The temporary miniature city of cosmopolitan art and culture that defines the Utah Arts Festival will open Thursday, June 22, with new stories and perspectives from artists of all stripes. The 41st annual festival will bring new faces and ideas from all venues. In the artist marketplace, 174 artists, including nine returning award winners, were … Read more
In its fourth year, the partnership between the Intermountain Acoustic Music Association (IAMA) and the Utah Arts Festival has blossomed and raised the profile of folk, bluegrass, Irish, Celtic and acoustic musicians not only at the festival but also the organization’s nationally juried songwriting competition. In addition, IAMA offers a songwriter’s academy open to musicians … Read more
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
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
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
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
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
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
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
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