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Kansas City's Online Journal of the Performing Arts

UMKC Conservatory of Music and Dance
Fall Dance Recital
Thursday, November 5 at 7:30 p.m.
White Recital Hall, Performing Arts Center
4949 Cherry, Kansas City, MO
For tickets call 816-235-6222 or online at www.umkc.edu/conservatory.

After an overload of outstanding dance performances the last couple of weeks, featuring the Kansas City Ballet, the Ailey II dance company, and the Owen/Cox Dance Group, the pickings get a little slimmer during this two-week period.  However, you can check out the UMKC Conservatory of Music and Dance performers in a recital featuring faculty choreography. Among the pieces to be performed are The Widows by Sabrina Madison-Cannon, Utmost by Rodni Williams, Percussion Suite by Mary Pat Henry, Bound Too... by DeeAnna Hiett, and Between  Impulse and Action by Paula Weber.

Lyric Opera of Kansas City
H.M.S. Pinafore
Friday, November 6 at 8:00 p.m.
Sunday, November 8 at 2:00 p.m.
Wednesday, November 11 at 7:30 p.m.
Saturday, November 14 at 8 p.m.
Sunday, November 15 at 2 p.m.
Lyric Theatre
11^th and Central, Kansas City, MO
For tickets call (816) 471-7344 or online at www.kcopera.org.

The Lyric Opera continues its season with a Gilbert and Sullivan favorite, H.M.S. Pinafore. Although today we think of these pieces as being light-hearted and humorous, the biting sarcasm which permeated Gilbert's story lines and dialogue were intended to punctuate the inflated egos and ideals which were then prevalent in Victorian England.

Sullivan is known primarily for his comic operettas, but in fact was an organist, hymnist and composer of music for state occasions, deeply steeped in the traditions of the Anglican Church. Gilbert, who wrote the lyrics, was a central figure in British literary and theatrical circles, a veteran of the civil service and law practice, and member of an elite group of British playwrights.

Gilbert's pen left no corner of British society unscathed. He loved to poke fun at the inequities which resulted from Britain's rigid class system, the absurd results of patriotic extremism, and the foibles of bureaucracy. Sullivan's music proved a perfect accompaniment to these themes.

Famed Kansas City singer and actor Bob Brand portrays Admiral Porter, a character drawn to poke fun at both bureaucratic ineptitude and the folly of class rank. He was patterned after W.H. Smith, the real-life head of the British Navy at the time, who was unschooled in maritime matters and had won his position by rising through the bureaucracy without making enemies.

William Jewell College graduate Daniel Belcher, now enjoying an impressive international career, is Captain Corcoran, with newcomer soprano Ava Pine singing Josephine Porter and tenor Jon-Michael Ball singing her suitor Ralph Rackstraw.

As members of the society they satirized, Gilbert and Sullivan were the ideal choices for the job of deflating English excesses. They always did so, however, with that self-deprecating good nature which won their audiences' hearts and made the satire so much more effective than a more biting commentary would have been.

The Lyric Opera's performances continue throughout the week and an extra Sunday matinee performance has been added for November 15.

NewEar Contemporary Chamber Ensemble
American Currents
Friday, November 6 at 8:00 p.m.
All Souls Unitarian Universalist Church
4501 Walnut Street, Kansas City, MO
For tickets call 816-235-6222 or online at www.tickets.cto.umkc.edu/

For its second concert of the season NewEar Contemporary Chamber Ensemble is presenting a concert of American composers, focusing upon Stephen Hartke and his The House With the Lavender Eye for violin, clarinet and piano. Hartke is one of the leading composers of today, and in this piece he pulls in strands of music influence from Japan, the 19^th century Brazilian novelist Machado de Assia and, we are told, Looney Tunes.  Okay

Also on the program are Gradus for mixed ensemble, and Night Rubrics for solo cello, also by Hartke.

Community of Christ
Jan Kraybill, organ
Friday, November 6 at 8:00 p.m.
Community of Christ Auditorium
1001 West Walnut, Independence, MO
Freewill offering

Fifty years ago, on November 6, 1959, more than 7,000 were in the audience to hear famed female organist Catharine Crozier play the inaugural recital on the organ in the then recently completed RLDS Auditorium. On the 50th anniversary of that event, Dr. Jan Kraybill, the current organist at the RLDS Auditorium, will recreate the inaugural recital in its entirety.

