e. cummings, in addition to a selection of satirical and humorous poems about relationships.  Also included are works of Kansas City composer Jean Belmont, as well as Lane Johnson, Nils Lindberg and Ward Swingl.



Liberty Symphony Orchestra
Masterworks 3: Symphonic Metamorphosis
Saturday, February 13 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 Orchestra presents the third of its four classical concerts this year, featuring the music of Aaron Copland from Our Town, the Overture and March from Turandot by Anton Weber and Paul Hindemith's Symphonic Metamorphosis on a Theme of Weber.

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.