MTH's Chad Gerlt, Sarah Crawford, George Harter and Jeremy Watson

George Harter has a message for all who will listen: Just as jazz, blues and rock ‘n’ roll are indigenous American musical genres, musical theater was born here, too. And just as those forms drew from elements as disparate as hymnody and African folk song, the musical drew from European operetta and other sources but brought those elements together in a uniquely American way. “Musical theater is America’s contribution to the grand art of theater,” says George, who founded Musical Theater Heritage in 1997 and each week hosts a nationally syndicated radio show A Night on the Town devoted to the great Broadway musicals (heard here on KPR-FM 91.5). “I am trying to make people appreciate that musical theater is part of our culture.”

On August 14 at the historic Midland Theatre, Musical Theater Heritage and Bruce Sorrell’s Kansas City Chamber Orchestra will come together for a their first-ever joint gala, “Baroque to Broadway.” Beginning with cocktails at the grand bar, this fundraiser features dinner on the ground floor, dancing in the grand lobby, a silent auction, and performances of music ranging from the 17^th-century master Henry Purcell to the lilting songs of Cole Porter. Featured will be prominent local tenor Nathan Granner and others. J. Scott Francis is honorary chair of the event. The collaboration came about partly because two members of the groups’ respective boards happen to be married to each other — Nicole Rockstad (who is on George’s board, and sings in Bruce’s church choir) and Shad Rockstad (who is on the Chamber Orchestra board).

“We’re celebrating the hundred-year history of musical theater,” says George, whose group also hosts shows and revues at the 240-seat Off Center Theatre at Crown Center, with the aid of associate producer Chad Gerlt, stage/music director Sarah Crawford and pianist Jeremy Watson. Though the full-blown “book musical” was born with Showboat in 1926, song-driven musical theater dates back to the early years of the 20^th century, George says. Still, the art form didn’t take off until producers created works with consistent character and plot development that were penned by a single author and a single composer. “All the Broadway historians will tell you that musical theater is divided into two periods, before and after Showboat,” George says.

Bruce Sorrell

The greatest of the Broadway musicals — Showboat, Carousel, South Pacific, Oklahoma! Kiss Me Kate, Gypsy — can stand proudly next to other great stage works of their day, both George and Bruce agree. “The American musical theater is a part of a larger world of theater music, from Handel to Puccini,” says Bruce, who is bringing Purcell to “Baroque to Broadway” because “he was a great man of the theater.” The American musical theater “just happens to be our popular theatrical music,” Bruce says, “and the best of it is still being performed now, 50 years later. I think West Side Story will always be one of the landmark scores of American music, period.”

Bruce, whose mastery of Mozart and Beethoven is well known, also showed early promise in musical theater. “My professional debut was as Winthrop in The Music Man,” he says with a laugh, of a production in Wichita. “I was all of 8 or 9. On opening night I stopped the show, and I didn’t even know what was happening.” The critic in the Eagle wrote that, while he was no Freddy Bartholemew, Bruce had “one of the best singing voices onstage.” Alas, his Broadway career was short-lived: “Once my voice changed, nobody wanted to hear me sing any more.”

The legacy of the Broadway musical continues today, George says, in works of authors like Stephen Sondheim, Stephen Schwartz (Godspell, Wicked) and even Adam Guettel (The Light in the Piazza). “I very much consider Stephen Schwartz connected to Gershwin and Irving Berlin,” George says. “People talk about the demise of the American music industry, and yet the Broadway theater has been functioning pretty much uninterrupted since the early 20^th century. Oscar Hammerstein was a mentor to Sondheim, Frank Loesser (Guys and Dolls, How to Succeed in Business Without Really Trying) was a mentor to Richard Adler and Jerry Ross (The Pajama Game, Damn Yankees), and Sondheim was a mentor to Maury Yeston (Nine).” There is a “canon,” George says, of musicals from the “golden age” of the 1950s, but that legacy lives on in works of more recent masters. “Sondheim is sometimes credited with having created a new genre, but I think he took the musical in a straight line forward. As everyone dropped away from the classic musical theater, he stayed on track and kept evolving it, taking it as far as it could go.”

Also in August, MTH hosts an audacious production of Sherman Edwards’ Tony Award-winning musical 1776, presented for the first time ever with an all-female cast. This revolutionary idea began as an offhand remark by MTH’s Sarah Crawford. “We were brainstorming and she said, almost as a joke, I’ve always wanted to do 1776 with an all-female cast,” says George. “And I said, that’s a great idea!” The more they thought about it, the more sense it made, and not just as a gimmick. “When I heard the women reading these lines, they really came alive. It’s America’s greatest story in a brand-new voice.” When they ran the idea by Sherman’s son, Keith Edwards, he loved the concept. “He’s excited about it. He says he’s sure his father would have approved. In fact he’s grateful that somebody is willing to do something gutsy and adventurous with his father’s work, because he’s hoping it will generate a lot of interest around the country.”

Among the MTH’s other activities are “Musical Mondays” held several times a year — a sort of revue and “open-mike” night for professionals and aspiring singers alike, also held at the Off Center Theatre. (The next is on August 2.) The MTH also offers New York and Broadway travel packages several times a year, hosted by George himself and featuring airfare, lodging, meals and of course plenty of shows. (As of this writing there were six spots left for the October 13-17 trip featuring tickets to Addams Family, Memphis, A Little Night Music and Promises, Promises.)

It’s all part of encouraging and fostering interest in an art form that George finds worthy of upholding. “The songs of these musicals tell a story — ‘Oh, What a Beautiful Morning’ is expressing something that we can all imagine. A lot of popular music doesn’t do that. This kind of music works the imagination, and it still has the power to stir young people. I will go to my grave with the satisfaction that I fired the imaginations of a lot of 8- to 14-year-old kids, both boys and girls, who had never heard that kind of music before and who learned to love it.”

For more information about Musical Theater Heritage’s activities or for tickets to performances go to www.musicaltheaterheritage.com or call 816-221-6987. For the Off Center Theatre box office call 816-842-9999 or go to www.crowncenter.com/Entertainment-OCT/Index.htm.

