Lawrence City Band begins summer concerts

The Lawrence City Band will open its summer season of South Park concerts at 8 p.m. Wednesday with “A Sesquicentennial Celebration.”

Robert E. Foster, shown above, will conduct the band through a show that highlights music from or about Lawrence and westward expansion. The program will feature Genaro Mendez, tenor, as vocal soloist, and Bob Newton as narrator.

The program will begin with “The Star-Spangled Banner” and end with a James Barnes march called “The Silver Gazebo.”

Here’s a look at the rest of the program: “Emblem of Unity” by J.J. Richards; “Emperata Overture” by Claude T. Smith; “Suite of Old American Dances” by Rovert Russell Bennett; “Tradition of Excellence” by Foster; “How the West Was Won,” arranged by Robert Hawkins; “Salute to Kansas” by John Philip Sousa; “Irish Tune from Country Derry” (“Danny Boy”) by Aldridge Grainger; “Home on the Range,” arranged by James Barnes, with Mendez as vocal soloist; “The Wizard of Oz Fantasy,” arranged by Paul Yoder; and “Sweet Land of Liberty” by James Sochinsky.

Lawrence City Band concerts are sponsored by the City of Lawrence and Parks and Recreation with assistance from the Rice Foundation. Concerts are broadcast on KLWN 1320.

Retrospective: Kemper Museum opens Wayne Thiebaud exhibit

Kansas City, Mo. — An exhibit opening Friday at the Kemper Museum of Contemporary Art celebrates Wayne Thiebaud, an American artist known for his images of gumball machines, cakes, pies, lollipops and other confections — as well as California landscapes and cityscapes.

“Wayne Thiebaud: Fifty Years of Painting” presents more than 40 works from the past five decades of the California painter’s career. It is on view through Aug. 31.

The opening reception will be from 5:30 p.m. to 7:30 p.m. Friday at the museum, 4420 Warwick Blvd., Kansas City, Mo. Thiebaud will talk about his work at 3 p.m. June 8 at the Nelson-Atkins Museum of Art, 4525 Oak St., Kansas City, Mo.

Thiebaud began his career as a cartoonist and layout designer for Rexall Drug Company in the late 1940s. For nearly three decades, he taught at the University of California, Davis, with well-known California artists William Wiley, Manuel Neri and Robert Arneson.

Thiebaud is an artist in residence at the museum.