Stiernberg trio featured at Mandofest 2002

The Chicago-based Don Stiernberg Trio will be featured Friday and Saturday nights at Mandofest 2002.

An informal evening of mandolin music will begin at 7 p.m. Friday at Abe & Jake’s Landing, 8 E. Sixth St. Radim Zenki, Scott Tichenor, Joe Pickett, Gary Palsmeier, Don Julin, Kory Willis and others will play.

In addition to Stiernberg, above, the Uptown Mandolin Quartet, Scott and Annie Tichenor, and Kathleen Gustafson and The Frayed Nots will take the stage at 8 p.m. Saturday at Liberty Hall, 644 Mass. The 40-piece Mandofest Orchestra also will perform.

Stiernberg is one of the best jazz and bluegrass mandolinists in the country. He has appeared on 30 recordings. His latest release is “Unseasonably Cool,” a jazz mandolin CD.

Tickets for the Saturday concert are $10 and are available at the Liberty Hall Box Office.

Residents to read Hughes’ works over library speakers

On Tuesday, the Lawrence Public Library will have its first Langston Hughes Poetry Day. The library’s daylong event will feature guest readers presenting examples of Hughes’ poetry every half-hour between 9 a.m. and 9 p.m.

The Academy of American Poets in partnership with the Kansas University-based Langston Hughes National Poetry Project and the National Council of Teachers of English is presenting Langston Hughes Poetry Day, part of national Poetry Month.

Readers will include Tim Van Leer, executive director of the Lied Center; the Rev. Leo Barbee of Victory Bible Church; historian Katie Armitage; and Kansas University English professor Maryemma Graham.

For more on the life and poetry of Langston Hughes, visit www.poets.org.

‘Okie from Muskogee’ singer to appear in Topeka

Topeka  Country music legend Merle Haggard, below, will perform at 8 p.m. April 10 at Topeka Performing Arts Center, 214 S.E. Eighth.

Haggard’s hits include “Okie From Muskogee,” “Silver Wings” and “That’s the Way Love Goes.”

Opening act is Dixie Road, a Topeka-based band.

Tickets are $29.50 and are available by calling the TPAC Box Office, (785) 297-9000, or Ticketmaster (785) 234-4545.

Stone-carving workshop slated in early May

“Stone Sculpting: Limestone and Beyond,” a three-day workshop of training and carving sessions, will be May 3-5 at Myles’ Mountain, south of Lawrence.

The training sessions will include basic toolmaking and sharpening; hand-carving techniques; carving ergonomics; finishing and polishing; power carving; stone types and selection; and identification of native stones.

Each participant will receive a piece of Kansas limestone to carve and will keep any chisels they make.

Instructors are sculptor Mark Sampsel; Elden Tefft, founder of the International Sculpture Center and the sculpture program at Kansas University; and Myles Schachter, a sculptor who works in bronze, limestone and marble.

Fees are $65 for intermediate and advanced students using their own hand chisels and $80 for beginners, which includes toolmaking expenses. Registration is due April 17.

For more information, call 838-3885 or e-mail sculpt@bigplanet.com.