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

“It was a peaceful end to an amazing life,” said Clark Morris, the Series’ executive director since 2003, whom Richard had groomed to be his successor. Richard, who continued as artistic director after Clark’s appointment, continued to come into the office until just a week before his death, Clark added. “He was at it right to the end.” Beth Ingram, a friend for more than 40 years and a longtime contributor to the Series, said it was characteristic of Richard to keep quiet about his illness. “He was so quiet and modest and unassuming,” said Beth, who often traveled with Richard on talent-scouting trips and attended the wedding of tenor Juan Diego Flórez with him in Lima, Peru in 2008. “He had the cutest sense of humor that you ever heard. He was very quiet, but if you sat and really listened to him he was really very funny.”

In 1965 Richard and fellow professor Dean Dunham co-founded at Jewell what was at first called the Fine Arts Series. When the Series outgrew Gano Chapel in the 1980s it moved downtown to the Folly Theater and the Music Hall. Richard knew that if the Series was to expand it had to be at the center of things, Beth said. “That shows what good business sense he had, too.”

Jewell President David Sallee said in a statement that Richard made “an enormous contribution to William Jewell College and to the entire Kansas City community. His remarkable, intuitive sense of seeking out artists whose careers were ascending led him to introduce us to some incomparable performers over the course of 45 incredible seasons on the Series that bears his name.”

The list of Series presentations through the years reads like a Who’s Who of worldwide music, dance and theater — from Isaac Stern to Marilyn Horne, from the Royal Concertgebouw to the Philadelphia Orchestra, from Paul Taylor to Alvin Ailey and the American Ballet Theatre. The Series always shed special light on opera singers, presenting nearly every major star on the Metropolitan Opera’s roster from the 1960s onward. In 1973 Richard presented the world recital debut of an up-and-coming tenor named Luciano Pavarotti, who would become a friend and regular guest.

In addition to his ability to seek out new talent, Richard worked hard to make the series a well-rounded representation of the very best in music and dance. Many of my own fondest memories during my decade as a music critic in Kansas City have been from presentations on his series — such as the stellar 2005 performance by tenor Ben Heppner in his prime, one of the most powerful recitals I’ve ever experienced. In fact, when I first considered moving here from Philadelphia in 2000, the abundance of arts presentations in Kansas City was one of the city’s selling points. Richard was of course responsible for a great deal of that. “When I first moved to Kansas City, there were so few concerts that I thought I was on a desert island,” Friends of Chamber Music founder Cynthia Siebert told me in 2007, during a fund-raising gala celebrating Richard’s 75^th birthday. “I could not have done what I did (with the Friends) if he had not paved the way.”

David Parsons, the Kansas City native whose dance company has become an international force in contemporary dance, wrote the following in an email. “I was 12 years old when Richard Harriman brought The Joffrey Ballet to Kansas City. That evening changed my life. Richard would bring great artists to Kansas City but he also knew how to bring a faithful audience to the theater. This gift, which he gave to both artists and audiences, is rare. He was the first to bring Parsons Dance home to Kansas City in 1987. I will miss his wise, kind, soft spoken words of advice and the love he had for artists, audiences and the performing arts.”

“He was such a dear man, and he had the respect and admiration of so many people in the industry,” said Barbara Hocher, executive director of the Marilyn Horne Foundation, named for the singer who appeared more than any other soloist on the Series (10 appearances from 1968 to 2000). International mezzo-soprano and Our Town native Joyce DiDonato, who sang her local recital debut on the Series, wrote this on her blog:

“In him, we have the perfect example of what dedication and imagination can bring to the world: In bringing more than 850 events to one city over the years, a single human being with a vision and the fortitude to follow it through, well, changed the lives of the people of my hometown. He brought us beauty and introspection and laid the world at our feet. No need for passports and airfare — he graciously brought it all to us.”

Indeed, what I remember most about Richard is his graciousness and civility. As recently as April, I had lunch with him at Webster House with his colleagues Clark Morris and Tim Ackerman. He was his usual witty self. We sat at a table overlooking the Kauffman Center construction site, and I wonder now if he gazed somewhat wistfully at the site — hoping that he’d live long enough to attend the first performances in the Center that his very presence in Kansas City helped propel.

Contributions can be made to the Harriman-Jewell Series’ Richard L. Harriman Fund for Excellence in the Arts. Call the Series’ development office at 816-415-5025 for more information.

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

The Performing Arts Series at Johnson County Community College: 2010-2011 season

In just 20 years since its founding in 1990, the Performing Arts Series at Johnson County Community College has grown from a small suburban series to a national powerhouse that has at times provided stiff competition to Kansas City’s downtown presenters. With the opening of the Carlsen Center in 1999 — with its three state-of-the-art performance venues, including Yardley Hall, and plenty of free parking — the series took off. It is now a revered international presenter that brings a wide variety of cultural offerings to Johnson County and co-commissions new works from such major artists as Philip Glass and the Paul Taylor Dance Company. It has also made itself an integral part of the community through extensive outreach and educational programs.

The 2010-2011 season offers one of the most auspicious lineups in the Series’ history, with big-name pop artists, theater, comedy, dance, classical music and programs with a global outlook. There’s even the guy from TV’s Jack Hanna’s Animal Adventures, a jazz tribute to Kansas native Stan Kenton and the Tony Award-winning musical Spamalot! And in September, eight-time Grammy Award winner Natalie Cole will be on hand for an official 20^th anniversary celebration.

