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more from kuhf arts:
> arte publico series
> cd library reviews
> the front row
> arts calendar
> TFR ArtsHouston article
> On Friday, guest conductor Hannu Lintu & cello soloist Alban Gerhardt chat about this weekend's Houston Symphony program. Members of Ars Lyrica Houston perform music from Springtime in Paris. And PEN/Hemingway Award-winning writer, Chang-rae Lee, talks about his latest novel, The Surrendered.

Houston Symphony
Hannu Lintu, guest conductor
Alban Gerhardt, cello
Beethoven: Leonore Overture No. 3
Prokofiev: Sinfonia Concertante for Cello & Orchestra
Sibelius: Symphony No. 2
Thursday, March 17, 8pm
Saturday, March 19, 8pm
Sunday, March 20, 2:30pm
Jones Hall
615 Louisiana St., Houston, TX
A program of French Baroque chamber works
Presented by Ars Lyrica Houston
Saturday, March 20, 7:30pm
Hobby Center’s Zilkha Hall
800 Bagby, Houston, TX
713.315.2525
WWW.ARSLYRICAHOUSTON.ORG

A Conversation with Chang-rae Lee
Author of the novel, “The Surrendered”
Presented by the Asia Society Texas Center
Sunday, March 21, 4pm
Rice University – Herring Hall
6100 Main St., Houston, TX
WWW.ASIASOCITY.ORG/CENTERS/TEXAS


> On Thursday, renowned French flutist Jean Ferrandis & Mexican concert pianist Mauricio Náder perform for us! Plus, pianist-psychiatrist, Richard Kogan, also joins us for live music & insights on Robert Schumann -- the Romantic-era genius, who suffered from bipolar disorder.

Jean Ferrandis, flute
Mauricio Náder, piano
Celebrating Mexico’s Bicentennial & the French Cultures Festival
Thursday, March 18, 7pm
University of St. Thomas – Jones Hall
3910 Yoakum, Houston, TX
 
Musical Genius & Psychiatric Illness
A recital-lecture by Richard Kogan, pianist & psychiatrist
Thursday, March 18, 4pm
University of Texas M.D. Anderson Cancer Center
AT&T Auditorium, Main Bldg, Floor 2
1515 Holcombe Boulevard, Houston, TX
713.794.5292
Free admission
M.D. Anderson Events Calendar

Musical Genius & Psychiatric Illness
A recital-lecture by Richard Kogan, pianist & psychiatrist
Friday, March 19, 12pm
Baylor College of Medicine - Cullen Auditorium
One Baylor Plaza, Houston, TX
Free admission


The Front Row, Thursday, 03/18/2010
March 18, 2010    


We have two studio performances for you today! Renowned French flutist, Jean Ferrandis (pictured), and Mexican concert pianist, Mauricio Náder, talk about their first-time collaboration and play selections from the concert they’ll present tonight at the University of Saint Thomas, in celebration of Mexico’s Bicentennial and the French Cultures Festival. And, psychiatrist and pianist, Richard Kogan, joins us live in the Geary Performance Studio to celebrate the two-hundredth anniversary of the birth of Robert Schumann!
> click here for more      


The Front Row, Wednesday, 03/17/2010
March 17, 2010    


Singers from Opera Vista and Artistic Director Viswa Subbaraman perform live for us, previewing the 2010 Opera Vista Festival! They treat us to excerpts from last year’s competition winner, Anorexia Sacra by Danish composer, Line Tjørnhøj, who also joins us...
> click here for more      


The Front Row, Tuesday, 03/16/2010
March 16, 2010    


Director Dennis Draper and cast member Patrick Green (pictured on left) chat about Unhinged Productions’ staging of Paul Rudnick’s comedy, The Most Fabulous Story Ever Told, a re-telling of life in the Garden of Eden by the ORIGINAL original couple, Adam and Steve...
> click here for more      


The Front Row, Monday, 03/15/2010
March 15, 2010    


Houston’s 13th Fotofest biennial got underway this past weekend. The 2010 show focuses on Contemporary U.S. Photography, and today on “The Front Row,” with some assistance from curator Aaron Schuman, we look at the flagship official exhibition which debuted last Friday night at FotoFest headquarters downtown; it’s titled Whatever Was Splendid: New American Photographs...
> click here for more      


The Front Row, Friday, 03/12/2010
March 12, 2010    


Artistic Director Emelyne Bingham talks about this year’s Young Texas Artists Music Competition. The Finals Round Concert of that competition takes place tomorrow evening at the Crighton Theatre in Conroe! And we have a studio performance by last year’s YTA Strings Division and Audience-Choice-Award-winner, violinist Natalie Lin...
> click here for more      


The Front Row, Thursday, 03/11/2010
March 11, 2010    


Houston Symphony Music Director Hans Graf chats with Dean Dalton about the Anton Bruckner's Symphony No.7. The orchestra will perform that work in a special one-night-only appearance at Houston's Co-Cathedral of the Sacred Heart...
> click here for more      


The Front Row, Wednesday, 03/10/2010
March 10, 2010    


Ballet master and former New York City Ballet dancer, Bart Cook (pictured), talks about Jerome Robbins’ classic dance piece, Fancy Free, which Mr. Cook is re-creating for Houston Ballet’s mixed-repertory program, American at Heart, opening tomorrow night at the Wortham Center. . . .
> click here for more      


The Front Row, Tuesday, 03/09/2010
March 10, 2010    


Eckart Runge is the cellist with Germany’s Artemis Quartet. He tells us about the all-Beethoven program that he and his colleagues will present on the Houston Friends of Chamber Music series at Rice University. We also hear from
> click here for more      


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Postcards from Venice
By: Catherine Lu
TFR's regular host, St.John Flynn, sends us greetings from sunny Italy, where he has been leading the KUHF Arts & Music Tour to Venice, Verona & Milan, February 5 - 16. Check out his Tour Postings on our Homepage and more photos on Facebook!

