LEONA MITCHELL TO
GIVE FREE MASTER
CLASSES AT DOWNTOWN
LIBRARY

Ms. Mitchell master classes are free, but space is limited. Call the Downtown
registration desk to register at 606-3879.

       

 

Award-Winning Poet Terrance Hayes Set for OCU Series

Photo courtesy of OCU

 Poet Terrance Hayes, winner of the 2010 National Book Award, will give a reading at 8 p.m. April 3 at Oklahoma City University as part of the 15^th annual Thatcher Hoffman Smith Poetry Series. The reading is free to the public and will be held in the Kerr McGee Auditorium in Meinders School of Business on N.W. 27^th Street and McKinley Avenue.

Hayes will also present a workshop titled “Connecting through Poetry” at 10 a.m. and there will be an open mic poetry reading at 6:15 p.m., all in the business school.

Hayes is considered one of the most compelling voices in American poetry. “Lighthead,” his most innovative collection, investigates how humans construct experience, presenting “the light-headedness of a mind trying to pull against gravity and time.” The citation for the National Book Award described it as a “dazzling mixture of wisdom and lyric innovation.”

Poetry critic Cornelius Eady commented, “First you'll marvel at his skill, his near-perfect pitch, his disarming humor, his brilliant turns of phrase. Then you'll notice the grace, the tenderness, the unblinking truth-telling just beneath his lines, the open and generous way he takes in our world.”

Hayes has published three other books of poetry: “Wind in a Box” (2006), winner of a Pushcart Prize; “Hip Logic” (2002), winner of the National Poetry Series, a finalist for the Los Angeles Times Book Award and runner-up for the James Laughlin Award from the Academy of American Poets; and “Muscular Music” (1999), winner of both the Whiting Writers Award and the Kate Tufts Discovery Award.

His other honors include two Best American Poetry selections, a National Endowment for the Arts Fellowship and a Guggenheim Fellowship. His poems have appeared in literary journals and magazines including The New Yorker, Poetry, The American Poetry Review, Ploughshares, Fence and the Kenyon Review. His poetry has been featured on “News Hour with Jim Lehrer.”

Born in South Carolina in 1971, Hayes received an MFA degree in poetry from the University of Pittsburgh. He is a professor of creative writing at Carnegie Mellon University.

For more information about the events at OCU, e-mail hwinn@okcu.edu, call (405) 208-5472 or visit the Center for Interpersonal Studies through Film and Literature website at www.okcu.edu/film-lit.

From the press release

Oklahoma City University and the Canterbury Choral Society Premier Leonard Bernstein's Mass in Oklahoma City

April 13, 2013 at 8 pm @ the Civic Center Music Hall
 

Come share in the experience of a lifetime, as Canterbury Choral Society and Oklahoma City University’s Wanda L. Bass School of Music premiere Leonard Bernstein’s MASS on April 13, 2013 at 8:00 p.m. in the Civic Center Music Hall.  Tickets may be purchased now through April 12, 2012 by calling 232-SING. Oklahoma City University Alumni may use this code - OCUALUM - to receive $10 off.  On day of concert tickets may only be purchased online.

MASS seeks the meaning and relevance of faith in an increasingly secular and noisy world. Sometimes humorous, occasionally bawdy, and at times profoundly moving, Bernstein’s masterpiece, based on the Roman Catholic liturgy, includes passages sung in Latin with additional texts in English by Bernstein, Broadway composer Stephen Schwartz, and Paul Simon. The work, scored for orchestra, marching and rock bands, actors, and dancers, also features rock, blues, Broadway, and classical music.

Scott Guthrie, native Oklahoman and 2001 OCU graduate will play the lead role as The Celebrant – The central character of the work, a Catholic priest who conducts the celebration of the Mass. The remainder of the cast will include current OCU music theatre students and dancers, the OCU orchestra and Canterbury’s Adult and Youth Choruses.

Commissioned by Jacqueline Kennedy Onassis, MASS debuted at the opening of the John F. Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts in 1971.

“With approximately 200 performers, including dancers, singers, a chorus, rock and blues singers, actors, two orchestras, as well as a marching band, Mass is a musical and theatrical experience,” said Dr. Randi Von Ellefson, Artistic Director for both organizations.

Leonard Bernstein’s daughter, Jamie Bernstein, will be traveling to Oklahoma to see the production as the piece is not produced very often. Replicating her father’s compulsion to share and teach, Jamie has devised several ways of communicating her own excitement about classical music. She is a frequent speaker on musical topics, including in-depth discussions of her father’s works. Jamie has also written and narrated concerts about Mozart and Aaron Copland, among others.

“We are predicting a sell out for this concert,” said Canterbury's Executive Director, Dr. Kay Holt. “Not only because the piece is a premiere to Oklahoma but also because of Leonard Bernstein’s talent as a composer.”

