Celebrate the Arts

Music, Art, Theatre…Tips from folks “in the know”

Music

Bryan Lowe, Program Director for KING FM 98.1, provided these recommendations for upcoming musical performances:

Give Yourself the Gift of Great Music!

It’s time to celebrate the beauty that is the Northwest arts scene! There are literally hundreds of concerts, with ticket prices from high to low, featuring great classical music in the area, including some truly “don’t miss” concerts!

This fall marks the 3rd season with Ludovic Morlot as Music Director of the Seattle Symphony. There’s certainly something for everybody, from the SSO Pops conductor Jeff Tyzig, to concerts celebrating Hitchcock’s Psycho, opening night performances with classical superstar Lang-Lang, Beethoven’s 9th and the choral mega-hit Carmina Burana. I recommend the ALL RAVEL program in September, including Bolero and my favorite, the Concerto for the Left Hand. The Symphony’s Distinguished Artist Series includes violinist Joshua Bell, called “one of the finest musicians of his generation.” That’s one not to miss! 98.1 Classical KING FM broadcasts thirteen Seattle Symphony concerts on the radio every year – and this year is no exception. So, if you miss a concert, remember to tune into listener-supported 98.1. Seattle Symphony broadcast schedules are online at KING.org.

It’s a big year for the Seattle Opera. This is the last season for Opera legend, Speight Jenkins, as General Director. I have to give up on choosing one opera here, they’re all so good… just buy season tickets. Some big opera favorites are coming this season, such as the Daughter of the Regiment, Rigoletto, and the Tales of Hoffman. Even if those titles aren’t familiar to you, I guarantee there are some great melodies you are sure to recall. As Speight Jenkins says, “It’s going to be a great show, don’t miss it!” Really, don’t. By the way, you can also hear live broadcasts of every Seattle Opera production on 98.1 KING FM and on our KING FM Seattle Opera Channel, bringing you opera 24/7 online at KING.org.

For those of you who love to plan further ahead, let’s jump to the holiday season. This is a time of year when Classical KING FM has more listeners than ever. Classical Christmas music is glorious.

Pacific Northwest Ballet presents each year the Nutcracker, a seasonal don’t-miss favorite. Throughout the year, they are also performing some of the best known works in ballet... Sleeping Beauty, Giselle, and A Midsummer Night’s Dream. We’ve enjoyed the ballet so much, that we broadcast their concerts live on KING FM, too.

Another Christmas favorite is Handel’s Messiah, a must-see work for you to witness at some point in your life. If you want a large scale concert version, be sure to go to the Seattle Symphony performances, but there are many others in the region well worth seeing. Seattle Pro Musica, one of my favorite groups, is set to perform A Ceremony of Carols by Britten. That is glorious music.

Also watch for wonderful children’s choirs in the area. The holidays are the perfect time to hear them, especially the Northwest Boys and Girls Choirs.

To get a closer look at all of these great groups as well as musical previews of upcoming concerts, tune in to Classical KING FM’s NW Focus, program, airing weeknights at 8pm. Want to learn more about classical music but don’t know where to start? Start with our NEW SEASON SHOWCASE September 1-30, where we play music all month from great concerts for the coming season. This will help you pick YOUR next classical concert. Then, join Classical KING FM at 98.1 or listen to our four channels of music online at KING.org, from relaxing favorites to the opera. As your listener-supported classical music station, we're here all season for you.

We will see you in the concert hall!

Art

Brenda Tipton

Brenda Tipton, author of the Seattle Art Blog (seattleartblog.com) and publisher of Art Guide Northwest (www.artguidenw.com)—the guide to galleries, museums, and antiques in the Pacific Northwest—provides these ‘best bets’ for the visual arts world:

When I die, I want my tombstone to read, “Work in Progress.” There’s always something new to learn, especially in our museums. Museums help us to remember the past, preserve the present and anticipate the future.

