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

Grand Celebration! Ax Plays Beethoven
Kansas City Symphony
Friday, September 23 at 8:00 p.m.
Saturday, September 24 at 8:00 p.m.
Sunday, September 25 at 2:00 p.m.
Kauffman Center for the Performing Arts, Helzberg Hall
1601 Broadway, Kansas City, MO
For tickets call (816) 471-0400 or visit www.kcsymphony.org.

As a recent article in The New York Times noted, orchestras opening new performing arts centers usually go for a tried-and-true formula of sure-fire hits. You have a spectacular piece to show off the acoustics of the hall, you feature a world-class soloist in one of the great classic concertos, you have a relatively new piece as a bow to contemporary music, and you have a lush orchestral composition which illustrates the lush sounds of your orchestra in the new space.

This is not meant to be critical at all; the Symphony is clearly attuned to what is necessary for the opening concert, and has scheduled a lineup that includes each of the above. the spectacular show number is Stravinsky’s Fireworks, which should light up the orchestra as its namesake suggests. The world-class soloists is pianist Emanuel Ax, who has often appeared in Kansas City before, but sure not to wear out his welcome in one of the giant works in the repertoire, Beethoven’s Piano Concerto No. 5 “Emperor.” The new piece is by UMKC Conservatory prize-winning composer Chen Yi, and is entitled The Fountains of KC and the lush orchestral composition is Respighi’s Pines of Rome, complete with its dramatic crescendo depicting the Roman legions marching down the Appian Way.

These would all be crowd pleasers in any event, but combining them in the same concert is sure to please audience members of almost any stripe.

UMKC Conservatory of Music and Dance
Graduate Fellowship Brass Quintet
Monday, September 19 at 7:30 p.m.
Central United Methodist Church
5144 Oak Street, Kansas City, MO
Free admission. For more information, visit http://conservatory.umkc.edu

The quintet of brass players constituting the UMKC Graduate Fellowship Brass Quintet launch their performing season this week with a free concert at Central United Methodist Church. The Conservatory’s continual search for venues is a symptom of the growing pains it feels at its multiple locations on the UMKC campus, which might possibly be solved (who knows?) if the Conservatory finds a downtown location near the Kauffman Center, an idea which is now being discussed.

For this concert the Graduate Fellowship Brass Quintet will perform works by Bach, Handel, Lutosławski, Calvert and Ewald, so an unusual mix it should be. And you can’t beat free admission.

UMKC Conservatory of Music and Dance
UMKC Conservatory Orchestra
Friday, September 23 at 7:30 p.m.
James C. Olson Performing Arts Center, White Recital Hall
4949 Cherry Street, Kansas City, MO
For tickets the Central Ticket Office at (816) 235-6222, or visit http://conservatory.umkc.edu.

The UMKC Conservatory Orchestra, directed by Robert Olson and assisted in this concert by graduate assistant conductor Steve Lewis, performs its opening concert of the season featuring Mahler’s Symphony No. 1 “Titan.” Olson is a longtime Mahler specialist and director of the annual Mahlerfest in Colorado, so he is in his fach with this one. Also on the program are Verdi’s Overture toNabucco, an orchestral favorite, and Short Ride in a Fast Machine from the imagination of contemporary composer John Adams (hisNixon in China will be performed by the Lyric Opera in March).

Harriman-Jewell Series
Caroline Goulding, violinist
Saturday, September 24 at 7:00 p.m.
Folly Theatre
12th and Central Streets, Kansas City, MO
Free admission, but tickets are required; visit www.hjseries.org.

As a service to the arts-loving public the Harriman-Jewell Series presents several Discovery Concerts each year, featuring up-and-coming artists in free performances. These extraordinary events often feature performers who are just as good or better as those found in many of the for-pay events which this series and others put on throughout the year.

Caroline Goulding is the winner of the prestigious 2011 Avery Fisher Career Grant and has already attracted much notice internationally. Composer John Corigliano, one of whose works is featured on her first CD recording, says “She gives a totally individual interpretation to my music. I think she will shortly become a very famous young woman and only hope that she gives my other violin works a glance.”

In this concert, the 19-year-old sensation will perform works of Mozart, Schumann, Fauré, Enescu and Ysaÿe with collaborative artist Dina Vainshtein. Note the early starting time of 7:00 p.m. to accommodate families with children (although this is by no means a “children’s concert”).

Kansas City Electronic Music and Arts Alliance (KcEMA)
Joo Won Park: Strange Sounds in a Familiar World
Saturday, September 24 at 8:00 p.m.
Urban Culture Project’s La Esquina
1000 W. 25th Street, Kansas City, MO
Tickets available at the door; for information, visit www.kcema.org.

