Copious Notes

Lexington Children's Theatre's 70th Season

Vivian Snipes (above), photographed in 2004 in front of Lexington Children's Theatre, and her husband Larry (below), have both penned new scripts that will premier at LCT next season.

World premieres and pirates highlight Lexington Children’s Theatre’s 2008-09 season, its 70th year in business.

The holiday season will put Larry and ­Vivian Snipes, the theater’s producing director and associate artistic director, respectively, in the spotlight with new scripts.

Larry Snipes has penned a script from Laura ­Numeroff’s If You Take a Mouse to the Movies, scheduled to run Nov. 29 to Dec. 27 at the Lexington Opera House. Vivian Snipes’ adaptation of Hans Christian Andersen’s The Snow Queen will play at LCT Dec. 14 to 20.

Feb. 15 to 21, LCT makes a contribution to the Lincoln bicentennial with the world premiere of ­Keeping Mr. Lincoln, which the theater commissioned from playwright Sandra Fenichel Asher.

Children’s Theatre will end its season with the musical How I Became a Pirate from May 3 to 10.

The rest of the season includes some classics and contemporary favorites.

■ The season opens Sept. 28 to Oct. 5 with Eric Coble’s ­adaptation of Lois Lowry’s Newberry Award-winning novel The Giver.

■ The Headless ­Horseman rides in for a Halloween run of The ­Legend of Sleepy Hollow, Oct. 26 to Nov. 2.

■ The Russian folktale Katerina the Clever plays one weekend, Nov. 8 and 9.

■ Jack and the Wonderbeans returns Jan. 25 to Feb. 1.

■ The Watsons Go to Birmingham – 1963 takes a Flint, Mich., family to one of the most volatile times and places in American history on March 15 to 22.

For season subscription information, call (859) 254-4546 or visit the theater's website. Individual show tickets will go on sale Sept. 1.

Country music

Concertgoers arrive at Meadow View Barn in the Shaker Village of Pleasant Hill for Saturday afternoon's concert in the Chamber Music Festival of the Bluegrass. Below: Sibling violinists Todd and Daniel Phillips of the Orion String Quartet perform Saturday afternoon. Copyrighted LexGo photos by Rich Copley.

SHAKERTOWN -- Classical music is something we normally associate with the city. There are those big orchestras in New York, Chicago and just about every other metropolis worth its salt. Even here, in the heart of the Bluegrass, our major concert hall is in the middle of a wide web of asphalt.

Meadow View Barn isn't.

The old tobacco barn at the Shaker Village of Pleasant Hill lives up to its name, nestled atop a hill that looks out upon vast expanses of green valley or trees from every direction.

For the second Memorial Day weekend in a row, the barn and Shakertown are hosting the Chamber Music Festival of the Bluegrass, produced by Centre College's Norton Center for the Arts. Featuring the Chamber Music Society of Lincoln Center, direct from the asphalt jungle of NYC, it is one of the most sublime concert experiences you will ever have.

The string musicians' instruments probably haven't been played this close to their natural elements -- i.e. trees and horse hair -- and sounded this at home in a long time. Somehow the cellos sound more woody, the strains of the violins twirl in the air like a lark dancing, and the violas sound like old souls taking it all in.

This year, the chamber music society brought along four musicians of its own: co directors Wu Han, piano,  and David Finckel, cello, and emerging artists Arnaud Sussman, violin, and Beth Guterman, viola, who were new to the festival. Han and Finckel also invited along the Orion String Quartet, which is performing in its own right and splintering off to perform with the Lincoln Center artists as well.

That was an added bonus with Saturday evening's concert in the Meadow View Barn: We got these world-class musicians mixing and matching for more variety than you usually get from a chamber concert.

Jason Epperson is coming home and likely making a movie

Jason Epperson acknowledged the crowd at Winchester's Calvary Christian Church at an August event to watch the final episode of On the Lot. Copyrighted photos by Pablo Alcala for the Lexington Herald-Leader.

See Jason Epperson's Blood Born at the bottom of this post.

It’s been a year since Jason Epperson stepped into the spotlight, and it still seems surreal.

“I still don’t know if it’s hit me,” the Winchester native says, “that I was on a reality show and I went through what I went through.”

The reality show was On the Lot, which bowed last Memorial Day weekend. It was a co-production of reality TV guru Mark Burnett and filmmaking deity Steven Spielberg. The aim was to find the next great film director, and Epperson wound up in the running up until the moment Texan Will Bigham was named the winner.

Though the show turned out to be a critical and ratings flop, Epperson’s runner-up status opened doors for him in Hollywood, where he, wife Cindi and son Isaiah moved after the show wrapped in August.

During a late-afternoon chat Tuesday, Epperson, 32, gave the move mixed reviews but said it was essential to getting his career in gear.

“I’ve made so many relationships in the business,” Epperson says. “Patience is the most important thing to have. You have to keep fighting. You have to keep going.”

Epperson says it was particularly frustrating for him and even Bigham to be trying to get their careers in gear during the writers strike last winter, which brought all production to a halt.
Now, Epperson is close to solidifying plans for his first feature film, a project that is bringing him home. He is planning to shoot The Phoenix, a film about Harold Dennis, a survivor of the 1988 Carroll County bus crash, which claimed 27 lives.

The UK Wind Ensemble, bound for China

In this video, UK Wind Ensemble director John Cody Birdwell and a couple of students discuss the group's upcoming trip to China. Video by Amy Jones, courtesy of UK Public Relations.

