Backstage at The Utah Arts Festival 2017: Stacy Garrop’s Postcards From Wyoming will premiere as winning chamber music commission

Growing up first in Walnut Creek and then in Danville, California, Stacy Garrop played piano but her real music strengths were as an alto singer in choir and saxophonist in her high school marching band. At one point, her love of poetry inspired her to try her hand at writing her own verses but that … Read more

Live performance of Kris Johnson’s ‘Jim Crow’s Tears’ to electrify SLC jazz scene

There is no question that Salt Lake City’s jazz scene will be electrified with an upcoming performance of Jim Crow’s Tears, a masterful musical of jazz verismo by Kris Johnson and book by playwright Gary Anderson. As summarized in the soundtrack review, published last December in The Utah Review, “It is a straightforward, robust, courageous … Read more

The top 10 of many fine moments in 2016 for the Utah Enlightenment

There were many fine moments this year for the Utah Enlightenment. In compiling the list of what I believe were the 10 best defining moments of Utah’s cultural awakening for 2016, the pool of choices was more than satisfying in breadth and depth. There has been a great deal of recent press, for example, about … Read more

Kris Johnson’s album Jim Crow’s Tears is masterpiece of jazz verismo

The closing scene of Bamboozled, Spike Lee’s 2000 provocative film, is a montage of historical images that critic Ashley Clark says encompasses “blacked-up Hollywood stars like Judy Garland and Mickey Rooney; black stars in demeaning ‘coon’ and ‘mammy’ roles; racist cartoons; and disturbing scenes from films like The Birth of a Nation and Gone with … Read more

Plan-B Theatre’s newest production One Big Union highlights Joe Hill, Wobblies

In the century since Joe Hill, the Swedish immigrant miner, musician and union activist who was executed in Salt Lake City after being wrongfully convicted of murder, there have been only a very few plays about this figure who recently has emerged from the footnotes of history in relevant ways. Last year, John McCutcheon, an … Read more

Salt Lake Electric Ensemble’s convincing rendition of Stockhausen’s ‘pure, gently shimmering fire’ in Set Sail For The Sun

For Karlheinz Stockhausen (1928-2007), undoubtedly among the most important composers of the 20th century, the element of text humanized the imagery of his music in the most emotionally intense and spiritually gratifying ways. Stockhausen was an exceptional and extraordinary creative force. He broke new artistic ground in electronic music, spatial musical performance and the use … Read more

JazzSLC opens new season September 9

Courtesy of dianeereeves.com

The 2016-2017 JazzSLC concert season launches on September 9 at Capitol Theatre. Some of the best in the business are on the docket this season. JazzSLC is a non-profit concert series that is produced and funded by the GAM Foundation. Gordon Hanks and Michael MacKay founded the GAM Foundation in 1994 in an effort to … Read more

Utah Symphony performs the music of John Williams at Deer Valley Music Festival

Deer Valley Music Festival

As part of the Deer Valley Musical Festival, the Utah Symphony, along with conductor Rei Hotoda and the Utah Symphony Orchestra, will be presenting the music of composer John Williams on August 6. Concert goers that evening will be entertained by the wonderful sights and sounds that only the Utah Symphony and the picturesque mountain backdrop of the … Read more

Backstage at The Utah Arts Festival 2016: Closing day headliners include The Steep Canyon Rangers, Sierra Hull, Mingo Fishtrap, Cimarrón, Dine Krew

Closing night headliners at The Utah Arts Festival run the gamut, as they have on each of the three previous evenings. Among them is Cimarrón (see earlier feature), a Grammy-nominated ensemble from Colombia, will perform Joropo and Llanera music (June 26, 8:15 p.m., Festival Stage). The winner of the Intermountain Acoustic Music Association (IAMA)’s Susanne … Read more

Backstage at The Utah Arts Festival 2016: Some random acts of opera for the City Library urban atrium

Sometimes art’s most appreciated beauty arises randomly to the observer’s delight. The cathedral-like atrium in the City Library’s Urban Room, just one of the many high-traffic areas of the Utah Arts Festival, is a musician’s dream for acoustics, especially for opera singers. Perched in the middle of the overhang on the second floor, a singer … Read more