Musical groups of all kinds have drawn on word-play for their names — from the Beatles and the Rolling Stones to Chanticleer (Geoffrey Chaucer’s “clear-singing” rooster in The Canterbury Tales) and Anonymous 4 (a quartet named for the unknown author of a famous 13^th-century musical treatise). But one Dutch vocal ensemble may have gone those groups one further, by basing its name on a triple pun. Take the Latin word quintus (a fifth or five of something), and add to it the Dutch words kwinkeleren (to sing like bird) and kwinkslag (a witticism) and you have Quink — a delicious five-voice ensemble established in 1978 that has been riding the top of the international music scene for three decades. The dual reference to singing and humor is intentional, the members say, because despite an earnest attention to precision, magnificent vocal blend and top artistic integrity, Quink wants the world to know that it doesn’t take things too seriously. (Or as one founding member, soprano Machteld van Woerden, wryly understated it: “The members have thus viewed their style as light and not always serious in approach.”)

In only its third appearance in Kansas City in its 32-year history, Quink — two sopranos, an alto, a tenor and a bass — performs music of Byrd, Finzi, Vaughan Williams and others on February 6th at Visitation Catholic Church, as part of the Visitation Fine Arts Society’s prestigious concert series. The program, titled Sacred and Profane, is a rare opportunity to hear a group The New York Times praised for “elegant phrasing, impeccable intonation and … purity of tone.”

Quink might be Dutch in origin — and its members all trained in Holland’s incomparable musical culture — but its outlook is as international as Holland itself. It has toured the world for three decades and has performed more that 300 times in the United States alone. “Holland was a trade nation from the 16^th and 17^th centuries,” said tenor Harry van Berne, a member of Quink since 1982, on the phone from Holland recently. “And during those centuries an incredible number of people came from all parts of the known world to settle in the Netherlands.” Holland has retained its cosmopolitan outlook, with a culture containing elements from all over the world.

Quink’s program on its current U.S. tour is a reflection of that outlook, with music from England, the Netherlands and Hungary. The quintet’s repertoire is vast, spanning several centuries and also including folk, gospel and popular music. The inspiration for their formation in 1978 was the six-voice British ensemble, the King’s Singers, founded a decade earlier — but instead of the typically British all-male sound they decided to use women for the treble parts.

The first half of Sacred and Profane consists of the five movements of William Byrd’s Mass for Four Voices, interspersed with sacred and secular five-voice motets and partsongs related to the corresponding movements of the Mass. The Kyrie Eleison movement, for example (“Lord, have mercy”), is followed by a partsong by the 17^th-century English composer Robert Johnson titled “Save me, o Lord.” Some of the pieces are in a style similar to that of the Mass, Harry van Berne says, others are consciously different. But all are performed in a manner that transcends the purely religious connotations of the texts. “If they are performed in an authentic way, convincingly and with a feeling for the deeper meanings, then they should make for good listening for anyone.”

Striking the right vocal blend is critical for an ensemble like Quink: Five voices are especially “exposed,” and each time there is a personnel change, great care must be taken to find just the right voice. “The blend of the group is very important for Quink,” Harry says. “We always look for a kind of ‘bridge’ from one voice to the other, and the kind of color that matches the rest of the voices.” The group has had numerous members through the years, including Harry’s wife, Machteld Van Woerden. They have benefitted from the rich tradition of Dutch artists such as Gustav Leonhardt and Nikolaus Harnoncourt, with whom they have worked directly through the years. “The focus on early music was always very big in Holland, and it still is,” Harry says.

Contemplating touring brings to mind the vicissitudes of the road, Harry says, and the exciting and alarming things that can happened. He remembers one moment when a cold-and-cough remedy he took had an unexpected result. “I had this terrible dry cough; my throat was itching all day. So I bought something at Wal-Mart that said it would kill this itch. And it really worked, and I was very happy. But then I had to sing some very high parts in sort of a falsetto, and suddenly it felt like my whole larynx was paralyzed. I couldn’t get a sound out. It was a very awkward feeling.” Surprisingly, Harry says that in 32 years the group has only canceled two or three concerts, “and that was not just because one of us was sick, but when more than one of us was sick. We don’t stop when one of has a cold, because we’re very experienced singers and we know what to do.”

The current members of Quink are Marjon Strijk, Mariette Oelderik, Elsbeth Gerritsen, Harry van Berne, and Kees Jan de Koning. The concert is February 6th at 8 p.m. at Visitation Church in Midtown. Call 816-235-6222. For more information, go to visitationfineartssociety.com.

