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REVIEW: Orchestra Iowa Chamber Players concert thrills sold-out Opus audience

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CEDAR RAPIDS — A full house greeted the terrific Orchestra Iowa Chamber Players, performing in the Opus Concert Cafe on Friday evening. (1/11/13)

The concert will be repeated Saturday night in the intimate venue next to the Paramount Theatre, and Sunday at 2:30 p.m. in the Coralville Center for the Performing Arts.

The evening was adroitly programmed, presenting three of Europe’s finest composers in chronological order: Jean-Marie LeClair, Luigi Boccherini and Felix Mendelssohn. In their music, we are sharing the music of the 18th and 19th centuries, from French, Italian and German composers. There is much to be appreciated in this program, with five string players and the balanced acoustics of this attractive venue.

The details

  • Orchestra Iowa Chamber Players
  • Cedar Rapids: 7:30 p.m. Saturday, (1/12), Opus Concert Cafe, 119 Third Ave. SE
  • Coralville: 2:30 p.m. Sunday (1/13), Coralville Center for the Performing Arts, 1301 Fifth St.
  • Tickets: $20, Orchestra Iowa Box Office, (319) 366-8203, 1-(800) 369-8863 or Orchestraiowa.org

The highlight of the evening was the playing of Tricia Park, a superb young violinist, performing with passion and with remarkable accuracy of tone. When it’s her turn to attack, she goes for it. Park remained in balance with the other players, and the sound was blended well, indeed.

I particularly enjoyed her work in Boccherini’s Trio for Two Violins and Cello in D minor. Boccherini was not always well regarded as a composer in his time, and was referred to as “Haydn’s Wife.” Yes, there is Haydn in his work, as well as a bit of Johann Sebastian Bach. But I disagree with the opinion. Boccherini, in this piece at least, is a startlingly good composer.

It helps to have fine performances by Carey Bostian, Karla Galva and Park, who were listening ever so carefully to each other. The dynamics of the piece were intelligently sought out and celebrated. Boccherini was a brilliant cellist, and has written a very satisfying part for Bostian, who always satisfies as a performer.

The Mendelssohn quintet was powerful as well, particularly the second (Andante scherzando) and third (Adagio e lento) movements. The excellent program notes by Joseph and Elizabeth Kahn point out that the composer was never happy with the fourth and final movement of the work (Allegro molto vivace), and I can hear why. The two movements that proceed it are incredibly sensitive. The “lento” movement is sad, mournful and plaintive. It’s like the remembrance of a grandmother you loved dearly.

The final movement that comes after this wonderfully realized section is suddenly spry and peppy, and doesn’t emotionally resolve the sections that have proceeded it. Perhaps formula got the best of Mendelssohn, as we always expect a stirring, upbeat finale? Half the audience lept to their feet at the end, so it does work on some level.

I was intrigued by the LeClair work that began the evening, as he was a ballet dancer, as well as a violinist and composer. The work is slight, almost thin, but with the up-and-down runs of the Baroque sound. It does make you want to dance. Apparently the composer had a “dark side.” He bought a house in dangerous part of Paris and died of stab wounds in the back. Was the murder at the hand of his ex-wife or a jealous nephew? We don’t exactly know, but it would make an intriguing film.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

REVIEW: Opus Chamber Series launches season with trio of fine composers, musicians

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The stage at Opus Concert Cafe is designed to host chamber concerts, recitals, lectures, string quartets and cabaret style performances. (Cliff Jette/SourceMedia Group)

CEDAR RAPIDS — The 2012 -2013 Opus Chamber Series, a creation of Orchestra Iowa, began Friday (9/21/12) in the Opus Concert Cafe. For those of you who don’t know this space, the Cafe is next to the Paramount Theatre in downtown Cedar Rapids.

It is a friendly, attractive room that seats 80 people. Set up in cabaret style, with tables on which you can put a glass of pinot noir or a Jack Daniels on the rocks. This approach echoes the origins of chamber music in the living rooms and salons of centuries past.

