By JASMINA WELLINGHOFF, Editor For 26 years, jazz lovers have flocked to the Balcones Heights Jazz Festival in July to listen to great music played outdoors on balmy summer nights. Pictures show a packed amphitheater just outside the Wonderland of the Americas Mall, with people lounging on chairs and blankets around a shallow pool of water, facing the make-shift stage …
By JASMINA WELLINGHOFF, Editor — Kate Thomas was seven when her parents first signed her up for recreational dance classes at the Dance Center of San Antonio. But the school’s founder, Vanessa Bessler, quickly detected that her new student had the potential to become a real dancer and suggested that the girl be moved into the intensive program. “I spotted …
This Sunday, Dec. 13, The Agarita Chamber Players will kickstart their new initiative that brings music to the people in outdoor settings for free. Named Humble Hall, it will take the four Agarita members to all ten districts of San Antonio, starting with District 1. The first concert will take place at the open-air garden behind the Witte Museum at …
By JASMINA WELLINGHOFF, Editor — After a longish search for a new executive director, the board of Luminaria has selected local arts advocate and marketing/PR specialist, Yadhira Lozano, as its new top executive. She succeeds Kathy Armstrong who led the organization for five years. “I think it’s great. It’s wonderful,” said Lozano who had applied a while back and was …
By JASMINA WELLINGHOFF, Editor — Come spring, you may have a unique opportunity to hear top-notch musicians play beautiful music at your neighborhood park or other outdoor space near you. The group that plans to do that is Agarita Chamber Players, a quartet of talented young musicians with a sterling classical music education and a growing reputation for innovative and …
The Tobin Center for the Performing Arts will be alive with the sound of music and laughter in the next few days. First up is “Blood and Holly: Christmas West of the Pecos” featuring one of San Antonio’s favorite stage personalities, Jaston Williams of the Greater Tuna fame. In this new one-man show, “Jaston Williams remembers Christmas in childhood as …
Following a long tradition, Ballet San Antonio will once again present everyone’s favorite holiday ballet, The Nutcracker, at the Tobin Center for the Performing Arts, starting the day after Thanksgiving. It will be a modified Nutcracker with fewer dancers on stage to avoid crowding and close contact, but co-choreographer Easton Smith says there will be plenty of magic as great …
By JASMINA WELLINGHOFF, Editor Though so many live stage productions have been cancelled this year, that’s not going to be the case with Ballet San Antonio’s Nutcracker. It will be different, more high-tech, and a little tweaked all-round but it promises to be just as enchanting as always, with great dancing and computer-generated special effects. This is a “Nutcracker” for …
Grand displays of Christmas lights are always popular at this time of the year but the Lights Alive! Drive-thru Light Show upgrades the entire concept by producing a spectacle of dancing lights like you have probably not seen before. Produced by Living Light Shows, this spectacle consists of a mile-drive through a holiday landscape animated by computer-generated light designs synchronized …
By JASMINA WELLINGHOFF, Editor Though some people seem to think that Disney invented the Snow White story, the tale of the innocent, beautiful young princess was, in fact, included in the Brothers Grimm 1812 collection of fairytales, and versions of it exist in many European countries. One thing they all have in common is the jealousy of the vain stepmother, …
