Category Archives: Music

Scenes from new opera on Richard III to premiere on Saturday, August 22

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R3 OperaScenes from a new opera will premiere on Saturday evening in downtown Little Rock.  Composer Karen Griebling’s third opera Richard III: A Crown of Roses, a Crown of Thorns will be performed at 7:30pm at Christ Episcopal Church.

The performance will take place on the 530th anniversary of the Battle of Bosworth Field.  The scenes will be under the direction of conductor Geoffrey Robson. Timothy Allen is the répétiteur.

The cast features: Matthew K. Tatus, tenor, as Richard III and Kara Claybrook, soprano as Princess Elizabeth of York.  Other roles are performed by sopranos Jaimee Nicole Jensen and Arlene Barkley Biebesheimer; lyric soprano Stephanie Smittle; mezzo soprano Hannah Smashey; tenors Chase H. Burns and Daniel Foltz-Morrison; baritones Ronald McDaniel II, Robert Holden, Andrew Morgan and Jerry Biebesheimer; bass/baritone Phillip J. Murray; and bass George Mayo.

In addition to writing operas, Griebling is a violist with the Arkansas Symphony Orchestra and the Cross Town Trio, and Professor of Music at Hendrix College, Griebling founded and conducts the Hendrix College Chamber Orchestra and teaches music theory, composition, and world music.  She earned her Doctor of Musical Arts degree from the University of Texas. http://www.karengriebling-composer.info

Guido Ritchie and Steve Hudelson at Local Live tonight

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llsom s gTonight at 7:30pm at is this week’s installment of Local Live concert series at South on Main.  The artists tonight are Guido Ritchie and Steve Hudelson!

Presented by the Oxford American magazine, Local Live showcases the best of local and regional music talent and is always free and open to the public. Call ahead to South on Main to make your reservations and ensure a table: (501) 244-9660. Local Live is made possible by the generous sponsorship of Ben and Jane Hunt Meade.

Guido Ritchie and Steve Hudelson have been performing together as a duo for over twenty years, presenting some the finest jazz Arkansas has to offer. They first began playing together in the early 90’s where they were both music majors at UALR. Hundreds of gigs in restaurants, private parties, and concert stages later, Ritchie and Hudelson have honed their unique trumpet and guitar pairing into a beautiful and exiting sound. Recently, both musicians were added to the Arkansas Art Council’s Arts on Tour roster.

Arts Abound Tonight at 2nd Friday Art Night

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2FAN logo Font sm22nd Friday Art Night proves there is a cure for the Summertime Blues.  It offers visual art, music, food and drink!  You can eat, drink, learn, appreciate, and be merry!

At Historic Arkansas Museum from 5 to 8 pm there will be a free opening reception for two new exhibits: Katherine Rutter & Ginny Sims in the Trinity Gallery for Arkansas Artists and PopUp in the Rock: The Exhibit in the Second Floor Gallery. Enjoy live music by John Willis and the Late Romantics and #ArkansasMade brews from Moody Brews. Delicious appetizers provided by Boulevard Bread.

Down the street, the Old State House Museum will be offering musical performances by traditional folk artists Mockingbird from 5-8 p.m. The Old State House Museum will be open for self-guided tours and Mockingbird will play in the acoustically-rich 1836 Arkansas House of Representatives chamber. The room is one of the most historically significant rooms in the state, and this is a fun way for you and your family to see and experience it.

A few blocks south, Christ Church will be featuring the works of John and Judy Shantz Honey and their exhibit “Reflections on Abstraction.”

  • John Honey is a member of Mid-Southern Watercolorists and Arkansas League of Artists. He has studied the use of water-based mediums and collage under several nationally recognized artists. He is constantly challenged to find a different approach for including the elements of design in his paintings. He favors abstraction over realism as a means of expression. John’s work has been seen in juried exhibitions at the Arkansas Art Center.
  • Judy Shantz Honey enjoyed an interest in art as a child, and this interest continued through her studies at the University of Arkansas in Fayetteville and in the Museum School at the Arkansas Arts Center. She has also studied with nationally recognized art instructors in art workshops around the United States and in Mexico.  Watercolor, acrylic, and collage are her primary mediums, with work on paper and on canvas. She is a member of Mid-Southern Watercolorists, the Arkansas League of Artists and the Arkansas Arts Council.

 

Tonight’s Oxford American Local Live at South on Main features MellowDee Groove

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llsom mellTonight at South on Main at 7:30 PM, this week’s installment of the Local Live concert series features MellowDee Groove presented by the Oxford American magazine.

Local Live showcases the best of local and regional music talent and is always free and open to the public. Call ahead to South on Main to make your reservations and ensure a table: (501) 244-9660. Local Live is made possible by the generous sponsorship of Ben and Jane Hunt Meade.

MellowDee Groove is a Little Rock band that’s been together for two years. They play original neo-soul music infused with rhythm and blues and a touch of funk. The group is fronted by Debra Bell-Willis with backing vocals by Pamela Bailey, Jamaal Lee (drums), Cloyd Willis (bass), Lucas Murray (guitar), Brian Austin (guitar), and Gavin Hawkins (keys).

