Brian McTavish

Brian McTavish

Brian McTavish is a freelance writer specializing in the arts and pop culture. He was an arts and entertainment writer for more than 20 years at The Kansas City Star. He regularly shares his “Weekend To-Do List” at KCUR-FM (89.3)/kcur.org.

Cool Tools

Cool Tools

As the current sex symbol of cool tools, 3D printers easily attract ogling eyes by producing a virtually endless variety of objects seemingly out of thin air. It almost makes you feel sorry for the robots and other gadgets operating at the heady confluence of art and science — many of them accessible to the public, others well out of the spotlight — that also serve Kansas City’s cutting-edge tool scene.

Arts News: Diary of a Storm Chaser

Arts News: Diary of a Storm Chaser

If 12-year-old Reed Timmer had been harmed the day he used the family video camera to shoot a severe thunderstorm in his West Michigan front yard, the budding inclement weather fan might have thought twice about the perils associated with becoming an extreme storm chaser. Fortunately, young Timmer emerged unscathed from the quarter-size hail that […]

The Job: Joseph Brandwein

The Job: Joseph Brandwein

By his own estimation, Joseph Brandwein has tuned pianos for virtually every major concert pianist who’s performed in Kansas City over the last 40 years. But he refuses to name-drop. “I’m strictly low-key,” Brandwein says. “I don’t need the praise. I don’t need more business. I just do what I do.”

Robert Stewart: Leading Man of Letters

Robert Stewart: Leading Man of Letters

What is the written word really worth? Only everything you can put into it. So goes the ardent ethos of probing poet and essayist Robert Stewart, veteran editor of “New Letters” magazine at the University of Missouri-Kansas City and founder of the Midwest Poets Series at Rockhurst University. Stewart’s credentials make him a high-profile player in the Kansas City literary community.

Quixotic Scores a Hit with Dazzling Digital Projections

Quixotic Scores a Hit with Dazzling Digital Projections

Known for state of the art dance, the KC-based group is gaining reknown for multi-media spectaculars. When is a far-out dance company far more than a far-out dance company? When it’s Kansas City’s Quixotic. The outer reaches of artistic possibility were never more palpable for Quixotic’s co-founder and creative director Anthony Magliano than in February […]

Tales from the Pit

Tales from the Pit

Hair petting, dandruff snow and kicking children are all part of the act for musicians playing below stage. For Ramona Pansegrau, music director of the Kansas City Ballet, there’s nothing like being in the orchestra pit conducting a Christmastime performance of The Nutcracker and being touched by the audience’s reaction. “One time, a little girl […]