Thanks to all who came out for our 2010 Wine & Song benefit concert! The "Romantic Arias" theme was an instant favorite, and the reception was lovely as always, thanks to our wonderful volunteers.
Tacoma photographer Dayton Knipher was kind enough to provide photos of the event. Below are soprano Alexandra Picard, baritone Charles Robert Stephens, and pianist Denes Van Parys in the handsome John Connelly Law Offices.
The Weekly Volcano says to come down to Old Town for tonight's benefit concert!
5 Things to Do Today
1. "Wine & Song" - what more could you want from a Tuesday evening? Check out Classical Tuesdays in Old Town Tacoma tonight for the annual Wine & Song benefit, welcoming Alexandra Picard and baritone Charles Robert Stephens for what's being billed as an evening of "Romantic Arias."
Curious about next Tuesday's Wine & Song benefit concert? The Tacoma Weekly has a preview:
Romantic Arias
By Dawn Quinn, TacomaWeekly.com
December 09, 2010
Annual holiday opera concert to benefit Classical Tuesdays
October through February, the Classical Tuesdays in Old Town series offers free classical concerts the second Tuesday night of each month. Though the program is put on in part through grants from the Tacoma Arts Commission and local businesses, in order to keep the program going every year it too needs some help. Enter the fourth annual benefit “Wine and Song,” which will be taking place Dec. 14 in Old Town. ...
The 2010 benefit theme is “Romantic Arias.” Featured artists will be soprano Alexandra Picard and baritone Charles Robert Stephens (who has sung for the series on a number of occasions). Denes Van Parys will accompany both on piano.
“Charles Stevens has sung with us a few times in the past and we love him,” Ryker said. “He has a wonderful baritone voice and used to sing with the New York City Opera and then moved to the Northwest. We see his name often now in programs around here and with the Seattle Opera as well. Alexandra Picard spends half the year in Vienna and half in Seattle; her career is really taking off for a young soprano.” ...
The annual Wine and Song benefit will take place Dec. 14 at 7 p.m. at John Connelly Law Offices, located at 2301 N. 30th St. in Old Town. Tickets are on sale now for $25 at Bayview Optical, 2217 N. 30th St., or The Spar coffee shop. All proceeds go toward funding the Classical Tuesdays In Old Town series for next year. For more information, call (253) 752-2135 or visit http://classicaltuesdays.blogspot.com.
Tickets are now available for December's Wine & Song event "Romantic Arias." Visit Bayview Optical at 2217 N. 30th, Suite 106 or The Spar Coffee Shop at 2121 N. 30th, both in Old Town, to purchase tickets (at $25 each, to benefit the series), or call (253) 752-2135.
A $25 ticket admits you to a festive evening of great arias, tasty food and wines, and neighborly conviviality at the handsome John Connelly Law Offices, 2301 N. 30th Street.
Join us Tuesday, November 9th, as Classical Tuesdays presents an evening of strings!
The Tacoma Weekly has a nice feature on our concert. One correction to the article: November's concert will be at the Slavonian Hall.
Held on the second Tuesday of each month from October to February, the informal concert series seeks to engage listeners in a dialogue with musicians while creating a strong sense of community. ...
The series kicked off on Oct. 12 with a concert by world-renowned Native American flutist Gary Stroutsos, and returns again on Nov. 9 in a performance by a string quartet comprised of violinists Maria Sampen and Jennifer Caine, violist Timothy Christie and cellist Sally Singer.
Sampen and Christie are both faculty members at University of Puget Sound, while Caine and Singer are members of the faculty at Icicle Creek Music Center in Leavenworth. The four will be performing “Leyendas: an Andean Walkabout” by Gabriela Frank, a contemporary American composer. Several movements and vignettes will reflect Frank’s Peruvian heritage and travels.
Classical Tuesdays' next concert on Tuesday, November 9th is a News Tribune Critic's Pick!
The Classical Tuesdays in Old Town series this month features a UPS faculty-based string quartet playing Gabriela Frank’s “Legends,” a composition reflecting her heritage and travels.
"inspiration from the idea [that] cultures can coexist without the subjugation of one by the other. As such, this piece mixes elements from the western classical and Andean folk music traditions."
Tonight's Classical Tuesdays concert is the Weekly Volcano's #1 pick!
5 Things To Do Today: Where it comes and where it goes
October 12, 2010
1. Classical Tuesdays in Old Town presents a free concert tonight of Native American Flute performed by Gary Stroutsos, whose music was showcased in the Ken Burns PBS documentary, Lewis and Clark: Journey of the Corps of Discovery. Stroutsos will perform at 7 p.m. inside the Slavonian Hall in Tacoma.
The News Tribune highlights Classical Tuesdays' first concert of the 2010-2011 season!
Native American flute at first Old Town Tuesdays concert
By Rosemary Ponnekanti
October 4, 2010
The Classical Tuesdays in Old Town concert series is a little-known gem: free midweek concerts in Tacoma’s Old Town that feature unusual local musicians and music. The season opener next Tuesday night is Gary Stroutsos on Native American flutes.