This morning, 67 students faculty and friends of the University of Kentucky Wind Ensemble are winging their way west -- Or, should we say far east? -- to China. The journey will take the UK band on a six city tour of the country that is eagerly anticipating the 2008 Beijing Summer Olympics while simultaneously mourning the devastating earthquake that struck Central China a week ago today.

We've got a story about the trip, how it came about and what's going to happen, in today's paper and at LexGo.com.

We've added a photo album of pictures taken by the Herald-Leader's Whitney Waters at events leading up to the trip.

If you'd like to follow along, Cindy Stewart-Birdwell, wife of Wind Ensemble director John Cody Birdwell, is blogging about the experience.

Click the play button below to hear John Mackey's Turbine from the UK Wind Ensemble's Distilled in Kentucky, the CD that was a key to earning the offer to play in China.

Click here to hear UK President Lee Todd's interview of Birdwell for WUKY's UK Perspectives program.

Interview: David Finckel and Wu Han on the Chamber Music Festival of the Bluegrass

Wu Han (center) and David Finckel (right) at Shaker Village last year with their daughter Lilian. Photo courtesy of Finckel and Han.

Last year, the Chamber Music Society of Lincoln Center participated in a pioneering effort: The first Chamber Music Festival of the Bluegrass.

Presented by the Norton Center for the Arts and its director, George Foreman, the fest was held at the Shaker Village of Pleasant Hill, off the beaten path for most concert goers, in a renovated tobacco barn, an atypical venue for musicians more accustomed to cozy concert halls.

And it was a smashing success.

The concerts were sold out, and the chamber music society’s press representative says the musicians haven’t stopped talking about Kentucky.

So, with the second edition upon us, we got on the phone with cellist David Finckel and pianist Wu Han, co-directors of the Chamber Music Society, to talk about the second edition of the festival and their return to the Bluegrass.

Herald-Leader: Tell us about your trip here last year and what made it so great.

David Fickel: The most wonderful thing, besides being in Kentucky, and in such a beautiful place and having such beautiful weather and meeting all the new people and playing for a new audience was being present at the birth of a really exciting new project. These days, when classical music takes root in a new location and blossoms, it’s wonderful news for everybody involved. We also look at our involvement at the Shaker Village there as being something that the Chamber Society is good at, something that we should do, being the kind of organization we are, we should go around and help people start new things because we can present great art in great programs and get people excited.

In the end, we all had a marvelous time. We made a lot of new friends, and we’ve really been thinking about it ever since.

Wu Han: In a regular concert, we usually hit a city and play for an audience of 500 to 2,000 and then we probably split the next morning and hit the next town. That’s a performer’s life.

So, to have the opportunity to base in such a gorgeous environment – it’s inspiring to be in such a pure and spiritual place like the Shaker Village – and to have the opportunity to be involved in a festival is incredibly satisfying. Festival is a place you come to meet people to have exploration, to have a community that has the opportunity to mingle, to eat meals together, to talk and to share a space and exchange ideas. At the end of the festival, we know the presenters very, very well, we get to know the audience, we get to know where to eat locally, we get to hike a little bit and the audience bonded with us. We have so much to share and it’s a very different sensation from just traveling from city to city and doing one night stands. The setting of the Shaker Village is fantastic. I don’t have the TV to distract me with CNN and 30 minutes of updating in my hotel room. And everyday I would wake up in the same place and it is very close to nature and I get to meet my audience in the daytime.

That’s unusual for musicians and I think it’s unusal for the audience to be that close to the musicians.

And playing the tobacco barn is so unusual. It’s very close to the earthiness of what we do using the chamber music form and its intimacy. It’s a project I really treasure.

Q: Last year, before you came, you said you were curious as to what the venue was going to look like. How did the tobacco barn turn out as a place to play?

WH: I loved it. To have a little bit of cowbell and the birds flying around the Dvorak Piano Quintet is not a bad thing at all.

Following the UK Winds to China

University of Kentucky Wind Ensemble director John Cody Birdwell is taking his wife and kids along on the group's forthcoming trip to China, and said wife, Cindy Stewart-Birdwell (photo, right), is contributing to the effort by maintaining a blog about the experience.

Thus far, Stewart-Birdwell's HigherView blog has been about the stresses of prepping for the trip around the world that starts Sunday night.

But in view of recent events in China, her Monday post had the chilling note that according to an original schedule for the trip, when Monday's earthquake occurred, the Wind Ensemble would have been in Chengdu, about 60 miles from the epicenter. She writes:

"Life is fragile, this we know, so in the words of Leonard Bernstein, 'This will be our reply to violence: to make music more intensely, more beautifully, more devotedly than ever before.'"

Click here to read Stewart-Birdwell's blog. I'll also set a link to it in the left-hand column here for the duration of the trip, May 19-29.

Over the weekend, we'll have a full report on the trip in the Herald-Leader and at LexGo.

New plays explore Kentucky

Playwright Arlene Hutton, whose As it is in Heaven will be presented by the University of Kentucky Theatre at the Shaker Village at Pleasant Hill. Copyrighted photo by Aaron Lee Fineman.

We often talk about the ability of theater to transport us to times and/or places far away, and that is definitely one of the stage’s beauties.

But sometimes, you get this nagging sensation that you’ve taken enough trips to Elizabethan England or the Upper West Side of Manhattan, and you know there are great stories around here.