The John Bush Quintet play at the Ron Robinson Theater tonight as part of Arkansas Sounds

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john_bushTonight at 7pm at the Ron Robinson Theater, saxophonist John Bush and his quintet will play vocal and instrumental jazz favorites.  Seating is General Admission, and tickets are $10.

Jazz saxophonist John Bush’s musical upbringing occurred in Little Rock in the late 1950s and early 1960s, along with jazz enthusiasts John Stubblefield, James Leary, and Claudine Meyers. While Bush’s contemporaries pursued professional careers playing jazz music, he took another direction in that he came back to music later in life.

His aspiration is to uphold the original edict that drove all of the players he grew up with, as well as recognize the same Arkansas jazz traditions and honor the paths taken by musicians like The Original Yellow Jackets, Louis Jordan, Al Hibbler, and Pharaoh Sanders.

Bush is dedicated to playing in the same spirit of those who helped lay the foundations for this rich and beloved genre. The John Bush Quintet includes vocalist Kelley Hurt, bassist Bill Huntington, keyboardist Chris Parker, and drummer Bryan Withers.

Arkansas Sounds is a project of the Butler Center for Arkansas Studies, a department of the Central Arkansas Library System. Focused on Arkansas music and musicians both past and present, Arkansas Sounds presents concerts, workshops, and other events to showcase Arkansas’s musical culture.

Tonight’s Oxford American Local Live at South on Main features Katmandu

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llsom katmanduTonight at 7:30pm, join the Oxford American magazine for this week’s Local Live concert at South on Main, featuring Katmandu!

As always, Local Live is free and open to the public. To guarantee a table/seat for this popular series, call ahead at (501) 244-9660. Local Live is made possible by the generous sponsorship of the Ben and Jane Hunt Meade.

Katmandu is primarily a classic rock band based out of Central Arkansas. All band members have been playing together in various bands off and on for several years including the Resistors, Idol hands, and Thumpin. Band members include Kat Hood on lead vocals and guitar, Chuck Gilbert lead guitar and vocals, Paul Edmonson on drums and vocals, Billy Hoover on keyboard and vocals, David Seago on bass guitar and Vince Castiglia III on vocals and guitar. Kat and Chuck met in 2001 and began the acoustic duo that later became the Kat Hood Trio w/ Eric Nolen. The trio were the 2002 Central Arkansas Acoustic festival and their 2004 performance still can be seen on AETN’s Front Row.

In 2009, a mutual desire to play classic rock tunes with Chuck’s former band mate, Paul Edmonson, inspired the beginnings of Katmandu. Their slogan, “Music for you that works for us” came from their vision of performing a variety of well loved, but not over played tunes by such artists as Steely Dan, Eric Clapton, Bonnie Raitt, Allman brothers, Fleetwood Mac, the Band, etc. Their repertoire also includes some interesting original band compositions that stem from the acoustic flavor that the duo started out with. Expect to hear some tight vocal harmonies backed by solid, in-the-pocket percussion, creative guitar and piano leads, and a band that truly loves each other as well as the music they obviously love to perform.

Little Rock Look Back: Louis Armstrong

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SatchmoLouis Armstrong was born on August 4, 1901 in New Orleans.  As he rose to fame, he would play Little Rock numerous times in a variety of venues.

As the Civil Rights movement started taking hold in the mid-1950s, many African American entertainers were vocal in their support.  Armstrong stayed silent.  Until, that is, September 17, 1957.  That night, in Grand Forks, North Dakota, he blasted President Dwight Eisenhower for his lack of action to make Governor Orval Faubus obey the law.  This was in an interview conducted by a 21 year old University of North Dakota journalism student named Larry Lubenow.

Journalist David Margolick wrote about the incident in The New York Times in September 2007 in conjunction with the 50th anniversary of the integration of Little Rock Central High School.  He recounted how the story, written for the Grand Forks Herald, was picked up all over the country.  The entire Margolick piece can be read here.  Margolick tells that when Armstrong was given the chance to back off the comments, he asserted that he meant all of it.

On September 24, 1957, the night that the 101st Airborne was being mobilized to come into Little Rock, Armstrong sent Eisenhower a telegram again criticizing him for lack of action.  He used colorful language which sarcastically spoofed the “Uncle Tom” moniker which some of his critics had bestowed when they felt he was not doing enough for Civil Rights.  The Eisenhower Presidential Library has a copy of that telegram.  The incident between Satchmo and Ike was the basis for two different plays: Terry Teachout’s Satchmo at the Waldorf and Ishmael Reed’s The C Above C Above High C.

Armstrong would again play a part in Little Rock’s Civil Rights history.  In September 1966, he played the first major concert in Robinson Auditorium that was before a fully integrated audience.  Since the early 1960s, there had been a few sporadic concerts which had been before integrated audiences. But the policy of the Auditorium Commission remained that the building was to be segregated.  Following the approval of the 1964 Civil Rights Act, public facilities had to be integrated. Louis Armstrong played before a full house at Robinson Auditorium that night.