Fall Arts Preview

The weather may still say summer, but the calendar shows September – meaning it’s time for another local arts season to start heating up. Here’s a look at what to expect during the rest of 2006 in classical music, live theater, visual arts and books:

Classical music

Spokane’s classical music series offer a parade of excellent soloists this fall, and enough new or unusual works to give the season a sense of adventure.

The Spokane Symphony opens Sept. 15 under the baton of Music Director Eckart Preu with an all-Russian program. Young American pianist Terrence Wilson will play Khachaturian’s Piano Concerto – a flashy work that has not been heard here for a long time – along with Tchaikovsky’s enormously popular “Pathetique” Symphony.

An Oct. 6 “Brahms Blast” will feature two important works by the German composer, with two special guests: Jennifer Frautschi will perform Brahms’ Violin Concerto, and Arnaldo Cohen the Piano Concerto No. 1. The Symphony Chorale and baritone Frank Hernandez will join the orchestra for Brahms’ “German Requiem” on Oct. 20.

“The Slavonic Soul” will be explored Nov. 17 in a program featuring guest violinist Jennifer Koh.

Away from the orchestra’s regular home at the INB Performing Arts Center (formerly Spokane Opera House), the Casual Classics series at The Met begins Nov. 4 and 5 with a musical trip through “Vienna – City of My Dreams.” The journey repeats Nov. 19 at North Idaho College.

Associate Conductor Morihiko Nakahara will lead the orchestra in another “Symphony on The Edge” performance Oct. 13 at the Big Easy Concert House, featuring works off the beaten track by John Adams and Osvaldo Golijov, among others.

Nakahara will also conduct the symphony’s SuperPops concert Nov. 11 with “wild Gypsy fiddler” Roby Lakatos. The pops series opens Sept. 30 with Doc’s salute to the Duke – former “Tonight Show” bandleader Doc Severinsen’s tribute to Duke Ellington, that is – and continues with the annual Holiday Pops concerts Dec. 16 and 17.

Another holiday tradition returns Dec. 8-10 when the orchestra teams with Alberta Ballet for “The Nutcracker.”

Brahms will be the featured composer in the Spokane String Quartet’s opener Oct. 8 at The Met, with Spokane-born violinist Julie Ayer – daughter of longtime Spokane Symphony violinist Evelyn Ayer, and sister of the quartet’s late second violinist, Jane Blegen – as guest first violinist. (Quartet founder Kelly Farris is taking a leave of absence.)

For the quartet’s Dec. 2 concert, Misha Rosenker, Eastern Washington University’s professor of violin, will assume the first chair for a program that includes Borodin’s Quartet No. 2.

Baroque dance will be highlighted in Allegro’s “Ballet Baroque” concert Oct. 27 at The Met, with Theatre Ballet of Spokane students dancing to rarely heard music by Jean Philippe Rameau and George Frideric Handel.

Classical music fans in the region can also find interesting concerts outside Spokane.

The Coeur d’Alene Symphony opens its season Oct. 14 with a program featuring an unusual 19th-century work – the Concertino for Trombone by Ferdinand David – performed by veteran Los Angeles studio trombonist Ernie Carlson, now a Coeur d’Alene resident and leader of the Tuxedo Junction big band. The second half of the concert will feature Carlson and his singer wife, Judi, in music of the big-band era.

A “Christmas Showcase” follows on Dec. 2-3.

Only slightly farther away lies the University of Idaho’s outstanding Auditorium Chamber Music Series, with performances by the English ensemble Onyx Brass on Oct. 19 and the American Chamber Players on Nov. 30.

Of special interest on the Washington Idaho Symphony schedule this fall is the premiere of Washington State University composer Greg Yasinitsky’s Concerto for Flute, Nov. 4 in Pullman and Nov. 5 in Lewiston.

Full-scale opera performances are not exactly thick on the ground in the Inland Northwest, but Coeur d’Alene’s Opera Plus on Sept. 30 will present the perfect work to pay tribute to the 250th anniversary of Mozart’s birth: his “Marriage of Figaro.” The North Idaho College performance will be repeated in a matinee Oct. 1.

The Spokane Coeur d’Alene Opera, which stages its major production, “Hansel and Gretel,” next May, again hosts a “Diamonds and Divas” New Year’s Eve gala at the Davenport Hotel.

And for those who stretch the definition of “classical music” to include classic jazz, the Spokane Jazz Orchestra opens its season Sept. 29 at The Met with a guest appearance by former Count Basie vocalist Nnenna Freelon, followed by “Holiday in Jazz” on Dec. 1.

– Travis Rivers

Theater

Spokane’s live theater scene is in perfectly normal condition – meaning only moderate turmoil.

Financial problems of varying degrees have not prevented most of Spokane’s theatrical institutions from mounting ambitious seasons.

The Actor’s Repertory Theatre, probably the most stable of the local theaters, is already rolling along with a sold-out run of “Greater Tuna” and “A Tuna Christmas.”

Next up is Spokane’s first look at the work of Neil Labute, the controversial playwright and film director with local roots. His play about love, sex and art, “The Shape of Things,” runs Sept. 22-Oct. 7.