Take a look at all the exhibits mentioned here, and you’ll see what I mean.

We have an entire museum specializing in Scandinavian art, The Nordic Heritage Museum, located at 3014 NW 67th Street in the Scandinavian community of Ballard—populated by the descendents of some of the earliest settlers to Puget Sound. On view from September 27-December 7, Finnish artist Eino Romppanen marks 2013 as his 50th year of work as a stone sculptor, and this exhibition celebrates his work and career.

If you, like me, have a strong fascination with the ancient world of Peru, then a visit to the downtown Seattle Art Museum’s Peru: Kingdoms of the Sun and the Moon, on view from October 17 through January 5, 2014, is just the ticket. Included are rarely seen sculpture, metalwork, painting and textiles spanning 3,000 years as well as superb works of the Mochica, Chimu and Inca cultures. Also on view at SAM from February 13-May 25, 2014, is Miró: The Experience of Seeing. Drawn entirely from the collection of the Museo Nacional Centro de Arte Reina Sofía, Madrid, the exhibit offers a fresh assessment of the late period in Miró’s work made in the period between 1963 and 1983 that testify to the artist’s ingenuity and inventiveness to the very end of his life. Be sure to visit the Seattle Asian Art Museum in Volunteer Park. The exceptional Chinese collection was started by Dr. Richard Fuller, the founding director of the Seattle Art Museum, in the early 1900s. Franz von Stuck, a joint project of the Frye Art Museum Seattle and the Museum Villa Stuck in Munich, will showcase masterworks by Stuck from leading museums in Europe and the United States. The show runs from November 2 through February 2, 2014. The Frye Art Museum, located at 704 Terry Avenue, is Seattle’s only free museum, By the way, all of our area museums sponsor community programs and education classes throughout the year. The Frye, for example, has storytelling for children from 11:15-11:45 am every first Friday of each month.

The Henry Art Gallery, on the University of Washington campus, is devoted to contemporary art and boldly showcases the new and different. Light Rein, James Turrell, Skyspace is a permanent installation that has been immensely popular and well-worth seeing.

Nearby, the Burke Museum of Natural History and Culture features the fifth largest collection of Northwest Coast Native Art in the United States. On view from November 23 through March 9, 2014 is Elwha: A River Reborn, a discovery of the people, places and history

behind the world’s largest dam removal project. The Bellevue Arts Museum is the only museum in the area to concentrate on arts and crafts. Belgian artist Isabelle de Borchgrave has produced a completely original body of work in A World of Paper, a World of Fashion: Isabelle de Borchgrave meets Mariano Fortuny, on view from November 21, 2013-February 16, 2014. She has created exquisite, life-size historical costumes and fabrics entirely out of paper which were inspired from depictions in early European paintings, iconic costumes, period photographs, sketches, and descriptions.

Dale Chihuly’s spectacular new Chihuly Garden and Glass is open to the public at the Seattle Center. It is here that you can see how Chihuly’s work evolved over his long and successful career. Chihuly, like no one else, has succeeded in putting glass from our region on the world map.

Check out the changes at the Tacoma Art Museum. A new wing houses the Haub Family Collection of Western American Art, and the newly-designed front entrance improves accessibility, increases visibility, and beautiful spaces for outdoor art. As always, they have their extensive permanent collection of Chihuly glass pieces on view in their own gallery as well as the Marioni collection.

On view from November 2 through April 20, 2014 is Optic Nerve: The Art of Perception, an exhibition where artists hope to trick the viewer’s mind or confuse their eye so that they experience art in new ways.

If you need another Chihuly fix, check out his rarely exhibited Irish Cylinders, opening October 26 at the Museum of Glass in Tacoma, the only museum west of the Mississippi devoted to glass. The 44 minty and milky cylinders feature drawings from Chihuly collaborators Kate Elliott, Flora C. Mace and Seaver Leslie that draw on quintessentially Irish emblems, topography and fiction, with specific focus on James Joyce’s classic novel Ulysses. Don’t forge to stop in the Hot Shop here you’ll usually find glass artists at work.

