by Mark G. Auerbach
Upcoming Season: Hartford Stage
The company of the Hartford Stage-bound Murder on the Orient Express. Photo by T. Charles Erickson.
Darko Tresnjak, Hartford Stage’s Artistic Director, has announced the new Hartford Stage season, which includes three gloriously colorful and vibrant classics, and three incisive and authentic looks at the human experience. The season lineup will include the McCarter Theatre Center’s dazzling production of Agatha Christie’s Murder on the Orient Express, adapted for the stage by Ken Ludwig; A Midsummer Night’s Dream by William Shakespeare; Feeding the Dragon, a memoir written and performed by Sharon Washington; and Statements After an Arrest Under the Immorality Act, a poetic masterwork by Athol Fugard. Hartford Stage also announces two world premieres: Edith Wharton’s inimitable romance, The Age of Innocence, adapted for the stage by Douglas McGrath, and Sarah Gancher’s Seder, an original play inspired by a true story. Performance dates will be announced soon. For details: 860-527-5151 or www.hartfordstage.org.
Carolyn Kuan and the Hartford Symphony Orchestra. Photo by ChowderInc.
Upcoming Season: Hartford Symphony Orchestra Masterworks Series
The Hartford Symphony’s upcoming classical music series has some blockbusters planned for the upcoming season at The Bushnell’s Belding Theatre in Hartford. The season opens with a performance of Beethoven’s Eroica Symphony on October 6-8. Season highlights include a classical holiday concert with Fry’s Santa Claus–A Christmas Symphony and excerpts from Tchaikovsky’s Nutcracker score on December 8-10; and A Scottish Fantasy program with Maxwell Davies’ An Orkney Wedding with Sunrise and bagpipes on January 19-21 Carolyn Kuan brings ballet dancers to the stage for a program that includes Stravinsky’s Game of Cards and Tchaikovsky’s Swan Lake on March 9-11. Music of Copland and Gershwin are showcased on April 6-9, and there’s also an all Shostakovich program and a performance of Carmina Burana later in the season. For details: 860-987-5900 or www.hartfordsymphony.org.
UMass Music Hosts 2017 Bach Festival and Symposium
The UMass Department of Music and Dance celebrates the life and music of composer Johann Sebastian Bach with a festival o his music, inclding concerts, workshops, and symposiums. Highlights include two full performances of the epic Mass in B minor on April 22-23 led by renowned conductor Simon Carrington, Visiting Professor of Choral Conducting at the University of Birmingham, UK, and co-founder of the internationally- acclaimed vocal ensemble The King’s Singers. UMass will also host a day-long scholarly Symposium on April 22 to explore Bach’s continued influence and popularity, including a keynote delivered by noted Bach scholar Michael Marissen.
UMass held its first Bach Festival and Symposium in 2015, and this year’s incarnation promises to be even more ambitious. The expansive project will bring together many of the diverse elements of the University’s music program, which provides students with conservatory-quality training in the dynamic setting of a public research university. Members of the Department’s world class faculty, including soprano Jamie-Rose Guarrine, mezzo-soprano Marjorie Melnick, and tenor William Hite will join distinguished alumni Corrine Byrne (soprano) and Andrew Garland (baritone) as featured soloists for the Mass in B minor performances. Those concerts will also include the Bach Festival Orchestra comprised of UMass students, faculty, and alumni, and the Festival Chorus led by chorus master Tony Thornton. In addition, faculty members Elizabeth Chang (violin, ensemble coordinator,) Fredric T. Cohen (oboe), and Gilles Vonsattel (piano) will be featured soloists at the April 21 performance by the Opus One Chamber Orchestra, the Department’s foremost student chamber ensemble.
For details: 413-545-2511, 800-999-UMAS or www.Umass.edu/music/Bach
Keep in Mind…
The Alvin Ailey American Dance Theatre comes to UMass Fine Arts Center.
The Alvin Ailey American Dance Theater, one of the nation’s foremost dance companies, performs at the UMass Fine Arts Center Concert Hall on April 25. Proclaimed a “vital American cultural ambassador to the world” by the United States Congress, the company combines masterful technique, great expressiveness, brilliant choreography, and a unique take on the African American cultural experience. The evening program will be a mixed repertory of modern dance and classical ballet, closing with the audience favorite Revelations. The Westfield News Group is a sponsor. For details: 413-545-2511, 800-999-UMAS, or www.fineartscenter.com.
Lori Efford is Jacqueline in The Majestic Theater’s La Cage Aux Folles. Photo by Rick Teller.
La Cage Aux Folles, the beloved Jerry Herman and Harvey Fierstein musical, closes the Majestic Theater’s 20th Anniversary Season with performances in West Springfield through May 28. Danny Eaton directs the musical, which inspired the movie Birdcage. Luis Manzi and Ben Ashley play the star and owner of a notorious gay nightclub. Their son has decided to marry the daughter of France’s most conservative politician. The score includes standards “I Am What I Am” and “The Best of Times”; the latter being sung by Lori Efford. This is musical comedy heaven from the creators of Hello Dolly, Mame, Newsies and Kinky Boots. For details: 413-747-7797 or www.majestictheater.com
Marsha Harbison of Longmeadow Chamber Music Society
The Longmeadow Chamber Music Society showcases music for piano andstrings on its final concert for the season, April 21, at The First Church o Christ on the Longmeadow Town Green. The program includes Dohnanyi’s Piano Quintet in C minor; Dvorak’s Terzetto for two violins and viola; Suk’s Ballade Op.3 or piano and cello; and Lizst’s Vallee D’Obermann. Violinsts Joel Pitchon and Marsha Harbison, violist Ron Gorevic, cellist Volcy Pelletie and pianist Alissa Leiser are featured. The Westfield News Group is a sponsor. For details: 413-567 8213 or www.longmeadowcms.org
Beyond the Forest: Jewish Presence in Eastern Europe, a visiting exhibition of photographs by Loli Kantor, is now open at the Yiddish Book Center in Amherst, MA through October 15. Beyond the Forest considers the re-emergence of Jewish life in a region where Jewish communities were once destroyed. Kantor, an Israeli-American photographer, took the photographs over the course of nearly a decade, during which she made numerous trips to Poland and Ukraine. The daughter of Holocaust survivors who died when she was young, Kantor first visited the region on a quest to uncover more about her family history. Over time, her focus expanded to include local Jewish history and communities. Kantor will give a gallery talk about Beyond the Forest at the Yiddish Book Center on April 30. For details: www.yiddishbookcenter.org.
Frank Rizzo, one of New England’s major theatre reporters, presents his two-part multimedia lecture about Hamilton The Musical on April 20 and 27 for the Mark Twain House and Museum in Hartford. Rizzo has been teaching about Hamilton at University of Hartford and Quinnipiac. He writes for Variety, Connecticut Magazine, and was the Hartford Courant’s theatre writer. For details: 860-247-0998 or www.marktwainhouose.org.
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Mark G. Auerbach studied theatre at American University and the Yale School of Drama. He’s worked for arts organizations and reported on theatre for newspapers and radio.
