Modern music headed for the Lied Center

Bang on a Can All-Stars will perform at 7:30 p.m. Saturday at the Lied Center with special guests Terry Riley and Philip Glass.

The All-Stars will perform compositions that combine cutting-edge counterpoint with an adventurous style of presentation. Riley, who launched classical music’s minimalist movement in the 1960s, will join the Bang on a Can gang, as will Glass, a well-known composer of sparsely elegant scores.

Tickets are $11.50-$14 for Kansas University and Haskell Indian Nations University students and $20-$28 for adults. For more information or to order tickets, call 864-2787.

Downtown landscape to get eight new faces

Eight sculptures have been selected for the 17th annual Outdoor Downtown Sculpture Exhibition.

This year’s competition attracted 62 entries from 10 states. Juror was Rachael Blackburn, director of the Kemper Museum of Contemporary Art in Kansas City, Mo.

An opening reception with a guided tour of the sculptures will be from 5:30 p.m. to 8:30 p.m. June 19.

The winning pieces and their future locations are:

• “Selective Memory,” by Chris Wubbena, Waterloo, Iowa, Lawrence Arts Center, 940 N.H.
• “Polywiggle,” by Bounnak Thammavong, Cedar Falls, Iowa, Ninth and Massachusetts streets
• “Self Portrait As A Midget,” by Gary Mark, El Paso, Texas, Eighth and Massachusetts streets
• “Spangled,” by Matthew Wicker, Sumner, Neb., Seventh and Massachusetts streets
• “Conscious of Her Shore,” by Jayson Lowery, Hamtramck, Mich., Sixth and Massachusetts streets
• “Organic Composition,” by James Darrel Kizer, Lawrence, Lawrence Public Library, 707 Vt.
• “Gradual Beginning,” by Stephanie Sailer, Cedar Falls, Iowa, library
• Best of Show: “Breech” (above), by Willie Ray Parish, Anthony, N.M., South Park, 11th and Massachusetts streets

KU student playwright wins national award

“The Story of Izagani and Izanami” by Kansas University student Kristen Wirsig and “Stairway to Heaven” by Boston University student Gregory Fletcher, are co-winners of the national Ten-Minute Play competition sponsored annually by the Kennedy Center American College Theatre Festival.

Wirsig’s play was written in a playwriting class taught by KU English professor Paul Stephen Lim. The play is about two people whose relationship parallels that of a couple in ancient Japanese mythology.

Lim submitted the play for competition in the festival a year ago.

Wirsig’s prize includes a cash award of $500 plus future publication of the play.

KU singer advances to vocal ‘Final Four’

Second-year Kansas University Doctoral of Musical Arts student Holly Wrensch last week placed first in the regional round of the National Association of Teachers of Singing Artists Award and advanced to the semifinals.

The Marshfield, Wis., mezzo-soprano will represent KU in the semifinals on July 9 in New Orleans. If Wrensch advances to the final round on July 10, she will compete for a $5,000 prize, $2,500 for production expenses related to a winners recital and a debut recital at Carnegie Hall.

For the regional event, Wrensch prepared a 55-minute program, which included 18 pieces in French, German, Spanish, English, Polish, Latin and Italian. Wrensch chose her opening number and then the judges selected the next four pieces she sang in the 15-minute recital. Ellen Buttorff accompanied Wrensch at the piano.

Wrensch received her master’s degree from the University of Colorado, Boulder, and her bachelor’s degree in music at the University of Wisconsin, Stevens Point. Both degrees are in voice performance, as is her doctoral degree.

Prints give flavor of Mexico

Well-traveled artist Christina Ankofska’s Mexico-inspired prints will be the focus of the May exhibition at Olive Gallery and Art Supply, 15 E. Eighth St.

The prints were inspired by time Ankofska spent living in Mexico. Each print is a one-of-a-kind monoprint created using unique textures from bird bones to roofing materials.

Ankofska, a Detroit native, runs March Hare Press Studio in Newport, Oregon.

The show, called “The Visitor,” will be on display from Saturday through May 26. A reception will be from 6 p.m. to 10 p.m. Saturday.

Spacescapes, avatars infiltrate Ad Astra

Lawrence artists Angela Blanchard, Leigh Ann Livingston and Barry Coffin portray rustic Kansas landscapes, Buddhas, and sculptures of Jesus and plants from other planets in their work. The May exhibition at Ad Astra Gallery embraces all that eclecticism into one show called “Spacescapes and Avatars.”

The artists will attend the opening reception at 6 p.m. Saturday at the gallery, 205 W. Eighth St.

The show will remain on view through June 26.

Artists to perform at Olive Gallery

Four Kansas University students will deliver a night of performance art from 7 p.m. to 9 p.m. Thursday at Olive Gallery and Art Supply, 15 E. Eighth St.