“It’s an exciting and wonderful place to be and a great place to work,” says Emily Behrmann, who becomes general manager of the series this July 1^st after a year as interim manager. (She succeeds Charles Rogers, who retires this summer after a decade of making the series strong.) As the only series of its kind in Johnson Country, the PAS strives to serve the citizens whose taxes largely support the college, with a variety of offerings that is as broad as any series in the area. But of course everyone is welcome, and many have found the Carlsen Center’s ease of access a selling point. “We also want to serve as a complement to everything going on the Kansas City area,” Emily says, adding that she is especially excited about Natalie and comedian Martin Short and about the first presentation of a musical. “In audience surveys, no matter what we ask, people always say, ‘you should do more Broadway.’ ” The series also stresses numerous auxiliary educational activities such as master classes, workshops and lecture-demonstrations, in which students interact with and learn from leading artists. It’s all part of a process of making audiences “feel real ownership” of the series, she says. “And we want to appeal to them on an ongoing basis.”

All shows begin at 8 p.m. in Yardley Hall of the Carlsen Center unless otherwise noted. For subscription and ticket information, call 913-469-4445 or go to www.jccc.edu/TheSeries.

September 10^th: Takács Quartet, Grammy-winning string quartet

September 11^th: American Voices, Songs of Our Nation, Larry Gatlin, Crystal Gayle and Andy Cooney

September 25^th: The “Still Unforgettable” Natalie Cole, 20th anniversary celebration

September 30^th: Jungle Jack Hanna, featuring the star of TV’s Jack Hanna’s Animal Adventures (7 p.m.)

October 16^th: The Seasons Project, part of the world premier tour of a Philip Glass composition, a PAS co-commission, with violinist Robert McDuffie and the Venice Baroque Orchestra

October 20^th: Michael Bolton, singer-songwriter (7:30 p.m.)

October 22^nd and 23^rd: Capitol Steps, political comedy troupe

October 29^th and 30^th: Quixotic Fusion, Lux Esalare, Kansas City ensemble of musicians, dancers, aerialists

November 5^th: DRUMLine Live, created by the music team behind the hit movie Drumline

November 6^th: beatlegras, bluegrass arrangements of Beatles tunes by a fab three (Polsky Theatre)

November 12^th: Jigu! Thunder Drums of China, a world-class company of drummers, percussionists and musicians steeped in the culture of Shanxi province

November 20^th: Naturally 7, award-winning septet with a distinct a cappella style called “vocal play”

December 3^rd: Christmas Bells Are Swingin’!, Boston Brass and the Brass All-Stars Big Band play holiday selections arranged by jazz legend and Stan Kenton

January 29^th: Lar Lubovitch Dance Company, internationally renowned modern dance company

February 4^th: The Hot Club of San Francisco, Gypsy jazz, in Silent Surrealism

February 12^th: An Evening with Martin Short, starring the legendary comedian, film star and SNL alumnus

February 26^th: Vienna Choir Boys, the legendary vocal ensemble that traces its history back five centuries

March 4^th: Opole, Philharmonic of Poland, with soprano Iwona Sobotka, light classics by Viennese composers

March 5^th: Hot Tuna Blues, guitarists Jorma Kaukonen and Jack Casady of Jefferson Airplane fame, blues-harp player Charlie Musselwhite and country-and-bluegrass artist Jim Lauderdale

March 12^th: Janis Ian, singer, guitarist, songwriter (“At Seventeen”)

April 2^nd: Joffrey Ballet, world-renowned Chicago-based ballet company

April 16^th: Béla Fleck, banjo; Zakir Hussain, tabla/percussion; and Edgar Meyer, bass

May 1: Spamalot, a Broadway musical based on Monty Python and the Holy Grail (7 p.m.)

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The Lied Center: 2010-2011 season

The Lied Center of Kansas has also announced an intriguing series for 2010-2011, with “something for everyone,” in the words of executive director Tim Van Leer. Of special interest are the rock musical Spring Awakening with choreography by Bill T. Jones, pianist Frederick Chu and David Gonzalez’ reimagining of Carnival of the Animals and Peter and the Wolf, Armitage Gone! Dance with a new evening-length work, the genre-defying Turtle Island String Quartet, the Kansas City Symphony with pianist Jonathan Biss, an Evening with Garrison Keillor, Kansas playwright William Inge’s Bus Stop and the Preservation Hall Jazz Band with the Del McCoury Band. For tickets and information, call 785-864-2787 or go to lied.ku.edu.

August 20^th: Free concert and Family Arts Festival (6 p.m.); Jeffery Broussard and the Creole Cowboys, contemporary zydeco and new spins on Creole classics (7 p.m.)

September 30^th: Neil Berg’s 100 Years of Broadway, with top Broadway stars in a revue of songs from Phantom of the Opera, Cabaret, Chicago, West Side Story and others (7:30 p.m.)

October 2^nd: Punch Brothers featuring Chris Thile, blend of bluegrass, folk and classical,; Thile is formerly of Grammy-winning Nickel Creek (7:30 p.m.),

October 3^rd: Adam György, Hungarian pianist, who made an acclaimed Carnegie Hall debut (2 p.m.)

October 8^th: Bayanihan Philippine National Folk Dance Company (7:30 p.m.)

October 9^th: Turtle Island Quartet, genre-bending and Grammy Award-winning group whose music includes classical, jazz and rock (7:30 p.m.)

October 21^st: Fiddler on the Roof, Tony Award-winning Broadway musical (7:30 p.m.)

October 22^nd: Big Bad Voodoo Daddy, “America’s favorite little big band,” nine-man band that plays swing, jazz, Dixieland, and big band (7:30 p.m.)

October 27^th: Spring Awakening, Broadway’s analysis of sex, drugs, rock ‘n’ roll — and morality, based on a notorious Franz Wedekind play from 1891 and featuring choreography by the enfant terrible of in-your-face modern dance, Bill T. Jones (7:30 p.m., mature content)

November 5^th: Armitage Gone! Dance, a top contemporary group founded by Lawrence native Karole Armitage, presents a new evening-length Three Theories, a multimedia dance piece based on Brian Greene’s book The Elegant Universe (7:30 p.m.).

November 12^th: Peter Goodchild’s The Real Dr. Strangelove, live radio theater by L.A. Theatre Works, about Robert Oppenheimer and the creation of nuclear weapons (7:30 p.m.)

