Author: Libby Hanssen
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Pianist Ran Dank Returns for the Kansas City Symphony’s Season Finale
Wrapping up its A Century of Bernstein celebration, the Kansas City Symphony’s season finale is an ambitious double bill: Leonard Bernstein’s “The Age of Anxiety” and Hector Berlioz’ “Symphonie Fantastique.” “The Age of Anxiety (Symphony No. 2 for piano and orchestra) (After W. H. Auden),” to give the work its full title, is based on Auden’s 1948 Pulitzer Prize-winning book-length poem, “The Age of Anxiety: A Baroque Eclogue.”
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Concert to Come: Kansas City Contemporary Music Festival
The Kansas City Contemporary Music Festival, now in its second year, brings together some of the region’s premier new music practitioners for a post-genre celebration during May’s First Fridays. The festival runs from 5 to 9 p.m. in the third-floor event space of the Bauer, the rehabbed warehouse warrened with artists’ studios and gallery spaces, a central hub for an evening of gallery stalking and art gazing.
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Bach Aria Soloists Will Present Popular ‘Night of Tango’ at the Folly Theater
Kansas Citians have a decades-long love affair with tango. The sultry strains and propulsive rhythms — pulled from the clubs of Buenos Aires into the concert halls by world-famous bandoneonist Astor Piazzolla — have long entranced Midwestern audiences, and they’ll have a chance to experience that thrall again when Bach Aria Soloists presents their ever popular “Night of Tango.”
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Celebration in Dance
Kansas City Ballet completed 2017 in high style. The John F. Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts invited the company to Washington, D.C., to perform Devon Carney’s “The Nutcracker” over Thanksgiving weekend. “This is a particularly satisfying fantasy,” wrote Sarah L. Kaufman for “The Washington Post,” which “positively oozes charm.” High praise from a Pulitzer Prize-winning dance critic.
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Concert to Come: The Boston Camerata’s ‘The Play of Daniel’ Speaks Truth to Power
When “the writing is on the wall,” it usually indicates the end. For the Boston Camerata, it was just the beginning. The phrase comes from the Biblical story of Daniel, when mysterious writing appears to a corrupt leader, an omen of his demise, and has been used on countless politicians since. The ensemble performs their new interpretation of “The Play of Daniel” (c. 1200) on Jan. 19 at Grace and Holy Trinity, presented by the Friends of Chamber Music.
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Artist to Watch: Christine Grossman
Christine Grossman, principal violist for the Kansas City Symphony, was reluctant. As a teenager, she wasn’t sure she wanted to switch from violin to viola. As a born and bred New Yorker, she wasn’t sure she wanted to be principal in an orchestra in the middle of America. She’s changed her mind: “What I love about the Kansas City arts scene is an openness and a welcoming spirit among the musicians and artists."