Controlled chaos. An amorphous, musical blob. A marching band that thinks it’s a rock band.
When an orchestra performs a concerto — a composition featuring a solo instrument with orchestral accompaniment — one can usually expect to hear technical pyrotechnics from a violinist, a mind-boggling performance from a pianist, or even a thrilling showstopper from a woodwind player on clarinet or flute. But while many musicians view mastering a concerto as a rite of passage, some instrumentalists have more opportunities than others.
Eight years ago, Marty Kiefer created the West Michigan Gay Men’s Chorus, the first and only openly gay men’s choir in Grand Rapids.
An entrepreneurial spirit may not be the first thing that comes to mind when talking about orchestra conductors, but David Lockington said that spirit is exactly what helped him launch a successful career.
Christina and Michelle Naughton carry on a conversation only they can understand while playing the piano together.
A Detroit artist’s narrative linocuts, a composer’s four-screen video supercut, an Andy Warhol showcase — the Grand Rapids Art Museum’s three exhibits opening this month don’t have much in common, except that each is sure to offer something you haven’t seen before.
Don’t let the title of Resort fool you, or the still image of empty beach chairs and blue umbrellas with the beckoning sea as a backdrop — this is not a show about vacations.
If there’s a Hall of Fame for Broadway, Wicked will absolutely be in it. Since debuting in 2003, the musical has become the second-highest-grossing Broadway show of all time and is nearly the 6th longest-running Broadway show.
Face Off Theatre Company is only in its third season as part of Kalamazoo’s Black Arts and Cultural Center, but its unwavering commitment to excellence is clear. By consistently producing powerfully relevant and necessary work that no one else in the region is doing, they’re raising important questions and dialogue about race in America — primarily generated by people of color. And it’s perhaps the only company in the state fully committed to this work.
Cyndi Lauper made famous the notion that “Girls Just Want to Have Fun” in 1983, but in 2013, she convincingly made the argument that it’s actually drag queens who have the most fun with the enormously delightful, multiple Tony-Award winning musical “Kinky Boots,” for which she wrote the score.
Draped with fishnet and spider webs and dressed with ouija boards, skulls, a crystal ball, a chainsaw, a coffin, a skeleton, a lamp made of a human head, a noose, an old radio, and a sarcophagus, the stage of the New Vic Theatre in Kalamazoo embodies the spookiness of the Halloween season and is set to creep folks out in the most festive of ways.
Deborah Cox is a Grammy Award nominee and R&B powerhouse, and a distinguished national touring artist. To put it simply: She’s a pretty big deal. Unfortunately, she’s also a human who gets sick (or at least that’s what the woman seated next to me heard), and wasn’t able to perform during opening night of The Bodyguard: The Musical at Wharton Center in Lansing. Cue the understudy, Jasmin Richardson.
It has been roughly 180 years since Frederic Chopin composed his piano etudes. In proficient hands, these brief musical exercises sound as fresh and poignant as the time when Chopin first created them. On the fingertips of a fearless and imaginative master, they become individual masterpieces in their own right.
The Grand Rapids Ballet’s 2017-2018 season opener, From Russia With Love, offers a soaring sampling of some of the greatest classical dance in the Russian style, and it was performed with a passion and grace that can only be interpreted as coming from the fire of love central to all great artists’ work. The love exchange evident in the Peter Martin Wege Theatre is profound; the loop from tradition to dancer to audience member is infinite and deeply satisfying.