November 13^th: Interpreti Veneziani, chamber orchestra, in a program of Baroque music by Geminiani, Vivaldi and Handel (7:30 p.m.)

December 7^th: Legally Blonde The Musical, adapted from the popular film and nominated for seven Tony Awards (7:30 p.m.)

December 11^th: Jim Brickman’s 15th Anniversary Holiday Concert (7:30 p.m.)

February 8^th: Black Violin, violin-viola duo in music ranging form classical to jazz, funk to hip-hop (7:30 p.m.)

February 15^th: Alexander String Quartet, San Francisco-based ensemble performs quartets from Beethoven’s early, middle and late periods (7:30 p.m.).

February 19^th: William Inge’s Bus Stop, classic 1955 play observing eight characters stranded in a rural Kansas diner in a snowstorm, by the Pulitzer Prize-winning Kansas playwright (7:30 p.m.)

February 24^th: The Spencers: Theatre of Illusion, husband-and-wife illusionists with over-the-top theatrical and special effects, recently named International Magicians of the year (7:30 p.m.)

March 6th: Kansas City Symphony with pianist Jonathan Biss and conductor Michael Stern, featuring Brahms’ First Piano Concerto and a commissioned work by Adam Schoenberg (7:30 p.m.)

March 9^th: An Evening with Garrison Keillor, host of public radio’s A Prairie Home Companion (7:30 p.m.)

March 13^th: Carnival of the Animals & Peter and the Wolf, classic children’s favorites by Saint-Saëns and Prokofiev, respectively, as transformed by Frederic Chu’s piano transcriptions and David Gonzalez’ original poetry (2:30 p.m.)

April 8^th: Alpin Hong, pianist (7:30 p.m.)

April 14^th: Preservation Hall Jazz Band and Del McCoury Band, legendary musicians who preserve distinctly American musical styles (7:30 p.m.)

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

Bruce Sorrell

More than 200 years after its composition, the Requiem continues to fascinate listeners with its air of mystery, and to confound musicians with the artistic puzzles it presents. “The first problem is the fact that he died while he was writing it,” says Bruce with a laugh, “which gives it this sort of romantic aspect.” The story of the Requiem is well known: A visitor came to Mozart offering a handsome commission for a musical setting of the Requiem Mass, and the composer — always short of funds — accepted and set to work on the piece. Mozart was in poor health, though, despite being only 35, and as the composition of the dark-hued piece dragged on he apparently began to be haunted by the notion that he might indeed be writing a Requiem for himself.

Sure enough, he died that December with the piece incomplete, and his widow Constanze, eager to collect the rest of the commission fee, enlisted the services of composers and friends to bring it into some sort of deliverable shape. Controversy remains as to just how much of the finished product was by Franz Xaver Süssmayr (a friend and possibly also student of Mozart’s), Joseph von Eybler or Maximilian Stadler, but the end product is a work of such awe-inspiring dramatic force that it has become a concert favorite worldwide. “How truly remarkable that this was his last work,” Bruce says. “The operatic nature of it jumps out at you. I definitely think of this as an extension of Mozart’s dramatic voice, an area in which he was obviously tremendously gifted.”

More recent musicians have attempted their own completions of the Requiem, and today’s conductor can choose from a wide variety of editions. But Bruce says that for his first time out, at least, he wanted to use the Süssmayr version that is probably still the most commonly favored and performed. “For me it had to do with wanting to go with the one created by people that Mozart had around him,” he says. “They were doing this completion for Constanze, and that has a romantic feel in and of itself. These are people who were there when Mozart died. This is authentic to the period, and to the people he had trained and who were around him at the end.”

Bruce will be joined by top-drawer soloists: soprano Rebecca Lloyd, mezzo-soprano Denise Knowlton, tenor David Adams and bass-baritone John Stephens. The chorus of about 50 singers, prepared by Matthew Shepard, is drawn from choirs at Village Church, Grace and Holy Trinity Cathedral and St. Paul’s Episcopal Church. The Requiem will be paired with Stravinsky’s “Dumbarton Oaks” Concerto for chamber orchestra. Founded in 1987, the Kansas City Chamber Orchestra consists of members of the Kansas City Symphony and other gifted musicians.

Masses in Mozart’s day were not composed for concert use, but rather to be performed in the context of a liturgical Mass, with individual musical movements inserted into the service at the correct moments. Audiences today are more accustomed to hearing Masses of Mozart or Haydn in concert settings than in a Catholic Mass, yet the removal of sacred works from their intended contexts is not without its aesthetic and/or religious problems. Nevertheless works like the Requiem transcend the confines of any single religion or faith, Bruce says. “The great works have a universality that everyone can find some way into. Everyone can understand the Day of Wrath, for example. That’s something that speaks to all — that fear of death, of falling short.”

And contrary to the conceit of the Peter Shaffer stage play Amadeus (and later, Milos Forman’s film adaptation of it), composer Antonio Salieri had no hand in the completion of the Requiem, nor did he poison Mozart. (In the film we are made to believe that Salieri is the mysterious commissioner of the piece, even though history tells us it was an envoy sent by a Count Franz von Walsegg soliciting a piece for his recently deceased wife — which he seemingly planned to pass off as his own.) “What a great story, though,” Bruce says of Amadeus, “and what a brilliant film. I loved Salieri talking about the Gran Partita as it’s being played in the other room, while Mozart gallivants on the floor, even if they do get the story somewhat skewed.”

Bruce’s reference is to a scene in which Salieri first realizes Mozart’s genius, even while resenting that God would bestow such gifts on someone he perceived as an infantile buffoon. “This was no composition by a performing monkey,” Salieri says, as he examines the score of the Partita’s Adagio, with its gorgeous, soaring oboe solo. “This was a music I’d never heard. Filled with such longing, such unfulfillable longing. It seemed to me that I was hearing the voice of God.”

For tickets to Mozart’s Requiem on June 11th, performed by conductor Bruce Sorrell and the Kansas City Chamber Orchestra, call 816-235-6222 or go to www.kcchamberorchestra.org.

