Time for weekend calendar picks from KC Studio Magazine editor, Alice Thorson! This afternoon, hurry to the Nerman for artists presentations from Adriane Herman and Brett Reif, free and open to the public. Or see the Music Sacra Chorus and Orchestra on the Rockhurst campus. Friday at the Kauffman Center, Harriman-Jewell Seriespresents Les Arts Florissants, and Lyric Opera Kansas City presents their production of Carmen. Kansas City Repertory Theatre New Works Festival starts this weekend, Friday and Saturday on the Copaken Stage. For more ideas, visit Kansas City’s most comprehensive arts calendar at kcstudio.org/events.
Third Thursday · Visiting Artists Presentations
April 21 @ 3:30 pm – 4:30 pm | Free
Nerman Museum of Contemporary Art
Adriane Herman and Brett Reif, and JCCC faculty moderators Allison Smith, associate professor/chair of art history and Mark Cowardin, professor of fine arts. The program is free and open to the public.
Adriane Herman makes art from the quotidian scribblings that we all make – to-do lists, grocery lists, reminders and notes to others. In the context of her installations, these items become important cultural documents, shedding light on what those almost thoughtlessly recorded aspects of our lives indicate about us. Herman states, “Communing with the ephemeral residue of human commitments, tastes, priorities, accomplishments and procrastinations allows me to mine the extraordinary by sifting through the purportedly ordinary.”
Brett Reif creates wall works, sculpture and installations using non-traditional media such as household tile and plumbing materials. He states, “I transform common textures into something mysterious and expressive. I sculpt thematic organic shapes and images giving the materials a second life, one that enables a viewer to consider the poetry in the everyday and to converse with their surroundings.
Musica Sacra Closes Its 25th Year with Work by Johann Michael Haydn
April 21 @ 6:15 pm – 9:30 pm | $12 – $22
Pedro Arrupe, S.J., Hall Auditorium at Rockhurst University
At 7 p.m., Sunday, April 24, Musica Sacra Chorus and Orchestra will conclude its 25th anniversary season with a rarely performed choral gem: St. Ursula Mass by Austrian composer Johann Michael Haydn (1737-1806).
The Missa in honorem Sanctae Ursulae was completed on Aug. 5, 1793, and is considered the most “Mozartian” of all Haydn’s settings of the Mass text.
The title of the work is dedicated to Maria Sebastiana Oswald, who was given the baptismal name Ursula soon after her birth in Munich on Aug. 19, 1772. The child was musically gifted and respected as both a violinist and a singer. She was admitted as a novice to the Benedictine convent of Frauenchiemsee in April 1790. She professed her vows on her 21st birthday — Aug. 19, 1793. It is likely that Haydn composed the Mass for this purpose.
The work is scored for strings, organ, trumpets and timpani. Although it was never published, it was apparently quite popular during the 19th century because manuscript copies of the work are fairly widespread.
The concert will take place in Rockhurst University’s Arrupe Hall Auditorium. Music Director Timothy L. McDonald will present “Live Program Notes” at 6:15 p.m. Tickets ($22, $12 seniors and students) may be purchased through the Central Ticket Office (816-235-6222) or at the performance.
Les Arts Florissants, chamber orchestra and choir led by William Christie
April 23 @ 7:00 pm | $25 – $70
Kauffman Center for the Performing Arts
The acclaimed vocal and instrumental ensemble will perform a French program of “serious airs and drinking songs” lightly staged as a wedding and described by The Guardian as an “exquisite meditation on the nature of desire.” The illustrious ensemble was founded in 1979 by the Franco-American harpsichordist and conductor William Christie, who directs the group to this day.
CARMEN
April 23 @ 7:30 pm
Kauffman Center for the Performing Arts
Maidens, Matadors and Madness.
Carmen, the passionate and devastating masterpiece by Georges Bizet, may be the opera even those unfamiliar with opera will recognize. Bizet’s score is seductive, alluring and perfectly matched to Carmen’s conquest of bullfighters, soldiers and smugglers.The fiery gypsy sings the signature “Habanera” as she sets her sights on local corporal Don José. He quickly falls under her spell, only to be cast aside and humiliated. The music follows his descent from soldier and lover to desperate murderer as he sends Carmen to her doom against the roar and cry of the bullring.
New Works Festival
April 23 @ 8:00 pm
April 24 @ 7:00 pm
Kansas City Repertory Theatre-Copaken Stage
Two new plays presented in rotating repertory. Appropriate for ages 16 and up.
FIRE IN DREAMLAND
Written by Rinne Groff
Directed by Marissa Wolf
Past and present converge in the battered landscape of Coney Island, New York when a young woman’s boardwalk revitalization project leads her to seek refuge in the seductive vision of an unknown Dutch filmmaker.
LOT’S WIFE
Written by Eric Rosen
Adam Mace, a promising playwright with a troubling past, has written his first new play since the tragic death of his wife and infant child. Set as a 1930s noir thriller, his script raises suspicions that its author is actually confessing to a murder.