Two upcoming productions are going to illuminate that point here in late May, when theater is usually dark.

■ LexArts and the Pick Up Performance Co(S.) present In This Place . . . , a play about the Oldham House, which was built by Samuel Oldham, the first free African American to own property and build his own house in Lexington. It will be presented at the Downtown Arts Center May 22 to 24. (Note: The company is holding open rehearsals at the Downtown Arts Center starting between 3 and 3:15 daily through May 21, except Sunday. The rehearsals are free, though if you come, you are asked to stay for the duration of the approximately 90-minute run through.)

■ The University of Kentucky Theatre will present As it is in Heaven, a play about nine Shaker Women set during the “era of manifestations” in early 19th Century Shaker culture. The play will be performed May 31-June 8 at an open air barn in the Shaker Village at Pleasant Hill, where the play is set.

The play was set there by Arlene Hutton, a New York-based playwright with Kentucky ties who has written about the Bluegrass on several occasions. She was the author of The Last Train to Nibroc, a play set in her parents’ home of Corbin, which spawned two sequels: See Rock City and Gulf View Drive, all with heavy references to local touchstones such as Berea College.

After frequently sitting through plays where I was certain I was missing some of the hip New York references, it was cool to see Gulf View Drive in The City last year fairly confident I was getting a number of things the New Yorkers weren’t.

But seriously, we don’t treasure theater with roots here so that we can somehow be hipper than everyone else when the shows venture out into the world. These are events to treasure because they help us understand the world where we live and the things that are around us we might not have time to or know how to investigate unless someone boils it down into 90-or-so engrossing minutes.

L.A. Times critic comes home to Lexington

The University of ­Kentucky College of Fine Arts distinguished alumni award has gone to such artists as sculptor John Henry, tenor Gregory Turay and Wilco drummer Glenn Kotche.

This year, it went to — I love this — a critic.

F. Kathleen Foley was a theater student at UK in the 1970s and has gone on to a career as a theater critic for the Los Angeles Times and several other publications in Southern California. Foley’s original intention was to act, which she did in New York, Kentucky and L.A.

“I became a critic by default,” Foley says from her home in Los Angeles. “I wanted the free tickets, so after acting didn’t work out, I kind of segued into this career.”

That’s one of two careers Foley has. By day, she works for Breakdown Services, a Los Angeles firm that reads scripts and ­disseminates information about the available roles to actors, directors, agents and other interested parties in the film trade. Foley and her colleagues read scripts, then distill them into quick information about the plots and characters to distribute to clients. For instance, a script might call for a 23-year-old blonde bimbo who roller skates, so when the information goes out, agents can send all of their clients who match that description.

“It’s really leveled the ­playing field,” Foley says.

And she and her ­colleagues have a lot of fun, including reading egregiously bad scripts out loud to one another.

“After Pulp Fiction came out, everything we got was really raw and awful,” Foley says. “But I read good scripts, too. I read The ­Departed,” which won the 2007 Oscar for best-picture.

By night, Foley loves to see good theater, filing an ­average of two reviews a week.

Above: F. Kathleen Foley accepts her distinguished alumni award at UK, May 4, 2008. Photo courtesy of F. Kathleen Foley.

UK Wind Ensemble still needs money for its trip to China

University of Kentucky trumpet professor Mark Clodfelter (left) performs with the UK Wind Ensemble, conducted by Cody Birdwell (right), at a April 20 concert previewing the Ensemble's upcoming trip to China. Copyrighted LexGo photo by Whitney Waters.

As the University of Kentucky Wind ­Ensemble is gearing up for its tour of China, from May 19 to 29, it is still in the process of raising funds for the journey.

“This is obviously not the best year to be trying to raise additional funds for a trip like this,” UK bands director John Cody Birdwell said, referring to the faltering economy and budget-tightening at the university.

But it’s also the one chance for the band to go be part of a cultural event leading up to the Beijing Olympics.

The trip will take place regardless of the state of fund-raising at take-off, but the band is still seeking donations. Tax deductible contributions can be made to the University of Kentucky Bands Alumni and Friends, 33 Fine Arts Building, Lexington, KY 40506-0022. For more information, call the band office at (859) 257-2263.

Asbury's Highbridge Film Festival

Above: Asbury film fans arrive at the Highbridge Film Festival Saturday night. Below: Jeff Day and Greg Bandy open the festival. Photos by Rich Copley | LexGo.

WILMORE -- The red carpet was rolled down the steps of Asbury College’s Hughes Auditorium for Saturday Night’s Highbridge Film Festival. This was the fourth time around for the student film competition, and it felt like a strong taste of Hollywood glamour in small town Kentucky.

Students streamed toward the auditorium, many dressed in probably the best things they had in their closets, to watch 11 student productions competing for the top honors.

The star performer of the evening was Visceral by Brock Smith, which won six awards, including best drama and audience favorite.

The action-packed short, in a sort of 24-esque vein, portrayed a man racing against time to save his wife from a biological threat. While the plot was a tad fuzzy, the action and sound production were spot on.

But Smith’s was hardly the only strong production of the evening.

Pencil Me In, from the trio of Austin Brooks, Ben Corwin and Jack Brannen also dazzled with its story of a man and woman who live by their planners – she is shown brushing her teeth and then crossing off “brush teeth” in her precious book – who eventually meet because of their identical appointment books. The film, largely shot at the Wilmore IGA, won honors for best comedy and best script.

LexArts gets $350,000 and another challenge

Lexington mayor Jim Newberry released his budget for the fiscal year 2009 Tuesday, which means LexArts got news about the Lexington-Fayette Urban County Government's contribution to its Campaign for the Arts. For the most part, it sounded like a repeat of last year, minus $50,000-to-$100,000, depending on how you take it.

The LFUCG is set to give LexArts, pending Lexington-Fayette Urban County Council approval, a $350,000 contribution to the campaign, and it has issued a $100,000 challenge grant. Last year, the Mayor (copyrighted photo, right, by David Perry) gave the campaign $350,000 and issued a $150,000 challenge geared toward attracting new donors to LexArts. The group met the challenge in September.

With that news, we asked LexArts president and CEO Jim Clark a few questions about the allocation:

Q: How do you feel about the $350,000 contribution to the campaign?

A: I am pleased the Mayor Newberry maintained LexArts’ base level of support.  Knowing the Mayor would be hard pressed to provide the same package as last year ($350k base with $150k Challenge), we budgeted just for the base amount. 

Q: Where does that set the campaign in relation to the goal?

A: We are now just $50k short of the goal which is $1,125,000.

Q: What is the nature of this $100,000 challenge? Is it another new-donor drive or something different?

A: We have not discussed the details yet, but I am aware that Mayor Newberry wants to work with us to craft a plan that helps us attract new or increased gifts – last year we focused only on new gifts which were capped at $1,000 per donor.

Q: How do you feel about having another challenge this year?

A: I feel great and grateful.  This is a difficult budget year, yet the Mayor has maintained his commitment to the arts and culture as part of his economic development strategy for Lexington.  The arts and culture are integral to enhancing the quality of life and making this place attractive to businesses. 

Q: When does the campaign end?

A: The official end date is April 15 and it looks like we are going to be able announce GOAL on that date – of course, we will accept gifts after that date, right up to the end of our fiscal year, June 30.

Dateline Flyover

Michael Friedman, Jim Lewis and Steven Cosson (L-R) discuss This Beautiful City, the play about the evangelical community in Colorado Springs, Colo., which they created as part of 32nd annual Humana Festival of New American Plays at Actor's Theatre of Louisville. Photo by Maggie Huber | Lexington Herald-Leader and LexGo.com.

Note: A few weeks ago, I was invited to join the bloggers at Flyover, a blog at ArtsJournal.com written by nine arts journalists from across the country who work outside of the major cultural capitols such as New York and Chicago. It was quite an honor, which I compared to being asked to join your favorite band, as I have been an avid Flyover reader since the blog launched. I also like being part of it because it makes Lexington part of a national arts conversation. So, today I put up my first post. Sometimes, when appropriate, I'll cross post between here and Flyover, and sometimes I'll write posts exclusively for that blog. Here's an excerpt from today's post, and I invite you to follow the link at the bottom to go over to Flyover and read the rest and read posts from my fellow Flyover bloggers:

Last week, I saw a performance of Lee Blessing’s new play, Great Falls. It was a great piece of theater that belied the bells and whistles of so many shows today by focusing on two terrific, well-traveled actors under the guidance of a first-rate director.

And I was nowhere near New York City. Not even Chicago or San Francisco. I was in Louisville, a town most people only think about the first Saturday in May. But every year, somewhere around the last weekend in March, the Derby City becomes the center of the theater world with critics and theater professionals flocking in for the Humana Festival of New American Plays.

The festival, which has launched critically acclaimed plays such as Crimes of the Heart, is now into its fourth decade. It has had its up years and down years, but with recent hits such as Dinner with Friends and Omnium Gatherum, people still come to Humana hoping to be among the first to discover the next great thing.

See the end of this post at Flyover.

LexArts campaign aims for a record

LexArts President and CEO Jim Clark, 2008 Campaign for the Arts Chair Julie Young and Lexington Mayor Jim Newberry. Photo by Nigel Soult, courtesy of LexArts.

LexArts has set its highest goal ever for its annual Campaign for the Arts. The 2008 fund-raising drive will aim to collect $1.125 million from individual, business and government donors.

“It was not long ago that Lexington was completely dominated by sports,” campaign chair Julie Young said at a kickoff event Feb. 15 at Spindletop Hall. “Lexington is ready for this kind of campaign.”

Young has been involved in the Lexington arts scene for more that 25 years, most recently heading the search committee that found Actors Guild of Lexington artistic director Richard St. Peter. Part of the reason for Young’s confidence is that the campaign already has secured $530,000.

Last year’s campaign raised $1,028,678, plus an additional $300,000 later in the year when the arts umbrella organization met a $150,000 challenge grant issued by Mayor Jim Newberry. The grant was contingent on all of the contributors being new LexArts donors, and the gifts could not exceed $1,000 each.

“I hope the challenge will be a gift that will keep on giving,” Newberry said at the campaign kickoff.

But LexArts President and CEO Jim Clark said he also is hoping his organization doesn’t have to take on a new challenge. Like last year, Newberry did not promise a specific contribution from the Lexington Fayette Urban-County Government, as previous mayors have. Newberry said he wanted
to set an allocation in consultation with the Urban County Council. Last year’s allocation was $350,000, plus the challenge.

Clark said LexArts is hoping for a $500,000 allocation with no challenges this year, “since we demonstrated we have community support last year.”