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KCCO SEASON FEATURES DUAL BICENTENNIAL FETES

The Kansas City Chamber Orchestra has announced its 2010-2011 season, detailed below. Renewals for existing subscribers are available through June 4th. Call 816-960-1324.

October 2nd: Baroque by Candlelight. Repertoire to be announced (Old Mission United Methodist Church).

November 30th: Schumann and Chopin. Features pianists Lana and Slava Levin performing, respectively, Chopin’s Variations on “La ci darem la mano” and Schumann’s Piano Concerto, in celebration of the bicentennial of both composers’ birth (Unity Temple on the Plaza).

February 14th: Dvořák’s Serenade. Program includes that composer’s Serenade for Strings and a newly commissioned work by Kansas City-based Jean Ford Belmont (Old Mission United Methodist Church).

June 24th: Beethoven’s “Pastorale.” The composer’s Sixth Symphony is featured in this season finale, which also kicks off the Chamber Orchestra’s upcoming 25^th anniversary season.

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GREEN IN THEM THAR’ HILLS

Symphony in the Flint Hills this year features not only the live strains of the Kansas City Symphony echoing out over the verdant hills of Chase County, Kansas, but also the hickory twang of country superstar Lyle Lovett, who will sing a few tunes. Scheduled for June 12th with a rain date on June 13th, it’s an all-day experience that can include nature hikes, rides on horse-drawn covered wagons, dancing to old-time western music and presentations on prairie life. The Symphony performs a 90-minute concert beginning at 6:45 p.m., with a wide-ranging selection of music appropriate to the pastoral setting, conducted by associate conductor Steven Jarvi.

“Lyle Lovett shares our passion for the Tallgrass prairie,” says Emily Hunter, executive director of the Symphony in the Flint Hills. Lyle is a longtime friend of rancher Edward Bass, who is hosting this year’s event on his South Clements Pasture seven miles south of Cottonwood Falls (135 miles southwest of Kansas City, off of I-35 west of Emporia). “Lyle has many friends in Kansas and narrated the PBS special The Last Stand of the Tallgrass Prairie,” Emily says.

General admission tickets are sold out, but patron tickets are still available. The Patron Package includes two tickets with reserved concert seating, reserved parking, a pre-concert Patron reception and dinner, a gift certificate redeemable for commemorative items and access to the hospitality tent. Call 620-273-8955 or send email to emily@symphonyintheflinthills.org. For full information and photographs from previous years, go to www.symphonyintheflinthills.org.

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

“This piece is like looking at the past as a dusty memory,” says Mary Pat, the company’s co-founder and artistic director, who is also a professor of dance at the UMKC Conservatory. “It looks back on a time that asked us to define ourselves,” she says, using pop, gospel, blues, jazz, and other music from the era.  Some of the events depicted in the 30-minute work are drawn from real events she experienced, she says — “voicing things I saw that impacted me.” Many are things that her dancers, a racially diverse group of professionals in their 20s and 30s, have only read or heard about. But she says they feel the emotional content of the piece profoundly — a piece whose impact is heightened by the use of projected images of the period, some quite graphic.

Southern Exposure is just part of the Wylliams/Henry’s spring program, which, as usual, serves up a provocative mix. Desire by Gary Abbott of Chicago’s Deeply Rooted Productions explores the relationship between love, desire and the primal need for physical contact. Paula Weber’s To Each Her Own (premiere) traces the emotional and spiritual development of four very different women. Ruth Barnes’s Chloe/Christina (premiere) takes Andrew Wyeth’s painting Christina’s World as a point of departure, using live and recorded video to show the dissonance between image and dance. And Mary Pat’s Moore in Time (a revival) also uses video to explore the relationship of dancers to the shapes and ideas created by Henry Moore’s iconic sculptures (many of which grace the lawn of The Nelson-Atkins Museum of Art). For tickets call 816-235-6222.

In memoriam, with fireworks and cannons

If there is a single annual outdoor event that has galvanized Kansas City’s open air fans, it has to be the Kansas City Symphony’s Celebration at the Station held each Memorial Day weekend outside Union Station. The setting is perfect for the occasion, with a panoramic view of not just our landmark 1914 Station but also the magnificent National World War I Monument. It’s one of the most satisfying things you can do outdoors for free here, and each year tens of thousands of area residents make a day of it. This year’s Bank of America Celebration at the Station is on May 30^th, with a rain date of May 31^st. Music director Michael Stern leads a program including patriotic music, orchestral classics and a fireworks finale set to Tchaikovsky’s 1812 Overture.

Special guests this year include Time for Three, an innovative ensemble of two violins and double bass that blends classical, country, bluegrass and jazz idioms with brilliant panache. Formed at the Curtis Institute of Music, this boundary-bending trio consists of violinists Zachary De Pue and Nicolas Kendall and bassist Ranaan Meyer. The activities of these Curtis-trained musicians have ranged widely, from performances with major orchestras to high-profile TV appearances. Their fresh and tasteful blend is difficult to describe, but click here for a sampling. Also on the bill is Mark Shultz, a Colby, Kansas, native who is today one of the superstars of Christian music. Click here to view the video to his nostalgic hit song “Letters from War.” Mark is known for easy-going songs that give testament to his faith and to the inner workings of God in his life.

The grounds open at 3 p.m., and families are welcome to bring blankets, chairs and picnic baskets. Food will be available for purchase inside and outside the Station, where of course early birds can view the impressive Dinosaurs Unearthed exhibit. Pre-concert entertainment begins at 4:30 p.m. with the United States Air Force’s Brass in Blue. The concert proper begins at 7:30 p.m., enhanced by a large HD screen for close-ups of the artists. The concert will also be shown live in HD on KCPT-TV (Channel 19) beginning at 7:30 p.m., with a rebroadcast to be scheduled for the July 4^th weekend. For complete event details go to www.celebrationatthestation.com.

