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Early spring bounty: SUPERWOMEN dance concert, Samba Fogo’s Still, Out of the Silence featuring Red Desert, DEXO’s children rock opera Hannah Saves the World

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Performing arts schedules are blossoming this spring, as companies and ensembles return to live productions in full swing. SUPERWOMEN: REPERTORY DANCE THEATRE’S LINK SERIES A regular point made in The Utah Review’s dance coverage is how and why this particular performing arts form wears the empress crown in arts and culture in Utah. Recently, that … Read more

NOVA Chamber Music Series’ Songs of the Americas features works by Clarice Assad, Gabriela Lena Frank, Anthony R. Green, Charles Ives, Jessie Montgomery

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A truly contemporary landscape representation animates the upcoming NOVA Chamber Music Series concert Songs of the Americas (April 10, 3 p.m., Libby Gardner Hall at The University of Utah). The concert, which celebrates not just the U.S. but the whole diasporas of the entire American continental geography, will feature works by three composers already represented … Read more

April brings Utah premiere of Salt Lake Acting Company’s production of Passing Strange, Plan-B Theatre’s world premiere of Iris Salazar’s Aftershock

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Early April brings new productions to Salt Lake City’s independent theater scene, including the Utah premiere of the award-winning musical Passing Strange at the Salt Lake Acting Company (SLAC) and the world premiere of Plan-B Theatre’s production of Iris Salazar’s Aftershock.  PLAN-B THEATRE: AFTERSHOCK Prior to the COVID-19 pandemic and the March 2020 earthquake that … Read more

Lots of March Goodness: Concord/Revisited, NOVA Chamber Music Series, Gina Bachauer International Piano Foundation, How Flowers Bloom, Échale Ganas: The Villa’s Tacos Story

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There were more signs in March of how arts and cultural events are returning with a full head of steam to Salt Lake City.  Within 10 days, there were two musical events – NOVA Chamber Music Series’ Songs of Play and Jason Hardink’s Concord/Revisited Project – with six world premieres by composers, including two who … Read more

Pianist Jason Hardink’s Concord/Revisited Project set for Westminster College, featuring world premieres by 4 composers, Ives’ Concord Sonata

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“Sometimes, on Sundays, I heard the bells, the Lincoln, Acton, Bedford, or Concord bell, when the wind was favorable, a faint, sweet, and, as it were, natural melody, worth importing into the wilderness. At a sufficient distance over the woods this sound acquires a certain vibratory hum, as if the pine needles in the horizon … Read more

Bounty of excellent news from Utah Museum of Fine Arts: Handstitched Worlds: The Cartography of Quilts, salt 15: Horacio Rodriguez, acquisition of Chiura Obata works for Japanese collection

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The early spring has brought new exhibitions to the Utah Museum of Fine Arts at The University of Utah, including a traveling exhibition of quilts, organized by the American Folk Art Museum, and a fascinating, unique show by Salt Lake City artist Horacio Rodriuguez. Also, UMFA recently shared news of a major acquisition for its … Read more

Five Utah Museum of Contemporary Art exhibitions include shows about sociopolitical culture, coping with grief, queer community in Salt Lake City, short film about Indigenous culture, an artist’s spiritual reconciliation in relationship with father

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Five exhibitions round out the early spring slate at the Utah Museum of Contemporary Art (UMOCA), including a major exhibition about contemporary political engagement, an exceptional show that translates the literary memoir genre into a visual art synthesis by an artist from the Carolinas, a celebration of queer voices in Salt Lake City, a regionally … Read more

Two major concerts coming to Salt Lake City: Bachauer presenting Ching-Yun Hu in all-Liszt program; NOVA Chamber Music Series’ Songs of Play with world premieres by Stephanie Ann Boyd, Luke Dahn

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Two concerts in Salt Lake City this coming weekend highlight outstanding programming options by major institutions.  GINA BACHAUER INTERNATIONAL PIANO FOUNDATION: CHING-YUN HU, CONCERT OF LISZT Pianist Ching-Yun Hu remembers how the stereotypes about Franz Liszt were ingrained in her as a child when she was studying music. “This was not a composer we were … Read more

Once again, the audience has the voting power: Repertory Dance Theatre’s Regalia available this week in streaming video on demand format, as 4 choreographers set their sights on commission prize 

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While Repertory Dance Theatre (RDT) is holding Regalia, its largest annual fundraiser, online for the second year ago, the event is no less audacious than its usual in-person format.  Four choreographers are assigned a group of dancers to create a short work (usually five but less than 10 minutes in length) in just four hours. … Read more

An unsurpassed, extraordinary opening night performance for the premiere of Carleton Bluford’s The Clean-Up Project, Plan-B Theatre’s newest production

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Just slightly past the midway point of the opening night performance in the world premiere of Carleton Bluford’s The Clean-Up Project, it was evident that another Plan-B Theatre production was having the usual very good opener. Bluford’s script, about a swift revolution that has transformed the country and flipped the power structure, is complex in … Read more