Friends of the Kaw hosts film festival

A selection of inspirational movies about the environment will be featured at the Wild & Scenic Environmental Film Festival, which will be Oct. 21 at Liberty Hall, 644 Mass.

This is the second year for the event, sponsored by Friends of the Kaw, a grassroots, not for profit environmental group.

Doors open at 6:45 p.m., and the festival begins at 7:30 p.m. Tickets are $10 in advance and $12 at the door (cash only), with a drawing for door prizes. Seating is first-come, first-served.å

For more information or to buy advance tickets, visit http://www.kansasriver.org.

Vassar professor giving art history lecture

Susan Hiner, associate professor of French and Francophone studies at Vassar College, will present “From Pockets to Purses: Modernity and the Feminine in 19th Century France” Oct. 21 at Spencer Museum of Art.

The lecture begins at 5:30 p.m. in Room 211; please use the west entrance to attend. The lecture is sponsored by the Kress Foundation Department of Art History.

KU Symphony Orchestra plans Halloween concert

Join the KU Symphony Orchestra for a Halloween concert Oct. 29 at the Lied Center, preceded by a free community costume contest.

The 6:30 p.m. contest includes three categories: youth to age 18, collegiate and adult. Big Jay, staff from the Oread and Eldridge hotels and School of Music Dean Robert Walzel will judge costumes. Prizes will be awarded.

KU Sigma Alpha Iota also will have an instrument “petting zoo” for young concert-goers to try out musical instruments.

The concert will begin at 7:30 p.m., featuring a variety of spooky orchestral works, including “Imperial March” (Darth Vader’s theme) from “The Empire Strikes Back”; “Totentanz”(Dance of Death) featuring soloist Kent Queener; Gounod’s “Funeral March for a Marionette” (also known as the Alfred Hitchcock theme); Grieg’s “In the Hall of the Mountain King” from Peer Gynt; Herrmann’s “Prelude and Nightmare” from Vertigo; and Berlioz’s “March to the Scaffold” and “Witches’ Sabbath” from Symphonie Fantastique.

Tickets for the concert are $7 general admission and $5 for students and seniors at the Lied Center box office, 864-2787.

‘Jack & Jill’ will be staged at arts center

The Lawrence Arts Center is pleased to host Austin’s Sustainable Theatre Project as they present Jane Martin’s “Jack & Jill: A Romance.” This contemporary comedy won the Theatre Critics’ Association award for best new play.

Jane Martin’s understanding of the complexity of being in love, her fair portrayal of both sides of the partnership and her stunning, roll-off-the-tongue dialogue make this modern, all but fairy-tale romance an undeniably entertaining and brutally honest portrait of the couple in love.

Directed by Ryan Hamilton, B. Iden Payne nominee Derek Kolluri and FronteraFest 2010 Best of Fest actress Molly Fonseca fill the roles of Jack and Jill.

Showtimes are 7:30 p.m. Oct. 22-23 at the arts center, 940 N.H. Tickets are $15 for adults and $10 for students and seniors; the show is appropriate for audiences 18 and older. For tickets or more information, visit www.lawrenceartscenter.org.

Instrumental Collegium Musicum to present fall concert

Kansas University’s Instrumental Collegium Musicum will perform Oct. 24 at Swarthout Recital Hall on KU’s campus.

The evening concert will feature two special segments. The first will be a presentation of the 10 songs from the Llibre Vermell, a collection of music honoring the Virgin Mary from 14th-century Catalonia, compiled at Montserrat, a monastery and place for Roman Catholic pilgrimages on an unusual mountain outside of Barcelona. The soloist for this segment will be countertenor Chad Payton, a KU doctoral student in voice. The concert will also include selections from “The Beggar’s Opera,” which premiered in London in 1728. This was a satirical work set among the lowest rungs of London society and remained popular for more than a century. Soloists include soprano Ashley Benes and baritone Stephen Dagrosa, also KU graduate students in voice. The concert also will include dances from the time of Henry VIII, two fantasias by Henry Purcell (1659-1695), a string trio by Franz Joseph Haydn (1732-1809), and other pieces from the Renaissance and Baroque.

The free concert begins at 7:30 p.m.

Student wins awards for children’s CD

A Kansas University music student has won two national awards for his CD of children’s music.

Cory Hills, a doctoral student in percussion performance, received the Gold Award in the National Parenting Publications Awards for “The Lost Bicycle,” an album of original percussion music adapted from children’s stories. The album will be featured in Parenthood magazine, Parenthood.com and dozens of other media outlets, reaching more than 1.5 million people.

“The Lost Bicycle” also won a silver honor in the 2010 Parents’ Choice Awards from the Parents’ Choice Foundation, the nation’s oldest nonprofit guide to children’s media and toys.

Hills released “The Lost Bicycle” in May. It was engineered and mastered by KU School of Music recording engineer Colin Mahoney.

Hills has commissioned and premiered dozens of new works for solo percussion. He is the creator of the Percussive Art of Storytelling, an outreach program that brings classical music to underserved communities. For this work, Hills has earned numerous grants and was named the 2009 Emerging Artist for the Kansas Arts Commission.

University Theatre plans costume sale

If you’re looking for that perfect Halloween costume, mark Oct. 23 on your calendar. That’s the date for the University Theatre Costume Sale at Kansas University.

Held every few years (or whenever the costume storage area gets too full), the sale will be held from 9 a.m. to noon in the Murphy Hall Lobby.

“We’re cleaning out our costume storage and selling more than 150 hats, masks and head wear from 50 cents to three dollars,” says Susan Rendall, Costume Shop manager. “There will be more than 350 items starting at 50 cents and going up to $40.”

Rendell said most items for sale would be in the $1 to $5 range. The sale will include costumes from the productions of “Alice in Wonderland,” “The Girl, the Grouch and the Goat” and “Pageant!”, to name just a few.

During the sale, only cash or checks will be will accepted.

Because it is Homecoming with a home football game, parking for those attending the sale will be available in the Parking Facility, southwest of Murphy Hall.