Category Archives: Arts & Humanities Month

Artober – Music. The sounds of the Arkansas Symphony Orchestra

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Little Rock has a thriving music scene from jazz to blues to r&b to rock to soul to gospel to, well, you name it.

For over 50 years, the Arkansas Symphony Orchestra has been playing a pivotal role in that scene.  While they play programs that are largely classical music, they also incorporate many different styles of music into their offerings.  Last night, they played a concert with Tony and Grammy winner Heather Headley which spanned numerous musical genres.  The ASO is led by Interim Music Director Geoffrey Robson and Executive Director Christina Littlejohn.

Incorporated in 1966, the ASO now performs more than 60 concerts per season, which includes the Masterworks and Pops Concerts. In addition, the orchestra has a Chamber Series, River Rhapsodies, at the Clinton Presidential Center, ASO, I.N.C.: Intimate Neighborhood Concerts, and a busy schedule of statewide touring and educational performances in numerous venues, along with collaborations with Ballet Arkansas and the Arkansas Repertory Theatre. Integral to the ASO’s activities are its resident string quartets, the Rockefeller and Quapaw Quartet; The ASO Brass Quintet, ASO Big Band, and the Arkansas Symphony Youth Ensembles, which comprises two string-only ensembles and two full orchestras. Through ASO education programs over 40,000 children each year experience the magic of music.

Distinguished guest artists including Bill Clinton, Itzhak Perlman, Yo Yo Ma, Mignon Dunn, Marilyn Horn, Andre Watts, Maureen McGovern, Bernadette Peters, Maya Angelou, and Doc Severinsen, among others, have appeared in concert with the orchestra in Arkansas.

Comprised of the state’s most sought after professional musicians, the Arkansas Symphony Orchestra is heard by more than 165,000 Arkansans each year, and consistently plays to high critical praise.

Artober – Past, Present, Future

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October is Arts and Humanities Month nationally and in Little Rock. Americans for the Arts has identified a different arts topic to be posted for each day in the month. Today looks at “Past, Present, Future.”

In keeping with that, today features images of the original 1937 Museum of Fine Arts, the 1963 version of the Arkansas Arts Center (the successor to the previous museum), the 2000 edition of the AAC, and the 2022 future look of the building.

The first building faced north onto 9th street.

The second building shifted the focus of the building. It faced south into MacArthur Park with the original entrance now being covered and part of the back of the building.

By 2000, the entrance had shifted to the west facing Commerce Street (though the 1963 entrance remained as a convenient entry for the Children’s Theatre and Museum School.

Finally, in 2022, the main entrance will return to the newly uncovered 1937 facade on the north.  It will be situated inside a courtyard framed by the new two story cultural living room at the historic crescent drive inside MacArthur Park. Standing in the center of the courtyard, in front of the historic facade will be Henry Moore’s Standing Figure Knife Edge (Large).  Studio Gang is the lead architect for this project with SCAPE serving as landscape architect.  Polk Stanley Wilcox is the associate architect.

Artober – Art I Can’t Live Without

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October is Arts and Humanities Month nationally and in Little Rock. Americans for the Arts has identified a different arts topic to be posted for each day in the month.  Starting off is Art I Can’t Live Without.

For me, it is Diego Rivera’s DOS MUJERES, or PORTRAIT OF TWO WOMEN.

Painted in 1914, it is part of the permanent collection of the Arkansas Arts Center.  This oil on canvas, which stands six and a half feet tall and five and a half feet wide, is a portrait of Angelina Beloff and Maria Dolores Bastian.

Influenced by cubists such as Picasso, Rivera adopted fracturing of form, use of multiple perspective points, and flattening of the picture plane.  Yet his take on this style of painting is distinctive.  He uses brighter colors and a larger scale than many early cubist pictures. Rivera also features highly textured surfaces executed in a variety of techniques.

The painting was a gift to the Arkansas Arts Center by Abby Rockefeller Mauzé, sister of Arkansas Governor Winthrop Rockefeller.

Little Rock Culture Vulture Blog Hits a Milestone

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Founded in October 2011, the Little Rock Culture Vulture blog passed a milestone today. It has had over 300,000 views during that 7 years and one month.  Considering that it averaged about 10 views a day during the first three months, this accomplishment is a moment to brag.

When it was started, I was unsure if anyone would care. This entry is the 3,874th post on the blog.  Over 10,400 organizations, people, events, pieces of art and works of literature, or historical facts have been featured.

To all the readers and those who post about it on social media, let me say “Thank you!”