Summer always feels like a dry spell for classical music in Alaska. The symphonies, the opera, the choirs all take summers off, and it’s no wonder. Desperate for vitamin D, with the precious warm season beckoning, most Alaskans, musicians included, are off fishing, hiking, or boating this time of year. After nine months of brutal winter, what Alaskan would reject sunshine for a windowless studio to practice arpeggios? ...more...
Arts America Blog
Wagner Marathon in Anchorage — But What About Local Opera?
May 10, 2012 by
It’s not often that Alaskans get to see Wagnerian opera, much less the full Ring cycle in one sweep, but this week and next, the Metropolitan Opera is beaming all four Wagner Ring operas to cinemas around the world, including to the Century 16 Cinema in Anchorage. Ring-nuts rejoice! ...more...
Nine (Slightly Biased) Reasons to See the Alaska Chamber Singers This Weekend
April 19, 2012 by
The Alaska Chamber Singers are performing this Saturday and Sunday, April 21 and 22, and it promises to be among the best classical music offerings in Anchorage this spring. Okay, okay, I admit that I may be *slightly* biased… I am, after all, one of the altos in the Chamber Singers. But, I stand by my superlative. ...more...
Nearly Sold-Out Bacchic Orgy: Anchorage Symphony Season Finale
April 14, 2012 by
The Anchorage Symphony is playing their season finale this Saturday, and, as of this writing, there are only EIGHT TICKETS LEFT for this sweet concert. If you manage to get a ticket, lucky you. Expect intellectualism, sentimentality, and musical bacchanalia.
So what exactly is on the program? A new piece for our Celestial Soundtrack! The concert will open with Comet, a ten-minute tone poem by George Tsontakis, commissioned for this concert by the Symphony’s “Musica Nova” program. ...more...
Thodos Dance Company Performs Beyoncé… errr, Fosse… in Alaska
March 31, 2012 by
Chicago’s Thodos Dance Company is performing in Anchorage on Thursday, April 19, and if that’s news to you, you’re not alone. I just stumbled on the information myself, hidden away on the CenterTix website. The show has hardly been advertised and hasn’t appeared on most local arts calendars, and tickets aren’t yet for sale. But no, Beyoncé is not in the dance company. I’ll get to her in a minute. ...more...
Frostbite and Long Tongue: Tim Remick and Preston Singletary at the Anchorage Museum
March 5, 2012 by
One thing to love about the Anchorage Museum: its artists render beauty from some very… remarkable materials, like seal intestines, and walrus oosik. Two new shows at the museum, solo exhibitions of the photography of Tim Remick and the glass works of Preston Singletary, don’t use remarkable body parts, but depict them. ...more...
A Ghost, Two Elegies, Mitt Romney, and That Fine Cellist: Sitka Summer Music Festival in Anchorage, Part 2
February 17, 2012 by
The Sitka Summer Music Festival is coming to Anchorage’s Grant Hall Auditorium this weekend, and earlier this week I wrote about the piano trios (i.e., the pieces written for the piano, violin, and cello together) on Friday night’s program. Because each concert this weekend will present a different program, in this second post I’ll cover the Saturday and Sunday offerings, especially the piano trios. ...more...
Gypsies and Guinea Pigs: Sitka Summer Music Festival in Anchorage, Part 1
February 14, 2012 by
The Sitka Summer Music Festival is coming to Anchorage this weekend, and they’ve got ghosts, gypsies, guinea pigs, elegies, retractions — and one very sexy cellist on the program.
But first, the need-to-know: Performances are this Friday, Saturday, and Sunday, February 17, 18, and 19, at 7:00 pm (4:00 pm for the Sunday show) in Grant Hall Auditorium on the Alaska Pacific University campus. ...more...
Celestial Soundtrack: Music for Pitiable Pluto and Other Cosmic Phenomena
January 26, 2012 by
This weekend the Anchorage Symphony Orchestra is performing Gustov Holst’s orchestral suite The Planets, and the program got me thinking. Holst has movements for Mercury, Venus, Mars, Jupiter, Saturn, Uranus, Neptune… What about poor old Pluto?
First, some details: Performances are Saturday and Sunday, January 28 and 29, 2012, at 8:00 pm and 4:00 pm, respectively, in the Atwood Concert Hall of the Alaska Center for the Performing Arts. ...more...
Performing This Weekend: Pulse, Anchorage’s Thrilling New Dance Ensemble
January 21, 2012 by
Anchorage’s Pulse Dance Company is performing this weekend, and it promises to be the most exciting dance concert in Alaska this spring. That may be a brash and hyperbolic statement, but I can’t help it. Watch a couple videos of Pulse for yourself (there are several on their website). You may decide that you agree with me.
First, the need-to-know: Pulse performs at 8:00 pm on Friday and Saturday, January 20 and 21, 2012 ...more...
Of Free Concerts and Nimrods
January 18, 2012 by
The Anchorage Symphony Orchestra is giving a free concert this Saturday, January 21, 2012 at 2:00 pm at the West High School Auditorium (1700 Hillcrest Drive, Anchorage). Doors open at 1:30 pm, and seating is first-come, first-served. No tickets are required. The concert will last about an hour. ...more...
Anchorage Museum: Cool Stuff Made Of “Weird” Animal Parts
December 31, 2011 by
It’s a great week to visit the Anchorage Museum: over the next eight days, the museum will be closing four special exhibits to make way for three new ones, opening in February. Since its expansion in 2010, the Anchorage Museum is now large enough that you can easily miss the great stuff. Here are my suggestions on what to see over the next week. ...more...
Mannheim “Steamrolls” Into Anchorage
December 23, 2011 by
Mannheim Steamroller is coming to Anchor Town, performing Thursday and Friday, December 29 and 30, in Anchorage’s Atwood Concert Hall. This is just in case you’re not so very sick and tired of Christmas music, four days after Christmas, that your hands itch to snap a candy cane whenever you hear “Deck the Halls”. Founded and produced by Chip Davis, Mannheim Steamroller is one of those gigs you either love or hate, nothing in between, sort of like anchovies or Hillary Clinton. ...more...
Wrong Notes — Or Not — in Tavener’s Annunciation
December 9, 2011 by
If you go to the Alaska Chamber Singers’ holiday concert this Friday or Saturday, don’t be dismayed if you hear some very wrong-sounding notes in John Tavener’s Annunciation. If it sounds wrong, it’s probably right. ...more...
Redemptive Music in Unlikely Places
November 30, 2011 by
It’s not the average string orchestra that requires a background check of audience members before its holiday concert. Then again, the average string orchestra is not composed of prison inmates. Alaska’s Hiland Mountain Correctional Center Women’s String Orchestra is holding their annual public concert on Saturday, December 3 at 1:30 pm. ...more...
Bolshoi Ballet in Anchorage — Popcorn Encouraged
November 22, 2011 by
It’s true that you can see Russia from Alaska — from the state’s far western islands, anyway. And now you can see Russian ballet from Alaska, from two movie theaters right in Anchorage.
Anchorage’s Century 16 cinema showed the Bolshoi Ballet’s “live” performance of The Sleeping Beauty on Sunday, November 20 and will air an encore performance on Tuesday, November 22 at 6:30 pm. ...more...