The Cafe offers a wonderful way to experience this music, up close and personal.

The bill of fare included the work of Schubert, Mozart and Faure. It was a generous evening of music-making, performed by well-trained, talented musicians. It was a family affair as well, with CEO Robert Massey taking tickets at the door and Maestro Timothy Hankewich turning pages for the pianist.

The atmosphere was relaxed, the dress code non-existent. The violinist wore a bright coral-red shirt, not the customary black formal wear. Massey announced to the audience that violinist Xian Meng is auditioning for the pivotal role of concertmaster of Orchestra Iowa, and that other violinists will be given a hearing during the season-long chamber music series.

The conservative programming included works by some of our finest composers.

The opening work was quite short at 9 minutes, a string trio by Franz Schubert composed in 1816. It is an odd little work, unfinished by the composer, perhaps because it wasn’t going anywhere. The performers have not yet found the life of the piece: I found it timid, uncommitted. It may be that the musicians were not helped by the acoustics of the room, as the viola and the violin were miked, but not the cello.

The room quickly jumped to life, however, in the second work, Mozart’s Trio in C Major, composed in 1788. It is a delightful creation. Musicians and audiences always love their Mozart. The piano is bright and chipper, and well realized by Miko Kominami in effortless fashion. And the cello, nicely played by Carey Bostian (one the finest practitioners of the musical scene in the Corridor), emerges as dominant in the second movement. The violin of Xian Meng lept forword into better balance in the room.

What is it about Mozart (his briliance?) that makes one feel so good about being alive? The performers captured perfectly his essential insouciance, that feeling that he’s just tossing it off in an afternoon (and for the ages). The work was played freshly, as if it had just been finished, the ink still drying on the page. When this phenomenon happens in classical music, the immediacy transcends the dust of history, and of the heavy hand of scholarship. What a joy!

The final work of the evening, Gabriel Faure’s Piano Quartet No. 2, was also vitally present in the Cafe. And quite thrilling to be so close to. It is a dramatic work, symphonic in its effects, and brings to the imagination wildly romantic films, with violent young lovers dashing through foggy woods. It would also be terrific ballet music, probably best choreographed by George Balanchine. (Balanchine once wrote, “See the music, hear the dance.”)

The third movement is particularly gorgeous, with piano and cello taking wing through a melancholy, angst-ridden journey. This work also was performed as if it had just been written, just been discovered.

The Cafe was about two-thirds full, and the box office reports that Saturday evening will be close to sold out. On Sunday afternoon (9/23/12) the ensemble will travel to the new Coralville Center for the Performing Arts, for a performance at 2:30 p.m. The hall has excellent acoustics. Plenty of seats are available, so you can just walk right up to the box office in the lobby, and have a glass of Malbec from Mendoza’s Wine Bar. I predict the Faure will breathe more fully in the Fausett Auditorium there, and that Mozart will continue to be his playful, upbeat self. He rarely fails us.

As a footnote, the audience Friday night was, while full of enthusiasm, largely older. The ticket price was $20. What about a student-rush ticket for $5, on a space-available basis? This music is exciting, passionate, full of the very stuff of life. It’s also fascinating to watch it being performed at such close proximity. Perhaps the older crowd who loves chamber music could bring their grandkids?

*****

Freelance reviewer Wallace Chappell of Iowa City served as Hancher’s executive director from 1986 to 2001. After that, he moved to New York City to head up the American Ballet Theatre for three years, then the Paul Taylor Dance Company for four. He has returned to Iowa City, where he is again immersing himself in Eastern Iowa’s arts scene.

