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 […]

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 hyper-charged Second Symphony; Kauffman Center for the Performing Arts. Contact: 816-415-5025 or hjseries.org. 25: International Center for Music at Park University; Rosamunde Trio; The renowned […]

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, the Prairie Village native who soared to the top of the opera world 25 years ago and has remained there ever since, Mahler is a fairly […]

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 chronological order): No mortal could attend every presentation of classical music, theater, and dance here (more than 500 annually, by my estimate). But I saw […]

Collaboration in the arts is not a choice: These days, it’s practically a necessity. In recent decades, Kansas City’s arts groups have noticeably moved toward a collaborative model, to the point where on any given night you are likely to partake of a performance of music, theater, or dance that involves multiple non-profit arts groups […]

If it’s December, you can be pretty sure that our concert-life is turning very Baroque. That is to say, there will be a bevvy of choral, orchestral, and chamber performances featuring music of the Baroque era (ca. 1600 to ca. 1750). This is perhaps to some extent because we associate the holidays with masterworks such […]

Musicians love chamber music because it offers a chance to perform with friends in a warmly collegial, relatively low-stress environment. The most intimate chamber music of all is that for two pianists, especially when they perform together at the same keyboard. Some of the repertoire for piano duet is scored for two pianos, it is […]