Not too many people can say they have successfully recorded music as diverse as pop, jazz standards, Gilbert & Sullivan, folk/country, Mexican music, and more. Linda Ronstadt is one of those people. With 11 Grammy awards on her resume,...
Hilty performs at VPAC on September 24, 2015
The works of Stephen Sondheim have been very good to Lee Blakeley. Or you can argue that Lee Blakeley has been very good to Sondheim’s work. The director oversaw the French premieres of A Little Night Music, Sunday in...
"Some people tend to say that some older songs feel trite and too old-fashioned. The truth is, they were, back in the day, incredibly innovative."
This month marks the 10th anniversary of Hurricane Katrina. A decade later, New Orleans has regained its footing and found within its citizens a resilience that has defined a generation. For singer Dee Dee Bridgewater, this anniversary offers an...
Amongst the top grossing movies of 1985 were The Color Purple, Witness, Cocoon, Rambo: First Blood Part II, and Out of Africa. Far ahead of the pack was Back to the Future, starring Michael J. Fox, Christopher Lloyd, and...
It seems that every story about singer/songwriter Aloe Blacc begins with “you may not know his name, but….” The best follow-up to that is “but you should.” Last year he released the album Lift Your Spirit. He also appeared...
Grammy Award-winning trumpeter and composer Terence Blanchard once said, “If you are hung up on maintaining the tradition, you’re never going to be yourself. This is music about breaking the tradition.” In two very different concerts (one this week...
"We are all capable of enormous good and enormous evil. Does repeating the worst behavior of a criminal and putting that onto them solve anything? Does that make us better? Who has all the answers?”
The Figaro trilogy features three operas inspired by the works of Beaumarchais. Two of them are very well known: The Marriage of Figaro by Mozart and Rossini’s The Barber of Seville. The third opera, The Ghosts of Versailles, is...