Arts Alive San Antonio

Summer is clearly the favorite season for festivals. Following the conclusion of the Cactus Pear Music Festival, here comes another classical music fest, The Mozart Festival Texas, that will present three concerts on three consecutive Sundays. It opens this Sunday at the Bennack Concert Hall on the campus of the University of the Incarnate Word. Created by conductor and music professor, Terrence Frazor, in 2011, the fest – as its name indicates – showcases the enormous musical output of Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart and works by a few of his equally talented contemporaries.

At the opening concert, The Mozart Festival Orchestra will perform Bach’s Concerto for Oboe and Violin; Haydn’s Cello Concerto in C, and Mozart’s G Minor Symphony. Soloists are oboist Deana Johnson, violinist Philip Johnson and cellist Douglas Harvey, all superbly accomplished musicians. (July 24 at 3 p.m.; Bennack Concert Hall, UIW, at Broadway and Hildebrand; $15 (student) – $45 (adults); www.mozartfestivaltexas.org; To learn more about the fest, read our article from July 20 on this site.

But there will be music for every taste.

Tribute bands pop up all over the place these days, and one is coming to the Tobin Center Friday- Q: The Music of Queen, which promises to take you through the 21-year history of the iconic band. (July 22 at 8 p.m.; Tobin Center for the Performing Arts, 100 Auditorium Circle; $27.50-$44.50, tickets@tobincenter.org or call 210-223-8624)

On July 23 you can enjoy another recreation of songs and shows of a well-known star at The Empire Theater, where “Toxic -The Britney Spears Experience” will pay tribute to “the princess of pop.” The Dallas-based company promises a full band, backup dancers, 13 costume changes, and more than 30 songs. (July 23 at 8 p.m.; Empire Theatre; $28, 210-226-3333; info@majesticempire.com.)

The Empire Theatre’s Leonel Garcia show has been rescheduled for Sept. 10.

The legendary Johnny Mathis, who is marking his 66th year as a recording artist, will be at the Tobin Center next Thursday. Here’s what Barbra Streisand said about him – and we suspect a lot of people would agree: “There are a number of good singers, a smaller handful of truly great singers, and then there’s Johnny Mathis.” (July 28 at 7:30 p.m.; Tobin Center; $65.50-$149.50; tickets@tobincenter.org or call 210-223-8624)

The Reed Brothers Duo – consisting of, as the name says, two brothers who are both guitarists and San Antonio natives – will bring its soul/country style of music to Sam’s Burger Joint on Friday. (July 22 at 9 p.m.; Sam’s Burger Joint,330 E. Grayson St.; $15-$65, 210-223-2830, www.samburgerjoint.com)

The Read Southall Band will wow fans with its “red dirt” style of rock music, inspired by the group’s native Oklahoma. The band’s latest album is “For the Birds” featuring the single “Where We Belong,” a powerful, atypical rock song. (July 23, at 8 p.m.; Whitewater Amphitheater, 11860 FM 306, New Braunfels; $25-$39, www.whotewaterrocks.com; 830-964-3800)

The Argentinian, Spanish-language rock trio, Enamtos Verdes, that’s been around for a few decades, will play at the Aztec Theater on Tuesday. (July 26 at 8 p.m.; Aztec Theatre, 104 N. St. Mary’s St.; $59.50-$110; 210-812-4355, www.theaztectheatre.com)

There’s always something new at San Antonio museums and art galleries. Today, we want to tell you about the exhibits at Artpace, the unique art center that sponsors artists’ residencies year-round. Each residency session welcomes three artists, one “international,” one from the U.S. outside of Texas and one from Texas. The latest group, the summer 2022 residents, are Helen Ascoli, from Guatemala, now residing in Baltimore, Maryland; Betelhem Makonnen, from Ethiopia, now a resident of Austin, and L.A.-based, Jonesy.

Of the three exhibits, we thought the Ascoli weaving experiences with a simple loom that requires the cooperation of the weaver’s body in order to operate, most engaging. Samples of her work are displayed, but it’s the story she tells that needs to be shared. Downstairs, you’ll find “Unsettling Narrative” by Makonnen, who is “curious about perception, presence and place, in affiliation with time and change.”