To contact Paul Horsley, performing arts editor, send email to phorsley@sbcglobal.net.

Pianist Benedetto Lupo

The Kansas City Symphony has an intriguing array of soloists lined up for the spring, from superstars to newcomers, and the first one I’m looking forward to is Benedetto Lupo, a marvelous Italian pianist with a substantial European career who only recently has begun to attract due notice on these shores. Odd, considering that his career was initially kick-started with a bronze medal at the 1989 Van Cliburn Competition, followed by a New York recital debut at Alice Tully Hall in 1992. In any event he’s made sort of an American come-back in the last couple of years: He’ll appear here January 15^th through the 17th at the Lyric Theatre with Quebec-born guest conductor Bernard Labadie, whose baton skills are known to Kansas City audiences.

Lupo has been greeted with unstinting critical praise for his recent U.S. performances. “Lupo’s crystalline yet emphatic performance helped draw out the piece’s deeper meaning,” wrote Alex Ross in The New Yorker of a performance of the same piece the pianist will play here, Mozart’s K. 456 concerto, “Mozart’s own underlying conflict between the imperatives of festive public pomp (as seen in the opening theme’s martial strut) and the inner compulsions of personal expression (which Lupo brought out with dark-hued vehemence).” John von Rhein wrote in the Chicago Tribune of a performance with Labadie (again, of the same piece) that Lupo’s pianism was “never less than gracious, the musical sensibility behind it generous and true. Labadie’s supportive accompaniment had a similar feeling of naturalness, as if he and Lupo were breathing the same pure Mozartean air.” And Scott Cantrell, writing in 2007 in the Dallas Morning News of a Fort Worth recital that included Schumann’s Kreisleriana, called Lupo a musician of “depth and warmth” who “savored, and subtly underlined, the music’s harmonic unpredictability.”

Labadie, a known specialist in the music of the Baroque and Classical periods, will also lead the orchestra in Mozart’s Symphony No. 39 and Franz Schubert’s Mozart-inspired Symphony No. 5 in B-flat major. For information and tickets, call 816-471-0400 or go to kcsymphony.org.

IN BRIEF:

* Man, I miss Gregory Hines, who died of cancer in 2003 at a youthful 57. If ever there was a mega-talent, he was one: dancer, actor, singer—an almost-too-big-for-Broadway showman. Who can forget The Cotton Club, or the breathtaking dance sequences with Mikhail Baryshnikov in the 1985 movie White Nights? Or (a favorite of mine) his surprising, quiet presence in Waiting to Exhale? Among all of his talents, though, it was tap that raised the New York-born Hines above “mere” brilliance into something resembling pure genius. On January 16th at Yardley Hall, the Performing Arts Series of Johnson County Community College presents Thank You, Gregory: A Tribute to the Legends of Tap, in which eight world-class tappers pay tribute to Hines and other legends of tap. One of Kansas City’s own master tappers, Ronald McFadden, will lead an Artist Insight discussion an hour before the show. For tickets, call 913-469-4445 or go to jccc.edu.

* Next up with the Kansas City Symphony is the dazzling Gil Shaham, one of the most significant violin talents of our time, who has been praised by Strings Magazine for his virtuosity and his “innate musicality and beautiful, expressive tone, which can glow like bronze and shimmer like gold.” Winner of an Avery Fisher Career Grant, multiple Grammy Awards and the 2008 Avery Fisher Prize, Shaham presents not one but two violin concertos, by Barber and Prokofiev (the Second), both of which were part of an outpouring of great violin concertos during the 1930s—a repertoire that Shaham has highlighted recently through performances of works by Barber, Berg, Stravinsky, Bartók, Prokofiev, and others. The program, conducted by music director Michael Stern, also includes Stravinsky’s Baroque-inspired Pulcinella and the bubbling Symphony No. 1 by the precocious 19-year-old Shostakovich. The concerts are January 22nd through the 24th at the Lyric Theatre. For information and tickets, see the contacts in the entry at the top.

To reach Paul Horsley, performing arts editor, send email to phorsley@sbcglobal.net.

