The Gershwins, Bernstein, Copland, Mendelssohn
Marcus Jewish Community Center April 6
Pianist Jeffrey Siegel, who has been performing and educating audiences on music for more than 45 years, will present “Great Jewish Composers at the Marcus Jewish Community Center of Atlanta.
Siegel will present a “concert with commentary” that includes Gershwin’s rarely heard solo piano version of Rhapsody in Blue, Aaron Copland’s famous Rodeo and humorous Cat and the Mouse, Mendelssohn’s vivacious Rondo Capriccioso, The Jets from Leonard Bernstein’s West Side Story, and the melodious gems of Milhaud, Alkan, Franz Reizenstein, and Anton Rubinstein.
Siegel has been a soloist with the world’s great orchestras, including the Berlin Philharmonic, London Symphony, and the Philharmonic and Philharmonia orchestras.
His concerts normally conclude with a fast-paced Q&A.
Siegel performs Sunday, April 6 at 4 p.m. at the Marcus Jewish Community Center of Atlanta, 678-812-4002. Tickets run from $20 to $28.
Renowned around the world for their shadow dances, Pilobolus will be coming to Atlanta Saturday, April 5. The dance company has been featured on numerous TV shows, including the “Annual Academy Awards,” “Oprah,” “Late Night with Conan O’ Brien” and “60 Minutes,” and has performed over 100 choreographic works in more than 64 countries around the world.
A mixture of acrobatics and dance, the performances are funny, heartfelt and utterly amazing. You may have seen shadow dancing before on TV. This is the company that started it all.
The company will present five works: AUTOMATON (2012), a collaboration with internationally celebrated choreographer Sidi Larbi Cherkaoui that questions the difference between human and machine, and [esc] (2013), a full company piece created in collaboration with master magicians Penn & Teller that explores ideas of fantasy, athleticism and escape. THE TRANSFORMATION (2009), OCELLUS (1972) and LICKS (2013) round out the evening’s featured repertory.
Pilobolus performs Saturday, April 5 at 8 p.m. at the Ferst Center. Tickets are available for $22 for children, and for $39 to $49 for adults.
You don’t have to like ballet to love Modern Choreographic Voices, the annual Atlanta Ballet performance that brings modern dances from world-renowned choreographers.
Forget everything you’ve ever seen or heard about ballet or dance styles that you see on “Dancing With The Stars” cause this is the show that will blow your mind about everything you’ve ever seen regarding dance. It’s contemporary dance from the soul.
Israeli artistic director of the Batsheva Dance Company, Ohad Naharin, is back again this year after last year’s phenomenal performance of his piece “Minus 16.”
Alexei Ratmansky, the current artist in residence at American Ballet Theatre and former artistic director of the legendary Bolshoi Ballet, Atlanta Ballet presents the hypnotic “Seven Sonatas.”
Atlanta Ballet dancer/choreographer Tara Lee presents the world premiere of her piece “The Authors.” In her 18th year with the company, Lee will also dance in “Secus” and “Seven Sonatas.”
The national tour of the Broadway musical “Once,” winner of eight Tony Awards including Best Musical and winner of the 2013 Grammy Award for Best Musical Theater Album, will play The Fox Theatre from March 4-9.
Featuring an impressive ensemble of actor/musicians who play their own instruments onstage, “Once” is the story of a Dublin street musician who’s about to give up on his dream when a beautiful young woman takes a sudden interest in his haunting love songs. As the chemistry between them grows, his music soars to powerful new heights… but their unlikely connection turns out to be deeper and more complex than your everyday romance.
About the Broadway production, The New York Times said: “‘Once’ features another rarity in a Broadway show: amplification that enhances rather than distorts the music. (Clive Goodwin is the sound designer.) When the violins begin to play in ‘Once’ — and the accordion and the mandolin and the guitars and the cello — the instruments swell into a collection of distinctive voices melded into a single, universal feeling. That’s the sense, carried in the corners of all human hearts, that we just missed out on the real thing. ‘Once’ massages that feeling until it hurts quite exquisitely.”
Ticket prices start at $30 and will be available at Fox Theatre box office, by visiting www.broadwayinatlanta.com or by calling 1-855- 285-8499.
Marc Black, who’s been named “Folk Artist of the Year,” will perform a house concert Friday at Stone Soup Kitchen in East Atlanta.
Black has performed and recorded with Pete Seeger, Art Garfunkel, Taj Mahal, Jack DeJonnette, Rick Danko and Peter Schikele, and has collaborated with Ritchie Havens. Levon Helm invited Black to play one of the Midnight Rambles, and Happy Traum says his songs are “timeless” and feature “deep grooves, excellent playing [and] top-notch guitar and vocals.”
Marc plays a finger style blues in the traditions of Mississippi Hurt and Tim Hardin. His song, “No Fracking Way,” recorded with John Sebastian and Eric Weissberg, has become a worldwide anthem for the anti-fracking movement. His “Pictures of the Highway” CD has reached #6 on the Fold DJ Chart.
While still in high school, his band, the Blades of Grass, reached the top forty and performed alongside of the biggest acts of the day, including the Doors, Van Morrison and Neil Diamond. Black has since recorded more than a dozen CDs, including one “pick hit” in Billboard Magazine and another, which was recognized as a “minor masterpiece” by famed music producer John Hammond Sr.