“Together Again for the First Time,” a family comedy written by Spokane actor/playwright Reed McColm, is ARt’s scheduled holiday production, Nov. 24-Dec. 17.

Interplayers, Spokane’s longtime professional theater, is about to roll out its big season premiere, “Bus Stop” – featuring Ellen Travolta, Jack Bannon and Jonathan Rau – opening Sept. 14 and continuing through Oct. 1. Word has it that Ellen’s brother, John Travolta, will be flying in to town to check out this 1955 William Inge classic that they appeared in together in the mid-‘70s.

Next up for Interplayers will be the spooky thriller “Woman in Black,” Oct. 12-29, and the backstage comedy “Moon Over Buffalo,” Nov. 9-25.

The Spokane Civic Theatre, a community theater institution, launches its 60th anniversary season with the beloved show-biz musical “Singin’ in the Rain,” Sept. 29-Oct. 29. That will be followed on the Main Stage by another big musical, “Mame,” Nov. 17-Dec. 17.

The Civic’s downstairs black-box theater, the Firth Chew Studio Theatre, opens with Wendy Wasserstein’s comedy “Isn’t It Romantic,” Oct. 20-Nov. 11.

As for national touring shows, the Best of Broadway series starts with a black-fishnet fashion statement, as in, “Chicago.” This raucous girls-gone-bad fable, featuring TV veteran Gregory Harrison, hits the Opera House – oops, the INB Performing Arts Center – on Sept. 19.

The series continues with the Andrew Lloyd Webber spectacle “Joseph and the Amazing Technicolor Dreamcoat,” Nov. 30-Dec. 3.

– Jim Kershner

Visual art

Spokane’s Visual Arts Tour anchors the fall season, returning the first weekend in October with dozens of downtown galleries and businesses hosting art, music, food, kids’ activities and an assortment of fascinating folks.

Inland Craft Warnings has its annual three-day fine crafts sale at the Spokane Convention Center beginning Nov. 10, and Yuletide returns to the Spokane Art School the weekend after Thanksgiving.

The 2006-07 Visiting Artist Lecture Series, “Who We Are: Art that Reflects the Everyday,” kicks off with art writer and historian Sue Taylor on Nov. 14 and 15 at Eastern Washington University, the Northwest Museum of Arts and Culture and Spokane Falls Community College.

Also at the MAC, “Images and Imagination: American Indian Photogravures by Edward S. Curtis” opens Sept. 23.

The Spokane Carvers Association and Inland Empire Carvers are back with the 17th annual “Artistry in Wood” show Oct. 7 and 8 in the Lair Student Union at Spokane Community College.

Also at area colleges and universities:

“A public reception for Gonzaga University’s Jundt Art Museum exhibitions, “Recent Gifts and Acquisitions” and “Architect Ron Tan: Play and Work,” is Sept. 21. “Brad Brown: Was Is” opens Oct. 20.

“On Sept. 29, “Art & Context: the 1950s & 60s” opens in Washington State University’s Museum of Art in Pullman.

“ The University of Idaho’s Prichard Art Gallery in Moscow is showing “Lesley Dill: The Thrill Came Slowly, Prints and Multiples” through Oct. 7. A show of works by Nathan Orosco and Stuart Larson follows on Oct. 20.

“ In addition to the new “Loop Press” exhibit at Whitworth College’s Koehler Gallery (see visual arts column on page D1), an exhibit of works by New-York based painter Jose Parla runs Oct. 2-26 and a show by David Brodeur is scheduled Nov. 7 to Dec. 8.

“ Eastern Washington University’s Gallery of Art hosts Curtis Stewardson and Sandra Trujillo beginning Sept. 28.

“ Spokane Falls Community College Gallery of Art opens its academic season Sept. 18 with a memorial exhibit of paintings, “Bob Evans, 1948-2005.”

– Julianne Crane

Books

Fall is usually a busy time for book-lovers. Besides the introduction of new works, a number of interesting authors typically traipse through the region.

Pulitzer Prize-winning journalist Thomas Hylton (“Save Our Lands, Save Our Towns”) speaks at the University of Idaho on Sept. 14.

On Sept. 20, Spokane author Jess Walter will read from his new novel, “The Zero,” at Auntie’s Bookstore. Other Auntie’s events include naturalist writer Barry Lopez (“Home Ground: Language for an American Landscape”) on Sept. 25 and science writer David Quammen (“The Reluctant Mr. Darwin”) Oct. 1.

The fifth Spokane Is Reading event will feature readings and discussion of Laurie R. King’s mystery novel “The Beekeeper’s Apprentice” all through October, culminating in a pair of author appearances on Oct. 19.

Gonzaga University will bring noted poet Jane Hirschfield to campus on Oct. 10.

At Whitworth College, author Maria Doria Russell (“The Sparrow,” “Children of God”) will lecture on Oct. 19 and read from her novels Oct. 20.

Poet Joy Passanante (“Kiss Tomorrow Hello”) will read Oct. 11 at Eastern Washington University’s Cheney campus.

– Dan Webster