The Friends of Chamber Music
St. Lawrence String Quartet
Saturday, November 7 at 8:00 p.m.
Folly Theater
12^th and Central Streets, Kansas City, MO 
For tickets call 816-561-9999 or online at www.chambermusic.org.

The St. Lawrence String Quartet, the winner of various young artist competitions in the early 1990's and once one of the new "hot" young quartets on the concert scene, has now been performing together for twenty years and in over 2,000 concerts. A finely polished ensemble, they return to The Friends of Chamber Music stage to play Haydn, Mendelssohn, and a late Beethoven quartet.  The Quartet has recorded the works of Schumann, Tchaikovsky and Bach, as well as more modern composers.

In a recent interesting experiment, the Quartet is soliciting donations from classical music foundations around the world to help fund a new recording of Haydn and Dvorak quartets. See www.artistshare.com. This effort may be the coming "thing" in the world of classical music recording if commercial record companies are unwilling to keep issuing classical releases.

Alex Ross of The New Yorker magazine has written that "the St. Lawrence are remarkable not simply for the quality of their music making, exalted as it is, but for the joy they take in the act of connection."

Bell Cultural Events Center
Nathaniel May, pianist
Sunday, November 8 at 2:30 p.m.
Mid-America Nazarene University
2030 E. College Way, Olathe, KS
For tickets call 913-971-3636 or online at www.admitix.com.

The Bell Cultural Arts Center is presenting pianist Nathanael May in recital.  According to the publicity for this concert, May "is a pianist with a penchant for new music, whose performances composers have heralded as 'first-rate, dynamic, and refreshing.' In a habit of speaking from the stage almost as much as he plays, May derives true joy from the educational act of performing."

The recital is titled "Piano Fantasies of Beethoven, Mendelssohn, Brahms, Crumb and Foss." It sounds like an interesting combination of the old and the new.

Parkville Community Band
Fall Concert
Sunday, November 8, at 3:00 p.m.
Graham Tyler Memorial Chapel
8700 NW River Park Drive, Park University, Parkville, MO
Free admission

The program for this concert has not yet been announced, but the Community Band generally plays classical music selections.

By Don Dagenais

City Classics Music and Dance Columnist; Classical Contributor

A lifelong classical music fan, Don Dagenais is a frequent preview speaker for the Lyric Opera of Kansas City and has taught classical music and opera courses at several Kansas City venues. He has served on the boards of directors of a number of performing arts organizations including the Lyric Opera of Kansas City, the Lyric Opera Guild, UMKC Conservatory of Music and Dance, Opera Volunteers International, the Civic Opera Theater of Kansas City, Inspiration Point Fine Arts Colony, Octarium, and the Friends of the Symphony.  He has been the past president of most of these organizations and is current the president of the Friends of the Symphony. 

Dagenais co-authored a history of the Lyric Opera of Kansas City, published on the occasion of its 50th anniversary (2007) and has written books on the histories of both the Lyric Opera Guild and Opera Volunteers International, as well as an introductory book for opera novices (Your Passport to the Opera).  He has received several local and national awards for outstanding volunteer work for the arts, including a lifetime achievement award from The Coterie Theatre in 2000, the Kansas City Musical Club's annual award in 2001, a Partners in Excellence Award from Opera Volunteers International in 2002, a Bravo Award from Opera Volunteers International in 2004 and a community service award from the Daughter of the American Revolution in 2008 honoring him for his community service to the arts.

In addition to his music interests, Don is president of the board of directors for the Metropolitan Ensemble Theater and has served on the boards of The Coterie Theatre and the Heart of America Shakespeare Festival, serving as president of each organization.  He publishes newsletters for seven arts organizations.  When not involved in the performing arts, Don is a senior real estate attorney with Lathrop & Gage LLP in Kansas City, Missouri, where he has practiced law since 1976 after graduating from the Cornell Law School.