For more information or to order tickets call 232-SING (7464) or go to http://www.myticketoffice.com/events.asp?id=11&loc=234.

From the press release

Update: "LOVE'S LABOUR'S LOST"
PRESENTED BY REDUXION THEATER
AT METRO LIBRARIES FULL PLAY

Reduxion Theater will present the full play of Shakespeare's "Love's Labours Lost," not a shortened 45 minute production
as previously reported. All play times are 1 p.m. to 3 p.m. on
Saturdays at the Metropolitan Libraries on:

  March 23: Ralph Ellison Library, 1918 NE 23^rd (424-1437)

 March 30: Midwest City Library, 8143 E. Reno (732-4828)

 April 6: Northwest Library, 5600 NW 122nd (606-3580)

 April 13: Belle Isle Library, 5501 N. Villa (843-9601)

                 

                 

                 

Mini Review:

OCU'S SPRING REVIEW
WELL WORTH SEEING

By Nancy Condit


Oklahoma City University's Spring Show is filled with the tremendous energy of a spectacle, great tapping, lifts, and a lyrical Broadway style ballet wrapped up into a show that is well worth seeing.

Final shows are at 2 p.m. and 8 p.m. Saturday, March 16.  Reserved seat tickets are $20 from the Oklahoma City University Performing Arts Ticket Office by calling (405) 208-5227 from noon to 4 p.m. Monday through Friday, or online at www.okcu.edu/ticketoffice.

SHAKESPEARE'S “LOVE'S LABOUR'S LOST”

PRESENTED AT MLS LIBRARIES
BY REDUXION THEATRE



Poster provided



            "Love's Labours Lost," a "vibrant comedy of romance, requited and otherwise," will be performed, free, at seven Metropolitan Library System locations in March and April.   Reduxion Theatre has placed the drama in twentieth century Spain, with absurdist comedy, and period music. This is a briefer, but true to the original, version of the full length play.

“It’s Shakespeare for everybody,” said MLS Director of Outreach Services Dana Morrow in a press release.  “The play is about the King of Navarre who, with three of his friends, decides to devote three years to study and to ignore all women during that time.  You can imagine how long that lasts.  It is full of puns and comical wordplay, and was first performed in 1597 for Queen Elizabeth I.  She liked it.  So will you.”

Photo provided

For more information about this or any Metropolitan Library System program, visit the  

MLS website, www.metrolibrary.org.

All performances are free and will be on Saturday afternoons beginning at 1:00p.m.

                 March 2: Southern Oaks Library, 6900 S. Walker (631-4468)

                 March 9: Downtown Library, 300 Park Avenue (231-8650)

                 March 16: Edmond Library, 10 S. Boulevard (341-9282)

                 March 23: Ralph Ellison Library, 1918 NE 23^rd (424-1437)

                 March 30: Midwest City Library, 8143 E. Reno (732-4828)

                 April 6: Northwest Library, 5600 NW 122^nd (606-3580)

                 April 13: Belle Isle Library, 5501 N. Villa (843-9601)


From the press release and poster

Brightmusic Society of Oklahoma  -
Concert 4 of Tenth Anniversary Season –
“Bright Tales”

Guest artist Miles Hoffman, artistic director
of the American Chamber Players.
Photo provided

On March 18-19, 2013, Oklahoma City’s own Brightmusic Chamber Ensemble will present two performances of the fourth concert of its Tenth Anniversary Season, “Bright Tales.”  Our guest artist for this concert will be violist Miles Hoffman, Artistic Director of the American Chamber Players; Associate Professor of Viola at Converse College in Spartanburg, South Carolina; and Music Commentator for National Public Radio’s “Morning Edition.”             

The works on the program are: (1) Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart’s “Kegelstatt” Trio in E-flat Major, K.498 for viola, clarinet and piano; (2) Max Bruch’s Romance for Viola and Piano in F Major, op. 85; (3) Robert Schumann’s “Märchenerzählungen” (“Fairy Tales”), op. 132 for viola, clarinet and piano; and (4) Guillaume Lekeu’s Piano Quartet in B Minor for violin, viola, cello and piano.

Guest Artist Miles Hoffman is founder, violist and Artistic Director of the American Chamber Players, an outgrowth of his nine years’ service as the director of the Library of Congress Summer Chamber Festival, which he founded. He is the author of The NPR Classical Music Companion, now in its tenth printing.    

Four Brightmusic musicians will appear with Mr. Hoffman on this concert:  Gregory Lee (violin), Jonathan Ruck (cello), Chad Burrow (clarinet) and Amy I-Lin Cheng (piano).  