If you are looking for just one holiday event to attend, the Kansas City Ballet’s The Nutcracker might not be the most inexpensive offering in town, but it’s probably the most solidly satisfying aesthetically. With Balanchine-inspired choreography by late artistic director Todd Bolender and delicious scenic and costume design by veteran Hollywood designer Robert Fletcher, it’s one of the better Nutcrackers you’ll find in America. It also serves as an annual showcase for this gem of a ballet company and school located here in the middle of the country. The two-week run of the classic ballet that opened December 16 — a run shortened by the musical Wicked, which cannibalized part of what is usually a month of Nutcrackers in the Music Hall — was energetic, rich in dimension and at times humorous. There were of course opening-night jitters and bloopers, more than usual in fact, but I felt nicely rewarded by several top-drawer performances by the company dancers, and by a portrayal of the young Prince that I believe was the most accomplished, if not the best, that I’ve seen here. (Mind you, I haven’t seen them all.)

Kim Cowen was her usual exquisite self as the Sugar Plum Fairy, a role she has honed to sharp precision over many years. Other moments from the professional dancers stood out as well. (Cast vary through the run.) Angelina Sansone was the cool, delicately detailed Snow Queen, supported by Juan Pablo Trujillo as a quietly present King. Deanna Doyle was a wonderfully controlled Dew Drop, her whiplash turns a model of grace and speed. Adam Rogers delivered remarkably fluid leaps in the Chinese Dance, and Marty Davis was an assertive lead in the Russian Dance. Nadia Iozzo was captivatingly nuanced in the Arabian Dance, and Laura Reed gave off girlish charm as the head Reed Pipe. When we were told that a woman (Stayce Camparo) would play Mother Ginger — usually performed by a male dancer in drag — I wondered why the company would remove a beloved humorous element. Yet I found myself grateful I was able to focus on the busy activity all around the Mother, for a change, instead of being distracted by her shtick.

The evening began with a surprise: Artistic Director William Whitener came onstage to announce that Ballet board chair Julia Irene Kauffman would take to the orchestra pit to conduct Tchaikovsky’s brief Overture (opening night only), in recognition of the largesse that Julia and her late mother, Muriel McBrien Kauffman, have shown to the Ballet over the years. But there was another reason Julia took to the podium: Her granddaughter, 13-year-old Brittany LaPointe, was making her role debut as Clara, the young girl around whom swirls this fantastic tale of Snow Queens, battles with giant mice, and a Nutcracker/Prince who shows her a land where everything is made of sweets. There was sweetness, too, in Brittany’s performance, which was graceful and delivered with an appropriate sense of fragility. (Again, casts vary.)

Her Prince, 14-year-old Durante Verzola, showed uncommon poise throughout, delivering his famous pantomime with fluid elegance and a sort of maturity we’re not accustomed to seeing in this role. Often the youthful Prince moves like a boy, gently and with a certain caution; Durante dances like a young man. The third young lead, Zachary Boresow, 12, showed spontaneity and comic agility in the role of Fritz, Clara’s hyperactive brother. (The other cast features Elena Loyacono-Bustos as Clara, Riley Horton as the Prince and Connor Horton as Fritz.) Of course there was no shortage of cute, well-organized kids playing angels, bunnies, party children, sentries, mice, soldiers, forest creatures and gingers, as well as more advanced students dancing as snowflakes, reed pipes, Russians and flowers. The Kansas City Symphony performed capably in the pit, under the baton of Ballet music director Ramona Pansegrau, and the choir of Ballet School students singing the wordless choral line in the Snow Forest scene was excellent.

Another dramatic surprise awaited us at the end. The Prince and Clara exited stage right, on cue, in order to climb into the sleigh that will spirit them away to — well, wherever. But instead of getting to see them fly across the stage in the sleigh, waving farewell to the assembled company, the curtain fell with no sleigh apparent. After a few seconds, the curtain rose to show the sleigh’s tail end as it was just exiting stage left. Oops, we missed them! Such is the nature of live theater.

The Kansas City Ballet’s production of The Nutcracker runs through December 27 at the Music Hall. Call 816-931-2232 or go to kcballet.org. To reach Paul Horsley send email to phorsley@sbcglobal.net. For a feature story about the students performing in the lead roles, see the December 19 print edition of The Independent, available at select local bookstores and cafes. All photos by Steve Wilson.

From left: Elena Loyacono-Bustos, Brittany Muriel-Marion LaPointe, Riley Horton, Durante Verzola, Connor Horton, Zachary Boresow.

If you want to know what the six youngsters playing the lead parts in the Kansas City Ballet’s The Nutcracker think about what they do, just ask them. Not only can they pirouette, plié and jeté, these boys and girls aged 9 to 14 can also talk about dance with clarity, thoughtfulness and no small amount of humor. We recently sat down with the six youths who play the double-cast parts of the Prince, Clara and Fritz to talk about dance history, Todd Bolender’s Nutcracker choreography, the characters they play, and their hopes and dreams. Each is a veteran not only of Nutcracker performances but of several years’ experience in ballet, having studied at the Kansas City Ballet School or at other schools around the country. All take dance very seriously, and some say they might pursue it as a career. But for now, they’re just having the time of their lives.