La Fenice, Venice's famed opera house

Gondolas at rest

St.John makes a fashion statement at Carnevale.




Sarah Williams: Population 4,769
By: Catherine Lu
Argyle, 2009, oil on board, 24" x 24"

January 19, 2010

When you stare into Sarah Williams' nightscape paintings, it's almost as if your eyes begin to adjust to the night sky -- as if your pupils are actually dilating to let in more light: soft shapes appear (a lamp post or tree in the distance); shadows present themselves on a dark pavement; the horizon seems to shift; and subtle colors emerge from dusk.

Population 4,769 is Sarah Williams' second show and first solo exhibition at the McMurtrey Gallery (on view January 16 - February 13, 2010). I met the artist on Saturday afternoon, just before the Opening. She thoughtfully led me through this body of work, which focuses on scenes from her rural Midwestern roots (hometown: Brookfield, Missouri), along with some Texas locations. Based in Denton, Ms. Williams is a recent MFA graduate of the University of North Texas and currently an adjunct professor at UNT.


Brooks Street, 2009, oil on board, 18" x 18"


Kirksville, 2009, oil on board, 18" x 30"

"Being raised in a small town and then moving to an urban setting for my education has made me aware of the seemingly mundane, anonymous scenes existing on the periphery that tend to be ignored. Strong emotions can be prompted by place. ... Important aspects to my current work are the feelings related to the atmosphere of the environment depicted. Whether it be the soupy blackness of the sky, a faint glow on the horizon or the wet pavement after the rain, these are very much part of the distinctiveness of a place." (Sarah Williams)

Sarah Williams with Callio, 2009, oil on board, 30" x 30"

I also like this comparison, stated by Robert Jessup: "Her paintings often depict lonely places, the air thick with isolation and dread, like an image by Hopper crossed with a scene from a Cohen brothers' movie."

Indeed, there is a sense of loneliness/anonymity that intersects with the warmth of light and the specificity of location and weather.

In her snowscapes, like Callio, you take in scenes of fresh tracks on packed snow, red bows of Christmastime, evidence of deer season, buildings hiding in long winter shadows and the absence of people (tucked indoors, out of the cold).

When you exhale, you feel you'll see your breath.


Tune in for an interview with artist Sarah Williams in the coming weeks on "The Front Row"!

Images courtesy of the artist & the McMurtrey Gallery





Debut CD by Houston jazz artist
By: Catherine Lu

January 12, 2010

Henry Darragh can craft, and croon, songs about love, regret ... and even the Harvard Dictionary of Music. The vocal style of this jazz pianist, trombonist and UH Moores School of Music graduate student has also drawn comparisons to the cool Chet Baker.

Just released this past October, Darragh's debut CD, Tell Her For Me, features 6 originals and 5 cover tunes:

1. Hey There
2. Regret (by H. Darragh)
3. Everything Happens to Me
4. Once in a While
5. Early (by H. Darragh)
6. Dream Boxes (by H. Darragh)
7. Missing You (by H. Darragh)
8. Tell Her For Me
9. Wrong Ending (by H. Darragh)
10. Look for the Silver Lining
11. The Harvard Dictionary of Music Song (by H. Darragh)

Hear Henry Darragh and his bandmates chat with KUHF's jazz aficionado, Eric Ladau, and play songs from the new CD in the Geary Performance Studio -- Thursday, January 14, 12pm on "The Front Row"!




The BQE - A Film by Sufjan Stevens
By: Catherine Lu
January 7, 2010



Intrigued? I, myself, cannot stop watching this clip. Those hula hoops!

Singer-songwriter Sufjan Stevens has created an independent film that pays visual and aural homage to the architecture of NYC and the Brooklyn-Queens Expressway -- shot on 16mm film and ulitizing time-lapse photography, in-camera editing, slow motion and post-production mirror effects, and set to original music.

Find out more about The BQE on The Front Row -- tune in to KUHF tomorrow (Friday, 1/8) at Noon! -- as Bob Stevenson chats with Michael Kaufmann of Asthmatic Kitty, Sufjan Stevens' record label.

The BQE will be screened in Houston tomorrow night (Friday, 1/8, 7pm, Musuem of Fine Arts Houston), courtesy of the Aurora Picture Show.




Happy Holidays from TFR
By: Catherine Lu
Something to get you in the mood for those holiday parties:



Don't miss the gigantic, biscotti-lined gingerbread house, sprinkled with M&M snow, on view at the Wortham Center, and of course the beautiful tree!

Thanks to the Invincible Czars for the video & for playing on TFR recently.

Merry Christmas, Happy Holidays and here's to 2010!




Live on TFR: The Invincible Czars
By: Catherine Lu

Photos by KUHF's Emiily Binetti









> read previous Front Row blog articles