ALABAMA ARTS & EVENTS

Latest news and movie, music, event and restaurant listings for Alabama

ArtBeat welcomes the year 2009 with some well timed news and notes.

First, an update on our friends at Mobile Shakespeare Company:

The MSC production of "Much Ado About Nothing" will have performances Jan. 23-25 and Jan. 29-Feb. 1 on the third floor of Hurricane Brewing Company, 225 Dauphin St. in downtown Mobile. Brent Murrill, newly named executive direc tor of the company, says the production was moved ahead because of a conflict with the Mardi Gras parade schedule.

Artist couple are curators for show of contemporary glass at Space 301

Photo by Bill Starling / Press-RegisterRick and Nikki Schneider are curators for a new show at Space 301 Gallery in downtown Mobile that is set to open Jan. 9.

We live, work and drive behind windows; we drink and eat from glass; we check our appearance in the bathroom mirror; and many of us read the newspaper beneath glass lampshades illuminated by glass lightbulbs.

Hayley Smith's voice fills the dance studio at Merrimack Hall. "Can I get all my dancers to the bar?" says Merrimack's director of dance.

Huntsville Times"Dance Your Dreams" is a class specially designed for children with physical, mental or emotional disabilities.

Eight girls dressed in sparkly pink tutus and one boy wearing all black move toward the gray, metal bar and await Smith's next instruction.

The Peabody Trio, violinist Violaine Melancon, left, cellist Natasha Brofsky and pianist Seth Knopp, are resident at Baltimore's Peabody Conservatory. The trio is celebrating 20 years together this season. Recipients of the Naumburg Chamber Music Award, they have recorded on the Artek, New World and CRI labels.

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.

Violinist and recently-honored "genius" Leila Josefowicz brings her award-winning talents and 1724 Guarneri del Gesu violin to the ASO MasterWorks series Friday and Saturday at the Alys Stephens Center. The 31-year-old musician will solo in Thomas Ades' violin concerto, "Concentric Paths."

"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").

Good-bye 2008. We won't miss you.

The bad economy. Political scandals. Sarah Palin.

2009 can't be any worse, right?

Before you totally forget the past year, take a minute and have a look at our Top 10 Local Entertainment Stories of 2008: