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Kansas City's Online Journal of the Performing Arts

Many of Kansas City’s music organizations have wound down their seasons and are looking forward to restarting in the fall.  Still, there are plenty of classical music opportunities to go around during June. June's first week finds jazz saxophonist Bobby Watson joining the Bach Aria Soloists,  Northland Symphony performing stirring orchestral marches and and Arnold Epley's Musica Vocale concert of Handel's "Saul." You can also read about the Kansas City Symphony's performances of Beethoven's Piano Concerto No. 3 with soloist Markus Groh in this week's preview article.

Bach Aria Soloists
Bach and Jazz Inventions with Bobby Watson
Saturday, June 4 at 7:30 p.m.
White Recital Hall
4949 Cherry St., Kansas City, Missouri

For tickets call (816) 235-6222, or visit http://bachariasoloists.com/

Elizabeth Suh Lane's Bach Aria Soloists are known for elegant performances of the works of Bach and other baroque composers, and Bobby Watson is known for having one of the hottest jazz saxophones in the country.  So what is a collaboration between these two going to sound like?

You’ll just have to attend this one-night-only concert to find out.  Publicity materials bill it as Bobby Watson “improvising with the Bach Aria Soloists on brilliant Bach Arias, Inventions, Sonatas and the soulful Brazilian music of Guinga.”

Whatever it is, there is going to be nothing else like it in town.

Musical Vocale
Handel’s Saul
Sunday, June 5 at 3:00 p.m.
J. C. Nichols Auditorium at Liberty Memorial's
World War I Museum
Pershing Road and Main Street, Kansas City, Missouri

Tickets available online at www.musicavocale.org and at the door.

Arnold Epley has been one of Kansas City’s most talented and perceptive choral directors for over thirty years.  On Sunday afternoon, he brings his choral group Musica Vocale to the World War I Museum to perform Saul, one of the celebrated oratorios of Georg Frideric Handel.

All too many concertgoers know Handel’s oratorios only through his most popular work, Messiah.  That composition, great though it is, is only one of more than a dozen oratorios Handel wrote during the latter part of his career when he turned from staged operas to concert works, often with Biblical themes.  Saul, based upon the Old Testament story of King David, contains beautiful passagework and brief, but colorful, arias.  For this performance, Epley’s group is collaborating with an orchestra of members from the Kansas City Baroque Consortium and the St. Louis Baroque.

Handel, in music historian Winton Dean’s words, “raised the Old Testament oratorio to its highest point, and produced one of the supreme masterpieces of dramatic art, comparable with the Oresteia and King Lear in the grandeur of its theme and the certainty and skill of its execution.”  Handel’s librettist Charles Jennens extracted from the biblical account the most promising elements: the women’s welcome to David, the first javelin-throwing, the episode of the image, the Feast of the New Moon, and above all the visit to the Witch of Endor and the raising of Samuel's ghost. Jennens pictured the tragic King David’s moral disintegration and madness “more in Greek terms than Jewish,” according to Boston Cecilia music commentator Donald Teers.  “His is not so much a defiance of Jehovah as an imperious will gone awry, with punishment the inevitable consequence.”

Among the vocalists soloing in the performance will be Kansas City countertenor Jay Carter and bass Douglas Williams.  In addition to the stunning vocal characterizations and the very active role of the chorus (actually, it is the main character in the drama), Saul also presents one of the finest orchestral scores of 18^th-century music.


Northland Symphony Orchestra
A Collection of Marches
Sunday, June 5 at 7:30 p.m.
Park Hill South High School
4500 N.W. River Park Drive, Riverside, Missouri

Free admission. For more information, visit www.northlandsymphony.org 

The Northland Symphony Orchestra, one of this area’s best community orchestras, wraps up its season with a free concert featuring memorable marches in the American tradition.  Conductor James Murray will lead the performance.


Sunflower Music Festival
25^th Annual Sunflower Music Festival
June 10-18 at various times
White Concert Hall
Washburn University Campus, Topeka, Kansas

Free admission. For more information, visit www.sunflowermusicfestival.org.

It is hard to believe that a quarter century has passed since Janna Lower, Charles Stegeman, and Russell Patterson formed the Sunflower Music Festival in Topeka.  Lower and Stegeman brought substantial music festival experience and a wide circle of instrumentalist friends to the table, and Patterson, the founder and at the time Artistic Director of the Lyric Opera of Kansas City, brought the organizational and conducting skills that the new Festival needed.

After presenting its first Festival on only a few months’ notice, the group decided to make it an annual event.  And, as they say, the subsequent twenty-five years is history.

The Sunflower Music Festival offers a variety of chamber and orchestral performances over an astonishing eight-day period that will delight the ears of all who attend.  The Festival regularly attracts outstanding musicians from across the country who come together in Topeka to make wonderful music far from the glaring attention of the metropolitan media. 

The Festival has also made some impressive recordings of its work, which this listener finds the equal of any to be found anywhere. 

Full details can be found on the Festival’s web site, www.sunflowermusicfestival.org, but here is a brief listing:

 * Friday, June 10, 7:30 p.m.  Chamber orchestra concert featuring the music of Beethoven, Tchaikovsky and Mendelssohn.

 * Saturday, June 11, 7:30 p.m.  Concert of chamber ensembles including compositions by Poulenc, Prokofiev and Shostakovich.

 * Sunday, June 12, 7:30 p.m.  Performance by the Miró Quartet.

 * Monday, June 13, 7:30 p.m.  Concert of chamber ensembles, featuring the works of Dvořák, Beethoven and Brahms.

 * Wednesday, June 15, 7:30 p.m. Chamber orchestra concert including compositions by Mozart, Humperdinck, Stock and Beethoven (the Stock piece is a world premiere).

