Fall Season Lookahead: Music

Critic’s Picks

Sure, nearly every classical music fan is drooling over the Beethoven Bicenquinquagenary (250th anniversary) in 2020, but there’s a fair bit of action in the last quarter of 2019 to keep us busy.

Park University’s International Center for Music hosts a special benefit concert evening with Stanislav & Friends in Helzberg Hall, with the audience seated onstage (Sept. 20). Pianist Behzod Abduraimov gave a heart-stopping performance at the 1900 Building last season, and no doubt he’ll bring the thunder once again (Oct. 30).

Friends of Chamber Music front-loads their season with exceptional chamber ensembles, including Calidore Quartet with violist Matthew Lipman (Sept. 28), Rolston Quartet (Oct. 11) at 1900 Building and Fretwork, featuring countertenor Iestyn Davies, at Linda Hall Library (Oct. 25).

It’s a big year for the Kansas City Symphony, which kicks off its 15th season with music director Michael Stern (Oct. 4 – 6) and a new executive director, Danny Beckley. Associate conductor Jason Seber makes his Classical Series debut, in concert with organ virtuoso Paul Jacobs (Oct. 25 – 27). New work from Daniel Kellogg and Jonathan Leshnoff, epic work from Jean Sibelius, Anton Bruckner and Richard Strauss, and the ever-popular Happy Hour concerts, all in Helzberg Hall, have us filling in the calendar with must-see dates.

World music may be a catchall term, but dang if it doesn’t always grab my attention. Kauffman Center brings in one of my favorite trios of all time, presenting Béla Fleck (banjo), Zakir Hussain (tabla) and Edgar Meyer (bass) in concert in Helzberg Hall for a wonderfully worldly performance from three masters of their craft (Oct. 9). Ensemble Ibérica explores folk music and dance with impassioned performances from local favorites and international guests (MTH Theater, Sept. 17 and 18).

Lyric Opera of Kansas City presents a new spin on Mozart’s “The Abduction from the Seraglio,” directed by Alison Moritz and featuring Prairie Village, Kansas’ own Ben Bliss (Sept. 21, 25, 27 and 29).

Some of our favorite local groups are doing some very on-brand shows this season. Bach Aria Soloists celebrates their 20th anniversary with a party at Boulevard Brewing Company, featuring members through the years (Sept. 8). newEar Contemporary Chamber Ensemble is making Diastole home this season, presenting an expanded sound world from a bevy of living composers (Oct. 12,13 and Dec. 7,8). Spire Chamber Ensemble starts their season with “This Is Spire: Celebrating 10 years” at Trinity Lutheran Church (Oct. 6), and Kansas City Chorale performs with organist Elisa Bickers in the recently renovated Village Presbyterian Church (Oct. 25).

Top Venues

Performance spaces around Kansas City are housed in structures dating from the late 1800s to the present. I make my seating selection for either best visual or aural advantage, depending on the type of show.

With 1,600 seats, Helzberg Hall in the Kauffman Center for the Performing Arts is deceptively intimate: The audience is on display as much as the performers are. I like sitting in the Mezzanine, either in the “boats” (left and right center), where you have a great vantage point from the front, or along the side where the seats wrap behind the stage and offer a view of all the percussion action, even if the sound experience isn’t the same. In the Kauffman Center’s 1,800 seat Kauffman Theater, especially for dance, I prefer to sit toward the back and higher up, to get the wider visual, either farther up in the Orchestra or in the Mezzanine.

In only a few short years, the rooms of the 1900 Building at Shawnee Mission Parkway and State Line Road have seen some incredible performances in both the intimate Rose Hall (about 100 seats) and the spacious Parkway Room (about 300). The seating is flexible, and if it’s a full house they put out higher seats along the back wall. The space hosts faculty and guests from Park University’s International Center for Music recital series, chamber groups brought in by Friends of Chamber Music, and the Cecilia Series, highlighting women composers and performers, along with jazz, folk music and film showings.

More than 100 years old, the Folly Theater has seen a lot of changes on the corner of 12th and Central, but with the renovation of the lobby last season, it’s still got it. True, there’s more legroom in the lower level, but I like the vantage point from the last row in the lower balcony, snagging an aisle seat.

Diastole Scholars’ Center, near UMKC’s Hospital Hill at 2501 Holmes, is an ideal venue for chamber music and includes a selection of books and art as well as gardens to stimulate the senses. Both students from UMKC Conservatory and local professionals have performed in the homey, intimate space.

Historically, religious institutions have long fostered musical endeavors, and around Kansas City that is no exception, with churches welcoming choirs and instrumental ensembles from the region. Many of the churches have traditional pews, so a vantage point with good visuals can be challenging, but not always necessary. That said, I try to get to concerts early enough to get a seat just a few rows removed from the dais, on an outside aisle.

Music Calendar