Archive: Arts & Entertainment

Photo by Simon Wheeler
The Cornell Jazz Ensemble, under the direction of Paul Merrill, presents "Mythology, Folklore, and Freedom," a concert highlighting train imagery in early blues, folk, jazz, and pop, on Sunday, October 27 at 3:00 pm in Bailey Hall. The program features music from a wide variety of artists, including Lead Belly, Elizabeth Cotton, Henry Thomas, Duke Ellington, Mary Lou Williams, Thelonious Monk, Arlo Guthrie, Johnny Cash, Bob Marley, The O'Jays, and more.

Merrill says the selection of the program theme came from the concept of using technology as a lens for how people view themselves and others. He elaborates that "the invention of the steam engine, for example, transformed who we are as a nation and how we lived together as people. The train certainly revolutionized the way we travel, but at the same time, became a symbol of migration and mobility, a metaphor for freedom, and a locomotive for social change. This concert explores these stories through the poetic and sonic imagery of popular music from the last century, focusing on the stories of African-American musician-composers."

Kitchen Theatre Company continues its 2019-2020 season with The Two Kids That Blow Shit Up by Carla Ching, a hilarious, touching, and explosive romantic comedy about trying not to fall in love with your best friend. Performances of The Two Kids That Blow Shit Up begin at the Kitchen Theatre Company in the Percy Browning Performance Space on Sunday, October 20 and will run through Sunday, November 3.

The Two Kids That Blow Shit Up centers on Diana and Max, who meet as kids the day their parents begin having an affair. During their parents' on-and-off relationship, spanning two decades, Max and Diana become the most unlikely of friends. They see each other through highs and lows and try not to make their parents' mistakes. The Two Kids That Blow Shit Up is poignant look at the roller coaster highs and lows of our most meaningful relationships.

The Dorothy Cotton Jubilee Singers (DCJS) will present an afternoon of Negro Spirituals at 3 p.m., Sunday, Oct. 27, in Kulp Auditorium at Ithaca High School.

The DCJS, a 501(c)(3) not-for-profit, Ithaca-based organization, is dedicated to preserving the Negro Spiritual and its themes of sorrow, despair, and hope to promote racial healing and social justice; and to furthering civil rights leader (and longtime Ithaca resident) Dorothy Cotton's message of freedom and hope through music.

Fitz&Startz Productions, Theater for All Ages presents Aunt Mae Comes to Town, book & lyrics by Rachel Lampert, music by John Coyne at the Kitchen Theatre Company, 417 West MLK/State Street stage, on Saturday October 26 at 11am and 1pm and Saturday, November 2 at 11am and 1pm. Four performances only.

Martha eagerly awaits the arrival of her great Aunt Mae. Once a month, Aunt Mae makes the trip to Ithaca with a bag full of surprises and a photo album with a lifetime of photographs and "a story to go with every one of them!" Stories come to life and Aunt Mae and Martha get swept into all of them.

Abraham Moss '23 and Hannah Biener '21(seated), Shoshana Swell '20
Animate grocery store items, a haunted 500-dollar bill, and the provocative case of actor Jussie Smollett are among the varied topics explored in this year's 10-Minute Play Festival from the Cornell University Department of Performing and Media Arts (PMA) and the Graduate Researchers in Media and Performing Arts (GRMPA). The annual festival, now in its seventh year, serves as a laboratory for the development of student-written plays and presents students with a range of opportunities in theater.

This year's festival theme is "Energy," which aligns with the overarching themes of PMA and the Society for the Humanities for the 2019–2020 academic year. According to festival producers Elaigwu Ameh, PhD student in PMA, and Sara Pistono '21, the theme "offered our contributing writers plural entry points into a subject that is at once visceral and cerebral. The selected plays explore varying ways through which energy unveils itself to humanity in public and private spaces." The producers hope that "engaging this subject through a multiplicity of perspectives, [will] deepen our understanding of energy and how it permeates and affects our lives as individuals and as a community."

The Cornell Contemporary Chamber Players present Unheard-of//Ensemble, a contemporary chamber group dedicated to the development and performance of new music by living composers. The concert on Saturday, September 28 at 8:00pm in Lincoln Hall room B20 will feature new works by Miles Jefferson Friday, Joshua Biggs, John Eagle, Corey Keating, and Daniel Sabzghabaei, plus a piece by Christopher Stark.

