Archive: Arts & Entertainment

Aurora, NY - The Wells College Theatre and Dance Department is proud to present “Eurydice,” the fall faculty production, which is written by Sarah Ruhl and directed by Professor of Theatre Siouxsie Easter. “Eurydice” will be performed two consecutive nights at Phipps Auditorium in Macmillan Hall, on Friday, Nov. 2 and Saturday, Nov. 3, 2018. The box office will open at 7:00 p.m. and the show will begin at 7:30 p.m. each night. The show is open to the public, and admission is free.

“Eurydice” tells the myth of Orpheus — this time as seen through the eyes of Eurydice, his wife. The story follows Eurydice and her struggle to choose between returning to Earth with Orpheus, or staying in the Underworld with her father. Ally Collins ’20, who plays Eurydice, said, “This show is really important because we don’t often get to hear the woman’s point of view. It’s not really about Orpheus and Eurydice; it’s about Eurydice and her father. This is really relatable to me because of my personal history of losing my father.”

The Ithaca Ballet, under artistic director Cindy Reid opens its 2018-19 season with the family friendly The Little Mermaid. On Saturday, October 20th there will be a matinee at 3 p.m. and evening performance at 7:30 p.m. of The Little Mermaid at the State Theatre in Ithaca, NY. Premiered in 2013, this will be the second performance of this original ballet in Ithaca.

Damien Connolly & Jerry O’Sullivan will present a house concert at The Canaan Institute on Friday October 26th 2018 beginning at 7:00 pm followed by a jam session.

Damien Connolly hails from Co. Clare, Ireland. He began learning the accordion when he was 11 years old, taught by his father Martin, renowned manufacturer of the Kincora Accordion. He competed in the Fleadhanna (Irish Music Competitions) throughout his teenage years, taking first place both locally and regionally. In 1997, Damien took first place in both the Under-18 All Ireland accordion and melodeon competition held in Ballina, Co. Mayo. In 2003 Damien moved to the US where he is highly sought after as a music teacher and performer. He has taught and performed at the Catskills Irish Arts Festival, the Swannanoah Gathering and the Augusta Irish Festival, to name but a few.

Zoe Dubrow won the Grand Prize in the 3rd Annual Ithaca Cupcake Baking Content held in the Ithaca Commons Saturday October 13. Her 'Strawberry Surprise Cupcakes' contained a cored whole strawberry filled with salted butterscotch. The concoctions were topped by a brown sugar cream cheese frosting, decorated with a chocolate fan, sliced strawberry, mint leaves, and a mini chocolate strawberry macaron.

Jennifer Dobmeier won 2nd Place with 'Key Lime Pie Cupcake', a Key lime-scented vanilla cake with a lime curd filling was topped with a Key lime buttercream frosting. Erin Morris won 3rd Place with German chocolate cupcakes topped by a swirl of pink icing made from homemade jam using local farmer's market strawberries. Kyra O'Toole won the Youth Award for 18s & Under. She overcame tough competition with a set of chocolate cheesecake cupcakes, with an Oreo crust, chocolate cream filling, chocolate cream frosting.

Ashtabula & Phlemena Fitz&Startz have been teaching young people for decades. Focused on the classics, all their proteges know the great composers, their basic ballet steps and sing harmonies with gusto. But this year's group of middle schoolers would like to add some more contemporary music to the Annual Autumn Celebration. How does the 'age versus youth, old versus new' argument get sorted out? In A Case for the Classics all generations must learn from each other to be sure that "show must go on!" It's a music, dance and song-filled event for the whole family.

The Kitchen Theatre Company (KTC) presents its second show of the 2018-19 Season: The Piano Teacher by Julia Cho, a play the New York Times called "A cozy, effective little chiller." The Piano Teacher is a haunting story of elusive truths that explores the power of memory-both those we recall and those we've chosen to forget. Performances of The Piano Teacher begin at the Kitchen Theatre Company in the Percy Browning Performance Space on October 21st and run through November 4th. Opening night is Thursday, October 25th.

The play centers on Mrs. K, a woman who has retired after teaching piano in her living room for 30 years. Alone and curious about what became of the children she once saw weekly, Mrs. K picks up the phone, calling former students in the hopes they'll come for a visit and a cookie. When a former prodigy arrives at her doorstep, the memories of happy afternoons by the piano quickly unravel in the face of a truth darker than anything she could have imagined.