Symphony players form new chamber music series

Speaking of the Kansas City Symphony, its energetic players are always looking for new ways of bringing music to our community, in both formal and informal settings. On May 20^th and June 3^rd, they perform the first two concerts of what the Symphony and principal trombonist (and series artistic adviser) Roger Oyster hope will become a regular chamber-music series at Webster House, the renovated schoolhouse-turned-restaurant-and-antique-gallery poised at the edge of the Kauffman Center for the Performing Arts. Each of the 30-minute mini-concerts of the new Webster House Salon Series with the Kansas City Symphony begins at 6:15 p.m. — right after the restaurant’s wonderful happy hour, which runs from 4:30 p.m. to 6 p.m. — and includes music by the same composers to be featured at that weekend’s regular Symphony concerts.

On May 20^th, the featured work is Debussy’s String Quartet — that week’s Symphony concert also will include that composer’s Prelude to the Afternoon of a Faun — with violinists Sunho Kim and David Repking, violist Jenifer Richison and cellist Lawrence Figg. On June 3^rd the featured works are the Andante cantabile from Tchaikovsky’s First String Quartet and Prokofiev’s Quintet, Op. 39, for oboe, clarinet, violin, viola, and double bass. Featured on June 3^rd are violinist Anne-Marie Brown and Tomoko Iguchi, violist Christine Grossman, cellist Lawrence Figg, oboist Barbara Bishop, clarinetist Raymond Santos, and bassist Ed Paulsen. For more information about the new series, go to www.websterhousekc.com or call 816-221-4713. For Symphony tickets and information call 816-471-0400 or to www.kcsymphony.org.

To reach Paul Horsley, performing arts editor, send email to phorsley@sbcglobal.net. Also read Paul’s columns in the print version of The Independent, available for $45 a year at 816-471-2800.

Most traditional was the loopy, episodic Donizetti Pas de Deux by the company’s former artistic director, Todd Bolender, danced on Thursday by Aisling Hill-Connor and Luke Luzicka. (Casts vary throughout the run.) Dressed in black splashed with gold, and with Hill-Connor en pointe, the couple essentially danced a set of variations, individually and together, that evoked equal parts classical ballet and Balanchine-flavored looseness. The result — an excerpt from a larger work, La Favorita — came off as a playful take on balletic conventions, more a series of flourishes than a linear dance that moved from beginning to end.

The Bolender was paired with one of the two new pieces, A Solo in Nine Parts by the gifted and at times controversial young choreographer Jessica Lang. Set to a Violin Concerto by Antonio Vivaldi, it juxtaposes nine dancers in a series of ensembles that are broken up by individual solos corresponding to violin solo passages in the concerto — played with assurance by Kansas City Symphony assistant concertmaster Sunho Kim in the orchestra pit. With pale ivory-yellow light making the floor glow with luminescence (thanks to the savvy, sensitive lighting design by Kirk Bookman), and casual garb in shades of grey (courtesy of costume designer and former Ballet dancer Lisa Choules), the dancers executed solos befitting their inner character — now quirky and elaborate, now fluid and passionate. The outer movements flanked an ethereal central slow piece, with Rachel Coats, Nadia Iozzo, Charles Martin and Marcus Otis waging an elegant but physical battle of the sexes. The finale found the company pushing up air in a chaotic, spinning chorus. A Solo in Nine Parts is ingeniously structured and intelligently worked-out, even if its substance seems vaguely busy and heavy on rapid-fire arm movements.

The clear audience favorite was George Balanchine’s Who Cares? set to 11 songs by George Gershwin in overwrought orchestrations by Hershy Kay — an elegant if lightweight tribute to the roaring ’20s (and early ’30s) that was receiving its company premiere. It’s hard to pinpoint exactly why Balanchine’s balletic heritage clashed with the flippant soft-shoe of the era but at times it felt that these strange bedfellows were made to toss and turn uncomfortably rather than merge organically. Still, there were plenty of classy visual effects (such as the lively urban-scene drop of M. Kay Barrell) and achingly elegant dance. In the opening female quintet (“Somebody Loves Me”), ballet mixes playfully with Ziegfeld Follies, and in the brilliant duet of “The Man I Love,” Michael Eaton yearns to the “the one” and the exquisitely coy Kimberly Cowen is just not sure.

But the real treat of the evening was Toni Pimble’s Concerto Grosso, a conceptual and visual feast set to Ernest Bloch’s Concerto Grosso No. 1 (played deftly by the Symphony and nimble pianist Dan Velicer, under Ramona Pansegrau’s baton.). Pimble has fully absorbed Bloch’s stately neo-Baroque style, which she expresses through a miniature compendium of classical and contemporary dance moves. Jennifer Carroll has dressed the dancers in pale, muted blues, violets and purples, seven couples who move through pools of light that shift from aquamarine to blues and, at the end, pale golds. Bookman’s lighting provides an essential ethereal quality: the drop is lit to suggest, perhaps, beach fading upward to sky. The Prelude was a vigorous romp with Charles Martin and six men (who were not always evenly spaced on Thursday), followed by a Dirge in which Angelina Sansone and Gabriel Davidsson displayed sharp control, their languid movements suggesting at times amorous touches, at times a feeling of deep mourning. The Pastorale juxtaposed tart solos with rustic ensembles, and the final Fugue began with dancers entering one by one from stage left and performing an individual variation on the subject; a later reiteration placed the entrances at stage right, lending the whole a sense of poise and balance.

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

From May 6^th through the 9^th the Ballet presents Toni Pimble’s Concerto Grosso and Jessica Lang’s A Solo in Nine Parts, on a program that also includes Todd Bolender’s Donizetti Pas de Deux and the company’s first-ever performance of George Balanchine’s Who Cares? And although the Balanchine piece (to music of the Gershwins) has dominated the company’s marketing materials, in terms of larger impact on the ballet world, it is these two premieres that are most likely to count as a real achievement for the company, and for its profile as a young, fresh company that curates everything from the classics to leading contemporary choreographers.

