Backstage at The Utah Arts Festival 2016: Utah’s historically significant dance companies to perform

In addition to the premiere of a dance composition by Ballet West’s Adrian Fry and performances by Christopher Ruud’s Stars of Ballet West (watch for a preview next week), three historically significant Utah dance companies will present performances to help commemorate the festival’s 40th anniversary. Many of the works were given either world or Utah … Read more

Backstage at The Utah Arts Festival 2016: Utah Symphony returns to festival stage 1st time in 15 years

For pianist and conductor Rei Hotoda, the idea of the musician who is wholly committed to serving the community is as essential as rehearsing and learning new music. In Texas and Ilinois, she worked with local Rotary Club chapters, talking about upcoming concerts and initiatives. Programs with local chapters of The Boys and Girls Clubs … Read more

Backstage at The Utah Arts Festival 2016: City Library is hub of films, hands-on workshops, random performances

A tremendously diverse, logistically solid venue, the City Library will have perhaps its most extensive presence ever at this year’s Utah Arts Festival with the 40 in 117 exhibition featuring work from Utah artists representing the last 40 years from the state’s Alice collection established in 1899, numerous visual arts and musicians’ workshops, performances of … Read more

The Marriage of Figaro opera facts

Utah Opera's The Marriage of Figaro

One of the most frequently performed comic operas, The Marriage of Figaro (Le nozze di Figaro) tells the timeless tale of love and fidelity—recounted in a single “day of madness” in the palace of Count Almaviva, near Seville—while continuing the plot of The Barber of Seville. The four-act opera was composed by Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart, … Read more

In Sea, Utah composer Henry Wolking’s latest album, features Salt Lake City Jazz Orchestra

One of Utah’s most prolific, diverse composers with the wisest sense of musical egalitarianism returns on his latest recording release featuring 12 masterly executed tracks of cosmopolitan music performed by the Salt Lake City Jazz Orchestra (SLCJO). Henry Wolking also conducts the dozen works on In Sea, his debut album on Big Round Records, which … Read more

O.C. Tanner Gift of Music: Mahler Symphony No. 8

O.C. Tanner Gift of Music: Mahler's Symphony No. 8

“Music is essential. It is universal,” Carolyn Tanner Irish, Chair of the Board at O.C. Tanner Company, writes. “It brings goodness, light and beauty into our lives.” For the seventeenth time, the Utah Symphony and Mormon Tabernacle Choir joined together for the O.C. Tanner Gift of Music series on February 19 and 20, 2016. The … Read more

Foster Body’s latest release Moving Display is punk excellence

There is much to celebrate in the frenetic vitality and in-your-face relevance of the punk ethos in Foster Body. The Salt Lake City band’s current lineup comprises Robin Banks and Korey Daniel Martin, both dynamic visual artists who also happen to be musicians, and Dyana Durfee and Jeremy Devine, well-respected musicians who are refreshingly comfortable … Read more

Courageous artistic expression underscores memorable moments of Utah Enlightenment in 2015

There was a lot to celebrate in 2015 with the Utah Enlightenment, a creative movement where courage defines some of the state’s most interesting and independent artists. Indeed, the Enlightenment disturbs and disrupts the peculiar Utah penchant to be civil and docile or to be content with platitudes and pleasantries. Artists are reclaiming Utah’s unique … Read more

Three world premieres slated for Repertory Dance Theatre’s 50th anniversary Revel concert

Three world premieres – all embracing celebration in various forms of dance movement and music – will mark Revel, one of the concerts marking the Repertory Dance Theatre’s 50th anniversary. The program includes a new work by Bill Evans, a nationally known dance artist and choreographer who was one of the earliest dancers in RDT’s … Read more

NOVA Chamber Music Series’ New Paths concert to celebrate imaginative youthful masterpieces of Andrew Norman, Johannes Brahms

For its 2015-2016 season, NOVA Chamber Music Series once again is carving out several new ambitious paths in programming. Each of this year’s six subscription concerts is ingenious in approach and repertoire, with works from the existing chamber music literature that are paired specifically with new compositions and Utah premieres of music by local and … Read more