Funds raised by the Campaign for the Arts are disbursed to groups such as the Lexington Art League and Lexington Children’s Theatre, and for Community Arts Grants, Gallery Hops and the annual arts showcase weekend.

For more information on the campaign, visit LexArts website or call (859) 255-2951.

Our Lincoln: art of record and rememberance

Nicholas Provenzale portrayed young Abraham Lincoln in a few selections from Joseph Baber's forthcoming opera River of Time, at the Our Lincoln program Sunday night at the Singletary Center for the Arts. Below: Jim Sayre delivered The Gettysburg Address as Lincoln. Copyrighted LexGo photos by Joseph Rey Au.

U.S. Rep. Ben Chandler (D-Kentucky) opened Sunday night's Our Lincoln presentation at the Singletary Center for the Arts saying, "The arts are how we tell our story."

For the next two-and-a-half hours, a wide array of Kentucky artists proved that point.

Our Lincoln celebrated the Kentucky native who became one of the United States' most pivotal Presidents with primary source art, created in his day, and works that are being developed to this day in tribute to Abraham Lincoln. In two-and-a-half hours, the audience got to see how art can tell our story from the full gale of a symphony orchestra and chorus to the simplicity of words, read by a woman whose voice has been nurtured by her Central Kentucky roots.

Our Lincoln director James Rodgers constructed the evening so that pieces such as Kentucky Poet Laureate Jane Gentry Vance reading Edwin Markham's Lincoln, The Man of the People and the Lexington Philharmonic, Lexington Singers and Lexington Singers Children's Choirs' rendition of Jay Flippin and Rodgers new setting of Jesse Stuart's Kentucky is My Land informed the overall story. One of the best juxtapositions was  emcee Nick Clooney recounting the Battle of Perryville followed by Lexington native and Chicago Symphony Orchestra violinist Nathan Cole performing the mournful Ashokan Farewell with his wife and fellow CSO violinist Akiko Tarumoto.

And there was Kentucky Chautauqua performer Jim Sayre showing how life can become art, with a recitation of Lincoln's Gettysburg Address.

This evening didn't have a lot of precedents. The closest thing to it in recent Lexington arts history was the Spirit of America Benefit Concert for the Victims of Sept. 11, 2001, which was held at Singletary Oct. 9, 2001, featuring the Philharmonic, Singers, the American Spiritual Ensemble and numerous other soloists and groups. Though Lincoln met a tragic end and presided over a tragic war, this event was a celebration of the fact that Kentucky produced a great President. And in that celebration, we were reminded that the Bluegrass has also produced a lot of great artists who can tell his story.

~ The American Spiritual Ensemble, definitely one of the highlights of Our Lincoln, will be part of festivities Tuesday, Feb. 12, in Hodgenville. This is the big Lincoln ceremony that will be attended by First Lady Laura Bush and all of that good stuff. If you want to watch, the ceremony will be carried on C-SPAN3 -- don't ask me where to get C-SPAN3 -- and streamed at c-span.org, starting at 10:30 a.m. EST.

2007: Top arts stories

Shakespeare at Equus Run was one of several events launched in the Summer of 2007 to fill the void left by the closing of the Lexington Shakespeare Festival. Herald-Leader/Kentucky.com photo by Matt Goins.

"This is a developing story . . . " is a fairly common phrase in the news biz, and it certainly applies to the arts in Lexington in 2007. When you start thinking back on the big stories of the past year, several of them were stories that carried over from 2006. And heck, some of them won't be resolved by the time this piece is being penned in 2008.

There's quite a bit of evolution and change taking place here, and that usually doesn't easily fit into a calendar year. But evolution and change are also exciting, so let's see what was going on.

Summer reboot: One of the late-breaking stories of 2006 was the dissolution of the Lexington Shakespeare Festival. The arts community responded big time, filling the summer with events including Actors Guild of Lexington's Shakespeare at Equus Run and another festival that swooped into the Arboretum to replace the Shakespeare Festival. The summer also saw the debut of new chamber music festivals at the beginning and end of the season: The Chamber Music Festival of the Bluegrass, featuring the Chamber Music Society of Lincoln Center, at Shakertown and the Chamber Music Festival of Lexington, featuring Lexington native and Chicago Symphony violinist Nathan Cole, at the Fasig-Tipton Sales Pavilion.

This story will continue to develop in 2008. Actors Guild has already decided to pass on presenting a indoor musical, as it did with Kiss Me Kate, this year, and SummerFest will likely look different in its 2008 offerings than it did this year. We'll keep you posted.

The search begins: George Zack is an indisputable institution in the Lexington arts community. So it meant a major change was afoot late last year when he announced he was stepping down as music director of the Lexington Philharmonic after 35 years on the job. This year, the change started happening. Though Zack's final concert isn't until September 2008, and his successor won't be announced until 2009, we got a look at the first two candidates for his job -- Phoenix Symphony Orchestra assistant conductor Kayoko Dan and Alexander Platt, who has several orchestras under his baton -- and an idea what the Phil will look like without Zack. In 2008, we should see at least five more candidates for the job.

Laura Bell takes the lead: No, this did not happen in Lexington. But if you ever wanted a statement that you can be born and raised in Lexington, go to school here, sharpen your skills in local arts entities and go on to top the marquee in a major cultural capitol, Laura Bell Bundy's star turn in Legally Blonde -- the Musical was a strong one. The Lexington native and Lexington Catholic graduate culminated years of working through stage and film to grab the leading role in one of Broadway's hottest shows, and a Tony nomination for the performance. Bundy's a performer with a lot of irons in the fire, so we'll see where 2008 leads her.

