Libby Hanssen

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.

September 5, 2016

Artist to Watch: Michael Kirkendoll

A grotto in a 13th-century Tuscan monastery. A mechanic’s garage. A floating barge under the Brooklyn Bridge. A haunted Gothic chapel in downtown Kansas City. Wherever he goes, pianist Michael Kirkendoll brings his passion for the music of living composers. Considering that he studied his whole life — well into his doctorate — basically despising new music, the turnabout has been completed.

July 18, 2016

This Guy Walks Into a Bar and Sees a String Quartet Playing

Classical Revolution KC is part of a growing trend to bring classical music out of the concert hall and back into people’s lives via serendipitous discovery. “If you just grab a random 30-year-old off the street and ask, ‘Do you go the symphony?’ they’ll say, ‘No.’ It’s just not their scene,” said Nick Bell, co-founder of Classical Revolution KC, chatting after their “Chamber Music in the Bistro” performance in the bar of Californos in Westport.

May 23, 2016

Honors: Jay Carter

When charged with voicing angels, kings and gods, call countertenor Jay Carter. The Liberty, Mo.-based singer is an artist in demand. In April he performed with Ars Lyrica Houston; on May 15 he joins the Bach Society of St. Louis for a performance of Bach’s Mass in B Minor.

April 8, 2016

New and Improvised Music Foundation: Helping Musicians Cut Through Funding Red Tape

Staying low and lean, a new arts organization aims to cut through the fog of non-profit arts funding. The New and Improvised Music Foundation of..

March 1, 2016

Making the World a Better Place

Voices in unity have a profound force. The members of the Heartland Men’s Chorus (HMC) have raised theirs for 30 years, serving as a positive force for a community that suffers, still, from prejudice, abuse and loss. They are, and are proud to be, Kansas City’s Gay Men’s Chorus.

January 11, 2016

Fun, Free, Eclectic, Experimental

KC Symphony scores a hit with free chamber music concerts. [block pos=”right”]The chamber music concerts draw a different and more diverse crowd than typically attends..

December 9, 2015

A Nutcracker Reminiscence

While Kansas City Ballet’s new production is renowned New York designer Holly Hynes’ first full-scale Nutcracker costume design, it isn’t really her first experience creating..

October 29, 2015

Fresh Take on a Beloved Classic

Kansas City Ballet lights the season with a reimagined Nutcracker.

Author: Libby Hanssen