“It’s a great way to express yourself, and be your own person,” says Durante Verzola, 14, of Lansing, who is playing the Prince for the second time locally and has performed it with Oregon Ballet Theater. “I dance because it gives me a physical thrill.” For 12-year-old Riley Horton of Blue Springs, the other Prince of the cast, the physical finesse is part of the fun but the sense of achievement is important, too. “When you’re onstage doing lots of pirouettes and big jumps, it just feels great. And after a performance, when you know you’ve done a good job, the feeling is great, too.” For 9-year-old Connor Horton, who plays Fritz, dance was at first something he did because big brother Riley did it. “I thought it looked kind of fun, so I tried it out, and ever since then I’ve been having a lot of fun.” When it comes to motivations and rewards, dance is not that different from sports, says Zachary Boresow, 12, of Overland Park, the other Fritz of the cast. “You want to win, to accomplish something, to do the best you can in everything you do.”

Dance is demanding, says 13-year-old Elena Loyacono-Bustos of Kansas City, Mo., one of this season’s Claras. But it’s also great at building self-esteem. “I feel beautiful when I dance. You’re so nervous, but then you get onstage and you have so much fun.” Brittany Muriel-Marion LaPointe, 13, who alternates as Clara, agrees. “When I dance, I feel like nothing can stop me. I feel beautiful, and I have a lot more self-confidence.” But ballet is not for everyone, Elena says. “You have to really, really be in love with dance, because they critique you so much.” When it comes to training dancers, the directors of the Kansas City Ballet and its School are continually coaxing students, gently but firmly, to achieve their best. “They’re strict because they care,” Elena says, “because they think you have talent, and they want to make you amazing.”

Ask these youngsters about the characters they play and they’ll fill your ear for sure. Clara is “a shy person,” Brittany says, but when she meets the Nutcracker she “comes out of her shell.” To play the Prince, Durante says, he constantly has to be thinking about “being strong, being princely, carrying myself nicely, making all of my movements big so that everybody can notice them.” The Prince is “the hero, the person who is always doing the right thing,” Riley says, “but you have to know how to put your own spin on it.” Is there is chemistry between Clara and the Prince? “They get butterflies when they see each other,” Zachary says. But of course they are too young to be anything but friends, he adds, “because of the cooties.” Fritz, who in a fit of spite stomps on the Nutcracker and breaks it, is “a well-behaved, wealthy child who sort of has some mischievousness inside him,” Connor says. “He knows his manners,” Zachary adds, “but he chooses not to use them a lot of the time, because he likes to add his own sort of fun to things.”

Why is The Nutcracker still around 117 years after its premiere? “There’s something about the story that’s captivating,” Riley says. “It never gets old. And with all these versions around, you can go to different ballets and see something new each time.” One aspect that all six dancers like about the local Nutcracker is its ambiguous ending. Was it all a dream, or did Clara really go off to live in the Kingdom of Sweets? “I like to believe that it was real,” Elena says, “that there’s an actual land of sweets.” Brittany concurs. “Why would I want to dream all that just to come home and wake up in the morning and eat pancakes?” In Bolender’s version, Clara and the Prince fly off on a sleigh at the end. “I think that’s another reason people like it,” Durante says, “because it doesn’t show if she comes back home or not, and they can put their own interpretation on it.”

There’s little doubt that some of these six kids are destined for dance careers; others are keeping things open. “When I get older I definitely want to be a dancer,” Elena says. “It’s still definitely one of my options,” Brittany says, “and if I end up not wanting to be a dancer then I guess I’ll be fine with that. But right now my heart is set on dance.” All six have learned to ignore their peers’ sometimes misguided notions of ballet. “If you really like it, then you shouldn’t listen to what they say,” Zachary says. “You just listen to what your heart says. Because you like to dance.”

The Kansas City Ballet’s The Nutcracker runs December 16-27 at the Music Hall. Call 816-931-2232 or go to kcballet.org. To reach Paul Horsley, send email to phorsley@sbcglobal.net.

Students of the Kansas City Ballet rehearse the Party Scene from "The Nutcracker" in the Ballet's studios.

Matthew Donnell, center, and Kansas City Ballet School students rehearse the Party Scene of “The Nutcracker” at the Ballet’s studios.