About an hour north of Seattle in the town of La Conner, is the Museum of Northwest Art, possibly the only museum in the state devoted exclusively to Pacific Northwest artists. Their growing collection includes over 2,500 contemporary art objects from the early 1900s to the present day. Continuing further north, stop off in Bellingham to explore the Whatcom Museum and more Pacific Northwest art as well as American art from the middle of the 19th century to the present. Vanishing Ice: Alpine and Polar Landscapes in Art 1775-2012 will show from November 2 through March 2, 2014.

Nearly every city and small town throughout our area has a monthly art walk these days where the galleries and museums are open later at night. Art walks present an inexpensive and educational way to mix and mingle with artists and gallery owners who are opening new shows. For a complete list of all galleries in Western Washington, check out www.seattleartguidenw.com on the web or look for the hard copy in a museum or gallery. For daily art information, log onto www.seattleartblog.com where I religiously post current openings along with pictures and a blurb about the shows.

I hope you enjoy visiting the museums and galleries in Washington. Trust me when I tell you they will be glad to see you. Enjoy!

Theatre

Andy Jensen, Director of Programming for Theatre Puget Sound—an organization dedicated to nurturing a healthy theatre community—provided a “Best Bets” list of theatre and other performance events:

Contemporary

Bengal Tiger at the Baghdad Zoo Washington Ensemble Theatre 9/13-10/7

The Walworth Farce New Century Theatre Company 10/3-11/3

Bo-Nita Seattle Repertory Theatre 10/18-11/17

Exit/Exist Gregory Maqoma and Vuyani Dance Theatre at On the Boards 10/24-27

Jesus’ Son Book-It Repertory Theatre 11/6-11/24

Kylian + Pite Pacific Northwest Ballet 11/8-17

Classic

Sugar Daddies directed by Sir Alan Ayckbourn ACT Theatre 10/4-11/3

5th of July Theatre22 10/4-10/26

Much Ado About Nothing Seattle Shakespeare Company 10/23-11/17

Hound of the Baskervilles Seattle Repertory Theatre 11/15 – 12/15

Holidays

A Christmas Carol ACT Theatre 11/23-12/24

Oliver 5th Ave Theatre 11/29-12/31

Santaland Diaries and The Best Christmas Pageant Ever Seattle Public Theatre 12/5-12-24

Cirque Dreams Holidaze Seattle Theatre Group 12/20-12/22

This October, Theatre Puget Sound presents the fourth annual Arts Crush—31 days of creative adventures in art, literature, music, theatre, dance, film and more! There will be hundreds of free events, special discounts and once-a-year interactive arts opportunities for all ages. Arts groups, artists and audiences from all over the Puget Sound are joining together to explore, excite, challenge and GET CRUSHED.

For a full schedule of events and more information go to artscrush.org.

On October 28th, the 5th Annual Gregory Awards will honor excellence in theatre in Seattle at the Neptune Theatre. In addition to the much anticipated Theatre of the Year, and Sustained Achievement Awards, this year includes five new Musical Theatre categories.

Come celebrate a wonderful season of theatre with the performers and theatre artists whose work you’ve seen all-year round. For nominees and tickets go to www.gregoryawards.org.

Theatre Puget Sound (TPS) is a leadership and service organization founded in 1997 to advocate for the region’s growing theatre community’s causes and administer much-needed services. TPS is now one of the Northwest’s leading arts advocacy and leadership organizations, providing programming and services that benefit both the theatre community and the larger regional arts community. In addition to Arts Crush, TPS sponsors workshops and seminars, regional auditions, manages affordable rehearsal and performance space at Seattle Center, produces the annual Gregory Awards, and manages the most comprehensive online calendar for arts events in our region at www.seattleperforms.com.