KPAC Blog

Mozart and Schubert on tap in New Braunfels Saturday night

The Mid Texas Symphony continues their 35th season with "Superbows" -- the music of Mozart and Schubert. Featured in Mozart's Sinfonia Concertante is violinist Craig Sorgi and violist Eliza Thomason.

"The second movement is just an incredibly poetic and emotionally deep movement to play."

Groundhog Day recital includes Brahms' Piano Pieces, Opus 118  

On Saturday night, Andrea Lam returns to the stage where just four years ago she was awarded the Silver Medal in the San Antonio International Piano Competition. Lam will play Mozart, Brahms, and a new work by the Australian composer Nigel Westlake. "He has done some classical composing, but he has also done some movie scores. I really love his harmonic language, and he really incorporates a lot of rhythm in his music as well."

Musical talent tends to run in families. Think of Ann and Nancy Wilson of Heart, Rufus and Martha Wainwright, Colin and Jonny Greenwood of Radiohead, or The Jackson 5.

Depending on your age, the name Marian Anderson can belong to the realm of indelible and haunting experience, or mysterious legend. 

With track titles as diverse as “Meeting Krishna” and “Thank You Vishnu For Introducing Me To Christ,” it’s appropriate that Mychael Danna’s score for “The Life of Pi” is an appealing mix of East Meets West, as strings, tablas, sitars, flutes, accordions and gamelans blend together for waltzes, Indian rhythms, and sweeping orchestral flourishes.

The arts promote skills essential to academic and life success.

Bravo to Lisa Phillips, author, blog journalist, arts and leadership educator, speaker and business owner for this reminder that arts education in our  schools does much more than simply teach crafts, music and acting. There's also problem solving, creativity, confidence, and so much more that kids take away from these studies. 

There are essentially two views of Puccini. To his admirers he is one of the most beloved, most lyrical and at times moving composers of the modern period -- and successful beyond anyone’s wildest imaginings.

Detractors, however, have a different view. For all the dramatic (or melodramatic) force of his music and his undeniable lyric gift, finally he is enthralled by the mob. His lucrative populism is almost an embarrassment, and the joke he once told about his talent: "God touched me, but with his little finger," is perhaps, a truer saying than his fans care to admit.

• Anne Akiko Meyers — the violinist who made news a year ago for an album recorded on her two Stradivarius instruments, including the then record price-breaking "Molitor" Strad, which she purchased for $3.6 million — announced yesterday that she's been given lifetime use of the 1741 "Vieuxtemps" Guarne

Marching band will fill Boerne Champion High School Auditorium

Drumline Live is an international tour based on the Historically Black College and University marching band tradition. With rhythm, bold beats and energy, the stage show is a synchronized musical showcase. Incorporating original compositions and soul-infused interpretations of top 40 hits, group performances ranges from colorful, choreographed routines to heavy doses of drum riffs and cadences.