Zirkel's passing spotlights his cause: Ross Zirkle's death from cancer robbed the University of Kentucky of one of its beloved art professors and Lexington of a strong and active member of its visual arts community. It also revived a cause that Zirkle had fought passionately for: Getting the University of Kentucky administration to pay attention to the deplorable conditions at the Reynolds Building where the art department is housed. Despite problems that prompted an accreditation  team to call the building, "a disaster waiting to happen," and previous problems including a collapsing staircase, the University of Kentucky administration has not made renovating the facility a top priority. We'll see if Zirkle's passing prompts any change of heart in '08.

The UK Symphony goes on the record and on the road: This year saw conductor John Nardolillo putting his orchestra on the national map with achievements including recording a CD for Naxos Records, the largest classical music label in the world, and playing Carnegie Hall with folk legend Arlo Guthrie. That CD of ballet music by George Frederick McKay should come out in 2008, and we'll see how else Nardolillo turns heads in the new year.

UK Opera joins forces with San Francisco Opera and composer: The University of Kentucky Opera Theatre increased its national profile joining with the San Francisco Opera's Merola Young Artist Program for the world premier of Thomas Pasatieri's comic opera Hotel Casablanca. It put the UK company in league with one of the nation's strongest opera companies, a prolific composer, and it stamped its name on a show that could wind up on stages around the world.

The Mayor issues a challenge: New Lexington Mayor Jim Newberry made the Lexington arts community nervous when he initially declined to declare a donation to the LexArts annual Campaign for the Arts as the effort got underway, breaking a tradition set by several of his predecessors. But he came back with an interesting proposal: He allocated $350,000 to the campaign and offered an additional $150,000, if LexArts could match the grant by coming up with new donors to pledge an additional $150,000, at no more than $1,000 each. LexArts rose to the challenge and acquired a new base of support, thanks to Newberry's visionary proposal that he hopes to apply to other concerns in the city. Now it's up to LexArts to build on the money and the new donor base.

LexArts meets Mayor's challenge

Lexington mayor Jim Newberry, photographed in March during a round table discussion with Vice-mayor Jim Gray and LexArts President and CEO Jim Clark about government's role in the arts in Lexington. Copyrighted Herald-Leader/Kentucky.com photo by Angela Baldridge.

LexArts has matched Mayor Jim Newberry's $150,000 challenge grant, which he issued earlier this year to spur expanded giving to the arts.

In April, Newberry issued the challenge in addition to a $350,000 contribution to LexArts annual Campaign for the Arts. Funds raised from the Campaign are allocated to LexArts beneficiary organizations, such as the Lexington Philharmonic and Actors Guild of Lexington, and community arts grants, which are available to organizations and individual artists. LexArts president and CEO Jim Clark said the new funds from the challenge grant will be distributed in much the same way.

"It’s a win for our community, which will have more opportunities to enjoy the arts because of the increased funding, and a win for LexArts, which has expanded its donor base," Newberry said in a news release. "This is the kind of change that can have a long-lasting, positive impact on our community."

Not only was the grant contingent on LexArts raising matching funds, but they had to be first-time donors, and their contributions could not exceed $1,000. In the end, LexArts received contributions from 1,118 new donors at an average of $136 each.

In issuing the challenge, Newberry said he hoped to replicate the matching-fund approach,  "to magnify the impact of LFUCG support for vital services in our city."

Introducing Alexander Platt

Alexander Platt discussed his career and his interest in becoming the Lexington Philharmonic Orchestra's new music director over a Tuesday morning breakfast at Stella's. Copyrighted Herald-Leader/Kentucky.com photo by David Stephenson.

Alexander Platt loves to create events. As a student at Yale, he raised the money to present a production of Benjamin Britten's The Rape of Lucretia with Yale and New York City Opera singers. At Cambridge University, it was Britten again, with the infrequently performed Owen Wingrave, which was reviewed in several London dailies.

Just last summer, at Maverick Concerts in Woodstock, N.Y., Platt premiered his reduced version of David del Tredici's Final Alice, which received a sterling review from the New York Times' Steve Smith. That ended a summer that started with the demanding double bill of Arnold Schoenberg's Erwartung and Bela Bartok's Bluebeard's Castle for the Chicago Opera Theatre, where Platt is the music director.

Directing Maverick and Chicago Opera Theatre are two of six posts Platt currently holds, including music director of the Marion (Ind.) Philharmonic, the Waukesha (Wis.) Symphony Orchestra and the Boca Raton Philharmonic Symphonia, for which he just conducted his first official concert as music director Sunday.

But Platt, 42, is in town this week as the second candidate to succeed George Zack as music director of the Lexington Philharmonic. Over breakfast at Stella's yesterday, Platt said his dream is to be the music director of a, "mid-sized American city regional orchestra." Friday night Platt is conducting the Phil in Franz Joseph Haydn's Symphony No. 88, Ludwig van Beethoven's Emperor Concerto and Jean Sibelius' Symphony No. 3, which Platt says presents him and the orchestra a steep challenge with its complex rhythms.

Below is an edited transcript of that interview:

Copious Notes: What’s your take on the state of classical music in America, today?

