Arts Alive San Antonio

Big news: the Agarita Chamber Players has been chosen to perform in front of a live audience June 13 at the Tobin Center for the Performing Arts. Yes, you read it correctly: the Tobin will welcome its first live audience since it closed its doors a couple months ago due the COVID-19 pandemic. According to the press release, the talented and innovative quartet will be the first classical music ensemble in the U.S. to return to the concert hall with real people sitting in the auditorium. It will present “A Community Celebration with Agarita: Reinventing the Concert Experience, at 7:30 p.m.

Founded only a couple of years ago, the group has enlivened the classical music scene in San Antonio, with multidisciplinary, collaborative concerts, new energy, and a willingness to share entire, evening-long programs online to provide solace to music lovers during the coronavirus crisis.

“Reinventing the concert experience has been at the core of Agarita’s mission since we formed, and is even more relevant today,” said Sarah Silver Manzke, the group’s co-president and violinist. “As we all witness the most monumental and abrupt transition the performing arts have ever seen, we are thrilled to help navigate the way back to safe, live performances by teaming up with the Tobin Center.”

The other members of Agarita are Daniel Anastasio (piano), Marisa Bushman (viola), and Ignacio Gallego (cello).

The June 13 concert will feature works by John Williams. Astor Piazzola, Alexandre Tansman, Dmitri Shostakovich, Alberto Ginastera, Charles Ives, Jessica Meyer and Joaquin Turina. As usual, the event will include other artistic disciplines, such as sculpture by Danville Chadbourne, photography by Natalia Sun, spoken word performances by Say Si students and poetry by Laura van Prooyen. Projections of artworks from the McNay are also part of the presentation.

The intermission-free concert will last about 75 minutes and it’s free on a first-come, first-served basis. Doors will open an hour in advance. Safety protocols will be in place, including temperature checks, facial masks, and special seating arrangements that allow for social distancing. Call the Tobin box office at 210-223-8624 for additional information.

Staying with music, Opera San Antonio has been sharing a lot of good stuff with the community, from interesting live interviews with opera artists and videos of actual performances, to information about summer opportunities for youth here and elsewhere.

Through a collaboration with the San Antonio Public Library, OSA had planned to present, Explore Opera, a series of events at various libraries to introduce the art of opera to kids and families. Young professional vocalists were hired to do the job, and everything seemed to go smoothly until COVID-19 struck, forcing a change of plans. Now, the sessions will be virtual.

The four performers – all master-level students of vocal performance or recent graduates – are: Alexandra Sanchez, Bronwyn White, Joseph Rodriguez and Rob Saldana. Each represents a type of voice, from soprano to bass. According to the information on the SAPL site, the sessions are scheduled for June 20,26 &30, and for July 11, 14 & 21. We’ll let you know about the final schedule as soon as we get it. These sessions can be fun and educational even if you are not an opera novice.

And speaking of educational opportunities, you can sign up your children for the Met Opera Global Summer Camp that’s open free of charge to youth from around the world. Each week, campers will be introduced to a new opera through watching the opera itself plus all sorts of hands-on activities, guided by Metropolitan Opera artists. The selection of works was made with children in mind and includes: “Hansel and Gretel,” “Don Pasquale,” “Rusalka,” “The Magic Flute,” “Romeo et Juliette,” “The Merry Widow,” and a few others. Each student can choose the opera he/she wants to study. To register go to https://www.metopera.org/discover/education/global-summer-camp/home/

And there’s more. Opera San Antonio’s artistic adviser, Garnett Bruce, has generously shared his “fabulous list of music” with the rest of us. The selections feature top international performers and are readily accessible on YouTube. Here are a few examples that we checked out and thoroughly enjoyed:

Bizet: “The Pearl Fishers,” Act I duet of tenors, performed by Josh and Joseph Dennis, singing from two different locations in the world, with the accompanying pianist sitting at a third location.

Mozart: “Le Nozze di Figaro,” a duet sung by two sopranos, Sally Matthews and Lydia Teuscher.

Gounod: “Romeo et Juliette,” the Bedroom Scene, sung by Catherine Malfitano and Alfredo Krause.

Tchaikovsky: “Eugene Onegin,” a duet performed by two superstars of the operatic world, the late Russian baritone Dmitri Hvorostovsky and American soprano Renee Fleming. It’s terrific!

You can access all of the above by simply entering the name of the opera and of the performers, in your search engine.

On the museum front, re-openings are in full swing, as we already told you last week. Now, the Blue Star Contemporary has also announced that it will reopen June 6-7 for members and donors, and will welcome the general public on June 11. The book/text-inspired exhibits that were newly installed back in March are still in the galleries, and they are definitely worth seeing. Like elsewhere, safety protocols will be followed and reservation should be made online. Current exhibits will be on view through Aug.2.

Founded by artists in 1986, Blue Star is the oldest contemporary art venue in town, which is normally visited by some 30,000 people each year.

Another, primarily visual arts, organization, the Bihl Haus Arts, has resumed its successful program of art classes for older adults, but this time, they are all online. “We have transitioned from in-person instruction to take advantage of whatever technology each student has,” said executive director Kellen McIntyre in the press announcement. “Our goal is to help avoid the trauma that isolation causes, so that they will be able to return to their senior centers as soon as they reopen.” In a brief interview, she pointed out that senior centers might be the last city facilities to reopen given that older adults are particularly vulnerable during the COVID-19 pandemic. “Keeping them actively engaged is critical right now.”

The current classes are really the continuation of the ones started in January that were interrupted by the lockdown. A new crop of classes will be starting in August. Anyone over 60 who would like to join a class should begin by taking a look at the participating senior centers operated by the city’s Department of Human Services and by the WellMed Foundation. Go to www.bihlhausarts.org and look under
GO! Arts program. Applications will be considered in July.

The children’s Museum, dubbed The DoSeum, is still seeking applications for its 2020 artist-in-residence program. The program “provides children with the opportunity to interact with the work of a professional artist and to appreciate the artistic process while connecting to themes of STEM and literacy.”

The theme for this year is dyslexia, so the DoSeum is looking for artists who have had direct experience with dyslexia and who are interested in creating “an installation, experience, or body of work reflecting on dyslexia.” The chosen artist’s work will be shown as part of the fall exhibition, “Beautiful Minds,” and the person will receive an honorarium of “up to $6,000 and production costs of up to $10,000. More than one artist may be chosen. You can find more information at https://www.thedoseum.org/artist-in-residence

Gemini Ink, San Antonio’s best-known literary organization, is offering, “The New Space from Where We Witness,” a Zoom workshop with Christopher “Rooster” Martinez, which will take place June 4 and June 10 at 6:30 p.m. “We’ll re-interpret place and discuss how our relationships to those places have altered during the quarantine. We’ll craft new work through the lens of witness,” says the announcement. Martinez is a writer and a well-known spoken word poet.

The Big Texas Read that Gemini Ink launched in collaboration with its sister organization in Dallas, is still going on. It’s basically a book club with live online sessions to facilitate discussion and visit with authors. The last live chat about David Samuel Levinson’s “Tell Me How This Ends Well,” is scheduled for June 10 at 7:30 p.m. The next club selections are Kathleen Kent’s “The Dime” and “The Burn.” To find out more visit www.geminiink.org