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

Kansas City Friends of Alvin Ailey
Alvin Ailey American Dance Theatre
Wednesday, November 16 at 7:30 p.m.
Thursday, November 17 at 7:30 p.m.
Friday, November 18 at 7:30 p.m.
Saturday, November 19 at 2:00 p.m.
Saturday, November 19 at 7:30 p.m. (Gala performance)
Muriel Kauffman Theatre, Kauffman Center for the Performing Arts
1601 Broadway, Kansas City, MO
For tickets call 816-994-7222 or online at www.kauffmancenter.org. For more information, visit http://www.kcfaa.org/

The American Dance Theatre of the Kansas City Friends of Alvin Ailey gives its annual fall performances this weekend in a series of dance concerts featuring three different programs with a mix of premieres, new productions, and repertory favorites. Led by artistic director Robert Battle in his inaugural season, the company will perform Alvin Ailey’s beloved Revelations, which is “the classic beloved by people around the world with universal themes that illustrate the strength and humanity within all of us.”

Among the company’s premieres in Kansas City are Christopher L. Huggins’ Anointed, a tribute to Ailey’s past, present, and future, featuring the music of Moby and Sean Clements, and The Evolution of A Secured Feminine, Camille A. Brown’s “witty exploration of the notions of femininity,” a piece for solo female dancer.

Other numbers on the programs include The Hunt by Robert Battle, a dance for six men that “runs the gamut from modern sports to the rituals of the gladiators,” In/Side, a solo number, and Takademe, the company premiere of a “percussive, fast-paced work with complex, tightly woven rhythms of Indian Kathak dance.” Other works are by artists including hip-hop choreographer Rennie Harris and a new production of a landmark 1970 dance by Alvin Ailey, Streams.

UMKC Conservatory of Music and Dance
Le nozze di Figaro (The Marriage of Figaro)
Thursday, November 17 at 7:30 p.m.
Friday, November 18 at 7:30 p.m.
Saturday, November 19 at 7:30 p.m.
Sunday, November 20 at 2:30 p.m.
White Recital Hall, James C. Olson Performing Arts Center, UMKC Campus
4949 Cherry St., Kansas City, MO
For tickets call (816) 235-6222, or online at http://conservatory.umkc.edu 

For fans of Mozart operas, November is a glorious time.  If you enjoyed Mozart and Da Ponte’s Così fan tutte at the Lyric Opera near the beginning of the month, just two weeks later you can catch the first of the pair’s collaborations, Le nozze di Figaro (The Marriage of Figaro) at the UMKC Conservatory as performed by fine student undergraduate and graduate students. Figaro is an ideal opera for student voices, requiring fine technique and nuanced acting, yet making no particularly strenuous vocal demands. Marciem Bazell, the Conservatory’s director of opera, will stage the production.

University of Kansas School of Music
The Beggar’s Opera
Thursday, November 17 at 7:30 p.m.
Saturday, November 19 at 7:30 p.m.
Sunday, November 20 at 2:30 p.m.
Monday, November 21 at 7:30 p.m.
Murphy Hall, KU Campus
Lawrence, KS
For tickets call (785) 864-3436 or online at www.music.ku.edu

John Gay’s The Beggar’s Opera of 1728 is one of the early masterworks of light opera, and is one of the few prominent English operas between the times of Henry Purcell and Benjamin Britten. These performances will offer you an opportunity to enjoy this tuneful classic performed by the spirited and talented students of the University of Kansas School of Music.

Kansas City Symphony
Miraculous Mandarin, Plus Rachmaninoff
Friday and Saturday, November 18 and 19 at 8:00 p.m.
Sunday, November 20 at 2:00 p.m.
Helzberg Hall, Kauffman Center for the Performing Arts
1601 Broadway, Kansas City, MO
For tickets call (816) 471-0400 or online at www.kcsymphony.org.

Behzod Abduraimov, a student of Van Cliburn-medalist Stanislav Ioudenitch at the Park University International Center for Music, is one of today’s leading young pianists, and the Symphony will feature him for the first time, playing the Paganini Variations of Rachmaninoff.

Abduraimov has already posted an impressive win at the London International Piano Competition and has performed with the London and Royal Philharmonic Orchestras. His solo dates this season include performances with the symphonies of Tokyo, Atlanta, Ottawa, Monte Carlo, and the Lausanne Chamber Orchestra in Zurich.

Also on the program are the Miraculous Mandarin Suite of Bartók, a suite from A Love for Three Oranges by Prokofiev, and Hindemith’s Symphonic Metamorphosis.

