Virginia Jaramillo at the Kemper Museum of Contemporary Art
From June 2 through August 27, Virginia Jaramillo exhibits her bold, linear, graphic art in Principle of Equivalence.
In this first retrospective of her work, the exhibit features 73 paintings and handmade paper works created over 70 years. Based in New York, Jaramillo combines modernistic influences, science, cosmology, physics, postwar unease, archaeology, mythology, and her own unique perspective, deepening over time.
Jaramillo’s work has been part of groundbreaking exhibitions, such as The De Luxe Show in 1971, one of the first major shows to be racially integrated.
Curated by Erin Dziedzic, director of curatorial affairs, Principle of Equivalence will be published as a full-color catalog and distributed by Yale University Press.
Potting Around This Summer
All throughout the month of June, Belger Arts is offering hands-on weekly pottery classes from different instructors. And beginners are welcome.
If you’ve always wanted to channel your inner artist, send yourself to summer “camp” a morning, afternoon, or evening each week. Or you may have become hooked on the Magnolia Network’s For the Love of Kitchens, in which British kitchen designers Helen Parker and Paul O’Leary of deVol Kitchens bring back the handcrafted in furniture and hardware, as well as tile, teapots, platters, and more.
Whether you want to make something useful or something intriguing to look at, you can learn hand-building with blocks of clay or how to work a pottery wheel. If you’ve already started a pottery project, you could get help and guidance through an independent study.
Kansas City Symphony Presents: Stern Conducts Mahler and Montgomery
We’re counting down to the last days of Michael Stern’s final season with the Kansas City Symphony, so take in all his concerts while you can.
On June 2 and 3 at Helzberg Hall, he will conduct the orchestra in a program of modern 20th century and contemporary music.
The evening begins with The Walk to the Paradise Garden by English composer Frederick Delius, who combines Romanticism and Impressionism in this piece written in 1907. This is an orchestral intermezzo from Delius’s opera A Village Romeo and Juliet. You could just get lost in this music.
Five Freedom Songs, another piece from contemporary composer Jessie Montgomery, was co-commissioned by the Kansas City Symphony. Montgomery is noted for using symphonic sounds to convey complex emotions and thoughts. Soprano Julie Bullock rises to the occasion and brings these songs, steeped in social consciousness, to life.
Symphony No. 4 by Gustav Mahler explores the soul through music of raw power. Mahler drew material from bird calls and cowbells, bugle fanfares, street melodies, and country dances to summon the lost world of his childhood.
Click here for tickets and more information.
Roll Out the Barrel for an Afternoon Polka Party
A glass of beer or two is all it takes. You’ll be ready to polka the afternoon away at KC Bier Company every Saturday in June from 3 to 5 p.m.
The live and lively music begins with Bram Wijnands, originally from Eindhoven in the Netherlands. Wijnands toured the U.S. and decided to stay in Kansas City, where he taught jazz piano at UMKC, so he knows his way around a keyboard, even if this one is attached to an accordion. He is joined by Jürgen Welge on percussion and vocals.
Polka originated in 19th-century Bohemia, now part of the Czech Republic, and was popular in Europe and America. Perhaps one of the most popular songs is Beer Barrel Polka, written by Czech composer Jaromír Vejvoda in 1927 and popularized by the Andrews Sisters.
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