Music

Salt Lake Acting Company announces its 49 ¾ season, including streaming, in-person productions, digital film series, world premieres

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Major anniversaries always call for big celebrations. For an independent performing arts company, a golden anniversary not only demands an extravaganza but it also is a moment to highlight the triumph of resilience in demonstrating to the community that local cultural enterprises are indispensable for elevating the social conscience and inspiring others to join creative … Read more

I Wanna Hold Your Hand: 9th annual Rose Exposed goes virtual with six companies hitting the nail on the head in these pandemic times

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There always is something soothing in the familiar pop strains of such Beatles classics as I Want to Hold Your Hand, the 1963 hit that truly brought the British quartet to its fame with American audiences. Unfortunately, when one washes and sanitizes their hands, the immediate impulse to touch, however, is constrained by social distancing … Read more

Great Salt Lake Fringe 2020: Virtual format delivers smart concept shows, excellent performances

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In Edinburgh, the birthplace of the Fringe festival concept in 1947, this year’s version has gone digital. “It’s hard to imagine a summer without the Fringe,” Shona McCarthy, Edinburgh Festival Fringe Society chief executive, said in a statement published online. “The explosion of creativity and community that the festival brings every year is unparalleled, and … Read more

Utah Film Center Damn These Heels 2020: Dramatic narrative Song Lang from Vietnam, Breaking Fast rom-com about Muslim doctor marvelously entertaining queer cinema films

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Two marvelously entertaining queer narrative films with emotionally mature perspectives representing unlikely lovers discovering each other — – one from Vietnam and the other an American film starring a Muslim doctor living in West Hollywood – are featured in the Utah Film Center’s 17th annual Damn These Heels Queer Film Festival. They are Song Lang, a feature-length … Read more

Utah Film Center Damn These Heels 2020: The deep spirituality of queer musicians is explored exquisitely in Portuguese biopic Variações, documentary Keyboard Fantasies: The Beverly Glenn-Copeland Story

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The stories of two introverted queer musicians who express their deep spirituality through their work are told separately in an exquisite pair of films as part of this year’s slate of the Utah Film Center’s 17th annual Damn These Heels Queer Film Festival. They are Variações, a Portuguese biopic written and directed by João Maia, and Keyboard … Read more

SONDERimmersive’s Through Yonder Window transforms parking garage row at The Gateway into Fair Verona from Shakespearean classic

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From teachers to stage producers and to filmmakers and artists, Shakespeare’s Romeo and Juliet has been taken up as a fervent challenge to make one of the western canon’s most familiar stories relevant, meaningful and fresh to contemporary audiences. In SONDERimmersive’s new Through Yonder Window production, staged in a row on the upper deck of … Read more

Utah Arts Festival launches virtual platform of Festival Vibes Fridays today for the month of June

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Normally for four days in June, Library Square and the surrounding civic campus in downtown Salt Lake City are transformed into a village of arts and culture for the Utah Arts Festival (UAF), the state’s largest multi-disciplinary gathering of its kind, drawing between 70,000 and 80,000 visitors annually. Despite the inevitable decision in March to … Read more

Live from their living room: Red Desert ensemble set April 13 for evening of deep listening experiences, including new music, Utah premieres

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Last spring, the Red Desert ensemble, the duo project of clarinetist Katie Porter and composer/percussionist Devin Maxwell, were planning to leave Utah. To mark the occasion, they organized an outstanding public jam session of deep listening music at the Utah Museum of Fine Arts featuring works by Maxwell, Morton Feldman, Pauline Oliveros and a fabulous all-star conglomeration performing Terry Riley’s In … Read more

Utah arts organizations make transition to online, interactive, live stream platforms, during coronavirus pandemic

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Several major arts organizations in the Salt Lake City metropolitan area have adapted their programming and classes to streaming and interactive platforms. Initial responses and numbers of participants also have been encouraging, indicating that arts and culture are just as essential (if not more so), even as regular routines have been upended by the coronavirus … Read more

Bachauer concert series set to present 2018 gold medalist Changyong Shin in recital featuring Beethoven, Chopin, Ravel, Granados

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Less than two years after taking the gold medal in the Salt Lake City finals of the International Artists Competition of the Gina Bachauer International Piano Foundation, Changyong Shin will return to perform works by Beethoven, Chopin, Ravel and Granados in a recital that promises to remind audiences why Shin took the top prize two years … Read more