Friends of Chamber Music
REBEL with Rufus Müller
Friday, November 18 at 8:00 p.m.
Grace and Holy Trinity Cathedral
415 West 13^th St., Kansas City, MO
For tickets call (816) 561-9999 or online at www.chambermusic.org. 

It sounds like a rock music group, but actually REBEL is a New York-based vocal ensemble which specializes in baroque and classical repertoire, which it performs with a “distinctive, active” approach utilizing a “flamboyant, interventionist style” (The Los Angeles Times) and is known for “performances that lack nothing in inwardness, charm, or brilliance” (The Boston Globe).  The St. Paul Pioneer Press has reported that in the playing of the group “there was none of the bloodless artificial elegance of many early-music performers. They played beautifully, with a force and intensity that was invigorating.”

In this concert REBEL is joined by English-German tenor Rufus Müller known for his performances in both oratorio and baroque opera, with appearances in the Netherlands, France, Portugal, Canada and the United States, among other countries.

The program is entitled “Out of the Eclipse: Music of Transformation & Revelation,” and includes cantatas, arias and instrumental music by Handel, Vivaldi, J.S. Bach; Blow, Telemann and Purcell. The concert is part of the Friends of Chamber Music’s Early Music Series.

Kansas City Civic Orchestra
2011: A Classical Odyssey
Friday, November 18 at 7:30 p.m.
Atonement Lutheran Church
9948 Metcalf Ave., Overland Park, KS
Free admission. For more information, visit http://www.kccivic.org 

Christopher Kelts leads the Kansas City Civic Orchestra in its fall concert, featuring the music of Richard Strauss, Gustav Holst, Johann Strauss, Claude Debussy and John Williams, and especially featuring the Also sprach Zarathustra theme made famous from the opening of the movie 2001: A Space Odyssey. The John Williams compositions are themes from popular movies. Sounds like an enjoyable light-hearted evening of popular numbers.

Westport Center for the Arts
Brown Bag Concert: Filippa Duke, organist
Friday, November 18 at 12:10 p.m.
Westport Presbyterian Church
201 Westport Rd., Kansas City, MO
Free admission; donations accepted. For more information, visit http://www.westportcenterforthearts.org/

The free noontime concerts at Westport Presbyterian Church are often among the best bargains in town, and they give free coffee and cookies, too (monetary donations are accepted). This Friday, organist Filippa Duke will perform selections by Widor, Smith, Philips, and Bach. A doctoral student at the University of Kansas, Duke is the music director at the church and has performed has performed recitals throughout the Midwest and South, including at the National Cathedral in Washington, D.C., Christ Church Cathedral in Indianapolis, Indiana, and St. Phillip’s Cathedral in Atlanta, Georgia.

Harriman-Jewell Series
Alek Shrader, tenor
Saturday, November 19 at 7:00 p.m.
Folly Theater
300 West 12th St., Kansas City, MO
Free Discovery concert, but tickets are still required. For tickets call (816) 415-5025, or visit online at www.hjseries.org.

Several years ago the Metropolitan Opera released a film called The Audition, which told in documentary format the stories of several young singers who were engaged in the Metropolitan Opera National Council auditions, a nationwide process which results in just a few winners who sing in a concert onstage at the Metropolitan Opera in New York and go on to sign contracts with the company. Many of the world’s finest opera singers are winners of the Metropolitan Opera auditions.

One of the stars of the documentary was young tenor Alek Shrader, who is now following up his audition success with engagements in some of the world’s leading opera houses. This Harriman-Jewell concert offers you an opportunity to hear him for free.

William Baker Festival Singers
14^th Annual Season Opening Concert
Saturday, November 19 at 8:00 p.m.
Grace and Holy Trinity Church
415 West 13th St., Kansas City, MO
Tickets available at the door or online at www.festivalsingers.org. 

The William Baker Festival Singers open their season with a concert including works by Johannes Brahms, Gibbons, di Lasso, Knut Nystedt, and Eric Whitacre. The varied program also includes a new setting of Ubi caritas by Paul Mealor, heard at the recent Royal Wedding of Prince William and Kate Middleton. The concert concludes with spirituals and folk hymns in settings by K. Lee Scott, Alice Parker, James Miller, and William Dawson. 

