Three performing art jewels in October: Repertory Dance Theatre’s I AM…, Aristo Sham at the Gina Bachauer International Piano Foundation, NOVA Chamber Music Series’ concert

October’s performing arts schedule was filled with many jewels, including Repertory Dance Theatre, the Gina Bachauer International Piano Foundation and NOVA Chamber Music Series. The reviews below:  REPERTORY DANCE THEATRE: I AM… One could not have asked for a more spectacular opener for Repertory Dance Theatre’s (RDT) 58th season than the premiere of Natosha Washington’s … Read more

A new twist to annual list of crowning achievements: The Utah Review’s Top 10 Moments of the Utah Enlightenment in 2022

This year’s selection in The Utah Review of the top ten moments of the Utah Enlightenment in 2022 was easily the quickest to lock in, considering the possibilities. There were no close calls. The ten selections were a slam dunk. This year, however, presented the opportunity for a twist. While nine of the ten selections … 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

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

“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

NOVA Chamber Music Series’ all-British concert rare, exquisite treat, emphasizing Britten’s greatness

A rare all-British NOVA Chamber Music Series concert was an exquisite treat last weekend for the organization’s only Gallery Concert of the current season in the G. W. Anderson Family Great Hall of the Utah Museum of Fine Arts. The music of Benjamin Britten, John Dowland and Henry Purcell actually fit marvelously in the museum … Read more

Spring review roundup: Ririe-Woodbury Dance Company, NOVA Chamber Music Series, Samba Fogo, PYGmalion Productions

A busy spring season for many Utah based performing arts company has produced memorable performances. RIRIE-WOODBURY DANCE COMPANY: RETURN In Daniel Charon’s Return, the Ririe-Woodbury Dance Company created a new realm of dance theater by imagining the six dancers aboard a starship on a galactic journey, one of the most conventional elements of science fiction … Read more

NOVA Chamber Music Series closes its 40th anniversary season with a changing of the guard; music by Schubert, Messiaen, Lutoslawski

Madeline Adkins

Some of Utah’s most accomplished musicians will gather May 6 to close out NOVA Chamber Music Series’ extraordinary 40th anniversary season with a concert highlighting familiar as well as not widely known works by Schubert and two giants of 20th century music – Olivier Messiaen and Witold Lutosławski. This spring concert highlights works by composers … Read more

World, U.S. premieres highlight recent spring productions of Sackerson, Repertory Dance Theatre, NOVA Chamber Music Series

This spring has blossomed with numerous adventurous concerts and performances, including several world and U.S. premieres, with works presented by the Repertory Dance Theatre, Sackerson and NOVA Chamber Music Series. SACKERSON: SCARLET For a small theatrical company without a permanent home, Sackerson has managed consistently to electrify the Salt Lake City performing arts scene with … Read more

Unconventional pairings, old and new, highlight NOVA Chamber Music Series’ Bach and New Horizons

Today, it seems unbelievable to think that in the decades following J.S. Bach’s death in 1750, his music was relegated for the most part to obscurity. Concert life in the 18th century was vastly different from today’s programming objectives, as William Weber, a frequently cited social historian of music, has researched. In 18th century Leipzig, … Read more

Fry Street Quartet to close out Haydn-Bartók cycle in NOVA Chamber Music Series gallery concert

An atypical but most enlightening cycle juxtaposing string quartets composed by Franz Joseph Haydn and Béla Bartók will come to a close in a March 25 concert by the Fry Street Quartet, as part of the NOVA Chamber Music Series’ gallery programs. Two Bartók quartets – the lyrical second and the experimental fourth which employs … Read more