Stroutsos, a Greek-Italian American, has collaborated with some of the finest Native artists around, including Navajo flute maker Paul Thompson, and has played and retold traditional stories on ancient and modern flutes for 30 years. His music was showcased in the score for Ken Burns’ PBS documentary “Lewis and Clark: Journey of the Corps of Discovery,” and at a subsequent command performance at the White House for President Bill Clinton. He has released over 20 recordings.
Stroutsos plays at Classical Tuesdays 7 p.m. Oct. 12. Free. Slavonian Hall, 2306 N. 30th St., Tacoma. 253-752-2135, classicaltuesdays.blogspot.com
www.garystroutsos.com
October 12th kicks off our sixth season of Classical Tuesdays in Old Town! We'll feature four widely varied free concerts and our annual benefit concert:
October 12
Gary Stroutsos: The Enduring Legacy of the Native American Flute
Join us tomorrow, February 9th, at 7pm for the last Classical Tuesdays concert of the season!
The Tacoma Weekly describes our performers, the Miho and Diego Duo:
Miho & Diego Duo has been boldly blending Latin and Japanese musical traditions since 2006. Both accomplished musicians in their own right, Miho Takekawa and Diego Coy came together after years of admiring each other’s work and discovering that their sounds could be combined to make something genuinely new and unique.
Takekawa is a percussion lecturer at Pacific Lutheran University where she directs percussion and steel pan ensembles. She is also a doctoral candidate in percussion performance at the University of Washington, and is the Japan Tour Coordinator and Activities Liaison for the University of Washington School of Music.
Coy is from Santiago de Cali, Colombia. He is the former musical director of “Fundacion Viva La Musica” and “Fundacion Funmusica” in Cali, Colombia where he taught Colombian folk music and mastered the quena and the zampoña, and learned to hand make his own instruments....
For their Classical Tuesdays concert, besides performing their unique Japanese-South American duo selections, each performer will solo on his/her own instrument.
The final concert of the current season will feature Miho Takekawa and Diego Coy. To hear them is to love them and their music! They boldly blend Latin and Japanese musical traditions to make something genuinely new and unique. The Miho & Diego Duo has performed widely in Japan and the United States.
Miho is percussion lecturer at Pacific Lutheran University where she directs percussion and steel pan ensembles. She is also a doctoral candidate in percussion performance at the University of Washington, and is the Japan Tour Coordinator and Activities Liaison for the University of Washington School Of Music.
Diego Coy is from Santiago de Cali, Colombia. He is the former musical director of “Fundacion Viva La Musica” and “Fundacion Funmusica” in Cali, Colombia where he taught Colombian folk music and mastered the quena and the zampoña, and learned to handmake his own instruments.
Tuesday, Feb 9th, 7 pm, FREE.
Slavonian Hall, 2306 N. 30th St., Tacoma
Info: (253) 752-2135
Thank you to everyone involved in Tuesday's concert! The composers and the performers did Tacoma proud.
And thank you to the incredible crowd who came to listen! We so enjoyed sharing the evening with all of you, and the icing on the cake was all the great conversation between musicians and audience.
The next Classical Tuesdays event is February 9th. We'll keep you posted!
And, Yes!, Tacoma Arts Commission has renewed their financial support for Classical Tuesdays in Old Town for the coming season (our 6th!, and their 6th year of support!)
Our thanks to everyone, the many businesses in Old Town and TAC and our generous audience, for supporting chamber music in Old Town.
Happy New Year!
Rosemary Ponnekanti at The News Tribune gives a great description of the very "Tacoma" nature of tonight's concert:
this Tuesday, you can hear local composers played by local musicians in a classical music series that's one of Tacoma's hidden gems: Classical Tuesdays in Old Town.
Completely free, this monthly series often features unusual instruments or music, and this coming Tuesday is no exception. Music from five Tacoma composers will be on the program....
Tacoma has some great composers, and they don't often get a look-in on bigger programs. Thanks to the Old Town series, they're getting the attention they deserve.
Happy 2010! Let's celebrate Tacoma music!
Join us for a free concert January 12 at 7pm at our usual venue, the lovely Slavonian Hall. We'll feature chamber music by Tacoma composers, performed by several of Tacoma's finest musicians.
North End resident Deborah Anderson has written a quartet for four clarinets.
Clarinetist Cindy Renander will perform a solo piece for bass clarinet, Lone Wolf by Greg Youtz.
Lawrence Bradley will perform a clarinet solo by Lawrence Ebert.
Clarinetist Craig Rine will join flutist Pamela Ryker and marimba player Miho Takekawa in Trio by Rob Hutchinson.
Saxophonist Tracy Knoop will join percussionists Miho and Brian Yarkosky in a duo by Clem Reid.
Another couple of pieces will round out the celebration of Tacoma composers and Tacoma musicians.