ARTS EXTRA

What: Orchestra Iowa Chamber Concert

When: 2:30 p.m. Sunday (9/23/12)

Where: Coralville Center for the Performing Arts, 1301 Fifth St., Coralville

Tickets: $18 at the door or Orchestraiowa.org

 

 

 

 

 

No place like home: Orchestra Iowa planning season of aahs for renovated Paramount Theatre

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Scaffolding and workers have filled the Paramount Theatre’s auditorium this winter in downtown Cedar Rapids, but by fall, the historic 1928 hall will again be filled with the sound of music. Orchestra Iowa will stage its Homecoming concert there Nov. 10, reawakening the facility after a four-year, $34.5 million restoration project. The orchestra will continue its post-flood outreach, performing outdoors at Brucemore and Kirkwood Community College and indoors in Iowa City, Coralville and Davenport venues. (Brian Ray/ SourceMedia Group News)

CEDAR RAPIDS — Orchestra Iowa is poised to blow the roof off the renovated Paramount Theatre with a season of celebration for 2012-2013.

“Rhapsody in Blue” at Brucemore, Mussorgsky’s “Pictures at an Exhibition” at the Paramount on Nov. 10, 2012, an “American Gothic” commission from Cedar Rapids native Michael Daugherty on May 4, 2013, and in between, “The Nutcracker” and “Cinderella” collaborations with Ballet Quad Cities, “La Boheme” by the Cedar Rapids Opera Theatre, and a Valentine’s program embracing Romeo and Juliet in many musical forms.

These are the highlights of the orchestra’s highly anticipated return to a space that will look familiar but feel new to audiences and performers.

The historic theater’s $34.5 million post-flood rehab is on track for an autumn reopening, according to Orchestra Iowa staff, but the “what ifs” did come into play when planning the Homecoming concert, resulting in something a little flashy. 

“One of the things we had to worry about was construction timelines,” Maestro Timothy Hankewich told season ticket holders following a concert last weekend in Sinclair Auditorium at Coe College, one of the symphony’s temporary homes. “In spite of the best-laid efforts, it was very difficult to make the decision on whether we should have soloists or not on that opening concert, because if we ever got delayed, that could really set us back. So as a staff, we decided to go all-orchestral.”

The concert will open with local composer Jerry Owen’s “Glee,” commissioned by the orchestra and first performed in 1986. Hankewich can cross the next piece off his “bucket list” — Strauss’ “Der Rosenkavalier Suite” — followed by two works focusing on art.

“One of the things we want to highlight is the audio-visual capabilities of the Paramount, so with the ‘Seven Studies on Themes of Paul Klee’ and ‘Pictures at an Exhibition,’ there is a visual arts component,” he says. “I’ve gotta tell you, for about four years the brass have been hounding me to do ‘Pictures at an Exhibition.’”

Prior to that event, a new collaboration will debut at the season-opening Brucemorchestra! concert on the front lawn at Brucemore mansion Sept. 9, 2012. In a casual picnic setting, local audiences will get their first glimpse of Ballet Quad Cities in a pas de deux with Orchestra Iowa, evolving into fully staged productions of “The Nutcracker” on Dec. 1 and 2, 2012, and Prokofiev’s “Cinderella” on April 13 and 14, 2013, on the Paramount stage.

“There’s nothing like live music and dance,” says Joedy Cook of Moline, Ill., executive director of Ballet Quad Cities, Iowa’s only resident ballet company, which she founded 16 years ago. Local, auditioned dancers will join her 11 professional dancers onstage.

“This is going to be extraordinarily special,” she says.

Orchestra Iowa also will travel to the company’s home at the Adler Theatre in Davenport to perform the shows there, as well.

Talks about such a collaboration began before the flood, but were shelved after 8 feet of floodwaters rose in the Paramount’s auditorium and Hall of Mirrors in June 2008.

Cook couldn’t be happier about what she’s seeing in the renovations, with the expanded stage area and orchestra pit.

“A lot of times they forget about what is needed backstage — the wing space, the lighting — all of those elements. That’s what brings a first-class production to the community — all the things you don’t see. It’s more than just the seats,” she says, “and I think they have really thought this theater out.