Bach Aria Soloists
Musical Tales Featuring Ferdinand the Bull
Saturday, November 19 at 7:30 p.m.
Kansas City Public Library, Central Branch
14 West 10^th Street, Kansas City, MO
Free admission, but tickets are required; contact the Kansas City Public Library at www.kcpl.org. For more information, visit http://bachariasoloists.com/

The Bach Aria Soloists perform an unusual work for families and children at the Kansas City Public Library downtown, with guest actor Stuart Rider. The evening will include the premiere performance of Munro Leaf’s cherished children’s classic Ferdinand the Bull with music by English composer Alan Ridout. Stuart Rider will narrate, and Elizabeth Suh Lane will play the violin.

Kansas City Wind Symphony
All That Jazz
Sunday, November 20 at 2:00 p.m.
Village Presbyterian Church
6641 Mission Rd., Prairie Village, KS
Free admission. For more information, visit http://www.kcwindsymphony.org/

Director Philip Posey takes his Kansas City Wind Symphony to Lenexa and then back home to Prairie Village for two Sunday concerts which apparently will feature jazz favorites orchestrated for wind symphony.

Musica Vocale
Uplifting Music Born of Grief
Sunday, November 20 at 3:00 p.m.
St. Elizabeth Church
2 East 75th St., Kansas City, MO
Tickets available online at www.musicavocale.org.

Conductor Arnold Epley, one of this area’s most sensitive and accomplished choir directors, brings his Musica Vocale group to two locals for this interestingly themed concert which will feature the works of Bach, Brahms, Hawley, Mäntyjärvi, and Moore.

Kansas City Symphony
Russian Spectacular
Friday and Saturday, November 25 and 26 at 8:00 p.m.
Sunday, November 27 at 2:00 p.m.
Helzberg Hall, Kauffman Center for the Performing Arts
1601 Broadway, Kansas City, MO
For tickets call (816) 471-0400 or online at www.kcsymphony.org.

Rimsky-Korsakov and Shostakovich are two of the giants of the Russian orchestral composers, and both of them are represented on this concert, along with the slightly less familiar Alexander Glazunov, a master of the late Russian romantic period.

Rimsky-Korsakov is represented by one of the most familiar works in the repertoire, the 1888 Russian Easter Overture, a richly romantic and marvelously orchestrated work which is always among the most popular crowd pleasers in the orchestral repertoire. For its Shostakovich selection, the Symphony has chosen the Symphony No. 10 of 1953, a post-Stalinist piece in which Shostakovich was generally free of the censorship and restrictions which had plagued much of his career. It contains some of his most beautiful and sensuous music, especially in the energetic second movement and in the slow fourth movement with a solo horn emulating a Russian folk melody.

Shostakovich’s teacher Alexander Glazunov (1865–1936) composed much music which is less familiar to contemporary audiences, but his Violin Concerto, often played by Jascha Heifetz, is deserving of more fame than it has attained.  “The concerto finds Glazunov at his romantic best,” critic David Ewen wrote.  “It is consistently lyrical, its melodies always fresh and spontaneous. Its architectonic structure is sound and impressive. The writing for the violin is throughout effective.”

For its violin soloist, the Symphony has enlisted the Chinese virtuoso Tianwa Yang, one of an exciting new generation of classical violinists. A student of Isaac Stern, father of the Symphony’s principal conductor, she has performed in Prague, Paris, Stockholm, Frankfurt, Vienna and many other European venues, and is making her reputation in the United States.

For the Thanksgiving weekend concerts, the Symphony will be conducted by guest conductor Carlos Miguel Prieto, who enjoys four musical directorships in his home country of Mexico and who has also led the symphony orchestras of Dallas, Houston, Phoenix, Florida and Calgary, among others.

UMKC Conservatory of Music and Dance
UMKC Conservatory Chamber Orchestra
Wednesday, November 30 at 7:30 p.m.
White Recital Hall, James C. Olson Performing Arts Center, UMKC Campus
4949 Cherry St., Kansas City, MO
Free admission. For more information, visit http://conservatory.umkc.edu

Robert Olson and with graduate conductor Parinya Chucherdwatanasak bring the Conservatory Chamber Orchestra together for the group’s final performance of the fall semester, featuring the music of Haydn, Elgar, and Stravinsky.

The Haydn selection is the Symphony No. 92 (the “Oxford”), one of the composer’s English-period symphonies, which capped his remarkable career, show the influence of his occasional student Mozart as well as his love of England, a country which took him to heart after his departure from his longtime employment in Austria. Elgar is represented by the lush Serenade for Strings, one of the prides of English orchestral music, and Stravinsky by the Jeu de cartes (Game of Cards, or sometimes called The Card Party), a “ballet in three deals” written for George Balanchine’s American Ballet in 1936.

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.