Black plays a house concert Friday at 7:30 p.m. at Stone Soup Kitchen (404-524-1222). Doors open at 7 p.m. Stone Soup Kitchen is located at 584 Woodward Avenue Atlanta, GA 30312.
Broadway star Tovah Feldshuh, who recently starred in the 2013 Tony Award-winning revival of “Pippin,” will give a special matinee performance of her song-and-dance cabaret “Tovah: Out of Her Mind!” in honor of Ambassador Stuart Eizenstat. The gala, titled “Stu, Long Overdue,” celebrates Eizenstat’s decades of service to his native city and his family’s long-standing commitment to Ahavath Achim Synagogue.
In her one-woman show, four-time Tony nominee (“Golda’s Balcony,” “Yentl,” “Lend Me a Tenor” and “Saravà!”) Feldshuh portrays a number of characters and sings Broadway tunes by the Gershwins and Jules Styne. The Boston Globe selected “Tovah: Out Of Her Mind!” as the best one-person show of 2000.
In addition to performing in a dozen Broadway shows, Feldshuh has acted in numerous films, including “Kissing Jessica Stein,” for which she won the Golden Satellite Award for Best Supporting Actress, and “A Walk On The Moon” with Diane Lane. Her portrayal of Israel’s iconic Prime Minister, Golda Meir, in “Golda’s Balcony,” was the longest-running, one-woman show in Broadway history.
“Stu, Long Overdue” will be held Sunday, March 30 at Ahavath Achim Synagogue’s Main Sanctuary in Buckhead at 2 p.m. Feldshuh is expected to perform at 2:30 p.m. Tickets will likely sell out fast as they did last year when Feldshuh narrated last year’s AA Synagogue’s 125th Year Celebration. For information and tickets, visit www.AASynagogue.org/tickets.
Jazz Roots-New Orleans, originally scheduled for February but canceled due to the snow, will arrive Thursday, March 27 at the Cobb Energy Performing Arts Centre. Aaron Neville headlines the event. The opening act has not yet been named.
R&B/soul/country/pop star Aaron Neville has had numerous hits on the Billboard charts, including “Tell It Like It Is,” “Don’t Know Much” and “Everybody Plays the Fool.” He has won two Grammy Awards for Best Pop Performance By A Duo Or Group With Vocal for his collaborations with Linda Ronstadt for “Don’t Know Much” and for “All My Life.” He also won a Grammy for Best Country Vocal Collaboration with Trisha Yearwood for their tune “I Fall to Pieces.”
Jazz Roots-New Orleans will be held Thursday, March 27 at 8 p.m. at the Cobb Energy Performing Arts Centre.
Lily Balsen and Evan Cleaver, Photo: Greg Mooney
Just after presenting one of the all time highs in original plays, Janece Shaffer’s “The Geller Girls,” the Alliance brings a major low, the winner of the Kendeda National Graduate Playwriting Competition winner “In Love and Warcraft” by Madhuri Shekar.
Just cause I hated it, doesn’t mean it’s awful as so much of the audience laughed and laughed. My date and I, both in our 50s, had no idea what all the laughter was about. Perhaps if I were in my twenties or thirties, the attempts at romance and the references to computer games may have resonated with me, but the script seemed to lag and lag. What made it worse was the “acting.” I have seen high school students act better than these actors, far better, save for an excellent performance by Diany Rodriguez who played multiple characters, all exceedingly well. Bobby Labartino also did a good job playing a number of characters. I won’t get started on the other actors as there is no need to be mean.
I’m afraid I just got so busy with my work that I couldn’t find the time to review “The Geller Girls,” but I want to state this for the record: It is an outstanding play, with twists throughout it and a script that steadily moves forward at a rapid pace with sentient characters from the late 1800s you feel as if you know them. If Broadway is looking for a great play, “The Geller Girls” is the answer.
Schaffer’s plays have been performed at theaters around Atlanta for a few years, and never before have I been a fan of any of them. However, “The Geller Girls” is a homerun. Perhaps in a few years, a Shekhar play will strike me the same.
“In Love and Warcraft” runs on the Hertz Stage at the Alliance Theatre through Feb. 23.
Multi Grammy Award-winner Aaron Neville, of the Neville Brothers, and the Dirty Dozen Brass Band will perform a concert called “New Orleans!” at the Cobb Energy Performing Arts Centre on Thursday.
One of the most popular New Orleans jazz bands today–you’ll be dancing in the aisles if you let yourself go–the Dirty Dozen Brass Band opens the show with traditional New Orleans jazz fused with be-bop and funk.
Next, R&B/soul/country/pop star Aaron Neville takes the stage with his band. Neville has had numerous hits on the Billboard charts, including “Tell It Like It Is,” “Don’t Know Much” and “Everybody Plays the Fool.” He has won two Grammy Awards for Best Pop Performance By A Duo Or Group With Vocal for his collaborations with Linda Ronstadt for “Don’t Know Much” and for “All My Life.” He also won a Grammy for Best Country Vocal Collaboration with Trisha Yearwood for their tune “I Fall to Pieces.”
New Orleans! will be held Thursday, Jan. 30 at 8 p.m. at the Cobb Energy Performing Arts Centre.
