Category Archives: Music

Creative Class of 2015: Stephanie Smittle

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resized_99263-smittle-v_47-16964_t300A few weeks ago, within the space of a few days, Stephanie Smittle went from originating two roles in an opera to singing with a Klezmer band.  This shows not only her versatility, but also the wide range of music offerings in Little Rock.

A lyric soprano, she is a native of Cave Springs and  holds a Bachelor’s of Philosophy degree from Hendrix College. Comfortable in a variety of genres, Smittle composes and performs her original work with the jazz-Americana group “The Smittle Band,” sings with acclaimed metal band Iron Tongue, leads an Arkansas-music-based duo called “Stephen y Stephanie,” and performs traditional Yiddish music with the Meshugga Klezmer Band.  From venues of a few seats to several hundred, there are few stages in Little Rock on which she has not performed.

Smittle’s operatic roles include: Fiordiligi in Mozart’s “Cosi fan tutte” with Opera in the Ozarks, Queen Anne and Queen Elizabeth Woodville in the premiere of Karen Griebling’s “Richard III: A Crown of Roses, A Crown of Thorns,” Second Lady in Mozart’s “Magic Flute” with the Arkansas Symphony Orchestra, performances with Opera in the Rock, as well as summer study in Italy as a scholar with the Oberlin Conservatory. Her oratorio performances include Mahler’s “Das Lied von der Erde,” Rutter’s “Requiem,” and Brahms’ “Ein Deutsches Requiem.”

Kidstock today at CALS Hillary Clinton Children’s Library

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Peace, love, and fun.  The Central Arkansas Library System’s (CALS) Hillary Rodham Clinton Children’s Library & Learning Center, 4800 W. 10th Street, will hold Kidstock on Saturday, October 24, from 2-4:30 p.m.  Kidstock will occur on the grounds of the Children’s Library and will include musical performances, activities, and games.
Music will be provided by Trout Fishing in America and Big Still River.  Activities and games include tree painting, yoga, tug-of- war, bubble stations, farm animals from Dunbar Gardens, and a photo wall.
CALS’ Hillary Rodham Clinton Children’s Library & Learning Center is one of fourteen CALS branches serving Pulaski and Perry counties.  The Children’s Library is open Monday-Thursday from 10 a.m.-7 p.m., Friday and Saturday from 10 a.m.-6 p.m., and Sunday from 1 p.m.-5 p.m.  For more information, call 978-3870 or visit www.cals.org.

 

Pop Up in the Rock today from 11am to 5pm along West 9th from Broadway

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Create Little Rock, the young professionals organization of the Little Rock Regional Chamber of Commerce, and studioMAIN, a collective of design professionals, developers, and contractors, are excited to share developments in the 2015 PopUp in the Rock planning.

This year, PopUp West Ninth will take place Saturday, October 24 from 11am until 5pm. It will span from the Mosaic Templars Cultural Center (MTCC) at Ninth and Broadway to the Dreamland Ballroom at Ninth and State and across the State Street overpass to the campus of Philander Smith. The project will feature a meandering street with the intention of slowing traffic creating a more pedestrian friendly environment, a children’s corner, street musicians and performers, Dreamland Ballroom tours and a PopUp Goodfellas barber shop.

Local food trucks, vendors and entertainment have also been secured including Solfood Catering and Brown Sugar Bake Shop, local food trucks Loblolly, The Beast, Southern Gourmasian, Banana Leaf, Blackhound BBQ, Katmandu Momo as well as the Lost Forty beer garden.  There will be PopUp shopping featuring Mimi Mwafrika designs and Tribal Collections. Great local musicians such as Lucious Spiller and the Arkansas Baptist Choir among several others will perform throughout the day.

PopUp in the Rock began generating community feedback for PopUp West Ninth at the 2014 Juneteenth Celebration of Freedom hosted by Mosaic Templars Cultural Center, Arkansas’s museum of African American history and culture.  Once known as “The Line,” Ninth Street was a bustling east-west thoroughfare with a trolley line. It was a bustling community with a thriving urban fabric of mixed-use development that was largely black-owned.

Booker T. Washington spoke at Ninth and Broadway in 1913. Miles Davis, Ella Fitzgerald, Louis Armstrong and others performed at the Dreamland Ballroom and other jazz clubs along Ninth. Daisy and L.C. Bates operated their Arkansas State Press there, and, from the present location of MTCC, the Mosaic Templars operated a politically and financially influential headquarters. The campus of Philander Smith once spanned north to West Ninth before Interstate 630 divided the district. One goal of PopUp West Ninth is to encourage pedestrian and bicycle traffic between Philander Smith and West Ninth Street via the South State Street overpass, thereby bridging the gap that originally tore apart the neighborhood. Utilizing community feedback and knowledge of the deep historical roots of West Ninth, PopUp in the Rock hopes to demonstrate the district’s potential for an equally vibrant future.

 

Elvis Lives in Central Arkansas this weekend

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Celebrity Attractions, in association with On Stage Touring and Elvis Presley Enterprises, Inc. (EPE), is presents ELVIS LIVES at the Maumelle Performing Arts Center October 23-25, 2015.  ELVIS LIVES, is a multi-media and live musical journey across Elvis’ life featuring winners from Elvis Presley Enterprises’ annual worldwide Ultimate Elvis Tribute Artist Contest, each representing Elvis during different stages in his career.

The Elvis tribute artists will be joined by a live band, back-up singers and dancers, along with an Ann-Margret tribute artist, as well as iconic imagery made available from the Graceland archives.  The high energy show features Ultimate winners, Bill Cherry, Kevin Mills and Jay Dupuis as the principle cast for the production of ELVIS LIVES.

