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 […]

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 […]

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 […]

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 […]

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 […]

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 […]

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 […]

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 […]

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 […]

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 […]

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 […]

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, […]

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 […]

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. […]

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 […]

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 […]

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 […]

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 […]

JANUARY 23: Harriman-Jewell Series; Pianist Isata Kanneh-Mason; The eldest of the seven celebrated musical siblings performs Prokofiev’s Third Concerto, and conductor Vasily Petrenko leads London’s Royal Philharmonic Orchestra in Rachmaninoff’s […]

The music of Mahler has formed an important part of Michael Stern’s repertoire throughout his nearly two decades as music director of the Kansas City Symphony. For mezzo-soprano Joyce DiDonato, […]

Kansas City brought so much exceptional work to local stages this year that narrowing this list to 10 became a Solomon-like exercise. It’s hardly a comprehensive survey (and it’s in […]