“We can’t wait. We cannot wait to get on that stage,” she says.

The orchestra’s expanded outreach — which includes continuing classical concerts in Iowa City’s West High School and chamber concerts at the Opus Concert Cafe in Cedar Rapids and the Coralville Center for the Performing Arts — is a direct result of the desire to stay viable in the wake of the floods.

The Patriotic Pops tradition is continuing at Kirkwood Community College on July 1, 2012, and the Holiday Spectacular and the Follies are returning to the Paramount.

“With challenge has come opportunity,” says Robert Massey, the orchestra’s executive director. “Although we lost musical equipment, instruments, production gear and our entire office infrastructure, what really hurt the most was losing the Paramount Theatre.

“I think you’ve seen what’s happened the last few years as the result of that,” he says. “It gave us this great opportunity to pause a little and reflect on who we are, what we do and how we do it.

“Through this opportunity grew our critical artistic creations, collaborations and the chance to not only restore the Paramount Theatre but to really enhance this facility,” he says.

“If you drive by First Street and Fourth Avenue, Third Avenue, you’ve seen a lot of activity. They’re well on track to come in on schedule and have this completed in the fall,” he says. 

“Many of you may remember there was a time right after the flood when the fate of the Paramount was in question,” he says. “We didn’t know if it would come back.

“The orchestra really led the charge to say yes, Cedar Rapids needs the Paramount Theatre.

“Since then, we’ve been really actively engaged in what that new Paramount Theatre will look like. Three years ago, we asked you, what would you like to see in the Paramount Theatre. What would you like changed, what would you like not changed. We came to the design team with that list and they listened to us,” says Massey, who moved to Cedar Rapids right before the flood.

“So in the fall you’re going to see a Paramount Theatre with more comfortable seats. The seats are going to be wider on the main floor, with more leg room, and improved acoustics. The Paramount Theatre was never designed for a symphony orchestra. About $4 million is going into it to make it an orchestra hall.

“It’s going to have state-of-the-art theatrical sound and lighting, and a fresh look, as the entire theater will be repainted in the colors it was originally painted in the ’20s. It will be much brighter than you remember. … All the seats are new, the fabric’s new, the carpet’s new. It’s just going to look much fresher and brighter. And another great advantage — climate control.”

The season preview met with applause and had patrons buzzing afterward.

“I love it,” says Dr. Percy Harris of Cedar Rapids, who has been coming to symphony concerts for at least 30 years. He and his daughter, Dr. Lileah Harris, are especially excited about the “American Gothic” commission by family friend Michael Daugherty. She’s also excited about the Romeo and Juliet programming and the ballets.

“It all sounded good,” she says. “It really all sounded wonderful.”

Doug Anderson of Cedar Rapids agrees. He’s been attending the concerts for about five years, and remembers when Daugherty taught at Kirkwood, where Anderson was on staff for 26 years.

“I really like Gershwin,” he says. “In fact, I was wishing earlier this week that we could hear Gershwin. I’m really happy with that, and everything else. No losers.”

 

2012-13 SEASON

Fine Arts Series

Brucemorchestra!

Sunday, Sept. 9, 2012, front lawn at Brucemore, 2160 Linden Dr.SE, Cedar Rapids

Gershwin, “An American in Paris” and “Rhapsody in Blue”; Grofe, “Grand Canyon Suite’ Copland, “The Promise of Living”

Homecoming

Saturday, Nov. 10, 2012, Paramount Theatre, 123 Third Ave. SE, Cedar Rapids

Sunday, Nov. 11, 2012, West High School, 2901 Melrose Ave., Iowa City

Owen, “Glee”; Strauss, “Der Rosenkavalier Suite”; Schuller, “Seven Studies on Themes of Paul Klee”; Mussorgsky, “Pictures at an Exhibition”

“The Nutcracker”

By Tchaikovsky, featuring Ballet Quad Cities

Dec. 1 and 2, 2012, Paramount Theatre

“La Boheme”

