WMU

Western Michigan University's Live and Interactive series continues at 7:30 pm Wednesday, Feb 19 with a performance by guest artist John Wesley Wright. A tenor who can switch between opera, Broadway, and American styles, he will be joined by WMU voice faculty and student ensembles for a concert called Spirituals: From Ship To Shore. 

In an interview with Cara Lieurance, also including Dr. Ken Prewitt, a professor of voice at WMU, Wright talks about working with Western students in his residency, and teaching them to perform spirituals without sheet music. Wright and Prewitt preview some of the concert's highlights, and Wright talks about how his desire to be a performer began in childhood, when he saw the television series Fame. A member of the American Spiritual Ensemble for 14 years, he credits Ysaÿe Barnwell of Sweet Honey in the Rock and singer Linda Tillery as personal and professional influences.

Edward Dusinberre is the first violinist of the Takács Quartet, which will perform on the Fontana series at 7:30 pm on Friday, Feb 21 in the Dalton Center Recital Hall at Western Michigan University. He's also the author of Beethoven For A Later Age: Living With The String Quartets. In a conversation with Cara Lieurance, Dusinberre previews the three works on the program, including Fanny Mendelssohn's String Quartet in E-flat, a dramatic Romantic-era work, and one of her best. She was denied a path forward as a musician by her father and brother, says Dusinberre, it being highly inappropriate at the time for a woman to seek recognition for composing.

Established in 1975 by four students at the Franz Liszt Academy in Budapest, the U.S.-based group is celebrating 45 years of exceptional music-making. 

A gallery filled with the musical paintings of David Park at the Kalamazoo Institute of Arts will become a concert space at 6:30 pm on Tuesday, Feb 18, when the New York City-based composer-performer duo Chromic plays new and improvised music on toy piano, electric and acoustic piano. 

Kalamazoo composer Adam Schumaker received an Arts Council grant to fund the performance. He talks to Cara Lieurance about Chromic and their music, and Chromic's Lucy Yao, an alumna of Western Michigan University, joins them by phone to talk about how Chromic was founded.

After tragically losing her brother, a young woman named Yolanda is sent to live with her grandmother, Mother Shaw. Mother Shaw takes the reluctant Yolanda in, and soon Mother Shaw's circle of friends becomes interested in Yolanda's welfare. These ladies take pride in dressing up for church and wearing spectacular hats to Sunday services-- hats that have stayed in families for years, each one a uniquely personal possession.  That's the premise of Regina Taylor's play CROWNS, which will run from Feb 27 - Mar 1 at the Judy K. Joliffe Theatre in downtown Kalamazoo.

In this radio interview, Cara Lieurance spoke with Face Off Theatre Company's founder/artistic director Marissa Harrington, actress Brenda Earvin (Mother Shaw), and actress Jeannine Jones (Wanda) about the hats, gospel music, and themes of hope and healing community that CROWNS has to offer.

Dr. Scott Boerma and Dr. Trey Harris joined Cara Lieurance to preview a 3 pm concert on Sunday Feb 16 shared by the WMU Concert Band and WMU Wind Symphony, and 7:30 pm concert on Monday, Feb 17 featuring the WMU Symphonic Band. Both will be held in Miller Auditorium, and both share the same guest artist: soprano Lindsay Kesselman.