Four works will be performed. Mozart’s “Kegelstatt” has been called “dense and cerebral” – “one of his most perfectly integrated compositions, with [a balanced] interplay among the three instruments” [All Music Guide]. German romanticist Bruch’s Romance for Viola and Piano in F Major, op. 85, is conservative in form and harmony, but reflects “deep thoughtfulness and melodic richness” [David Duball]. Schumann’s “Märchenerzählungen” (“Fairy Tales”), Guillaume Lekue, Piano Quartet in B Minor (for violin, viola, cello and piano), completed by Vincent d’Indy after Lekue’s death.  His best-known work is a violin sonata commissioned by Eugène Ysaÿe, premiered less than a year before Lekue died of typhoid fever contracted from a contaminated sorbet, one day after his 24^th birthday.  He began to work on his Piano Quartet in late 1892, but he had not finished it when he died.  His friend and teacher d’Indy completed the second movement.  Lekue intended the Quartet to be a grand work, probably in three movements.  It will be, he said, “a thing of beauty [and] audacity, beside which my violin sonata will be but a penny toy.”  Lekue would have been gratified by the words of critic Jerry Dubins, who has described the first movement as an “outpouring of emotions so intense, so personal, so private, and so painful it almost hurts to listen to it,” and the second movement as a work of “heart-throbbing sadness and breathtaking beauty inexpressible in words.”

The first performance will take place on Monday, March 18^th at 7:30 pm in northwest OKC, at All Souls’ Episcopal Church, 6400 N. Pennsylvania Avenue, and the second on Tuesday, March 19^th at 7:30 pm in downtown OKC at St. Paul’s Episcopal Cathedral, 127 NW 7^th Street.  Admission is $10 per adult; students and Season Members are free of charge.  A reception with the musicians will follow each performance.

Brightmusic is on the Web at www.brightmusic.org

From the press release

OCU'S SPRING SHOW CELEBRATES
BROADWAY, SAINT PATRICK'S DAY,
AND OKC WRITER RALPH ELLISON

Photo provided

        The American Spirit Dance Company, founded and directed by Professor Jo Rowan, will bring rapid-fire tap, jazz and musical theatre dance back to the Kirkpatrick Auditorium stage at Oklahoma City University March 14, 15 and 16.  

“This is the fast-paced show of the year,” said director Jo Rowan in a press release, noting that the audience will see dancers trained and skilled in multiple styles of American musical theatre dance, the foundation of all Broadway shows.
The acclaimed company of dancers from Oklahoma City University’s Ann Lacy School of American Dance and Arts Management will celebrate an early Saint Patrick’s Day with Rowan’s emotionally compelling Irish Bitter Suite, a collection of six dances covering Irish immigration to America due to famine and political repression ending with an uplifting and hopeful performance of “God Bless America” as the Irish find freedom and opportunity as new Americans.

The American Spirit dancers will also celebrate the 100^th anniversary of the birth of Oklahoma native and novelist Ralph Ellison with the Ellison Loves Ellington Suite, featuring dances to a trio of some of Duke Ellington’s most beloved music.

Photo provided

“The show presents dynamic entertainment that is perfect for the entire family, from grandpa to the grandkids,” Rowan stated. “There are high energy numbers and powerful tap numbers to keep the performers – and the audience – on their toes, along with beautiful and colorful costumes and computer controlled moving lights.”

The 140 member company, which has been a “seed bed” for professional performers all over the world, will take audience members to the beaches of Rio de Janeiro, flying around with a wacky pilot and beautiful stewardesses of the ‘60’s, and back to the “good ole days” of travel by train.

Show times are 8 p.m. March 14 and 15, and 2 p.m. and 8 p.m. March 16.  Reserved seat tickets are $20 from the Oklahoma City University Performing Arts Ticket Office by calling (405) 208-5227 from noon to 4 p.m. Monday through Friday, or online at www.okcu.edu/ticketoffice.
From the press release

MARIAN WRIGHT EDELMAN
TALK CANCELLED

Marian Wright Edelman's talk scheduled for tonight at Oklahoma City University
has been cancelled because of illness. The talk will be rescheduled if possible.

[ARTSPACE] at UNTITLED
HOSTS CURATORIAL
COLLABORATION
GALLERY TALK
SATURDAY

Photo from Untitled

Saturday, March 2nd at 3pm, Untitled will host a gallery talk with Plug Projects team Cory Imig, Amy Kligman, Caitlin Horsmon, Misha Klingman and Caleb Taylor. Currently in town curating OVAC's Momentum show, Plug Projects is a curatorial collaboration by these five Kansas City, MO artists who share the mission of bringing fresh perspectives and conversation to the local art community. Their goal is to energize artists and the public at large by exhibiting challenging new work, initiating critical dialogue, and expanding connections of artists in Kansas City as part of a wider, national network of artists.

They will discuss their work, which is currently receiving national attention for their efforts in bringing artists to the region.

Admission is free and open to the public. [ARTSPACE] at UNTITLED is at 1 N.E. 3rd Street. Their
phone number is 815.9995.

From the email