By Puccini, presented by Cedar Rapids Opera Theatre

Jan. 18 and 20, 2013, Paramount Theatre

Star-Crossed Lovers

Feb. 9, 2013, Paramount Theatre

Feb. 10, 2013, West High School

Prokofiev, “Romeo and Juliet”; Tchaikovsky, “Romeo and Juliet”; McIntyre, “Drive By”; Oden, “Romeo and Juliet” — A Beat Poem (Frank Oden, actor); Bernstein, “Symphonic Dances from West Side Story”

Brahms’ Third

March 9, 2013, Paramount Theatre

March 10, 2013, West High School

Elgar, “Enigma Variations”; Weber, “Concertino” (Roger Oyster, euphonium); Brahms, Symphony No. 3

‘Cinderella’

By Prokofiev, featuring Ballet Quad Cities

April 13 and April 14, 2013, Paramount Theatre

American Gothic

May 4, 2013,Paramount Theatre

May 5, 2013, West High School

Willson, “Symphonic Variations on an American Theme”; Daugherty, “American Gothic” (World Premiere, commissioned by Orchestra Iowa); Dvorak, Symphony No. 7

Pops

Brucemorchestra!

See description above

Patriotic Pops

July 1, 2012, Kirkwood Community College, 6301 Kirkwood Blvd. SW, Cedar Rapids

Holiday Spectacular

Dec. 15 and 16, 2012, Paramount Theatre

Chamber Series

Sept. 21 to 23, 2012; Oct. 12 to 14, 2012; Jan. 11 to 13; April 5 to 7, 2013

Friday and Saturday performances at Opus Concert Cafe, next to the Paramount Theatre

Sunday performances at Coralville Center for the Performing Arts, 1301 Fifth St.

 

TICKETS

What: Orchestra Iowa season tickets

When: Renewals on sale now; general public sales begin April 30, 2012, at Orchestra Iowa Ticket Office, 119 Third Ave. SE, (319) 366-8203, 1-(800) 369-8863 or www.orchestraiowa.org

Paramount Theatre Fine Arts Series: $139 to $329

Iowa City/Coralville Series: $79 to $149

Popular Series: $39 to $69

Opus Chamber Series: $79

Anytime Tickets: Six tickets, $199

Compose-You-Own: Four concerts, $79 to $189

Information: (319) 366-8203, 1-(800) 369-8863, www.orchestraiowa.org or email ticketoffice@orchestraiowa.org

 
 
 

Monet’s gardens leaves lasting impressions for E. Iowa pianist

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By Diana Nollen/ SourceMedia Group

Visitors to Claude Monet’s gardens in Giverny, France, will soon be able to hear what Dan Knight saw as he strolled the hallowed grounds in 1999.

So will Eastern Iowans.

Dan Knight

Knight, a local pianist with global renown, has turned his impressions of the alluring site into an hourlong, 11-movement suite, “A Day in the Gardens of Monet.” If all goes as planned, the new CD will be available in the Monet gardens’ gift shop by April or May.

Closer to home, Knight will perform the work in a multimedia concert at 3 p.m. Feb. 19, 2012, in the new Coralville Center for the Performing Arts.

Photos and images of Monet’s famous paintings will dance through the center’s digital projection system as Knight’s fingers fly over a grand keyboard.

“It’s one of the best Steinways I’ve ever played in my life. It’s a gorgeous, wonderful instrument,” says Knight, adding that the state-of-the-art hall has “near-perfect acoustics.”

Knight, 58, of North Liberty, knows his Steinways. He’s among the upper echelon of the world’s pianists who have attained the coveted Steinway Artist title. Admitted to the ranks in 1996, his idiom is jazz, but he says most of the 1,500 Steinway Artists are classical pianists.