Amber Renee McIntosh will open the show with her piece “w.t.” at 7 p.m. Jason Barnes will follow with “Peanuts” at 7:30 p.m. Mark Hurst will take the stage at 8 p.m., and Bradford Kessler will close the evening with his fifth performance at the gallery.

The event is free and open to public.

Art in the Park only a week away

More than 100 area and regional artists will fill South Park with fine art during the 43rd annual Art in the Park.

The event will be from 10 a.m. to 6 p.m. May 2 at the park, 11th and Massachusetts streets. In case of rain, the juried fine art/fine craft fair will be May 9.

Cash prizes will be awarded the day of the fair by judges Larry Peters, artist and former director of the Alice Sabatini Gallery in Topeka, and Carol Lee Bohannan, artist and director of the Topeka Art Guild Gallery.

A variety of musicians will play on the hour at the South Park gazebo, and food and drink vendors will line Massachusetts Street.

KU professor displays art in Strong Hall

Room 200 in Strong Hall is packed with celebrities.

Celebrity portraits that is.

John Tibbetts, associate professor of theater and film at Kansas University, has 12 of his portraits on display in the gallery of the College of Liberal Arts and Sciences office in Room 200 of Strong Hall.

His portraits of composers Mozart and Robert Schumann; authors Mark Twain and G.K. Chesterton; screen celebrities Boris Karloff, Katharine Hepburn, Harrison Ford and Douglas Fairbanks; and musician Dawn Upshaw will remain on exhibit through the summer.

Spend a day with J.S. Bach

Sonatas and tocattas and fugues — oh my!

The Kansas City Chapter of the American Guild of Organists will hold its 25th annual “Bachathon” from 2 p.m. to 7:30 p.m. May 2. The event will be at Grace and Holy Trinity Cathedral, 13th and Broadway, Kansas City, Mo.

Several Lawrence residents and Kansas University music professors will perform at the event, which features Bach favorites performed on a variety of instruments.

The event is free and open to the public. For more information, call Dina Evans at 843-2090.

Sax player to join performance art event

It will be spontaneous, colorful and maybe a bit messy.

Dan Kozak, the street saxophonist who regularly performs for passers-by at the corner of Seventh and Massachusetts streets, will take part next week in an event he has dubbed “spontaneous sound-color performance art.”

Kozak, percussionist Nancy Krieg and paint artist Kali Damon will perform together at 6:30 p.m. Friday at Bullfrogs Live, 4115 S.W. Huntoon St., Topeka.

The event is a lead-up to an annual festival June 4-5 in Topeka that honors tenor saxophone great Coleman Hawkins, a former Topekan. More information about the festival is available at www.hawkfest.org.

Sculpture workshop scheduled in Lawrence

The Kansas Sculpture Research Center is sponsoring a workshop in basic and intermediate stone carving.

The three-day workshop will include training sessions as well as carving time from Friday through May 2.

Beginners are provided with a set of tools, and each participant will be given a piece of clean Kansas limestone.

Four professional sculptors, Elden Tefft, Myles Schachter, Mary Weisert and Mark Sampsel will assist participants throughout the session.

For more information, contact Schachter at 838-3885.

New exhibit features office technology

Have you ever wondered what offices used before staples, how copies were made before copiers or how “news flashes” were received before e-mail?

These questions and more will be answered in the new exhibit, “150 Years of Office Technology,” scheduled to open Thursday at Watkins Community Museum of History, 1047 Mass.

As part of the Sesquicentennial Exhibit series, office equipment, supplies and machines, including old Lawrence and Douglas County business cards, a teletype machine, fountain pens, cash registers, a telephone switchboard, a slide rule and desks from the original Watkins Bank building will be on display through June 30.

For more information, call 841-4109.

Lawrence portrait artist named photographer of year

Master photographer John Gladman was awarded 2004 Kansas Photographer of the Year April 5.

Gladman also received a Kodak Gallery Award and his first American Society of Photographers Award. Only one is given per state each year.

Gladman owns two studios, one in downtown Lawrence and the other in Olathe. He has been a professional photographer for more than 18 years and specializes in child and family portraiture.

Early-start music method focus of public meeting

The Suzuki method of learning music, which encourages 3- and 4-year-old children to begin playing an instrument, will be the subject of an informational meeting open to the public at 7 p.m. May 2 at West Side Presbyterian Church, 1024 Kasold Drive.

For more information, call 550-1608.

Entries sought for literary awards

“New Letters,” the University of Missouri-Kansas City’s international quarterly of new writings, is accepting entries for its 19th annual Literary Awards.

Writers may submit unpublished work in the poetry, fiction and creative nonfiction categories.

The reading fee for the first entry is $15 and includes a one-year subscription to the magazine. Each additional entry is $10.

Winners in each category will receive $1,000 and publication of the winning works in “New Letters.”

All entries must be received by May 19.

For more information call (816) 235-1168 or visit www.newletters.org.