The Kansas City Electronic Music and Arts Alliance kicks off its 2011–12 season with a concert featuring the works of 31-year-old Joo Won Park, who will perform some of his own works. The Berklee College of Music and University of Florida grad will perform live pieces that use real time computer processing, as opposed to previously-conceived pieces either played on playback devices or perform on synthesizers or other electronic instruments. In other words, there is a quality of improvisation to these numbers.

Pathways Magazine wrote last year that “Joo Won Park is a rising star among modern composers. He produces music by recording everyday sounds as well as some more unusual ones and designing his own instruments from these sounds, using specialized programs to process the sounds via computer. Some of the programs are so specialized, in fact, that he codes them himself, line by line. It is a painstaking process, but one that yields spectacular results.”

UMKC Conservatory of Music and Dance
Conservatory Artist Series Grand Opening Concert
Thursday, September 28 at 7:30 p.m.
Kauffman Center for the Performing Arts, Helzberg Hall
1601 Broadway, Kansas City, MO
For tickets call the Central Ticket Office at (816) 235-6222, or visit http://conservatory.umkc.edu

The UMKC Conservatory of Music and Dance is the second organization (after the Kansas City Symphony) to perform a regular concert in Helzberg Hall. For the opening concert of its Conservatory Artist Series, the Conservatory is pulling out all of the stops with a performance featuring the Conservatory Concert Jazz Band under the direction of Bobby Watson, the Conservatory Wind Symphony under conductor Steven D. Davis, and the PRISM Quartet. The latter group is saxophone quartet which is making a name for itself internationally.

The Gates BBQ Suite composed by Watson honors its namesake Kansas City landmark establishment and will be performed by the Concert Jazz Band. No word yet on whether barbeque will be available in the lobby at intermission. The Wind Symphony will be heard in John Corigliano’s Symphony No. 3 “Circus Maximus.” The PRISM Quartet will solo with the Wind Symphony on William Bolcom’s Concerto Grosso, commissioned especially for the PRISM Quartet.

Electronic Music Midwest
Electronic Music Midwest Festival
All day, Thursday, September 29 and Friday, September 30
Kansas City Kansas Community College Performing Arts Center 
7250 State Avenue, Kansas City, KS
Free admission; for information visit www.emmfestival.org.

Electronic Music Midwest (EMM) is a group which presents an annual festival each fall dedicated to programming of a wide variety of electroacoustic music. This annual festival consists of nine short concerts (about one hour in length) over the course of the weekend. The result of a consortium formed in 2002 between Kansas City Kansas Community College, Lewis University, and the UMKC Conservatory of Music and Dance, the festival features an 8-speaker surround diffusion system under the guidance of Ian Corbett. Over 64 composers and performers have been invited to participate in this year’s Festival.

Since its beginning, EMM has programmed over 500 new compositions. Plan to visit with the creators afterwards, for the composers have plenty of time to “talk shop” with each other as well as interact socially with students and audience members.

Westport Center for the Arts
Brown Bag Concert: Rebecca Bell and Marian Thomas
Friday, September 30 at 12:10 p.m.
Westport Presbyterian Church
201 Westport Road, Kansas City, MO
Free admission, but donations are requested. For more information, visit http://www.westportcenterforthearts.org/ 

The Westport Center for the Arts features two fine harpsichordists at its noontime concert, performing from Bach’s The Well-Tempered Clavier. The pair will be performing on a French double-manual harpsichord in the style of Paul Taskin, a great harpsichord builder of the 18th century. Thomas carefully constructed the harpsichord from a Frank Hubbard kit in 1983, after working in the Hubbard Workshop for a year.

The two players will perform eight preludes and fugues from Bach. This is just the beginning of an ambitious project in which Thomas and Bell will present all 48 preludes and fugues from the set. So stay tuned for information about the sequels.

Wylliams/Henry Contemporary Dance Company
20^th Anniversary Concert
Friday, September 30 at 8:00 p.m.
(also October 1 at 8:00 p.m.)
James C. Olson Performing Arts Center, White Recital Hall
4949 Cherry Street, Kansas City, MO 
For ticket information call the Central Ticket Office at (816) 235-2700 or online at www.wylliams-henry.org. 

It is hard to believe that it has been two decades since Mary Pat Henry and the late Leni Wylliams founded the Wylliams/Henry Contemporary Dance Company. During that time the company has brought us many enjoyable performances of both classic and modern dance. The company opens its season with a twentieth anniversary concert featuring Trains choreographed by Mary Pat Henry to music by Steve Reich, and also works choreographed by Gary Abbott, Lonnie Davis, Amber Perkins and others. As a tribute to one of its co-founders, the company also revives Shah Tah Tee to the choreography of Leni Wylliams.

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.