Alexander Platt: My hope is that classical music in America is recovering from this kind of amnesia we’ve had for 20 years that we’ve spent apologizing for ourselves as part of a popular, wider American culture. I think we’re hopefully in the process of waking up from that and asserting ourselves as not just one of many musics in America but rather as a set of truths that need to be told from generation to generation, and each generation we add a new truth with the composers of their time adding their voices. Classical music is in one sense a kind of entertainment, of course. It always has been. But in another sense, it has a scriptural truth for all of us, and can tell us some things we can’t get anywhere except in the world of classical music.

CN: What are some of those truths?

AP: . . . I think classical music is a unique kind of music in that it fosters the art of listening in a way that no other music does. Popular music, any kind of pop music, is no more than a five minute form. Now I’m not saying that’s not as good an experience,or it’s an inferior experience. But it’s a totally different experience from when you sit down at a concert hall and engage with a 45-minute symphony or a three-and-a-half hour opera. It’s just different, I’m sorry.

Zev weighs in

Zev Buffman, the impresario of Owensboro, weighed in on my post a few days ago about selling the arts in Kentucky short, and I thought I would share:

My comment Rich, is that yes, there is much going on in our state on the "regional" level, but still, this is a perfect time for change and thinking/creating out of the "box."

A new model of 'The Regional' is evolving nationally, mostly out of sheer financial necessity (money is drying up), PLUS a true need to generate more economic development opportunities and tourism to help those who always help us.

By creating a new "clean industry" (YES BROADWAY MUSICALS) here, that generate some 90 days a year of the actual production (jobs, hotel room, restaurants) for shows that then tour the US, Canada & the world (yes Japan too, is a regular recipient of "made in Owensboro" "product)it becomes a more even "trade" - they sell us Toyotas -- we sell them  Broadway. When you attach to each new Tony award winner guided "product, then bring in hundreds of KIDS to YATA: the new and hard to duplicate "Young Adult Theatre Academy" to work for weeks, shoulder to shoulder with the "Tony pros" and receive college credit for their intense summer month -- you create EDUCATION that will soon become a staple in KY colleges and universities in Western KY.

Finally, when you produce ORIGINAL mystery and thriller plays, screenplays, teleplays, children's mysteries and the extension on "Books on Tape" with full companies, original music, full reading cast, sound effects (both old & new) all in front of live audiences learning and loving their first time in a BIG SCREEN AUDIO theater, you then teach, you entertain and you produce innovative NEEDED product for the sweepingly growing XM and SIRUS plus NPR re-emerging radio programming. That's is how you anticipate a new market need and beat the competition by being there FIRST and with a big Library.

Rich, I swear I could go on for columns. Eventually our colleagues will see the opportunities and expand the wonderful product they already create to more "commercial and Educational" way.

We are standing ready to go anywhere in the State and help in the early beginnings.

Excuse me while I stick up for the Commonwealth's arts

Gov. Ernie Fletcher and School for Creative and Performing Arts senior Kevin DeVries share a high-five at a Paris campaign stop when they learn they have Lafayette High School in common. Later, they talked about the arts in Kentucky. Copyrighted Herald-Leader/Kentucky.com photo by Mark Cornelison.

Thursday, the Herald-Leader's intrepid teen board went out stalking information from gubernatorial candidates, Gov. Ernie Fletcher and challenger Steve Beshear. That was really cool. What made it even cooler was that the arts made it into the conversation. But it was a little sad to see that both the questioner and the Governor were a tad short on complete and accurate information. Here's the segment of the conversation:

Kevin DeVries, a senior at the School for the Creative and Performing Arts at Lafayette High School, followed with a question that was equally challenging.

"I will be attending Indiana University next year," DeVries said, "and part of the problem it seems with all my friends is that there's not really an artistic hot spot in Kentucky." IU, he said, hooks its students up with the Indianapolis Opera Company.

So, "Is there anything we're doing to better promote the classical arts in Kentucky right now?"

Fletcher explained that he proposed $2.5 million for opera, ballet and theatre in Louisville and that Zev Buffman, a veteran Broadway producer, is now putting on plays at the RiverPark Center in Owensboro.

Well, the University of Kentucky and University of Louisville's voice programs both have newly minted deals for students to work with the Kentucky Opera in Louisville, and even before that, UK students were heading down I-64 to work with the KO on a regular basis. This fall, four UK students are working on all three of the Kentucky Opera's productions. One even understudied the title role in Turandot. What's more, UK has been talking to Cincinnati Opera about what partnerships they can forge.

Indiana has a world-class music school, no doubt, and being accepted there is a tremendous honor. But it's a shame Kevin made a decision without knowing what's actually going on in Kentucky, if that was a major factor in his decision making.

And we love Zev and the new flavors he's bringing to Owensboro's RiverPark Center, including attracting a steady stream of touring Broadway shows to build and a tech productions there. But let's not forget the Humana Festival of New American Plays in Louisville. It's been attracting international theater professionals and press to Actors Theatre of Louisville for more than three decades, where they see shows that go on to have global impacts.

We could go on, easily. And we would remind the Governor that while $2.5 million for Louisville arts is great, it's a big state with a lot of arts outposts from Ashland to Paducah -- the Governor's Awards in the Arts highlight that every year. (I will grant that we may not have gotten everything Gov. Fletcher said to Kevin from the story.)

