When Akron Symphony Orchestra (a Knight Arts grantee), approached GroundWorks DanceTheater (also a Knight Arts grantee), things started clicking. ASO wanted to perform Igor Stravinsky’s “The Rite of Spring” while adding a visual element to its aural connection through dance. Maestro Christopher Wilkins met up with David Shimotakahara, artistic director of GroundWorks, and asked him […]
Article · April 5, 2013 by Roger Durbin
A cool musical invasion is headed our way when the Canadian Brass comes to E.J. Thomas Performing Arts Hall to perform a concert for Tuesday Musical, a Knight Arts grantee. Recognized as “the world’s most famous brass group,” Canadian Brass will be the vibrant and final performance for Tuesday Musical’s 125th-anniversary season. This talented group […]
Article · April 3, 2013 by Roger Durbin
This isn’t a complaint about the five women photographers (Karen Ciamente, Pamela Z. Daum, Sandra Holata, Christine Morrow and Diane Seskes) who have a wonderful exhibit going for them at St. Paul’s Episcopal Church art gallery. Their stuff is fine, but more on that later. What I wish is that galleries and artists could work […]
Article · March 29, 2013 by Roger Durbin
GroundWorks DanceTheater, a Knight Arts grantee, always brings something new and intense not only when in performance but to contemporary dance itself. If you’ve ever attended a dance concert and after a while you say something like “That’s great, but can they do something different?” because of limited dance vocabulary and vision, you’ll know what […]
Article · March 27, 2013 by Roger Durbin
Art museums seem to take on a whole different character when the show being exhibited has its focus in one way or another on children. That’s the case with the current display at the Akron Art Museum, a Knight Arts grantee. “The Snowy Day and the Art of Ezra Jack Keats” – an exhibition that […]
Article · March 22, 2013 by Roger Durbin
Summit Artspace, a Knight Arts grantee, has a thing for every now and then coming up with puzzling ideas or themes and challenging artists to make them meaningful. The resultant juried show – for nine years now – is “Fresh Art.” This year organizers came up with this – do something reflecting on the letter […]
Article · March 20, 2013 by Roger Durbin
Heinz Poll, who co-founded and directed the Ohio Ballet for nearly 30 years, received posthumous honors recently. Verb Ballets paid tribute to the late company director with a performance titled “Honoring Heinz Poll” at the Akron Civic Theatre (a Knight Arts grantee). Poll’s Ohio Ballet had significant impact on the arts in the Akron area, and on contemporary dance nationwide, as the […]
Article · March 15, 2013 by Roger Durbin
In case you missed “The Intimate Bach, Part I” from Apollo’s Fire, a Knight Arts grantee, here’s your chance to redeem yourself, for the celebrated Baroque orchestra will be coming again to appear at Fairlawn Lutheran Church on Thursday evening. This performance has the subtitle “with his friend Telemann,” referring to Georg Philipp Telemann, who […]
Article · March 13, 2013 by Roger Durbin
Yo Yo Ma is perhaps foremost a renowned classical cellist, but he’s also a well-known popular performer (who doesn’t have at least some idea of who he is?). Years ago he put together his Silk Road Ensemble to bring together ancient and modern, musical traditions from east and west, and fashion for one heck of […]
Article · March 8, 2013 by Roger Durbin
Wrap your head around this – ragtime pianist and composer Scott Joplin and the classical ballet style of the Cuyahoga Valley Youth Ballet. Sounds unlikely, right? But it’s not when put in the hands of choreography Tom Gold of Tom Gold Dance. He will make the magical happen in his dance “Joplin Jamboree” (a current […]
Article · March 5, 2013 by Roger Durbin
One thing about farce, French or not, it allows some potentially serious intimate (and often sexual) topics and situations to get on stage and not outrage its audience. Take Georges Feydeau’s “A Flea in Her Ear,” a turn-of-the-last-century comedy that is being performed in the Sandefur Theatre at The University of Akron this month. Set […]
Article · March 1, 2013 by Roger Durbin