Block, Beer, & Bourbon (and Burgundy) tonight to support KUAR and KLRE

The Friends of KLRE/KUAR are hosting the 2020 edition of Block, Beer & Bourbon (and Burgundy!), Saturday, January 11th, at the Albert Pike Masonic Center, 712 Scott Street in Little Rock. VIP Reception – 6:00 – 7:00 pm Main Event – 7:00 – 9:30 pm

Guests will enjoy tastings of carefully selected beers, bourbons, and Burgundy wine from O’Looney’s Wine and Liquor, cocktail buffet from the Pantry, and fabulous tunes from the Rodney Block Collective.

This year, take home your own commemorative tasting glass! VIP tickets will include access to exclusive tastes of rare bourbon, beer, and wine at the pre-party reception.

Nathan Laube is featured in first 2020 CACAGO organ concert

Tonight at 8pm, Nathan Laube will present an organ concert at Christ Episcopal Church.  It is presented by the Central Arkansas Chapter of the American Guild of Organists.

Nathan Laube is a leading performer and pedagogue who is beloved around the world. His extensive recital career includes major venues spanning four continents, with appearances at the Vienna Konzerthaus, Berlin Cathedral, and the Sejong Center, Seoul. Highlight performances in the USA include Walt Disney Concert Hall, Los Angeles; The Meyerson Symphony Center, Dallas TX; Washington National Cathedral; Kauffman Center’s Helzberg Hall in Kansas City, MO; and Spivey Hall in Morrow, GA. His recent appearances have included the first inaugural recital of the restored Harrison & Harrison organ of King’s College Chapel, Cambridge, as well as performances at Notre-Dame Cathedral in Paris, and St. Paul’s Cathedral in London.

He has two CD recordings available: the Stephen Paulus Grand Concerto on the Naxos label recorded with the Nashville Symphony, Giancarlo Guerrero, conducting, for which the Nashville Symphony received a GRAMMY Award for Best Classical Compendium; and a more-recent solo recital recording on the Ambiente label recorded at the Stadtkirche in Nagold, Germany.

An Associate Professor of Organ on the faculty of the Eastman School of Music in Rochester, New York, and International Consultant in Organ Studies at the Royal Birmingham Conservatoire, UK, Nathan is frequently asked to teach master classes and workshops in connection with his concerts, and often serves on the faculty for Pipe Organ Encounters in the USA—clinics presented by The American Guild of Organists designed to introduce young keyboardists to the pipe organ and its vast repertoire. He has also taught at the Oberlin Summer Organ Academy in Ohio and at the Kimmel Center for the Performing Arts Summer Organ Academy in Philadelphia, and regularly presents masterclasses in the United States and in Europe.

#2FAN at The Bookstore at Library Square – DebiLynn Fendley plus ASO

No photo description available.The Bookstore at Library Square is proud to present the 2nd Friday Art Night reception for “Circus of Imaginings” by Arkansas artist DebiLynn Fendley at this free monthly event #2FAN

DebiLynn Fendley works within cultural subgroups to produce both documentary and conceptual realism pieces in photography, printmaking, drawing, and painting. As a visual storyteller, she pushes the boundaries between fantasy and reality and strives to make work that crosses boundaries between subgroups and mainstream norms. She is a founding member of and active exhibitor with the Arkansas Society of Printmakers and holds membership in the Southern Graphics Council, Audubon Artists Society, Allied Artists of America, and Professional Photographers of America.

She has been published in multiple national publications on photography, printmaking, and painting, including works from North Light Books, and recently completed her first IMBd credit as still photographer on the film Ride Hard, Live Free. This show can be viewed Monday-Saturday 9am-5pm until it’s closing February 6th, 2020.

In addition, members of the Arkansas Symphony Orchestra’s Quapaw String Quartet will be hosting an instrument petting zoo in the Bookstore at Library Square during the 2nd Friday Art Night festivities. Come play with an instrument and meet a musician leading up to the ASO’s January Masterworks concert!

Join the Bookstore at Library Square on the 2nd Friday of every month for 2FAN (2nd Friday Art Night) a free downtown art gallery walkabout in the River Market District from 5-8pm with light refreshments, art show, and bookstore shopping.

#2FAN at Christ Church – Opening of Baxter Knowlton exhibit “Arkansas Figures”

Image may contain: 1 personThe first 2nd Friday Art Night of 2020 also features an event at Christ Church downtown at 509 Scott Street.

Baxter Knowlton has painted hundreds of commissioned portraits for people all across the country. Come see his latest show: Arkansas Figures. The paintings in this show are portraits of only a few of the Arkansans he admires.

Bonus: there will be eats, drinks, and Isaac Alexander will be spinning tunes.

The exhibit will continue through March 31.  The artwork is available for purchase.

#2FAN at Old State House Museum – Brae Leni in concert tonight

Image may contain: 3 people, people smiling, people on stage, night and indoor

Join the Old State House Museum for another round of excitement at the monthly 2nd Friday Art Night!  2020 kicks off with a concert.

Inspired by Motown, Arkansas native Brae Leni will share his soul sound at the Old State House Museum for the first #2ndFridayLR of the year. For an extra special twist, Brae Leni and The Blackout is adding a horn section for the evening!

2nd Friday Art Night is downtown Little Rock’s monthly after-hours art and culture event. Attendance is free, and a trolley will take you between different participating venues for free. The museum also serves free snacks and beverages.

2FAN at HAM – Vice and Virtue tonight at Historic Arkansas Museum

Join Historic Arkansas Museum in 2020 for another great year of 2FAN!

For the first 2FAN of the year, they’ll hold the opening reception for Vice and Virtue, an exhibit by Melissa Wilkinson. Providing the musical entertainment for the evening is Little Rock’s The Cons of Formant.

Beverages and appetizers will be served in the Stella Boyle Smith Atrium including Arkansas-made beer from Stone’s Throw Brewing.

2nd Friday Art Night is sponsored by the Historic Arkansas Museum Foundation, with special thanks to 107 Liquor. The exhibit and reception are free and open to the public.

Vice and Virtue
Second Floor Gallery
January 10 – April 5, 2020

Melissa Wilkinson uses the traditional processes of painting to meditate on issues of gender, identity construction, and beauty by embracing the tactile in an increasingly technological and dehumanizing time. Her works embrace dichotomies, such as obscuring and revealing, attraction and repulsion, good and evil, the past and the present, and masculine and feminine. Vice and Virtue consists of appropriated images sourced from disco, private Tumblr accounts, and late 70’s/early 80’s “tomboys” who informed Wilkinson’s identity and sense of self as a queer person. Wilkinson’s meticulously crafted watercolor and ink wash paintings straddle the line between abstraction and representation and invite the viewer to consider how gender is perceived and displayed.

Melissa Wilkinson received her BFA in painting from Western Illinois University in 2002 and her MFA in painting from Southern Illinois University in 2006. She serves as Associate Professor of Art-Painting at Arkansas State University in Jonesboro. She lives in the Memphis, TN area.