Over the past 11 years, Grand Valley State University has quietly fostered a bonafide hub of contemporary music.

Beautifully maintained historic homes have always drawn tourists to Marshall, but the community is fast-becoming a destination for the blues.

With five distinct voices, wind quintet ensembles have a universe of timbres and techniques at their disposal. Grouping the flute, oboe, clarinet, French horn and bassoon means a lack of homogeneous sound that offers tonal and technical possibility for composers. Yet, wind quintet repertoire by recognizable composers like Mozart, Brahms and Strauss is scarce.

Whether it be the first time or a special occasion, the symphony and the cinema both make for excellent dates. And you can have it both ways when vocalists Diane Penning and Paul Langford join West Michigan Symphony for Hollywood’s Greatest Melodies, the weekend before Valentine’s Day.

When Frederik Meijer Gardens & Sculpture Park received a gift from contemporary sculptor Beverly Pepper — consisting of nearly 900 works — Chief Curator and Vice President Joseph Becherer immediately started thinking about a future exhibition.

There’s no excuse to hibernate at home this winter: Muskegon Museum of Art has a cure for cabin fever; and an outlet for creativity with a variety of activities, exhibitions, special programs and even a poetry competition. 

Did any among us who lived through the 1980s ever think we’d long for them again? Who knew, thirty years later, the Reagan era would, indeed, appear to be a sexier time?

In Waitress, most of the show’s action takes place in Joe’s Diner, where three of the musical’s main characters — Jenna (Desi Oakley), Dawn (Lenne Klingaman) and Becky (Charity Angel Dawson) — are waitresses. But the diner does much more than just serve Jenna’s infamous pies to its customers. It’s where love is found, discoveries about the characters are made, fights are had, and yes, a lot of pies are baked.

“When one door closes, another opens; but we often look so long and so regretfully upon the closed door that we do not see the one which has opened for us,” is a bit of wisdom attributed to Alexander Graham Bell. “The Conviction of Lady Lorraine,” written and performed by Dwandra Nickole Lampkin, is evidence of what wonderful things can happen when a driven, curious and inventive artist, amid a dream project, gets told no.

Our attraction to the Victorian super sleuth Sherlock Holmes shows no signs of waning, though the character’s resurgence in the form of various American and British film and television adaptations has been underway for a good five years.