BIRMINGHAM ENTERTAINMENT

Latest news and reviews of movies, music, dining, arts and other events in Birmingham, Alabama

It is total TV takeover for the Simmons clan. Making their MTV debut on the uber popular "Run's House," Venessa and Angela Simmons are ready to show us just how hard the kittens will play when papa mouse is far, far away in their new reality show "Daddy's Girls." Continue reading "Daddy's Girls" »

You've probably already seen 1,000 of these lists floating around the Web the last couple weeks. You know the lists: top movies of the year, the best TV shows of 2008, five series that should be cancelled, but won't be. Blah, blah, blah.

Here's your 1,001st.

Continue reading "TV's best and worst in 2008" »

Alabama Booksmith
1. "Bottega Favorita: A Southern Chef's Love Affair with Italian Food" by Frank Stitt
2. "The Story of Jesus as Told in the Donkeys' Tales" by Adele Colvin and Peyton Carmichael
3. "Frank Stitt's Southern Table" by Frank Stitt
4. "The Long Shadow of Coach Paul "Bear" Bryant" by Gaylon McCollough
5. "Charles Dickens Set" by Charles Dickens

Jonathan Benton, Bookseller
1. "Bottega Favorita: A Southern Chef's Love Affair with Italian Food" by Frank Stitt
2. "The Story of Jesus as Told in the Donkeys' Tales" by Adele Colvin and Peyton Carmichael
3. "Face of Faith" by Candy Wood Lindley
3. "212: The Extra Degree" by S.L. Parker
4. "Same Kind of Different As Me" by Ron Hall
5. "Christmas is a Season," edited by Linda Busby Parker

Continue reading "Birmingham Museum of Art's 'Fabric of Life' quilts human connection" »

Whatever the reasons, the Peabody Trio attracted only 74 people to its all-Beethoven concert in Birmingham in March 2006. Those fortunate few witnessed a fiery concert that revealed the composer's innate sense of architecture and drama, and intense and engaging playing from violinist Violaine Melancon, cellist Natasha Brofsky and pianist Seth Knopp, the resident faculty ensemble at Peabody Conservatory in Baltimore.

The Birmingham Chamber Music Society is bringing them back next Sunday for an intriguing program that explores the literary properties of chamber music. The concert's centerpiece is "Sindbad," a 10-movement piece by 42-year-old composer Harold Meltzer. Based on a short story that appeared in The New Yorker magazine, it alternates a narrative of a timid night school teacher with the adventures of Sinbad the Sailor. One reviewer called it a Victorian melodrama. Meltzer, who will be narrating at the concert, calls it "a postmodern fairy tale, a skeleton of traditional narrative fleshed out with recomposed characters and situations."

Leos Janacek's "Kreutzer Sonata," which opens the program, is based on Leo Tolstoy's tale of the same title, in which a man tells a traveling companion how he murdered his wife. The 1908 trio, which was lost and reconstructed by Stephen Coxe, became the basis for Janacek's String Quartet No. 1, penned in 1923.

Closing the program will be a pillar of the piano trio repertoire, Beethoven's "Archduke" Trio, Op. 97, which the composer dedicated to his student, Archduke Rudolph of Austria.

The concert begins at 4 p.m. next Sunday in Reynolds-Kirschbaum Recital Hall at the Alys Stephens Center, 1200 10th Ave. South. Tickets are $35, $20 for students. Call 975-2787.

Michael Huebner is fine arts writer and classical music critic.
E-mail him at mhuebner@bhamnews.com.
Blog: blog.al.com/mhuebner

ALABAMA SYMPHONY MASTERWORKS

Who's performing: Alabama Symphony Orchestra, Justin Brown, conductor; Leila Josefowicz, violinist.

On the program: Britten, "The Young Person's Guide to the Orchestra" (Variations and Fugue on a Theme of Purcell), Op. 34; Ades, Concerto for Violin (Concentric Paths); Mendelssohn, Symphony No. 3 in A minor, Op. 56 (Scottish).

When: Friday and Saturday, 8 p.m.

Tickets: $12-$65. Call 251-7727 or go to www.alabamasymphony.org.

Where: Alys Stephens Center, 1200 10th Ave. South.

Concert Comments: 7 p.m., Reynolds-Kirschbaum Recital Hall.

COFFEE CONCERT

Who's performing: Alabama Symphony Orchestra, Justin Brown, conductor.

On the program: Britten, "The Young Person's Guide to the Orchestra" (Variations and Fugue on a Theme of Purcell), Op. 34; Mendelssohn, Symphony No. 3 in A minor, Op. 56 (Scottish).

When: Friday, 11 a.m.

Tickets: $15.

Where: Alys Stephens Center, 1200 10th Ave. South.

In mid-September, Leila Josefowicz got the phone call of a lifetime. Not only did the caller from the John D. and Catherine T. MacArthur Foundation inform her that she has been deemed a genius, she was also told that $500,000 was coming her way.

"I must say, I was just stunned," said the 30-year-old violinist, who solos with the Alabama Symphony on Friday and Saturday. "When I got the call, I was in a really bad mood and I was really tired, which made the whole experience so much more surreal. I could hardly believe this was actually happening."

Between 20 and 30 MacArthur "Genius" Grants have been given annually since 1981, nearly 800 to date. Among this year's recipients are Regina Benjamin, a physician and UAB graduate who was recognized for her humanitarian work in hurricane-ravaged Bayou La Batre, and New Yorker magazine music critic Alex Ross, who cogently wove together 20th century culture and music in his book "The Rest Is Noise."

There is no need to "apply" for the award. They are given without the nominees' knowing they were even considered. The money can be used in any way the recipients choose -- "no strings attached" (the foundation's words).

Josefowicz is growing accustomed to receiving grants. She received an Avery Fisher Career Grant in 1994 and a United States Artists Cummings Fellowship in 2007. But now that the MacArthur is hers, does she feel like a genius?

"No," she said recently from her home in New York. "I feel the work I'm doing is very good work and very interesting work. I work extremely hard. It's not like it's easy and flowing naturally. It takes a lot of study and work."

Josefowicz was cited by the foundation for her tireless advocacy of new music, as a performer, recording artist and commissioner of new works from composers, a passion she has nurtured since she was a teen prodigy. This week, she will be doing more of the same with ASO -- performing British composer Thomas Ades' Violin Concerto ("Concentric Paths").

Continue reading "Leila Josefowicz to bring her 'genius' talents to Alabama Symphony" »

YOUNG TALENT: She's the recipient of a MacArthur Genius Grant and solos this week with the ASO, but Leila Josefowicz was a talent at age 12, too:

Continue reading "Videos in Play -- 01.04.09" »