The Dorothy Cotton Jubilee Singers (DCJS) will present an afternoon of Negro Spirituals at 3 p.m., Sunday, Oct. 28 at St. Paul's United Methodist Church (402 N. Aurora St., Ithaca).

The DCJS, a 501(c)(3) not-for-profit 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 Dorothy Cotton's message of freedom and hope through music.

Jennifer Koh and Vijay Iyer perform on the Cornell Concert Series on Sunday, October 21 at 3pm in Bailey Hall.

Violinist Jennifer Koh is recognized for her intense, commanding performances, delivered with dazzling virtuosity and technical assurance. A winner of the 1994 International Tchaikovsky Competition, she has performed with top orchestras around the world. She brings to Ithaca a celebration of the symbiotic composer-performer relationship in her latest commissioning project, “Limitless: On Stage Together,” which will feature composer/pianist Vijay Iyer. Three-time recipient of DownBeat Magazine‘s Artist of the Year, Iyer is a 2013 MacArthur Fellow, and currently serves as Professor of the Arts at Harvard University.

As part of the Cornell Council for the Arts Biennial, the Department of Music presents concerts with unconventional instruments and out-of-the-ordinary settings. On Friday, October 19 at 6:00 pm in the McGraw Tower, composer Annie Lewandowski presents her new piece "Cetus: Life After Life", combining music for the Cornell Chimes played by Sarah Hennies with samples of whale song from bioacoustics research. Recorded from 1969-1988, Katy and Roger Payne's groundbreaking humpback whale recording spectrograms examined musical patterns of pitch, duration, and rhythm to identify the development of specific whale songs across time. Samples of these recordings will project from speakers in McGraw Tower while percussionist Hennies performs on the Chimes.

Once again the Rotary and Savage Clubs of Ithaca are teaming up with the Ithaca City School District's Fine and Performing Arts Program for the 9th Annual Little Apple Fall Follies, aka LAFF. This two-hour long show features a wide array of talented local performers. Proceeds from the show will support the community grant programs of the Ithaca Rotary Club and the Savage Club, as well as the programming of the Ithaca City School District Fine Arts Department.

This year's show will be held at Ithaca High School's Kulp Auditorium beginning at 7:00PM on Saturday, October 6th.

The Cornell Department of Music welcomes pianist Gloria Cheng to Barnes Hall at 8:00 pm on Friday, October 12 for a performance of her new project 'Garlands for Steven Stucky'. Cheng has dedicated much of her performing and recording career to exploring meaningful connections and collaborations with composers, and her collaborations with the late Cornell composition professor Stucky resulted in a Grammy Award for Best Instrumental Soloist Performance.

The new project features 32 miniatures written in honor of Stucky by a wide range of his composer friends and students, including Esa-Pekka Salonen, Gabriela Lena Frank, Christopher Rouse, Julia Adolphe, and many Cornell alumni. In addition to the concert performance, the evening also serves as a CD release event for the project.

The Cornell Department of Music announced the first concerts of the fall semester from the Wind Symphony, Symphony Orchestra, and Chamber Orchestra. The Wind Symphony, under the direction of James Spinazzola, will take the audience on a trip through 400 years of music for wind ensemble in just one hour. The program includes works by Giovanni Gabrieli, Gaetano Donizetti, Richard Wagner, Dmitri Kabalevsky, and Donald Grantham. The performance is Saturday, September 29 at 3:00pm in Bailey Hall.

The Wind Symphony has a close relationship with musical organizations in Haiti and will be returning there for a tour in January 2019. In advance of that trip, the Haitian dance band RAM performs September 27 at 8:00pm at the Haunt. RAM Haitian Dance Band is based at the famous Hotel Oloffson in Port-au-Prince and led by the hotel's owner Richard A. Morse. Their style of mizik rasin combines elements of Haitian Vodou and folkloric traditions with a variety of musical influences, from Caribbean and West-African dance rhythms to rock and roll. Tickets are $18 at the door, $15 in advance at thehaunt.com, and $10 with CU student ID.