The Manhattan-based Cassatt String Quartet - Muneko Otani and Jennifer Leshnower, violins; Sarah Adams, viola; and Nicole Johnson, cello, taking its name from the American impressionist artist Mary Cassatt - will be spending the week in Arkansas, including a three-day residency at the University of Central Arkansas in Conway and performances in Hot Springs and Bentonville.
The quartet’s concert at 7:30 p.m. Thursday in the Donald W. Reynolds Performance Hall at UCA, 201 Donaghey Ave., Conway, will include the world premiere of Mary Cassatt: Scenes From Her Life for string quartet (dedicated to the Cassatt Quartet) by Bruce Adolphe, composer-in-residence at the Brain and Creativity Center at the University of Southern California and best known as the creator of the “piano puzzler” on public radio’s Performance Today.
The UCA College of Fine Arts and Communication commissioned the work. The presentation will include slides of the Cassatt paintings in the collection of Crystal Bridges Museum of American Art in Bentonville, from which Adolphe took his inspiration.
The program will also include the String Quartet No. 8 in c minor, op.110, by Dmitri Shostakovich; Greenspace for Triple String Quartet, with students in the UCA string chamber program; and the String Quartet No. 12 in F major, op.96, “American,” by Antonin Dvorak. Admission is free.
The quartet will also play the Adolphe piece with slide projections, along with the Shostakovich quartet and the String Quartet by Maurice Ravel, at 6:30 p.m. Friday in the Great Hall at the Crystal Bridges Museum, 600 Museum Way, Bentonville. Members of the quartet will take part in a post-concert discussion. Admission is $10, free for museum members. Call(479) 418-5700 or visit shop. crystalbridges.org/Events. aspx.
The UCA residency, Tuesday-Thursday, will include chamber music and solo instrument master classes, lecture demonstrations and an outreach performance at Conway High School.
The quartet will also play the Ravel and Dvorak quartets at 7 p.m. Tuesday in Anthony Chapel at Garvan Woodland Gardens, 550 Arkridge Road, Hot Springs, under the auspices of the Hot Springs Music Festival, for which they were the mentor ensemble-in-residence in June 2012. The concert is sponsored in part by the Hot Springs alumni chapter of Sigma Alpha Iota International Music Fraternity for Women. Tickets are $20, $5for students. Call (501) 623-4763 or visit hotmusic.org.
ZZ Top at AMP
Rock band ZZ Top performs at 7:30 p.m. Friday at the Arkansas Music Pavilion, Washington County Fairgrounds, 2536 N. McConnell Ave., Fayetteville. Tickets are $37-$77 with a limited number of $102 premium seats. Call (479) 443-5600 or visit the website, amptickets.com.
Birthday premiere
The Fort Smith Symphony will give the world premiere of Borderline by Charles Booker Jr., which it commissioned for its 90th anniversary celebration, at 7:30 p.m. Saturday at the Arkansas Best Corp. Performing Arts Center, 55 S. Seventh St., FortSmith.
Alan Chow will be the soloist in the Piano Concerto No. 3 in c minor, op.37, by Ludwig van Beethoven. The orchestra will conclude with the Symphony No. 2 in e minor, op.27, by Sergei Rachmaninoff. John Jeter will conduct.
Tickets are $40 and $35, $20 and $15 for students. Call (479) 452-7575 or visit the website, fortsmithsymphony. org.
Mongolian musicians
Mongolian musical group AnDa Union, 10 young instrumentalists and singers, will open Walton Arts Center’s 10x10 Arts Series at 8 p.m. Friday at the center, 495 W. Dickson St., Fayetteville. Tickets are $10-$25. Call (479)4430-5600 or visit the website, waltonartscenter.org.
New art exhibits
Arkansas artists Kathy P. Thompson and Cindy Arsaga, who share studio space in Fayetteville’s Studio 3, open new exhibits Monday at The Depot, 548 W. Dickson St., Fayetteville.
Thompson describes her pieces in this show as prototypes, “playful and experimental, and pointing the way to [forthcoming] work on a larger scale.” For “Reclaimed … Old to New and Back Again,” Arsaga applies encaustic medium (beeswax and damar resin), heated and painted onto the surface of photographs taken in and around Northwest Arkansas, which are then finished withoil sticks.
Both exhibitions will be up through Nov. 2. An opening reception 6-9 p.m. Oct. 3, in conjunction with First Thursdays will feature food, beverages and music. Call (501) 951-4151 or email katographic@ gmail.com.
Cash documentary
Joanne Cash - I Do Believe, a documentary film about the life and musical career of Joanne Cash, sister of Johnny and Tommy, among the seven children raised by Ray and Carrie Cash in a Depression-era farm settlement residence just outside Dyess, premieres at 8 p.m. Wednesday in the Carl R. Reng Student Union Auditorium at Arkansas State University, 101 N. Caraway Road, Jonesboro. Admission is free. Call (870) 972-2803.
Joanne Cash and her husband, Harry Yates, pastor of the interdenominational Nashville (Tenn.) Cowboy Church, were inducted into the International Country Gospel Music Hall of Fame in August. Chad Randall Crow is the documentary’s producer and director.
‘Treasure’ hunt
Nov. 8 is the deadline to submit to the Arkansas Arts Council nominations for Arkansas Living Treasure, an Arkansan “outstanding in the creation of a traditional craft and has significantly contributed to the preservation of the art form,” according to a news release.
The Arts Council is encouraging nominations of weavers, broom makers, leather workers, metal smiths, wood carvers and toy and doll makers. A reception in May, which is Arkansas Heritage Month, will honor the 2014 designee.
Nomination forms are available by calling (501) 324-9766 or online at arkansasarts. org. For more information, call (501) 324-9348 or email robinm@arkansasheritage. org.
Style, Pages 47 on 09/29/2013