Gender has never been a major factor in determining what a choreographer’s work will look like, William says. “It’s about the person: who they’ve worked with and what their life experiences have brought them.” British-born Toni is a product of the Royal Academy of Dance, and early in her career she danced with three German ballet companies. The work of Frederick Ashton, Kenneth MacMillan and Antony Tudor has made its mark, William says. (Toni adds Jiří Kylián to the list) “I can see how that tradition informed her as a choreographer today, and yet she’s absorbed qualities from dance in general.” Toni acknowledges she has now been in the U.S. for longer than she ever lived in Europe, but she says “you never leave your roots entirely. The education you have as a young person is the basis for forming you as a person.”

Toni co-founded the Eugene Ballet Company in Oregon in 1978 and has cultivated it into a fine company. Along the way she has choreograph some 60 works, a remarkable achievement for someone running a company. She says she long recognized the potential of Ernst Bloch’s Concerto Grosso No. 1 for dance, but it remained on a back burner until William asked her to make a 25-minute ballet for performance with live orchestra. And listening to the neo-Baroque score from 1925 again, she found that she “loved it just as much as before.”

Like many of her works, Concerto Grosso is a response to the pure impulse of the music, Toni says. “There’s no narrative, it’s just free association. It’s what the music says to me.” If there is a “Pimble” style, she says, it is one that focuses on “creating a lyrical, fluid style. I always try to let the music be my ultimate guide choreographically.” She says the Kansas City dancers were “very receptive, very open to the style of the piece, and seemed to be having a good time.”

Jessica began as a product of the Juilliard School, where she studied under Benjamin Harkarvy. After graduation she became a member of Twyla Tharp’s company “THARP!” But she says that, while her early experience with Twyla had a deep impact on her as a dancer, as a choreographer it served chiefly as a jumping-off point. “I used to go in the studio and improvise, but I don’t do that any more.” Before arriving in the studio she tries to absorb the music entirely. “I know where I want the piece to go. But I wait for the dancers to be there, and I improvise in from of them, and we make the dance together.” Choreographing is about “seeing what my tools can do, about the combination of what’s going to make them look good and what’s going to fulfill my vision.”

That vision has become much-desired among ballet companies: Jessica has created dozens of work for such groups as American Ballet Theatre, Joffrey Ballet, Pennsylvania Ballet, Cincinnati Ballet, Washington Ballet, and others. A Solo in Nine Parts was inspired by a Vivaldi Violin Concerto that contains nine virtuosic solo-violin passages spread through its standard three-movement musical structure. But instead of having a single dancer perform all nine solos, she has spread them out, she says, “breaking the solos up among the chorus, and making each solo fit the dancer personality-wise — their different intensities, what they can do physically.”

Have female choreographers made the headway they should have by now? Toni and Jessica are of somewhat differing opinions. Toni says women have made progress, and she is confident that they will continue to choreograph and assume positions of leadership. Jessica feels that women have a distance to go in the choreographic world, and says that the problem often grows from a tradition in which boys in ballet are pushed forward and given confidence — which can later lead them to become artistic directors and choreographers — while girls are constantly fighting a sea of competitors. “I think if we really want to make changes, we need to focus on planting the idea in young girls that there is life after dance, and work on building up that confidence.”

Gender politics aside, though, Toni and Jessica agree they want to be recognized not as “women choreographers” but for their work, period. “I happen to be a woman who creates dance,” Jessica says. “I don’t think about ‘me’ when I’m working: I think about the dance that I’m making.”

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

The lead dancers were excellent, beginning with Marianna Chemalina as Swanhilde, the young woman vying for the affection of her beloved Franz. She sparkled white-hot in her opening solo, displaying disciplined technique and a flair for the comedic. (Her pirouettes at the end of Act 3 were also remarkable, and drew sizeable applause.) Ruslan Mukhambetkaliev was the muscular, tightly wound Franz, with thighs that reminded you of Baryshnikov and leaps and fouettes filled with languid, carefree vigor. Elena Aytuganova was the Doll, Coppélia, made so lifelike by the Geppetto-like Coppelius that Franz, spying her in the upper balcony of the doll-maker’s house, believes her to be real. Aytuganova managed to mix the traditional mechanical motions with a certain warmth that perhaps suggested she was a bit human. Dancers Ekaterina Egorova, Olena Antsupova and Nadezhda Illarionova were precise in the Act 3 variations, but beyond that the company looked a tad green, perhaps young enough to have recently completed their training.

The Act 1 set included three wings that had to be crammed so close together that half of the Folly balcony — unfortunately the half I was sitting in — could not even see the Doll sitting in the upper ledge of Coppelius’ house. More appealing was the toy shop of Act 2, filled with bric-a-brac and with four dolls that danced, each to his or her own music — Chinese, Arabian, Scottish and Spanish. Coppélia is of course the star of all the dolls, and when the doll-maker enters he casts a spell on Franz which will supposedly breathe life into her wooden body. It is, of course, Swanhilde, who has donned the doll’s costume in order to have some fun with the men.

The festive “party scene” of Act 3 is often omitted, as it exists solely to set up nearly an hour of variations. But it is a must for ballet fans, and its inclusion is part of Festival Ballet founder Sergei Radchenko’s desire to create a Coppélia that is as close as possible to Alexander Gorski’s original. It was a notable effort, even if the costumes — some attractive enough by themselves — at times clashed visually. There is one other star of Coppélia that deserves mention, and that is the excellent score by Léo Delibes: Subtle and solidly tuneful throughout, it is about the closest thing to a Tchaikovsky score you’ll find among these 19^th-century efforts. It was, of course, played on recording, but in an especially fine performance by the Festival Ballet’s own Orchestra.

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

It’s just one strand in the complex tapestry of Valerie’s career at the center of the international percussion community, which in addition to activities in television, Broadway and film has led to performances and recordings with The Philip Glass Ensemble, David Byrne, The Paul Winter Consort, Tori Amos, Airto Moreira and the percussion ensemble MEGADRUMS.