Welcomed by Hutchinson Financial, ELVIS LIVES will take the stage at the Maumelle Performing Arts Center October 23-25.  Celebrity Attractions’ 2015-2016 Broadway Season is held at the Maumelle Performing Arts Center, located on the campus of Maumelle High School.  The performance schedule is Friday at 8 pm, Saturday at 2 pm and 8 pm, and Sunday at 2 pm.

Tickets are priced $35, $55, and $65.  Tickets are available by phone at (501) 244-8800 or (800) 982-ARTS (2787) or online at http://www.ticketmaster.com. Discounts are available for groups of 10 or more by calling (501) 492-3312.

Creative Class of 2015: Jessica Sabin

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Jessica sabinThough she doesn’t appear on stage much anymore as an actor or dancer, Jessica Deloach Sabin is still very much a participant in cultural life.

As the newly appointed executive director of Arts Advocates Arkansas, she is working to be an arts advocate for every county in Arkansas. Among her focuses are the implementation of new state standards for arts education, developing a legislative arts caucus among  elected officials, and creating partnerships statewide and nationwide to ensure the arts and creative economy continue to grow and flourish in Arkansas.

She is also an active supporter of Historic Arkansas Museum and is busy working on their upcoming Candlelight Gala, which also celebrates HAM’s 75th anniversary.

While at UALR, she was a W.K. Kellogg Foundation NextGen Scholar and a Friday Sturgis Scholar, and earned a triple major in Political Science, Theater Arts and Liberal Studies from the University of Arkansas at Little Rock, where she served as vice president of the student body.  She was also a member of the UALR Martin Luther King, Jr. Academy and as a Chancellor’s Leadership Corps Scholar and Ambassador. She also earned her certification in Philanthropy and Voluntary Service from Georgetown University in 2006. As a current member of Class X at the Clinton School of Public Service, she spent her summer in Italy working on a service project.

A graduate of El Dorado High School, she now makes her home in Little Rock with her husband, State Representative Warwick Sabin.

And then there were Two – Finalists for next CALS Director announced

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calsThe Transition/Selection Committee of the Central Arkansas Library System (CALS) has recommended the CALS Board of Trustees consider two candidates, Nate Coulter and Haley Lagasse, both of Little Rock, as the final candidates for the position of director.

The next director will succeed longtime director Dr. Bobby Roberts.

There will be a reception in mid-November open to anyone interested in meeting the finalists. An announcement of the new director will be made following the Board of Trustees meeting on Thursday, December 10, at noon at Hillcrest Hall, 1501 Kavanaugh Blvd.

Leo “Bud” Welch with Jimbo Mathus at South on Main tonight

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Leo Bud Welch with Guest Jimbo Mathus [Archetypes & Troubadours Series]Tonight at 7:30 PM, the Oxford American magazine brings Leo Bud Welch to the South on Main stage as part of the Archetypes & Troubadours Series. Welch is welcomed by the Esse Pure Museum. Doors open at 5:30 PM, with dinner and drinks available for purchase at that time. This series is made possible in part by the generosity of The Summer Foundation. Single tickets are still available, but going fast.

Welch is joined tonight by Jimbo Mathus.

Leo “Bud” Welch was born in Sabougla, Mississippi in 1932, and he picked up a guitar for the first time in 1945. By 1947 at age fifteen, Bud could play well enough to perform publically and garnered the blessing of many elder guitar players. He was offered an audition by B.B. King but could not afford the trip to Memphis. Bud played the blues continuously until 1975, when he converted to playing mostly gospel with the Sabougla Voices, which consisted of his sister and a sister-in-law. He also played with the Skuna Valley Male Chorus. Bud earned his living by carrying a chain saw up and down the hills and hollows of North Mississippi, logging for thirty-five years.

Leo Bud Welch does not believe that blues is the Devil’s music, but rather they’re a way of expressing the highs and lows of one’s life through song. He has played his guitar for close family and friends for the past sixty-five years and has remained under the radar, undetected by the vast majority of Blues Aficionados. Welch’s debut album, Sabougla Voices, was released January 7, 2014, just two months before his 82nd birthday.

Jimbo Mathus was born and raised in Clarksdale, Mississippi, where he often spent time listening to blues music in the Mississippi Delta. “I break down walls and stereotypes with my music,” says Mathus, “I confuse people. I use Mississippi Music, which is renegade music at heart, as my inspiration and motivation…” He excels as a songwriter, a producer, a recording artist, and at spreading the gospel of Mississippi Music in concert. “I like to let the shows be the test and keep the boogie going thirty minutes if needs be,” Mathus says. “If everybody is grooving on something why bother and stop it?”

Mathus can regularly be found performing at the world-famous Ground Zero Blues Club, which is co-owned by fellow Clarksdale resident Morgan Freeman, who co-produced Mathus’ 2004 live album Jimbo & Friends at Ground Zero Blues Club. Mathus is a continuation of the storied music history of Clarksdale and of Mississippi, when all is said and done. His current band, The Tri-State Coalition, features solid talent cut from the same Delta cloth: Tri-State bassist Justin Showah and keyboardist Eric Carlton are also from Mississippi. Guitarist Matt Pierce hails from Arkansas. Missouri native and drummer Austin Marshall rounds out the group, whose sound, Mathus describes as “inner-planetary honky-tonk. Basically I’m using a lot more of white country, folk, and southern rock influences. It’s a great Southern band that is versatile to the extreme.”