Category Archives: Music

William Trafka presents organ concert tonight

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The Central Arkansas Chapter of the American Guild of Organists presents William K. Trafka in concert tonight.  The program starts at 8pm at Trinity Episcopal, 310 West 17th Street.

From 1995-2018, William K. Trafka was the Director of Music and Organist at St. Bartholomew’s Church, having served as Associate Organist beginning in 1985. At St. Bartholomew’s, he directed music for three diverse services each Sunday and oversaw a choral program which included a professional choir, a volunteer choir and an extensive program for boy and girl choristers. He has directed St. Bartholomew’s Summer Festival of Sacred Music.

He was the Artistic Director of the Mid-Manhattan Performing Arts Foundation, a corporation presenting Great Music at St. Bart’s, a concert series, which included performances by St. Bartholomew’s Choir and Boy and Girl Choristers as well as a host of guest artists and ensembles, which included Jessye Norman, Sylvia McNair, Betty Buckley and the Empire Brass. At St. Bartholomew’s, he conducted the premieres of works by such notable composers as James MacMillan, David Conte and Ēriks Ešenvalds.

He is a magna cum lauda graduate of the Eastman School of Music in Rochester, NY, where he was a student of David Craighead and was awarded the Performer’s Certificate in organ performance. As a recitalist, he has performed on concert series throughout the US, Europe and Central America. Recently, he served as Adjunct Professor of Sacred Music at Westminster Choir College in Princeton, NJ. As a composer, he has had works performed by St. Bartholomew’s Choir, The Washington Bach Consort, The National Cathedral Choral Society and Cerddorian.

His recording credits include several collaborations with the American Boychoir on the Angel and MusicMasters labels and with the Brass of the English Chamber Orchestra on the RCA label. Additionally, he has conducted St. Bartholomew’s Choir on three recordings on the Ethereal label. He also can be heard playing works of Leo Sowerby at St. Bartholomew’s on a 4-CD set entitled Great Organs of New York on the B&V label. His CD, entitled The Symphonic Organ, which includes his transcription of Mussorgsky’s Pictures at an Exhibition, was released on the Pro Organo label and has been critically acclaimed by such publications as the American Record Guide, The Diapason and The Living Church.

He presently serves as the Director of Music and Organist for Christ Church in Ridgewood, NJ, where he was appointed in November of 2018.

Tonight – OXFORD AMERICAN welcomes Joan Shelley to South on Main Stage with Nathan Salsburg as opening act

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An Evening with Joan Shelley and Nathan Salsburg

The Oxford American welcomes Joan Shelley to the South on Main stage! This is a special addition to the 2018-19 Concert Series, with special opening act Nathan Salsburg. Doors open tonight (February 28) at 5:00 PM, with dinner and drinks available for purchase at that time.

Tickets are $20 (General Admission), $26 (Reserved), and $28 (Premium Reserved). Please take a look at this important ticketing and seating information before purchasing your tickets (view reserved seating chart).

The stunning, self-titled fourth album from the Kentucky singer, songwriter, and guitarist Joan Shelley began, surprisingly, with a fiddle.

“Turns out, I wasn’t very good at fiddle,” remembers Shelley, chuckling. “But I took that idea back to the guitar and tried that same method. I did it as a game to make these songs, a way to find another access point.”

It’s fitting that the set is self-titled. These are, after all, Shelley’s most assured and complete thoughts to date, with lyrics as subtle and sensitive as her peerless voice and a band that offers support through restraint and nuance. In eleven songs, this is the sound of Joan Shelley emerging as one of music’s most expressive emotional syndicates.

Shelley’s music has never been experimental, at least in some bleeding- edge sense of the word. And she’s comfortable with that, proud of the fact that her simple songs are attempts to express complex emotion and address difficult question about life, love, lust, and existence itself. But in their own personal way, these songs are experimental and risky, built with methods that pushed Shelley out of the comfort zone she’s established on a string of records defined by a mesmerizing sort of grace and clarity.

“I don’t have a concept, and I don’t know the meaning until much later. Whatever I am soaking up or absorbing from the world, there will be songs that reflect all those thoughts,” Shelley says. “I keep my songwriting alive and sustainable by trying to be honest about how it came out—these are all its jagged edges, and that’s what it is to be human.”

Johnny Cash’s Birthday

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Cleveland County, Arkansas, native Johnny Cash was the subject of the Oscar winning film Walk the Line.  Although he never lived in Little Rock, he was a frequent visitor throughout his career.

Born on February 26, 1932, in Kingsland, Arkansas, as a young boy he moved with his family to Dyess.  After service in the military (in which he also had his first band), Cash moved to Memphis. It was there he broke into the music scene.

Among the venues Cash played in Little Rock were Barton Coliseum and Wildwood Park for the Arts.  On more than one occasion, he shared the stage with his friend and fellow Arkansan Glen Campbell.   The largest crowd for which Cash performed in Little Rock was in 1989, when he appeared at a Billy Graham crusade at War Memorial Stadium.

He is a character in the musical Million Dollar Quartet which the Arkansas Rep is producing later in 2019.

Art of the String Quartet featuring ASO musicians tonight at the Clinton Center

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The Arkansas Symphony Orchestra, Philip Mann, Music Director and Conductor, presents the fourth concert of the 2018-2019 River Rhapsodies Chamber Music season with The Art of the String Quartet, Tuesday, Feb. 26th at 7:00 p.m. at the Clinton Presidential Center.

ASO’s resident string quartets, Rockefeller String Quartet and Quapaw String Quartet, will perform Janáček’s “Kreutzer Sonata,” Mozart’s String Quartet No. 12, along with Puccini and Verdi’s string quartets.

