The first thing you notice, when delving into the thousands of letters that artist Georgia O’Keeffe and photographer Alfred Stieglitz exchanged over three decades, is how many of them read like poetry. So much so, in fact, that when composer Kevin Puts determined to write songs for Renée Fleming drawn from the O’Keeffe letters, the […]

The health of a community’s performing arts scene is measured not only by the vigor of its large organizations, but by the constant proliferation of smaller groups that fill out the landscape with fresh voices and provocative ideas. The first quarter of the 21st century has seen a remarkable flourishing of new choirs, chamber ensembles, […]

Urban Kansas Citians sometimes forget that our town grew out of a fundamentally agrarian culture. An important part of that was livestock, as reflected in the founding of the American Royal in 1899, just a half-century after the incorporation of Kansas City, Missouri, itself.  Of equal importance was a deeply rooted equestrian culture that remains […]

SEPTEMBER September 4-22: Kansas City Repertory Theatre; Once; This endearing musical by Glen Hansard and Markéta Irglová (with a book by Enda Walsh), set on the streets of Dublin, won eight Tony Awards in 2012 and a Grammy Award; Spencer Theatre. Contact: 816-235-2700 or kcrep.org.  September 11-29: Kansas City Actors Theatre; Dial M for Murder; Jeffrey Hatcher’s adaptation of […]

Matthias Pintscher had already experienced a lifetime of music before stepping onto the podium of the Kansas City Symphony for the first time. He had led major opera productions in Vienna, Berlin, and Paris, and he had conducted major orchestras of Berlin, Amsterdam, Paris, London, Munich, Dresden, and Hamburg. For 10 years the German-born conductor […]

Anyone who has remained attentive to the performing arts in Kansas City is probably aware of a growing phenomenon of which we can all be justly proud: the presence of a large number of exceptionally gifted young musicians. Everywhere you look, there are festivals, competitions, and performances featuring kids whose artistic level just seems to […]

One mark of a great theater piece is that decades, generations, even centuries after its inception it can still grab us by the shoulders and shake us. The dozen or so plays that Alice Childress wrote between 1949 and 1987, which have remained virtually unknown to the broader public until recently, fix a startlingly contemporary […]

INGRID STÖLZEL:  Ingrid Stölzel is an award-winning composer whose works have been performed at concert halls and festivals around the world and have been called “richly introspective” and cited as demonstrating “a gift for melody”; currently associate professor of composition at The University of Kansas School of Music, she was formerly director of Park University’s […]

The last two decades have brought about dramatic changes in attitudes and laws concerning the lives of LGBTQ+ Americans. With Supreme Court decisions in 2003 and 2015 came legalization not only of behavior but of same-sex marriage, and American opinions have largely crept toward acceptance.  Yet we are far from home. A third of Americans […]

Musical inspiration often thrives under unusual circumstances. Mozart composed La clemenza di Tito after being yanked reluctantly from his progress on The Magic Flute, to take part in a highly politicized operatic commission for the Prague coronation of Leopold II as King of Bohemia; political agendas notwithstanding, it remains one of the great operas of the era.  Haydn forged […]

Getting paid well to do what you love most is the dream of many. Yet even that has a shelf life if it takes you away from family, friends, and home: if it prevents you from building a life with a back yard and a mortgage and maybe even some kids. Annie Laura Dauzat and […]

By Paul Horsley   JUNE 1-2 Te Deum; Sacred Banquet; Founder and Artistic Director Matthew Shepard conducts choral music of Palestrina, Arvo Pärt, and Olivier Messiaen and presents the world premiere of Composer-in-Residence Anthony Maglione’s commissioned setting of the Te Deum text, at Village Presbyterian Church (June 1st) and Visitation Catholic Church (June 2nd). Contact: […]

Fortune smiled on Kansas City music lovers when Tamamo Someya and Mark Gibbs decided to marry and settle down here. Born in Japan just a few years apart, they traveled very different musical roads before converging, finally, at the Kansas City Symphony: Tamamo as principal second violin, Mark as principal cello. Curiously, at a couple […]

Several aspects of Benny Lee’s formative years in Taiwan became driving forces in his life, and engendered curiosity, toughness, and positivity that continue to inspire him to this day.  The death of his father when Benny was just 13 impacted him greatly: He learned much about tenacity and self-reliance watching his mother learn new job […]

Tyrone Aiken danced prodigiously as a youth, trained at The Ailey School as a young adult, worked as a professional dancer at the height of the New York dance ferment, and even ran his own company at one point. Today he is best known nationwide for the pioneering work as educator that has occupied him […]

CAROLINE DAHM Dancer, choreographer, producer, master teacher, adjunct dance professor at The UMKC Conservatory, assistant director at Wylliams/Henry Contemporary Dance Company What I love about the Kansas City performing-arts scene: Kansas City is a very special place. Since moving here back in 2011, I have seen a steady rise in the arts. I love that the […]

It’s difficult to remember what the Kansas City skyline looked like 20 years ago, before the Kauffman Center for the Performing Arts began to take shape at 16th and Broadway. Today anyone who drives through our city must remember one thing: This internationally acclaimed, 316,000-square-feet structure stands as a testament not just to the importance […]

You don’t have to watch an Allegro Choirs of Kansas City rehearsal for very long before you start to understand why these youngsters sound so good. The founding director, Christy Elsner, knows exactly what she wants, and she will persist until she gets it. “On a scale of one to 10, that was about a […]

Tristian Griffin’s success grows partly from his openness to the wide world of arts. The Kansas City-based dancer-choreographer, who established his own company in 2019 (Tristian Griffin Dance Company), didn’t even begin his performance career with dance. He and his brother explored modeling as youngsters, until someone suggested to them that they should develop other […]

Many elements came together to make Teisha Bankston into the theater artist she is today. The frequent star of productions at the Unicorn Theatre and Kansas City Actors Theatre recalls an important early improvisation class with Valerie Mackey at Theatre for Young America, where she made friends with like-minded youngsters and began overcoming her natural […]

Ben Bliss is no stranger to superlatives. During his rapid rise to the top of the opera world he has been called “one of the leading Mozart tenors on the scene today,” “close to the ideal,” “a revelation,” and at Lyric Opera of Chicago, “perhaps the finest Mozart tenor that has graced the Lyric stage […]