Andrey Gugnin, 2014 gold medalist in Gina Bachauer International Piano Foundation competition, returns to SLC Nov. 11 with Rachmaninoff, Stravinsky, Ravel works

Russian pianist Andrey Gugnin has good reasons to love Rachmaninoff. At the age of 28, in 2014, Gugnin took the gold medal at the Gina Bachauer International Piano Foundation Competition in 2014, with his performance of the composer’s Third Piano Concerto. Two years later, after winning the gold media at the Sydney International Piano Competition, … Read more

Reviews roundup: Bachauer’s Schubert piano sonatas, NOVA Chamber Music Series’ Connect with Beauty, Westminster College Performing Arts’ Pushing Boundaries, Ebola Cherries’ Digital Drag Is Dead

Gina Bachauer International Piano Foundation: Kuok-Wai Lio The 2022-23 concert series of the Gina Bachauer International Piano Foundation opened with a masterly display of holistic musical emotion in Kuok-Wai Lio’s presentation of Schubert’s final three piano sonatas. A 2005 Bachauer gold medalist, Kuok-Wai delivered a memorable valedictory performance of these works, showing his profound admiration … Read more

Popping every kernel of song, dance and comedy perfectly, Broadway-bound Shucked receives a splendid world premiere at Pioneer Theatre Company

There has been a smattering of musicals on and off Broadway which not only had stories based in rural America but also had country music and songs as part of the book and score. They include rousing shows such as Pump Boys and Dinettes, Floyd Collins, Smoke on the Mountain and A Good Old Fashioned … Read more

Pygmalion Theatre Company set to open 2022-23 season with world premiere of Julie Jensen’s Mother, Mother: The Many Mothers of Maude

In the summer of 1914, The Green Book Magazine, then a widely followed periodical about the American theater, published installments by Annie Adams Kiskadden, who wrote about her life as an actor in Utah and in New York City. But, the real draw of these autobiographical installments was her daughter, the more famous performer of … Read more

Spy Hop Productions to mark 20th anniversary of PitchNic with Nov. 3 premiere of four student-produced short films

PitchNic, one of Spy Hop Productions’ signature programs,is marking its 20th anniversary this year and is doing so in the manner it knows best, with young Utah filmmakers making their creative debuts in impressive fashion. In its two decades, the PitchNic film program at Spy Hop Productions has succeeded because student filmmakers first learn the … Read more

Plan-B Theatre sets world premiere in Nov. 3-13 run of Morag Shepherd’s My Brother Was A Vampire

In the 2004 novel, Let the Right One In, by Swedish author John Ajvide Lindqvist, which later was adapted into Swedish and American films as well as a theatrical production, a preteen boy becomes friends with a new neighbor, whom he realizes is a vampire. It is a fine example of a story that bridges … Read more

From Missouri to Utah: Alisa McCusker joins the Utah Museum of Fine Arts as senior curator

Among the museum curator’s most valuable skills is to demystify and make accessible to exhibition visitors the opportunity to interpret the stories behind the creation of great works of art, whether they were made 500 years ago or even within the past several months. For her doctoral dissertation at the University of Texas at Austin, … Read more

Opening Oct. 14, Utah Film Center’s 19th Damn These Heels Queer Film Festival set for live screenings, extra events, streaming on demand options

The Utah Film’s Center’s 19th annual Damn These Heels Queer Film Festival, the longest running festival of its kind in the Intermountain West, opens Oct. 14, returning to its familiar weekend format of live screenings, extracurricular events, and an opening night party but also providing a separate streaming on demand option for patrons, which will … Read more

Gina Bachauer International Piano Foundation’s gold medal season opens with Kuok-Wai, 2005 Bachauer Young Artists gold medalist, in all-Schubert program

It is a gold medal season for the Gina Bachauer International Piano Foundation’s concert series, which opens this week with Kuok-Wai Lio, the 2005 top prize winner of Bachauer’s Young Artists Competition, performing the final three piano sonatas which Franz Schubert composed near the end of his life. The concert will take place Oct. 14 … Read more

Wonderful trio of season openers: Salt Lake Acting Company’s Sleeping Giant, Ririe-Woodbury’s Precipice, Repertory Dance Theatre’s Quadruple Bill (plus)

SALT LAKE ACTING COMPANY: SLEEPING GIANT, BY STEVE YOCKEY For connoisseurs of macabre stories with a generous twist of humor, like classics such as Supernatural, Tales from the Crypt, Creepshow, Shirley Jackson short stories or the geekdom culture of the Cthulhu folklore, Steve Yockey’s Sleeping Giant is a devilish delight. The play’s world premiere production … Read more