Arkansas Symphony Orchestra’s Quapaw String Quartet was founded in 1980 as the ASO resident string quartet. Responding to what was clearly a statewide need, the ASO and Winthrop Rockefeller Foundation began a partnership in 2000 to form the Rockefeller String Quartet. The quartets have developed a reputation for providing quality school programming, as well as performing statewide as a chamber ensemble and with the Arkansas Symphony. The quartets’ primary responsibilities include string education and outreach throughout the state reaching more than 26,000 Arkansas school children each year.

River Rhapsodies Chamber Music Concerts are held in the intimate setting of the Clinton Presidential Center’s Great Hall. A cash bar is open before the concert and at intermission, and patrons are invited to carry drinks into the concert. The Media Sponsor for the River Rhapsodies Chamber Music Series is UA Little Rock Public Radio.

General Admission tickets are $23; active duty military and student tickets are $10 and can be purchased online at www.ArkansasSymphony.org; at the Clinton Presidential Center beginning 60 minutes prior to a concert; or by phone at 501-666-1761, ext. 1.

 

Artists

Quapaw String Quartet

  •   Meredith Maddox Hicks, violin
  •   Charlotte Crosmer, violin
  •   Ryan Mooney, viola
  •   David Gerstein, cello

Rockefeller String Quartet

  •   Trisha McGovern Freeney, violin
  •   Katherine Williamson, violin
  •   Katherine Reynolds, viola
  •   Ethan Young, cello

Program
MOZART – String Quartet No. 12 in B-flat Major, K. 172 (Rockefeller)
JANÁČEK  – String Quartet No. 1, “Kreutzer Sonata” (Quapaw)
PUCCINI – String Quartet in D Major (Quapaw)
VERDI – String Quartet (Rockefeller)

Explore “River of Change” with Parkview High School students today at 3pm at Clinton Presidential Center

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Each year, the Clinton Center celebrates Black History Month with a historically-rooted performance by the drama, choir, and orchestra students from Parkview Arts and Science Magnet High School.

This afternoon (February 24), Parkview students present “River of Change,” inspired by The Mighty Mississippi, and written by Parkview student, Cooper Sikes.

The program will begin at 3pm in the Clinton Center Great Hall.

The theme of River of Change follows the focus of FUSION 2019: Arts+Humanities Arkansas by focusing on the Mississippi River.

ODE TO JOY and Spoken Word winners presented by Arkansas Symphony Orchestra this weekend

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The Arkansas Symphony Orchestra and Music Director and Conductor Philip Mann present the fourth concert of the 2018-2019 Stella Boyle Smith Masterworks season, Beethoven’s 9th: Ode to Joy on Saturday, February 23rd and Sunday, February 24th at the Robinson Center.

The concerts begin at 7:30 p.m. on Saturday, and 3:00 p.m. on Sunday. The program opens with a spoken word performance presented in partnership with the Central Arkansas Library System. After the spoken word segment, more than 300 singers from eight Arkansas collegiate and professional choirs will take the stage with ASO for Beethoven’s Symphony No. 9, which also features vocal soloists soprano Maria Fasciano, mezzo soprano Christin-Marie Hill, tenor Vernon Di Carlo, and bass Adam Cioffari.

All concert ticket holders are also invited to Concert Conversations, a pre-concert talk one hour before each Masterworks concert in the Upper Tier Lobby of the Robinson Center. These talks feature insights from the Maestro and guest artists, and feature musical examples to enrich the concert experience.

Tickets are $16, $36, $57 and $68; active duty military and student tickets are $10 and can be purchased online at www.ArkansasSymphony.org; at the Robinson Center street-level box office beginning 90 minutes prior to a concert; or by phone at 501-666-1761, ext. 100. All Arkansas students grades K-12 are admitted to Sunday’s matinee free of charge with the purchase of an adult ticket using the Entergy Kids’ Ticket, downloadable at https://www.arkansassymphony.org/freekids.

Philip Mann, conductor

Spoken Word Performers
Osyrus Bolly
Brooke Elliott
Rosslyn Elliott
Red Hawk
Kristy Ikanih
Jamee McAdoo
Dariane LyJoi Mull
Marvin Schwartz

Beethoven Soloists 
Maria Fasciano, soprano
Christin-Marie Hill, mezzo soprano
Vernon Di Carlo, tenor
Adam Cioffari, bass

Arkansas Intercollegiate and Professional Chorus
Arkansas Chamber Singers, John Erwin, director
Arkansas State University, Cherie Collins, director
Harding University, Cliff Ganus, director
Lyon College, Michael Oriatti, director
Ouachita Baptist University, Gary Gerber, director
Southern Arkansas University Magnolia, David DeSeguirant, director
University of Arkansas at Pine Bluff, Jerron Liddell, director
University of Central Arkansas, John Erwin, director

Program
VARIOUS – Spoken Word Performances
BEETHOVEN – Symphony No. 9 in D minor, Op. 125

“An American In….” is theme of LR Winds Concert tonight

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Izzy in ParisFor this late winter concert, Little Rock Winds presents “An American In …”, a program that paints musical visits to fun places. The concert begins at 7:30 pm at Second Presbyterian Church.

The LR Winds are under the direction of Israel Getzov, Music Director.

PROGRAM

•  David Maslanka:  On This Bright Morning
•  Ralph Ford:  Go West!
•  Michael Daugherty:  Brooklyn Bridge Clarinet Concerto, mvt. 3 & 4
•  Alfred Reed:  Alleluia! Laudamus Te   (In memory of Elizabeth Plowman)
•  Chris Sharp: An American Spectacular 
•  George Gershwin: An American in Paris
•  Henry Fillmore: Americans We

LETTER SWEATER NIGHT!
Hunt down your high school band letter sweater or jacket and wear (or bring) to the concert for a fun photo op and story session!

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