Ford Fourqurean (clarinet), Matheus Souza (violin), Issei Herr (cello), and Cornell alumnus Daniel Anastasio (piano) form the core of Unheard-of//Ensemble. Past seasons included over 50 premieres performed as part of their tours presenting performances, workshops, and master classes at universities and colleges across the United States, including the Manhattan School of Music Composition Studio, the University of Texas-Arlington, Georgia State University, a guest residency at the Cincinnati College-Conservatory of Music, the Art Institute of Chicago, and more.

From September 8 to November 3, 2019, Kitchen Theatre Company's Judith Holliday Lobby Gallery will have Stars: Wall Sculpture by John Lyon Paul on exhibit.

This will be the first time the gallery has featured sculpture and the fourth time John Lyon Paul's work has been on display. Gallery is open one-hour before main stage show times at Kitchen Theatre Company.

This September 26–October 6, the Cherry kicks off its production season with The Shoe by Québec playwright David Paquet. Paquet is a recipient of the Governor General's Award for Drama and the Prix Michel Tremblay, and The Shoe is his newest play, to be seen for the first time in English at the Cherry. The Shoe uses inventive magical realism to tell the funny and profound story of an unusual young boy named Benoit and the adults who care for him. The French world première won the Best Play and Playwright awards in Vancouver. Press there said the play, like Benoit himself, is "a Kinder Surprise: you come for the comedy, but stay for the lucid observations."

The cast is anchored by beloved Ithaca actor/director Godfrey Simmons (Artistic Director of Civic Ensemble), joined by three actors new to the Cherry Artists' ensemble: Emma Bowers* returns to her native Ithaca from training at Juilliard and numerous national credits; Amoreena Wade brings great comic timing to the role of Melanie, Benoit's overtaxed mother, and Ithaca College dance student Joshua Witzling plays young Benoit in a bravura physical performance.

Scott Ainslie will present a house concert at The Canaan Institute on Sat Oct 5th, 2019 beginning at 7:00 pm followed by a jam session. Ainslie is an extraordinary storyteller and blues guitarist with a solid old-time foundation.

20 years of Appalachian old-time + 30 years of Blues. Armed with a variety of instruments – vintage guitars, a fretless gourd banjo, a one-string, homemade diddley bow (aka cigar box guitar) and carefully chosen historical personal anecdotes of his encounters with senior musicians across the South – Ainslie brings the history, roots music, and sounds of America alive.

The Cornell Department of Music presents two organ concerts September 21 and 25. David Yearsley performs a program entitled "Transalpine" in Anabel Taylor Chapel on Saturday, September 21 at 7:00pm. This program follows the musical path of the polymath musician, diplomat, and churchman Agostino Steffani across Europe on either side of 1700, with works by him and his colleagues and admirers, J. C. Kerll, N. A. Strungk, J. H. d'Anglebert, Georg Böhm, and G. F. Handel.

"Over the Mountain" (1997), Basswood and ceramics 52” x 8.5” x 69.5” Photo Courtesy Ted Lossowski/Wells College
The String Room Gallery of Wells College announced the opening of a career-spanning exhibition of work by Ted Lossowski, who taught visual arts at Wells College for several decades. "Ted Lossowski: Over Forty Years" will feature work from throughout his career in art making, in recognition of his upcoming retirement from Wells College next spring.

The Cornell Department of Music's Steven Stucky Memorial Residency for New Music begins with the Israeli Chamber Project (ICP) visiting campus as the initiative's inaugural ensemble. ICP is a dynamic ensemble with variable instrumentation that brings together distinguished musicians for chamber music concerts and educational and outreach programs both in Israel and abroad. ICP has appeared at Weill Recital Hall at Carnegie Hall, the Morgan Library & Museum, Town Hall, Merkin Concert Hall, Bargemusic, and at Symphony Space in New York City, the Morrison Artists Series in San Francisco, Carmel Music Society, The Clark Memorial Library at UCLA, and Ottawa's Chamberfest, among others, and has been featured on NPR's Performance Today and WQXR radio's Young Artist Showcase.