Capping a season of many adventurous thrills, NOVA Chamber Music Series upcoming final concert of 2018-2019, The Head and The Heart, is apt in many ways. For her final concert as music director this season, Madeline Adkins, also Utah Symphony’s concertmaster, has selected four works spanning 250 years, assembled the usual legitimate all-star slate of … Read more
PYGMALION THEATRE COMPANY: SWEETHEART COME One of the most extraordinary renderings of Emma Hauck’s story came in 2000 with In Absentia, a 19-minute film made by Stephen and Timothy Quay. The BBC commissioned the short film as part of a series matching filmmakers with music selected by BBC producers. The Quay Brothers already had chosen … Read more
There are many reasons why the sleeper hit comedy Napoleon Dynamite (2004) deserves to be the pride of the Utah film industry. Directed by Jared Hess and written by Hess and his wife Jerusha, it has become a timeless pop culture staple featuring authentic characters and tropes who epitomized the high school scene that remains … Read more
Sixteen short documentary films produced by students in schools throughout the Salt Lake City valley in collaboration with their teachers and featuring a wide range of stories about immigration and migration will premiere May 1, as part of the Utah Film Center program Through My Lens, an educational collaboration unlike any other in the U.S. … Read more
The five dancers who will perform Dust. Breath. Place., a new work by choreographer Efren Corado, have transported themselves to a different world in the rehearsals leading up to the forthcoming premiere in three performances (May 2-4), as part of Repertory Dance Theatre’s Link Series (RDT). Observing Easter morning rehearsal was spiritually uplifting. Eleven days … Read more
The Red Desert ensemble, the duo project of clarinetist Katie Porter and composer/percussionist Devin Maxwell, organized one of the most interesting public jam session concerts to happen recently in Salt Lake City. Joining forces with numerous local musicians, Westminster College students, and University of Utah students from Radical Quiet, Phillip Bimstein’s honors college course about cultivating a heightened … Read more
Many florists and horticulturists associate metaphorical themes with flowers and plants. Indeed, in every spring bloom, there is a unique significance: friendship, perseverance, patience, enthusiasm, honesty, unconditional love and affection, rebirth, dignity, strength of character, trust, just to name a few. Ririe-Woodbury Dance Company delivered all of these blooms in a magnificent bouquet in its … Read more
This past weekend, Portuguese-born pianist Luis Magalhães made the 9,800-mile journey from his South African home to Salt Lake City for the Western Hemisphere premiere of Nikolai Kapustin’s Double Concerto for Violin, Piano and Orchestra, Opus 105, in the upcoming NOVA Chamber Music Series concert titled Parallel Worlds. The concert (April 28, 3 p.m., Libby … Read more
In 1931, as the Great Depression’s grip tightened, F. Scott Fitzgerald wrote the obituary for the flimsy age of roaring confidence and youth-driven abandon that had been “jolted” out of existence when the stock market crashed in 1929. In an essay titled Echoes of the Jazz Age, he wrote, “It was an age of miracles, … Read more
Repertory Dance Theatre’s (RDT) Voices concert capped an unforgettable expression of diversity and inclusion for its 53rd season. However, before delving into the specifics of the rich, subtly emotional dynamics of the Voices performances, a broader context is essential. The theme of Manifest Diversity came full circle with Voices. In the season’s first concert last … Read more