Libby Hanssen

March 29, 2017

A Compelling Tale of Tragedy and Recovery

The Mississippi River Flood of 1927 was one of the worst natural disasters in the history of the United States. Hundreds lost their lives and thousands were displaced, land and livelihoods lost, making for another component of the Great Migration, which brought people from the agrarian south to the industrialized northern regions and the opportunities of the West.

March 6, 2017

Arts News: KC Symphony Makes Final Push to Create $55 Million Endowment

The new year brought a major announcement by the Kansas City Symphony: The organization is launching the final phase of its Masterpiece Campaign, an ambitious..

January 16, 2017

Arts News: Opera Supper Celebrates Decade of Casual Song

On the third Monday of the month, the air kisses flutter from cheek to cheek as friends greet friends in Californos’ Bistro for the Opera..

January 4, 2017

Beau Bledsoe: World Explorer of Music

From his home state of Arkansas to the Iberian Peninsula, the classically trained guitarist and Ensemble Ibérica founder finds musical riches to study and share.

January 4, 2017

Friends of Chamber Music Honors Two Masters of the Historic Keyboard

During this 40th anniversary season, the Friends of Chamber Music will present Lifetime Achievement Awards to Alexei Lubimov and Malcolm Bilson, two of the world’s most acclaimed proponents of historic keyboard performance practice. The Friends bring internationally-renowned musicians to Kansas City every season and connections span the globe.

December 12, 2016

Artist to Watch: Liz Pearse

Vocalist Liz Pearse has a maker-mentality of independence, curiosity and conviction. She loves the challenge of dissecting and mastering a complicated score. “That’s the kind of thing I enjoy — I don’t do Sudoku — I like (Milton) Babbitt!” she said, referencing the avant-garde American composer known for his pioneering in electronic music and serialism.

November 21, 2016

Concert to Come – In War & Peace: Harmony through Music

Acclaimed mezzo-soprano Joyce DiDonato returns to the Harriman-Jewell Series for a concert promoting peace.

October 10, 2016

Concert to Come: Mozart’s “Requiem in d minor”

Were it not for the dubious dealings of his devoted widow, Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart’s Requiem in d minor may have become an obscure footnote in his catalog, buried, so to speak, with the composer in a common grave, anonymous and incomplete, instead of becoming and remaining one the most popular works in the Classical repertoire.

September 13, 2016

High-tech, Hybrid, Hyper-experimental

Opera — that all-encompassing genre of performance — both skews and skewers reality. J. Ashley Miller intends to do both with his first full-length opera, Echosis. Echosis is the retelling of Ovid’s classic Greek story of Echo and Narcissus through the lens of the cyber gaming world.

Author: Libby Hanssen