Avner Dorman

Composers have long delighted in creating elaborate narrative “programs” for their instrumental works, then instructing us not to rely on the programs too much, or even asking us to ignore them altogether. At issue is a tension over whether a piece conceived programmatically can also stand on its own as “pure” music. Avner Dorman’s new Piano Concerto No. 2, Lost Souls, stamps its narrative right into the score, with movements titled Séance, Twilight and Exorcism. At its world premiere November 20 at Kansas City’s Lyric Theatre, with the superb pianist Alon Goldstein and Michael Stern conducting the Kansas City Symphony, the 34-year-old composer even took to the stage beforehand to relate the narrative: A pianist is yanked from the afterlife to relive his past glory, and along with him come several other spirits, including the ghosts of “piano concertos of the past and pianists of the past,” in the composer’s words. One of the spirits is so malevolent that must be exorcised. Nevertheless, the composer emphasized, this narrative is just his version, and we were each welcome to create our own, or indeed listen with no story in mind.

Commissioned for Goldstein and the Symphony, the concerto is a playful 30-minute explosion of sound, color and rhythm, with a theatrical flair. At the beginning, the audience was surprised to see Stern take to the stage alone, mounting the podium with a puzzled shrug toward the empty piano bench. After a few minutes of high, spooky string clusters, the hall faded to black while the orchestra vamped; when the lights went up, presto, there was the “conjured” Goldstein at the piano. His music was initially chaotic, as if he’d had a rough ride in from the afterlife. But then he rushed into a tumble of subtle, half-hidden allusions to other music, with driving rhythms and ferocious passagework. Goldstein negotiated the solo part with muscular, hyperactive command. In addition to Ravel, Messiaen and Gershwin we couldn’t help thinking of the virtuosic jazz of Art Tatum, Oscar Peterson, even Keith Jarrett. Piquant rhythms and the frequent reference to the augmented second lent a vaguely Middle Eastern flavor — the Israeli-born composer is an avowed fan of Arab music — while the skillful use of forces assured that the orchestra remained an equal partner. The battery of standard and exotic percussion instruments kept four players in constant motion, while the clangor of all manner of metallic instruments lent a ceremonial air.

In Twilight the pianist was allowed his moment in the spotlight, performing a little “recital” that sounded like deconstructed Baroque music, with lackadaisical scales that meandered around the upper register — all to a tinkling, delicately colored percussion accompaniment. The entrance of the demonic spirit revived the pianist’s ferocious mood, and this time he cascaded crazily about the keys like Stravinsky’s Petrushka on a tear. The segue into the finale was the only part of the concerto that seemed overly long. Exorcism sent the percussionists back to an array of drums and timpani, including the djembe and the Cuban Batá (the latter often used, significantly perhaps, in santería rituals). A headlong toccata of complex, irregular rhythms for the whole orchestra was interrupted by a series of stentorian brass expletives announcing the exorcism of the bad spirit. The pianist’s spirit took its leave in lacy filigree at the top of the keyboard, which was reduced to four keys, then three, then two, then a single key. Fade to black, and the pianist again vanished.

In the foyer at intermission, audience members were abuzz with opinions; the word I overheard most was “fun.” Lost Souls is indeed a lively, extroverted, skillful, aurally attractive and highly entertaining concerto. Perhaps that is enough to ask from any piece of new music. Yet what was unclear from a first hearing was whether the piece could exist apart from its narrative, or stripped bare of theatrical tricks that stopped just barely short of gimmickry. From a purely musical point of view the concerto felt discursive and episodic, even though its structure was ostensibly strict (the first movement is virtually a sonata form, complete with lyrical second theme). But beyond the fun I didn’t feel strongly compelled to hear the concerto again, at least not on a regular basis.

The concert had opened with an affectionate rendering of Bartók’s Hungarian Sketches, which showed to fine advantage the ensemble’s ever-changing wind section (including the extroverted new principal oboe Mingjia Liu). They were even more impressive in Sibelius’ Symphony No. 2, which formed the concert’s second half. The strings smoldered nicely in at the opening but were upstaged by the winds throughout, which sounded about as substantial and balanced in this Allegretto as I’ve heard them. Despite some pitch issues in the double bass pizzicatos that open the Andante, the Vivacissimo was showily enigmatic. Yet here as in the finale, everything felt as if it were in the right place but a sense of personality or creative shaping remained incomplete.

To reach Paul Horsley, performing arts editor, send email to phorsley@sbcglobal.net.