But that’s not all you’ll see at Artpace. In fact, the most visually arresting exhibit, located in the Hudson Showroom, is Carbonate of Copper, a “transdisciplinary exhibition of international and Texas artists and scholars who work in varied media to examine questions of circuity, flow, foundation and cultural inheritance.”  What you’ll see upon entering the gallery is a more or less circular floor installation of multicolored objects resembling open, concave shells. It’s an attractive sight by itself, that you can interpret in many ways, and don’t really need to know the poem that inspired the show. The official writeup about the exhibit says: “By considering the everyday experience of using, of being used, of residue, of squandering, of constraint, of re-building and preservation, the poem – and by extension, the exhibition- build a case for places, people, and contexts encapsulated in sedimented time.” There’s truth in that, of course, as most objects and organisms eventually decompose to basic molecules and simpler chemical compounds that nature – and humans – recycle.

As ARTS ALIVE SAN ANTONIO readers probably remember that the Briscoe Museum is currently showing the specially-curated exhibit, “The Sons of Charlie Russell: Cowboy Artists of America,” that includes artworks from 17 public and private collections from around the U.S. The exhibit will be on display through Sept. 5. The exhibit is an ideal background for celebrating the National Day of the Cowboy, this Saturday, July 23^rd , with indoor and outdoor activities for cowboys and cowgirls of all ages. The National Day of the Cowboy was founded to help preserve and celebrate the heritage of the American cowboy culture. All kinds of fun are planned for the day for Briscoe visitors – cowpoke games and crafts, including bull riding, horseshoe tossing, barrel racing, and more. And there will be cowboy tales, chuck wagon cooking, with samples given out, demonstrations, hands-on arts, live music, and, of course, the opportunity to see the exhibit. (July23, 10.am.-5 p.m.; free; Briscoe Museum, 210- W. Market St., on the River Walk.; 210-299-4499, www.briscoemuseum.org)

El Gran Dia de Los Artistas is a free community event at Centro Cultural Aztlan, showcasing live music, poetry, dance, art demonstrations and live painting. The event is organized to celebrate the organization’s 45^th anniversary. The center was incorporated in 1977. A special reading by author/illustrator Xavier Garza, whose work is currently exhibited in the Aztlan’s gallery, will also be part of the festivities. (July 23, 12-6 p.m.; Centro Aztlan, 1800 Fredericksburg Rd., 78201; free) The current exhibit is “The Return of Quetzalcoatl: Heroes, Villains and Space Monsters.”

At the Museum of Western Art in Kerrville you’ll find a special exhibit, Luckenbach Legacy: Hondo’s Daughter, that showcases the works of Becky Crouch Patterson, who is an artist, author and designer, in addition to being the daughter of the legendary Hondo Crouch who bought the practically abandoned town of Luckenbach for $30,000 in 1970, and proclaimed himself the mayor, and creating the slogan, “Everybody is Somebody in Luckenbach.” The art exhibit opened July 16 and will stay on view through Sept. 17. (Museum of Western Art, 1550 Bandera Highway; $7 admission. 830-896-2553, www.museumofwesternart.com)

For what’s playing in San Antonio theaters, consult last week’s NEWS ROUNDUP. All those shows are continuing their respective runs. However, a new musical revue at the Harlequin Theater is opening Friday. Titled, “Shake, Rattle and Roll,” the show will feature songs by the Beach Boys, Stevie Wonder, The Four Seasons and others. These revues are usually high energy music-and-dance entertainment.
(July 22 at 7 p.m., show at 8 p.m.; It will run Fridays-Saturdays through Aug. 20.; Sam Houston Theater, 2472 Stanley Rd. on Joint Base San Antonio-Fort Sam Houston; $10-$22; 210-222-9694)

The Guadalupe Cultural Arts Center is presenting its Grupo Animo summer theater camp production “Re-imagiNation: Voices Colliding into One.” Grupo Animo is the center’s resident youth theater company (ages 13-18). No description of the play was included in the press release. (July 23 at & p.m.; Guadalupe Theater, 1301 Guadalupe St., 78207; free; 210-271-3151, www.guadalupeculturalarts.org)

The MOSAS Performance Fund, the nonprofit organized by the former San Antonio Symphony members, has announced the hiring of its first staff member: Jeremy Brimhall, who served as education director for SAS for the past 12 years. He is also a musician who performed with the State of Mexico Symphony Orchestra in Toluca, Mexico. In its announcement, MOSAS emphasized its interest in making education and community its priority. The plans for the 2022-23 season are already in place, so it looks like symphonic music will be alive and well come fall.

The city’s Department of Arts and Culture wants to hear from you about public art plans to be financed from the 2022-23 Bond. (Aug. 2 at 5:30 p.m.; more info https://www.saspeakup.com/15784)