He’s not alone, however. Since Duke Ellington, other pop and jazz artists have made the roster, including Billy Joel, Diana Krall and Harry Connick Jr. On the “Immortals” list are Ignace Jan Paderewski, George Gershwin, Cole Porter, Sergei Rachmaninoff, Vladimir Horowitz and Arthur Rubinstein.

Music has “always been like breathing” for Knight, who grew up in Ottumwa. By age 3 he could sing any melody he heard. At 4, he started plunking out melodies on his sister’s chord organ on the sly. After his parents heard him play the “Dragnet” TV theme song on an aunt’s piano, they bought one. Shortly before he turned 5, he was taking lessons from Tillie Maither, who had studied with Paderewski.

Knight went on to study with leading jazz ambassador and educator Billy Taylor, whose music entranced him at age 5, when he saw Taylor on TV.

Knight’s career is full of highlights, from his nomination for a 2008 Pulitzer Prize for “The Walt Whitman Suite” to his status as the first person invited to play three consecutive years at the celebrated Montreux Jazz Festival in Switzerland. He performed there in 1997, 1998 and 1999, with that last trip leading directly to his Monet suite.

As with all of his 200-or-so compositions, the music for “Monet” lived in Knight’s head before his fingers ever touched the keys. He typically finds his inspiration in artwork and dance. And sometimes, in circumstances beyond his control, like a camera that catches fire and ruins some highly anticipated sightseeing photos.

"The Water Lily Pond", 1900, oil on canvas, 35-1/2 x 36-1/2 in., Given in memory of Governor Alvan T. Fuller by the Fuller Foundation. (PRNewsFoto)

When his third invitation to Montreux came, Knight and his wife, Julie, decided to build in a little vacation time, as well.

 

“I’ve always wanted to go to Monet’s gardens, to see the place where Claude Monet was inspired and lived — where all these magnificent paintings came from,” he says. 

 

When that day came, he grabbed his camera and set off for an artistic adventure.

“It was a perfect day, a drop-dead gorgeous day,” he says. “Julie was looking at me askance; she was not excited about me taking pictures all day.

“The day just started incredibly well. We parked down the street from town by a beautiful draining area where water

 

 from the gardens goes back to the Seine. Julie was just mesmerized by the long, flowing blades of grass and how they moved on the water. She stood there, transfixed by whole thing. We just looked at that and looked at that, and stood there about 20 minutes watching this water.

“Then we go into Monet’s house. I’m so proud of myself — I could ask for tickets in French from taking a class at Kirkwood,” he says. “I got my camera out, turned it on, the lithium battery leaked and the camera caught fire. Little flames and smoke were shooting out of the top. I sat down and kinda got teary-eyed, thinking my day was ruined.

“Julie, in her infinite wisdom, said, ‘Maybe you’re not supposed to take pictures today. Maybe there’

 

s something else you’re supposed to do. Maybe you’re supposed to make music.’

“She looked at me and said, ‘Take your glasses off.’ I’m really nearsighted,” he says, “and the second I did that, everything around me looked like a Monet painting — all impressionistic, all dazzling.

“Never before or since then have I seen the colors like in that garden — vibrant, alive, with the sun at that particular part, a bend in the Seine. All the things there were just perfect for painting,” Knight says.

 

“I went from the house and looked around and had chills. I heard music in my head everywhere I went. I said, ‘Let’s have the kind of experience Mr. Monet would have had in the gardens, but for ourselves, and take these visual images into our heart.’

“The second I started doing that, the music went nuts. I started making notes on everything I could get my hands on — notebooks, travel brochures, postcards, free things in gift shop. It was just dazzling,” he says.

“So I came back, then kind of put the thing together and started really listening. The way I compose, is I wait until they’re finished in my head. …

“It’s kind of tedious,” he says. “I play it in my head over and over. I knew it in the garden — I wrote down the motifs and pieces of melodies just the way I heard them.

“As a few months went by and I had more distance from whole thing, I went back and worked in earnest. I listened to it again in my head. The whole thing just kind of happened in a flood. The second I started hearing those melodies, I could start going back to that place, standing next to Julie on the Japanese bridge.”

