NOVA Chamber Music Series to open its 41st season with Road to Night

Madeline Adkins

NOVA Chamber Music Series will launch its 41st season this month with its Road to Night concert, a selection of works spanning the period of 1778-1899 that arise from intimate literary inspirations along with deeply heartfelt musical responses by composers to personal events in their lives. The concert also is a sincere reflection of NOVA’s … Read more

Giants of the keyboard: Bachauer announces its four-concert series for 2018-2019

For the 2018-2019 season, The Gina Bachauer International Piano Foundation is between competition years but its series of four concerts features soloists who have made their imprint as some of the world’s best acclaimed pianists. The soloists include the 2002 Bachauer Gold Medalist, the 2005 Van Cliburn Gold Medalist, the 2015 Honens Competition winner and … Read more

Repertory Dance Theatre’s 53rd season to open on new, classic notes of Spirit of Manifest Diversity

Entering its 53rd season, Repertory Dance Theatre (RDT) always has been at the modern dance forefront in expressing the complexities of the past and the ever-shifting contemporary present. In the 1960s, the idea of Manifest Destiny still dominated the mindset of the American West although it was being obscured increasingly by the civil rights movement … Read more

Original video game idea turned into a play, Plan-B Theatre’s Zombie Thoughts slated for Utah schools fall tour

At 11, Oliver Grey Kokai-Means already can claim that a play he created and wrote with his mother, playwright Jennifer Kokai, is being produced and will be viewed by thousands over the next month and half in Utah. Zombie Thoughts is the sixth play of Plan-B Theatre’s Free Elementary School Tour (FEST), which takes the … Read more

Red Desert’s experimental music program excellent, highly absorbing stretch of artistic entrepreneurialism

Just how adventuresome and experimental can Salt Lake City’s performing arts scene become? More so than some might expect. In the last few years, there have been numerous examples suggesting just how Utah’s pioneer legacy is translated and transformed into boundary-busting expressions. Per capita, Salt Lake City stacks up competitively to much larger metropolitan centers … Read more

Breaking News! 7th annual Rose Exposed to highlight The Rose’s six resident companies in premieres of thematically connected short works

We rely on skilled journalists and editors to make sense of a volatile news cycle. Forty years ago, Umberto Eco wrote about the artist who protests through form in The Open Work. In part, he suggested that the artist, while rejecting the current order and system, also accepts the world in its crisis terms. The … Read more

The sounds of the desert: Ryan Ruehlen’s GeoRhythmic Drift Music installation set to open at Utah Museum of Contemporary Art

The desert is a vacant cochlea, a geographical chamber of bone, in which waves propagate from the base freely distant sound brought close to my hearing. The vehicle was now perched in an alcove of short, pinyon pine, amidst a vast solitude and harsh stillness. Soaking in the yellow grassy plain, I paced around laying … Read more

A dark buddy comedy, hilarious solo show on LDS musicals, dance company piece, high school performers’ take on social media memes highlight Great Salt Fringe Festival

NOTE: This is Part II of reviews of shows from the 2018 Great Salt Lake Fringe Festival. For Part I, see here. Austin Archer’s Marty Has Cancer – Prufrock Productions Every performance of this play sold out or had standing room only, which likely makes it one of the most successful productions ever presented at … Read more

Fourth Great Salt Lake Fringe opens in new Gateway venue to satisfying effect

NOTE: This is the first of two parts about this year’s Great Salt Lake Fringe, which includes reviews of three shows. Part II will highlight reviews of four other shows. For its fourth year, the Great Salt Lake Fringe festival (Aug. 2- Aug. 12) is testing its new venue space at the Gateway shopping center … Read more

Emancipating artistic expressions from taboos, boundaries at heart of 15th Utah Film Center’s Damn These Heels LGBTQ Film Festival

Queer cinema has matured significantly within the last decade and, this year’s Utah Film Center’s Damn These Heels International Film Festival is a panoply of emancipating artistic expressions that break many taboos and boundaries. The 23 feature-length films, including 14 fictional narratives and nine documentaries from a dozen countries, introduce audiences to stories where different … Read more