Kansas Citians will have a chance to hear Valerie live, thanks to the Kansas City Chorale and Artistic Director Charles Bruffy. On May 16^th and 18^th, they’ll present Valerie in The Rhythm of Life, a concert incorporating her artistry into a program of Chorale favorites and other works. In addition to generous doses of Valerie performing solo, the program includes works (most with percussion) by Joan Symko (O Jalive-O), Kansas City-based composer Jean Belmont Ford (The Vine and Magnificat), Jaakko Mäntyjärvi (Psalm 150) and Eric Whitacre (Cloudburst).

Valerie studied percussion at the University of Oklahoma and Ithaca College, and in addition to her street-cred on Broadway, she has contributed to several film scores, including those for Final Fantasy: The Dream Within and Frida. She is a founding member of Mandara, an ensemble of musicians from diverse backgrounds who perform indigenous music of Africa and the Caribbean and newly composed works for marimba, vibes, keyboards, bass, drums, and vocals.

But it is the complex, vibrant music of the Dagari that has remained a primary interest for her. “There is so much to be gained, both musically and otherwise by studying the musical activity of the Dagari nation,” she says on www.mandaramusic.com. “They successfully take music and other arts beyond the realm of concert and audience, directly into the entire community, thereby building a common healing and an invigorating language for the people.” As a descendant of the Navajo and Ute tribes, Valerie says her experiences in Africa resonated with her own upbringing. “I was fortunate to grow up with the traditions I did. At weddings and funerals … and other significant occasions, musicians were called in. These musicians were seen as healers, and this intrigued me.”

The Rhythm of Life is at 3 p.m. May 16th at St. Teresa’s Academy in midtown and at 7:30 p.m. May 18 at Asbury United Methodist Church. For tickets call 816-235-6222 or go to www.kcchorale.org. For more about Valerie, go to www.mandaramusic.com or see her many videos on www.youtube.com.

IN BRIEF:

* Stellar American pianist Simone Dinnerstein appears with the Kansas City Symphony this month, performing Mozart’s Piano Concerto No. 21 in C major, the so-called “Elvira Madigan” concerto. Associate conductor Steven Jarvi conducts the program, which he has designed as a sort of tour of Vienna and its contributions to music — with music of Schubert (the Rosamunde Overture) and Mahler (the Adagio from the Tenth Symphony). “If this music by Schubert is the beginning of Romanticism,” says Steven in the vlog he’s been keeping during his recent Viennese travels, “then the Tenth Symphony of Mahler is truly the end.” The program, which also includes Strauss’ Suite from Der Rosenkavalier, is May 14^th and 15^th at the Lyric Theatre and May 16^th at Yardley Hall. For tickets, call 816-471-0400 and for links to the vlogs, go to www.kcsymphony.org.

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

Stage director Ellen Douglas Schlaefer had worked out a great deal of detail with the characters whose activities around Giovanni make logic (or not) of his licentious behavior. Brenda Harris as Donna Anna was affecting in her Act 1 description of the Don’s attack of her in her room: You could feel her ambivalence toward the situation, as she quasi-rebuffed her betrothed, Don Ottavio, with subtle body-language. (“Once you’ve had Giovanni, nothing else is worth your money”?) Her singing was full of pathos and fire in the big “Or sai chi l’onore” aria, but despite piquant pianissimos the voice was often rough-hewn, especially in the upper range. Still, hers was the only voice large enough to be heard consistently over the orchestra, and it dominated vocal ensembles where she was pitted with voices that were, on the whole, on the small side.

Christine Abraham fared better vocally as Donna Elvira, with a voice of refinement and taste that, however, often fell into orchestral oblivion in its lower register. She was lovely in the coloratura passages at the opening of Act 2, and her “Mi tradì” exhibited fine vocalism despite somewhat overplayed histrionics. Her reactions to the Don’s dalliances throughout were a disconcerting (if perhaps not entirely inappropriate) mixture of dismay, bemusement and horror. During Leporello’s “Catalog Aria,” she thumbed through the volumes of conquest herself (a nice touch), reacting in such a variety of ways that I found myself wishing she’d settle on one.

Chad Johnson as Don Ottavio, fitted with an unfortunately womanish-looking wig, had flashes of vocal conquest but struggled for pitch and control, especially in Act 1. He used a surprising amount of head voice in “Dalle sua pace,” but by Act 2 had opened up to a warmer sound. Andrew Gangestad as Leporello was an audience favorite for his comic displays, which were excessive much of the time but quite funny in the Act 2 scene where he mimed the Don singing “Deh vieni alla finestra.” He had a devilish time staying with the orchestra — a shortcoming in which he was not alone — but at his best he showed himself capable of producing a beautiful, honest sound. Robert McNichols, Jr. as Masetto and Sarah Burke as Zerlina threw themselves gamely into their roles, though in both cases the vocal production suffered when they became too engaged in their acting. Burke was affecting in her “Vedrai, carino,” though McNichols’ facial expressions gave the aria an unseemly hue. Andrew Harris, admirably made up at the end to look like a statue, sang the Commendatore with a firm, craggy bass that struggled with pitch.

At the center of this maelstrom was Schaldenbrand, who played the Don as a suave, light-weight womanizer that only a Sunday School teacher would call really evil. At the beginning of Act 2 he declares, completely devoid of irony, that it is his duty to love all women. His looks and handsomely detailed costumes by Howard Kaplan made him always feel like the center of attention, despite flowing locks that reminded me of Ricky Martin during his early days on General Hospital. He was clearly comfortable in the role, and his rich bronze baritone was as seductive as his ease onstage. But his portrayal rarely felt integrated into the dramatic whole, and his singing tended to emphasize individual notes over a sense of lyricism — almost to the point where one despaired of hearing a single line sung so that it sounded like a melody.

Few of the lead singers, with the exception of Abraham, showed a strong enough sense of pulse to achieve forward-motion, and the resulting poor ensemble among singers, and between singers and orchestra, sapped much of the energy from Mozart’s trippingly vibrant rhythms. Just as one had the sense of a rushed stage production in which not enough time was available to really make the drama convincing, one yearned for more polish and attention to detail in the musical element as well.

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