Yearly Archives: 2014

A free Capital Hotel concert tonight at 5:15 by Arkansas Symphony musicians

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ASO at CHMusicians from the Arkansas Symphony Orchestra will be performing this evening in the lobby of the historic Capital Hotel. The music will start at 5:15 pm.

In 2011, the ASO started these free concerts in the lobby of the Capital Hotel.  The marble and tile of this historic lobby provide a wonderful acoustic backdrop for the musicians.

The concert will feature the Rockefeller String Quartet.  Members of the quartet will introduce the pieces to be performed.

Unlike concerts in music halls, guests here are encouraged to bring drinks to their seats or to stand and move around while the musicians are playing.  It is a relaxed, informal atmosphere where the audience and musicians alike are able to interact with each other.

This concert is part of the ASO’s ongoing efforts to play throughout the community under the leadership of Music Director Philip Mann and Executive Director Christina Littlejohn.  In addition to the Capital Hotel concerts, they offer occasional free concerts at UAMS and have recently started the INC (Intimate Neighborhood Concerts) subscription series.

Energy and Reflection highlight tonight’s LR Wind Symphony concert

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LRWSThe Little Rock Wind Symphony returns to kick off the 2014-2015 season.  Entitled “Energy and Reflection” it features guest artist Christopher Wilson on trumpet as well as the musicians of the LRWS.  Following the departure of music director Karen Fannin, concerts this year are featuring conductor candidates.  Tonight’s concert is under the baton of Timothy Oliver.  The program includes:

Robert Jager: Esprit de Corps
Vincent Persichetti: Divertimento for Band, Op. 42
Gordon Jacob: “Intermezzo” from An Original Suite
arr. Mendez and Koff: La Virgen de la Macarena
     Christopher Wilson, trumpet
Paul Basler: Mangulina
David Maslanka: Requiem
Frank Ticheli: “Apollo Unleashed” from Symphony No. 2

The concert is sponsored by Bob Bidewell in honor of the LRWS musicians.  It begins at 7:30pm at Second Presbyterian Church.  Tickets are available at the door.

The Wind Symphony performs concerts each fall, winter, and spring in addition to its vastly popular Christmas Concert in December. All concerts are held at Second Presbyterian Church. Another annual seasonal highlight is the “Stars and Stripes Celebration” in honor of Flag Day, held  outdoors in June in MacArthur Park.

The Wind Symphony has performed in cities throughout Arkansas. Out of town concerts are usually sponsored by arts and education groups.

The Wind Symphony is supported financially by donations received from concert attendees and from individuals’ and corporations’ concert sponsorships. The musicians donate their time, effort, and talent as a gift to the city and to the audiences who hear them play.

LR Cultural Touchstone: Ellen Turner Carpenter

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Mrs CarpenterEllen Turner Carpenter was born on July 30, 1916 on West Ninth Street.  At the time of her death at the age of 93, her life had come full circle.

As a young girl, she was an active participant in the thriving African American life along west Ninth Street in downtown Little Rock. She attended many events at the Mosaic Templars Hall which sat at Ninth and Broadway.

A longtime Little Rock educator, she became the moving force behind preserving the Mosaic Templars building in the 1980s.   In 1992, she became president of the Mosaic Templars Building Preservation Society, which worked to preserve the Mosaic Templars building in Little Rock to create a museum for black history in Arkansas. Mrs. Carpenter served as president of the society until her death.

In the 1990s, the City of Little Rock purchased the building to keep it stable while the Preservation Society sought to raise the funds.  Due to lobbying efforts led by Mrs. Carpenter, the State of Arkansas purchased the building from the City with the intention of turning it into a museum under the auspices of the Department of Arkansas Heritage.  At a ceremony in 2003, Vice Mayor Willie Hinton handed the keys of the building to Governor Mike Huckabee with Mrs. Carpenter nearby beaming.  Governor Huckabee appointed her to the state advisory committee for this new museum.  She would serve as chair of that committee.

On March 16, 2005, tragedy struck.  The building burned to the ground.  That afternoon at a press conference at the State Capitol, leaders expressed their resolve that the project would move forward with a new building following the original design.  One of the speakers that afternoon was Mrs. Carpenter. She started out in her usual quiet voice. But as she recalled her youth spent at the Mosaic Templar’s building, the years melted away. She demonstrated some of the step dancing she had done as a teenager.

On September 20, 2008, she presided over the grand opening of the new Mosaic Templars Cultural Center. It was the culmination of 15 years of official work and many more years of dreaming.  At the ceremonies, she declared “We made it!” “We made it! We made it!”

Mrs. Carpenter remained an active supporter of the MTCC until her death on July 27, 2010, just three days shy of her 94th birthday.

Throughout her life she wore many hats (including numerous ones to church on Sunday). She was an educator, neighborhood organizer, and public servant. Everyone who met her was positively impacted by her.  Due to her vision and endurance, thousands each year are still positively impacted by her when they visit the Mosaic Templars Cultural Center.  Fittingly, the conference room at MTCC is named in her memory.

 

RED LINES film shown tonight through partnership of Clinton School and LR Film Festival

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redlinesfilmTonight, as part of the new partnership between the Clinton School of Public Service and the Little Rock Film Festival, the film Red Lines will be shown at 6pm in the CALS Ron Robinson Theater.

Red Lines follows the story of two people, Mouaz Moustafa, who was born in a refugee camp near Damascus, raised in Arkansas, schooled in politics on Capitol Hill and by the Libyan uprising, and Razan Shalab-al-Sham. Inspired by the Arab Spring, Razan and Mouaz watched from their two vantage points as, for a hopeful moment, anything seemed possible in Syria. Razan runs a Syria-wide activist network, deeply convinced that democracy is possible with women playing a special role in its realization.

