When we think about musical giants of our time, we often completely overlook a hugely significant segment of the community. In terms of the impact their music exerts on our lives, the great movie composers must stand proudly alongside the likes of George Gershwin, Aaron Copland, Leonard Bernstein, Duke Ellington, or Irving Berlin. And “in […]

Classical music might occupy a radically different place in American culture if more of us thought about it the way Keith Stanfield does. The violinist and founder of Kansas City’s Opus 76 Quartet trained as a professional soccer player before steering his career toward music. As a result, he thinks of his “team” of four […]

If you wish to gain a well-rounded view of American dance during the last century, look no further than the list of works presented through the years by the Wylliams/Henry Contemporary Dance Company, which celebrates its 30th anniversary this October 1-2. The sheer volume of this irrepressible group’s repertory is astonishing: 132 professional dancers have […]

If you want to know the strength of an organization’s guiding principles, observe how it acts during times of crisis. Kansas City Ballet believes that live music is as essential to dance as choreography, set designs, costumes, or lighting: and it will go to great lengths to involve musicians whenever possible. When it became clear […]

You might at first wonder what artist-poet-filmmaker Michèle Saint-Michel has in common with singer-songwriter AJ Harbison or UMKC Conservatory doctoral student Yunfei Li. All are among the six Kansas City performing artists selected this summer as winners of the Charlotte Street Foundation’s first annual New Music Composition Competition. Each will produce a brand-new work to […]

When David Dastmalchian returned to Kansas City after a 20-year absence, to appear in the independent film he wrote, All Creatures Here Below, it was not just a homecoming. It was more like a revelation. The Shawnee Mission South alumnus and star of movies ranging from DC and Marvel Studio films to Blade Runner 2049, […]

Not all same-sex couples feel a pressing need to get married, but it begins to appear that most do. The United States is home to a half-million legally married gay couples, an increase of nearly 70 percent since the Supreme Court’s Obergefell v. Hodges decision ruled in 2015 that same-sex marriage was protected under the […]

Theatergoers cherish a good love story. We look at some favorite couples from a range of English-language stage works, all of whom can teach us a thing or two about living and loving.   Cleopatra and Antony (Antony and Cleopatra); History’s first celebrity couple, Cleopatra VII and Marcus Antonius, have generated more “gossip” over the centuries […]

During a chilly December walk on the grounds of the National World War I Museum and Memorial, Duke Lee stopped, kneeled, and asked Rena Ishii for her hand in marriage. The proposal did not come as a huge surprise. Since Rena’s arrival in Town a year earlier, to fill a temporary post at the Kansas […]

Heartland Chamber Music is not just a festival and it’s not just a music program or a “violin camp.” It’s many things at once, and unless your child has been one of the 80 or so lucky string players admitted into the program each year, you might not fully appreciate the impact it is having […]

  Most mothers dread the day that their sons or daughters start to drive, but Black moms are especially fearful when their teenagers, and sons in particular, get behind the wheel for the first time. That fear helped spark the inception of a new chamber opera by two internationally known Kansas City natives, Soprano and […]

Before there was theater there was storytelling. And if we ever end up living in a dystopian world with a broken “grid,” we might find ourselves returning to that oral tradition, trading stories among the ruins. Fortunately, we still have theater, and in late April our city welcomed the announcement of the Kansas City Repertory Theatre’s […]

These days the primary qualification for achieving the American dream seems to be adaptability. Jessica Wakefield and Kevin Hao began preparing for their “first careers” as orchestral violinists in the way that most exceptional musicians do: she at the Juilliard School of Music and the Cleveland Institute of Music, he at the University of Washington […]

Many of us still think of it as the new kid on the block. But for anyone tracing the development of the performing arts in the Kansas City region, watching the growth of the performance series at Johnson County Community College has been a bit like seeing an awkward adolescent become a strong, capable member […]

Early humans may not have actually learned to make music from the beasts of the air, land, or sea, but they were clearly aware of the sounds around them. We can probably assume that they shared our own fascination with the “songs” of birds, whales, and wolves: even as we recognize that, to whatever extent […]

After local arts organizations got over the shock of not being able to perform in their normal manner, they began setting up cameras everywhere: streaming performances live, filming them to share on the web, or creating both live and “archived” versions at the same time. Today, more than a year into this “age of innovation” […]

One of these days, Yetunde Felix-Ukwu will again have a mountain of artistic, production, and curatorial duties to deal with at Kansas City Repertory Theatre. At the moment, though, the company’s artistic associate is fulfilling an equally critical function: She is using the company’s digital platform to show Kansas City the extent to which the […]

Performing artists are such punctilious critics of their own work that they generally know what went well and what didn’t. Even before anyone else weighs in, they have at least a “feel” for how it came off. But eventually they’re curious to know what it looked like from the “other side of the footlights,” and […]

Kansas City arts organizations defied odds in 2020 and pulled off some of the most remarkable performances in recent memory. They ranged from a handful of live-with-audience performances (some pre-pandemic, some during) to a bevy of virtual shows and one “special event.” Classical KC; 91.9 Goes Live; After 20 years without a dedicated FM station, classical […]

There are many ways to save lives. Laura Shultz and her colleagues at Harmony Project KC are providing students from Kansas City’s northeast with life-affirming tools that build self-esteem through the sort of teamwork we normally associate with sports. But instead of footballs or baseball bats, they’re using violins, cellos, flutes, and clarinets. “It’s more […]

Kansas City arts group respond to pandemic with ample online content This year fans of the performing arts have learned that you don’t have to leave home to take in a show. Although some organizations have experimented with carefully-distanced outdoor (and occasionally indoor) performances, local audiences still remain disinclined to attend indoor events. And because […]