EDITOR’S NOTE: The Utah Review begins its preview coverage today of the 45th Utah Arts Festival, which will be held Aug. 27-29 (noon to 11 p.m. on Aug. 27 and 28 and noon to 9 p.m. on Aug. 29) on the Library Square in downtown Salt Lake City. As this is the state’s largest multidisciplinary … Read more
In the final show — a quartet of short plays — to close out its 30th anniversary season which has featured audio productions, Plan-B Theatre highlights two strengths that emphasize the small company’s leadership in producing original work with incisive timeliness and relevance. From playwrights in Plan-B’s Theatre Artists of Color Writing Workshop come four … Read more
There is an invigorating appeal in listening to music for string orchestra composed by a violinist whose instincts elicit a blast of colors, textures, lyricism and effects from an instrumental category with which she is familiar. The Utah Symphony’s performance of Jessie Montgomery’s Strum in the closing concert of a season with unique circumstances was … Read more
Pianist Cahill Smith fits nicely into the NOVA Chamber Music Series’ family, as well as the Utah State University music school in Logan. Take the following example. In two Carnegie Hall recitals, respectively in 2013 and 2015, he dedicated his performances to works by Russian composer Nikolai Medtner, a far less known contemporary of Sergei … Read more
In 1944, the 22-year-old Jean-Pierre Rampal won the Conservatoire test by performing a virtuosic threnody piece for flute by André Jolivet. Throughout his career, Rampal would include in his legendary repertoire the 16 works for the flute, written by Jolivet, one of the elite French composers of the 20th century. Again, the unique circumstances of … Read more
Pick a short program of music to celebrate the effusive spirit of spring in May and it would be hard to top the combination of a rousing mix of Latin tropical dance rhythms, the pyrotechnics of an adaptation of Bizet’s Carmen and a violin sonata composed as a wedding gift. The Gina Bachauer International Piano … Read more
In The Dance of The Building, the ingeniously crafted sixth episode of the In The Balance: Ballet for a Lost Year documentary series, one of the crew leaders for setting the stage of Ballet West’s performances in the Capitol Theatre in downtown Salt Lake City, explains that the real legacy of civilizations in history comprises … Read more
Two of Salt Lake City’s historically significant dance institutions — Repertory Dance Theatre (RDT) and Ririe-Woodbury Dance Company — are concluding this unusual season with new concert films. Both films end on an encouraging note, signaling a hopeful return next fall to their regular performing venue in the Rose Wagner Center for Performing Arts. Both … Read more
One of many richly textured epiphanies in Matthew Ivan Bennett’s Art & Class, the audio-only production receiving its Plan-B Theatre world premiere, occurs shortly after Lucía confronts Mindy, the parent of a student in her art class, at a Christmas tree lot in Hyrum. Mindy is pushing for Lucía to be fired from the school … Read more
Last year, approximately 1,000 people saw SONDERimmersive’s remarkably inventive interpretation of Shakespeare’s Romeo and Juliet, Through Yonder Window, in a parking garage at The Gateway complex in downtown Salt Lake City. With pandemic restrictions in place, the company meshed elements of immersive performance and theater-in-the-round in a production that effectively accommodated the difficult logistics of … Read more