With his contacts in Washington, the Arab world, and the Free Syrian Army, Mouaz becomes a critical link between the rebellion and the West. Their story, “Red Lines,” is about the transformative power of conflict and conscience.

For more information, visit www.redlinesfilm.com

*Reserve your seats by emailing publicprograms@clintonschool.uasys.edu or calling (501) 683-5239

Little Rock Look Back: Warren E. Lenon – LR’s 39th Mayor and Father of City Hall

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OMayor Lenonn October 8, 1867 in Panora, Iowa, future Little Rock Mayor Warren E. Lenon was born.  He was one of eleven children of John D. and Margaret M. Long Lenon.

Lenon came to LIttle Rock in 1888 after finishing his schooling in Iowa.  He helped set up an abstract company shortly after his arrival.  In 1902 he organized the Peoples Savings Bank.  Among his other business interests were the City Realty Company, the Factory Land Company, the Mountain Park Land Company, and the Pulaski Heights Land Company.

From 1895 to 1903, he was a Little Rock alderman, and in 1903, he was elected Mayor of the city. A progressive Mayor, he championed the construction of a new City Hall which opened in 1908.  At the first meeting of the City Council in that building, Mayor Lenon tendered his resignation.  His duties in his various business interests were taking up too much of his time.

Mayor Lenon had been a champion for the establishment of a municipal auditorium. He had wanted to include one in the new City Hall complex. But a court deemed it not permissible under Arkansas finance laws at the time.  He also worked to help establish the first Carnegie Library in Little Rock which opened in 1912.

Mayor Lenon continued to serve in a variety of public capacities after leaving office.  In the 1920s, he briefly chaired a public facilities board for an auditorium district. It appeared he would see his dream fulfilled of a municipal auditorium.  Unfortunately the Arkansas Supreme Court declared the enabling legislation invalid.

In 1889, he married Clara M. Mercer.  The couple had three children, two of whom survived him.  A son W. E. Lenon Jr., and a daughter Vivian Mercer Lenon Brewer.  She was married to Joseph Brewer, a nephew of Joseph Taylor Robinson, after whom the City’s eventual municipal auditorium would be named.  Mrs. Brewer was also a leader of the Women’s Emergency Committee.

Mayor Lenon died June 25, 1946 and is buried at Roselawn Cemetery.  Lenon Drive just off University Avenue is named after Mayor Lenon.

LR Cultural Touchstone: Lucy Lockett Cabe

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lucy-cabeLucy Lockett Cabe grew up in Missouri and died in Texas, but made an enormous impact on the cultural life of Little Rock and Arkansas.

While best known as the major benefactor of Wildwood Park for the Performing Arts, she also supported many other cultural organizations including the Arkansas Arts Center, Ballet Arkansas, Arkansas Symphony Orchestra, Arkansas Repertory Theatre and many smaller organizations. For over 30 years, it was rare for there to be a musical performance in Little Rock without Lucy as either a performer or in the audience.

A lifelong musician, as she aged, her voice shifted from soprano to alto to tenor while singing. She also served as a church organist. She studied piano from the age of eight.  Meeting her future husband Harold Cabe while summering in Michigan, she moved to Arkansas in 1940. From that time until 1975, she lived in Gurdon but was actively involved in the arts scenes of Arkadelphia and Little Rock.  The couple moved to Little Rock in 1975.  Harold died in 1984.

In 1971 she was one of the original appointees to the state Arts and Humanities Council. For her work with musical and volunteer groups, she was honored as the Arkansas Democrat-Gazette Woman of the Year in 1986. In 1993 she received the Arkansas Arts Council’s Lifetime Achievement Award and the Little Rock Arts and Humanities Ed Hanlin Memorial Award for Outstanding Individual Contribution to the Arts.

Lucy was an honorary life member of the Arkansas Symphony, the Community Theatre of Little Rock and Wildwood Park for the Performing Arts. She was involved in every step of the formation of the Arkansas Opera Theatre, which subsequently evolved into the Wildwood Park. She supported and was honored by Wildwood with the 625-seat Lucy L. Cabe Festival Theatre on the grounds.

In the early 2000s she moved to Dallas to be closer to her family.  She died in 2005.

It is fitting that she be remembered in October, as Halloween was her favorite holiday.  Starting on October 1, the Halloween jewelry, socks and shirts would be donned.

Carl Moneyhon examines emergence of legend of David O. Dodd at tonight’s Evenings With History

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Carl_Moneyhon_smThis year marks the 24th year for the History Institutes’ Evenings with History.  This nationally recognized series has featured a variety of subjects.  The sessions take place at the Ottenheimer Auditorium of Historic Arkansas Museum. Refreshments are served at 7 with the program beginning at 7:30 pm. The cost is $50 for admission to all six programs.

Tonight’s program features Carl Moneyhon speaking on “David O. Dodd: A Legend Emerges.”

One hundred and fifty years ago this year, David O. Dodd, convicted of spying for the Confederacy, was executed outside his old school in Little Rock. In the years that followed, the story of this seventeen-year-old’s death steadily changed, with new and usually undocumented additions. Today it is difficult to separate facts from the legend that has emerged. This talk examines the development of the legend, showing the facts of the story, then the additions. A major focus of the talk is an examination of when and who added to the legend and the purposes that lay behind these alterations.

Friday, Eldredge, & Clark and the Union Pacific Railroad help make these lectures possible. Other sponsors are the Ottenheimer Library, University of Arkansas at Little Rock; Historic Arkansas Museum, a museum of the Department of Arkansas Heritage; UALR Public Radio—KUAR-KLRE; UALR public television; and Grapevine Spirits.