They saw other tourists flocking to the same spot, just to have their pictures taken, not pausing long enough to see what the Knights were seeing.

“They missed out,” he says.

He’s performed bits and pieces of his suite over the years, waiting for it to solidify, then recorded it in 2009 at St. Bridget’s Church in Morse, near West Branch.

“The acoustics are just perfect out there,” he says.

The CD was released in 2010, and in another twist of fate, he sent one to a fan from Denmark who wanted a copy after hearing him perform at Riverside Theatre in Iowa City several years earlier.

 “I got an incredible email back,” Knight says. “She was so moved by my recording that she and her husband decided to drive seven hours to Monet’s house, took the CD with them on their iPod and listened to it in the gardens while looking at all the places I wrote about.”

She wanted all the tourists to have that experience and suggested Knight sell the disc in the Monet gift shop.

“I’m going to negotiate that beginning the first of March, so by April or May, I should have that all set up,” he says.

“The whole thing’s come  full circle.”

  

GET OUT

 

3 THINGS TO DO this weekend

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Joe Raiola: ‘American Heretic’
Friday, Sept. 23

It’s a mad, mad, mad, mad world in the mind of MAD Magazine’s senior editor Joe Raiola. A staunch defender of free speech, he’s bringing his latest rant to the Englert Theatre. “American Heretic” dissects what’s behind the national debt, “overused, meaningless terms” like “sacred ground,” First Amendment issues and his “Theory of Holy Books,” where he claims you can’t trust a Holy Book with more than 200 pages or weighing more than a half pound. He’s been shaking up comedy across 40 states and has been one of the creative innovators behind MAD Magazine’s mad success since 1984. Always one for kicking up controversy — like the oft-banned photo where he extended his index finger to promote his previous show, “Almost Obscene” — we can only imagine what’s up his sleeves for this one-man stand.

Joe Raiola: ‘American Heretic’
8 p.m. Friday, Sept. 23, Englert Theatre, Englert Theatre, 221 E. Washington St., Iowa City; $15 and $20; (319) 688-2653; Englert.org

 

Lincoln Highway Arts Festival
Saturday, Sept. 24

Looking for adventure? Head out on the highway to see whatever comes your way in the sixth annual Lincoln Highway Arts Festival on Saturday. More than 30 local and regional artists will transform uptown Mount Vernon into an enormous art gallery with the historic highway as the backdrop. Stroll among the artist demonstrations and street musicians, then get movin’ and groovin’ with interactive dance lessons. Want to dig into history? At 11 a.m., head to Mount Vernon Bank & Trust for a talk tracing the development of small towns from the Civil War era through today. Want a peek into the future? Community visioning conceptual drawings will be unveiled at City Hall from 10 a.m. to 2 p.m., showing how Mount Vernon is heading into a more beautiful byway.

Lincoln Highway Arts Festival
9 a.m. to 4 p.m. Saturday (9/24), uptown Mount Vernon;

 

Lola Astanova
Saturday, Sept. 24

The acoustics in the new Coralville Center for the Performing Arts are about to shimmer under the artistry of Russian-born pianist Lola Astanova. A child prodigy whose musical journey began at age 6, she gained international attention at 8 and eventually had to break through a bureaucratic brick wall to land in the United States. Now a New York fashionista and foodie, she’s performed on NBC’s “Today” show, at the Kennedy Center and for numerous charity events. She’s making her first trip to Iowa for West Music’s Steinway Extravaganza, which runs Friday through Sunday. It features concerts, workshops, recitals, a meet-and-greet and a master class with Astanova, as well as a piano sale. Sounds like ivories everywhere will be tickled pink.

Lola Astanova
8 p.m. Saturday (9/24), Coralville Center for the Performing Arts, 1301 Fifth St., Coralville; $20 adults, $10 students, center box office, (319) 248-9370