 * Friday, June 17, 7:30 p.m.  Concert of chamber ensembles, including music by Berio, Mozart and Tchaikovsky.

 * Saturday, June 18, 7:30 p.m.  Chamber orchestra concert featuring music of Copland, Barber and Brahms.

This list only includes the professional orchestra and ensembles.  There are several other performances by talented high school and local groups, as well.  Charles Strickland and Russell Patterson serve as conductors of the orchestra concerts.

This Festival should be a joy for Topeka locals and visitors alike.


Simon Carrington Chamber Singers
Juxtapositions
Friday, June 9 at 8:00 p.m.
Grace and Holy Trinity Cathedral
415 West 13^th Street, Kansas City, Missouri
Saturday, June 10 at 7:00 p.m.
Grace Episcopal Cathedral
701 Southwest 8^th Avenue, Topeka, Kansas

Tickets available online at www.simoncarringtonchambersingers.com or at the door.

Led by Simon Carrington, alumnus of the famous King’s Singers which he helped found at Cambridge University in England, the Simon Carrington Chamber Singers consists of 24 of the country's finest choral singers, many of whom are local, and has been performing in the Kansas City area since 2009.  Among the outstanding vocalists appearing with the group are Ida Nicolosi, Jay Carter, Kate Lohmann, and Ryan Board.

The program for these concerts, according to publicity information, explores “the contrasts and diversity of choral literature from glorious Renaissance music to contemporary masterpieces.”  One of the works to be performed will be Bernard Hughes’ composition Revelation Window, which was the winning work in the group’s 2011 Choral Composition Competition. The London-based composer’s double choir work is based on the Revelation Window (1995) by stained glass designer and craftsman Antony Hollaway, in Manchester Cathedral, United Kingdom.  The piece was selected from a pool of 90 submissions.

A free and open rehearsal for these programs will be held on Thursday, June 9 at 6:30 p.m. at the Plaza Branch of the Kansas City Public Library, 4801 Main Street.  Tickets for the open rehearsal must be reserved at www.kclibrary.org or by calling (816) 701-3407.


Kansas City Symphony
Symphony in the Flint Hills
Saturday, June 11 at 6:30 p.m.
Wabaunsee County, Kansas 

Individual tickets to this concert are sold out.  For patron ticket packages call the Flint Hills office, (620) 273-8955, or development chair Bruce Breckenridge at (816) 469-6400.  For information online, see www.symphonyintheflinthills.org. 

The Kansas City Symphony’s annual trek to the beautiful countryside in the Flint Hills area of Kansas has become one of the hottest tickets in town (or, in this case, out of town).  The many fans of this performance enjoy hearing symphonic music in the context of the sweeping grandeur of the Kansas plains.  This year’s concert, conducted by associate concertmaster Steven Jarvi, will be performed against the backdrop of the Fix Pasture in Volland, Kansas, located adjacent to the Mill Creek Scenic Drive in Wabaunsee County.

This is the sixth annual performance of Symphony in the Flint Hills, and tickets are almost always sold out within hours of the time they go on sale.


Heartland Men’s Chorus
Metro Retro
Saturday, June 11 at 8:00 p.m.
Sunday, June 12 at 4:00 p.m.
Folly Theater
12^th and Central Streets, Kansas City, Missouri

For tickets call (816) 931-3388 or online at www.hmckc.org.

The Heartland Men’s Chorus celebrates 25 years of performances with this concert which looks back upon the group’s quarter century of performances and presents favorites from concerts past. The concerts end with a party on the streets of downtown Kansas City. The Heartland Men’s Chorus under the direction of Joe Nadeau always presents spirited performances and the members should be pulling out all of the stops for this anniversary celebration.

Dark Matter
Orbit
Sunday, June 12 at 2:00 p.m.
Kemper Museum of Contemporary Art
4420 Warwick Boulevard,Kansas City, Missouri

Free admission. For more information visit http://www.darkmatterkc.com/

Dark Matter’s interesting collaboration of composers, performers, and scientists fuses cutting-edge technology with exceptional musical artistry.  The result, according to Dark Matter, “is an art form that blurs the boundaries among performance, education, and composition.”

The group’s performance of Orbit has been reviewed in these pages as being “a successful, fun mix of art and science; two subjects that are more typically seen vying for merit and funding... [M]aybe partnerships like Dark Matter could be a way to bridge this divide between art and science, enlightening the mind while still inspiring the spirit.”


Kansas City Chamber Orchestra
Beethoven’s Pastoral Symphony
Friday, June 24 at 8:00 p.m.
Unity Temple on the Plaza
707 West 47^th Street, Kansas City, Missouri

For tickets call (816) 235-6222 or online at http://www.kcchamberorchestra.org/

The Kansas City Chamber Orchestra ends its concert season with a performance of Beethoven’s Symphony No. 6, the “Pastoral,” which is among the most ambitious works that Bruce Sorrell’s forces have ever attempted.  In Beethoven’s day some of his symphonies were played with smaller forces than the 80- to 90-piece orchestras by which they are performed today, and the Chamber Orchestra intends to resurrect the more intimate performance standards with this concert, using an orchestra of less than 50 musicians.

Also on tap for this final concert are Rossini’s over from La scala di sieta, a rarely performed opera, and Mozart’s Violin Concerto No. 5 featuring guest performer Tamamo Gibbs. Gibbs is a 15-year veteran of the Kansas City Symphony where she serves as principal second violinist. She is also the co-concertmaster of the Kansas City Chamber Orchestra.  She has performed in Japan, the United States, France, Monaco, Israel, Brazil, and Argentina, and has participated in numerous music festivals including the Evian Music Festival in France, the National Repertoire Orchestra in Colorado, the Kent/Blossom Music Festival in Ohio, and the Grand Teton Music Festival in Wyoming.

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.