Fall Performing Arts
The Triangle
McCoy Tyner
Two legends from different ends of the musical spectrum are part of Carolina Performing Arts’ new season this September. Renowned for his work with Hamlet, N.C. native saxophonist John Coltrane, pianist McCoy Tyner has earned four Grammy Awards and recorded nearly 80 albums with a diverse range of players, young and old. He brings his trio to Memorial Hall in Chapel Hill on Thursday, Sept. 9, along with special guest Gary Bartz, the Grammy-winning saxophonist who first played with Tyner in 1968. Carolina performances also brings North Carolina musical legend Earl Scruggs to Chapel Hill on Wednesday, Sept. 15. Scruggs played banjo with Bill Monroe and his work in Flatt & Scruggs helped make them the most successful instrumental bluegrass duo in history. Joining him will be Tony Award-winning string band revival group the Red Clay Ramblers, whose work spans old-time music, bluegrass, country, rock, New Orleans jazz, gospel and American musical styles. For more information or to order tickets, visit http://www.carolinaperformingarts.org/. (The Ramblers will also make an appearance at the historic (and recently renovated) Thalian Hall in Wilmington Nov. 6. http://thalianhall.com/)
Brooklyn Rider (Photo by Richard Frank)
The Raleigh Chamber Music Guild Masters Series begins its 69th season Sunday, Sept. 12 with Brooklyn Rider, an adventurous string quartet featuring four members of violinist Yo-Yo Ma’s Silk Road Ensemble at Fletcher Opera Theater in Raleigh. This concert is part of the 2010 September Prelude Chamber Music Festival, which will also bring Brooklyn Rider to Memorial Hall in Chapel Hill on Friday, Sept. 10 and Duke University’s Reynolds Theater on Saturday, Sept. 11. Raleigh Chamber Music Guild continues its Masters Series Sunday, Oct. 10 at the Progress Energy Center with the Grammy-nominated Cuarteto Latinoamericano, an award-winning ensemble that performs Latin American music for string quartet. For more information about the series or to order tickets, visit http://rcmg.org/ or call (919) 821-2030.
Choreographer Mark Dendy, a native of Weaverville returns to the role of Amanda in a restaging of 1993’s Faith Healing, Jane Comfort’s take on Tennessee Williams’ Glass Menagerie. North Carolina State University in Raleigh presents this cutting-edge blend of dance, theater, duets and lip-synched film scenes as part of its Center Stage series, Friday, Oct. 22 at 8 p.m. at the Stewart Theatre. Explore the entire 10-week series of music, dance and theater events at http://www.ncsu.edu/centerstage/index.html. Playwright August Wilson’s Pulitzer Prize-winning drama Fences comes to Carolina Playmakers Wednesday, Oct. 27, through Sunday, Nov. 14. The play examines the lives of an ex-Negro League ball player and his family facing racial, generational and societal challenges in the 1950s. See the rest of Playmakers’ 2010-2011 season offerings, including Tony Kushner’s Angels in America, at http://www.playmakersrep.org/performances/event.aspx?id=58c9933c-c3a2-4c65-b364-0f0c64e2022e.
Innovative Music in the Mountains
Daniel Bernard Romain
From collaborating and performing with Lady Gaga on American Idol to combining spoken word, video and chamber orchestra in Darwin’s Meditation for the People of Lincoln, Haitian-American violinist Daniel Bernard Roumain is an innovative and always surprising performer, composer and band leader. He will perform his Voodoo Concerto #1 with the Western Piedmont Symphony Thursday, Nov. 11 through Saturday, Nov. 13 at the P.E. Monroe Auditorium, Hickory. For more information, visit http://www.wpsymphony.org/.
After celebrating traditional music at the Happy Valley Fiddlers’ Convention and touring Texas and Oklahoma this fall, the Kruger Brothers return home to North Carolina to premiere a new work commissioned by the Ashe County Arts Council. They’ll join the Blue Ridge Chamber Players for An Appalachian Concerto, composed and arranged by Jens Kruger, at the Ashe Civic Center on Saturday, Nov. 20 at 7:30 p.m. Founded in 2005, the Blue Ridge Chamber Players is an eclectic ensemble based in Charlotte. For more information about the new work, currently in rehearsal, visit http://www.ashecountyarts.org/.
There are other opportunities to expand your musical horizons across North Carolina this fall. In Charlotte, North Carolina Dance Theatre’s eclectic contemporary ballet series Innovative Works features choreographers Mark Diamond, David Ingram, Sasha Janes and Dwight Rhoden working with “green” themes of conservation, pollution, waste and the environment. Performances take place Thursday, Nov. 11 through Saturday, Nov. 13 at the Knight Theatre. For more information, visit http://www.ncdance.org/. In Greenville, East Carolina University presents the eclectic Takács Quartet, performing Schubert’s Death and the Maiden, Haydn’s String Quartet, Op. 71/3 and more on Friday, Sept. 24 at Wright Auditorium. The quartet’s innovative programming has included a performance of Everyman with Academy Award winning actor Philip Seymour Hoffman, collaborations with the Hungarian folk ensemble Muzsikas, and a music and poetry program with the poet Robert Pinsky. For more information, visit http://www.ecu.edu/cs-ecu/calendar.cfm?a=5&e=4333.
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Don’t forget to “plant” yourself at the NC Theatre production of “Little Shop of Horrors” Sept. 18-26 at Raleigh Memorial Auditorium in the Progress Energy Center for the Performing Arts! This lovable rock’n'roll spoof of 1950’s sci-fi movies will leave you tapping your feet and dancing in your seat!