Once again, it is great to see that with the few moments the Teen Board had with the Governor, they actually talked about the arts. It was just sad to see that the conversation turned on a fairly common misperception about culture in the Commonwealth. As someone who deals with the arts in the Bluegrass State on a daily basis, I'd encourage anyone who has that perception to take a good look around at the Commonwealth's cultural scene to see what's really happening.

New York's enviable arts scene isn't perfect, and we can learn from that

The acoustics in the legendary Carnegie Hall make you wonder how an orchestra could want to perform anywhere else.

New York envy is easy to come by, particularly if you love the arts.

No matter how busy the arts scene in Lexington gets, it will never hold a candle to the lists and lists of events that pack the arts sections of The New York Times. And the organizations themselves seem to have everything: multi-million dollar budgets, world-famous venues and the best talent on the planet.
Occasionally, you might remind yourself that you’d better move to New York with a healthy salary if you want to partake in even a smidgen of this arts smorgasbord, but still, you contemplate the menu and drool, drool, drool.

Over 10 days in New York as part of the National Endowment for the Arts Journalism Institute in Classical Music and Opera last month, I got to indulge in and learn about that scene with a depth I hadn’t before. And while it was thrilling to go to shows night after night and talk about music all day long, it was most intriguing to learn that things are not always as idyllic as they seem in the Big Apple.

This was particularly striking when discussing performance spaces.

Community arts meetings

The Kentucky Arts Council is holding a series of meetings around the state to get citizens' input on the future of the arts in Kentucky. The project is designed to help with the council's long-range planning. The meetings start Oct. 3 at the Fifth Third Conference Center in Louisville's Brown Hotel and continue through Nov. 1 at the Renaissance Conference Center in Cadiz. The Lexington event will be Oct. 25 at the Lexington Children's Theatre.

All meetings are 5:30 to 7:30 p.m., with entertainment starting at 5. Click here for a complete list of meetings and locations.

Kentucky Stars 2007

It always has the makings for a good, "What do so-and-so, so-and-so and so-and-so have in common?" question, except the folks we're talking about are usually more accurately regarded as a who's who of Bluegrass State creativity. The Downtown Lexington Corporation has announced the 2007 recipients of its Kentucky Stars Awards.

And they are:

David Dick, journalist: From 1966 to 1985, Dick was one of the leading voices for CBS News. Among the events he covered were the Jonestown Massacre in Guyana, the invasion of the Falkland Islands, the White House in the Nixon and Johnson Administrations and the Presidential campaigns of George Wallace. In 1972, he won an Emmy Award for his coverage of an assassination attempt on Wallace. He has also written numerous books, including the recent A Journal for Lalie: Living Through Prostate Cancer, and is a former dean of the University of Kentucky School of Journalism. Dick's son, Sam Dick, is currently an evening anchor for WKYT in Lexington.

Warren Hammack, actor and director: Hammack has acted and directed all over the United States, but his crowning achievement was building Horse Cave Theatre, now Kentucky Repertory Theatre, in the small town of Horse Cave. When he arrived in Horse Cave in the mid-1970s no businesses were flourishing, and many were struggling to survive. But Hammack built the theater into a professional shop that became an attraction for tourists traveling I-65 as well as theater lovers who made the repertory theater an annual destination and area theater fans who bought season tickets. Hammack retired in 2002, and former Lexington thespian Robert Brock has since served as the artistic director, leading a name change and mission change. The theater once presented plays mainly in the summertime, and now presents productions year round. (Photo: Hammack (center) with Lexington actor Walter May (left) and Brock (right), photographed by Hobie Hiler in 2000.)

John Jacob Niles, musician: Niles was born in Louisville in 1892 and in addition to being a noted composer and performer, also became a major force in documenting and preserving Appalachian folk music. Among his publications were Impressions of a Negro Camp Meeting, Seven Kentucky Mountain Songs and The Ballad Book. He was also a recording artist for the RCA Red Seal label. The John Jacob Niles Center for American Music at the University of Kentucky is named in his honor.

Arturo Alonzo Sandoval, artist: Sandoval is one of the faces of visual arts in Lexington and a nationally known fiber artist with his works held in prestigious institutions such as New York's Museum of Modern Art. Some of his permanent installations include the mammoth pieces on each side of the Singletary Center for the Arts concert hall. Sandoval is an art professor at the University of Kentucky.

  Robert Penn Warren, writer: The three-time Pulitzer Prize winner was born down near the Tennessee boarder in Guthrie. His prize-winning novels include Promise: Poems 1954-1956, Now and Then: Poems 1976-1978 and All the Kings Men. He is the only author to win Pulitzers for fiction and poetry. Among his other awards is the Presidential Medal of Freedom.

The Kentucky Stars will be honored in a ceremony at the Downtown Arts Center at 6 p.m. Nov. 7. The ceremony is free and open to the public. They will also have their names put in bronze plaques placed along Main Street in Lexington.

Best bets for the coming arts season

Sunday, SUNDAY, SUNDAY is the day your 2007-08 arts preview section will be in the Herald-Leader. You can get the information online, but in print it is 10 pages packed with concerts, plays, exhibits and other cultural opportunities for Central Kentucky.

If you’re like me, after reading it, you’ll be excited. Anyone who says there’s no culture in the Bluegrass has to argue with the 10 pages of our special section. Good luck with that.

Like any season, there are a few dates in the 2007-08 calendar that are particularly intriguing. So, here are some of the events that pop off the page for this observer:

The Lexington Philharmonic’s conductor search