Visual and Performing Arts News

Category: Announcements

Meckler to Headline Two Major Jazz Festivals

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Director of Jazz Studies Adam Meckler to Headline Two Major Jazz Festivals: Coe College Jazz Summit and the Augustana Jazz Festival

Adam Meckler, Michigan Tech’s Director of Jazz Studies and Assistant Professor of Music, a gifted trumpet player, composer, and music educator, has been tapped to headline not one but TWO big national jazz festivals in the next seven days: First, he will head to Coe College, in Cedar Rapids, Iowa, for the largest annual jazz festival in Iowa, the Coe College Jazz Summit, Thursday, Feb. 27 – Saturday, Feb. 29. More than 90 high school bands participate, and he will be coaching the high school bands for the first few days of the festival. Meckler then will rehearse and perform as the featured guest artist with the Coe College Jazz Ensemble, doing a mix of his compositions and other big band music for their finale concert on Saturday, February 29. Then on Monday, Meckler will travel to Sioux Falls South Dakota for the Augustana College’s 46th annual Jazz on the Upper Great Plains Festival, set for March 2-3, 2020, in Augustana’s Hamre Recital Hall. The festival features Meckler and host of PBS’ Sound Field, Arthur “L.A.” Buckner. 

LA is one of the top drummers and educators in Minneapolis, and is gaining national recognition for his drumming and his work with PBS. Interestingly, LA is a former student of Meckler’s at McNally Smith College of Music, his previous teaching position. LA and Meckler will be performing Meckler’s compositions with the Augustana University Jazz Ensemble after a few days of tag-team coaching area high school groups who attend the festival.

For more information about both festivals, concert dates, and tickets, please visit their websites: 

http://www.public.coe.edu/~wcarson/summit.htm

http://www.augie.edu/arts/camps-festivals-and-competitions/46th-annual-jazz-on-upper-great-plains-festival

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Tech Theatre Company Presents “I Love You, You’re Perfect, Now Change!”

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The Michigan Tech Theatre Company will perform the longest-running cabaret musical in history, “I Love You, You’re Perfect, Now Change!” for seven performances. Showtimes are 7:30 p.m. Thursday through Saturday (Feb. 20-22) and Wednesday through Saturday, (Feb. 26-29) in the McArdle Theatre in the Walker Arts and Humanities Center.

Based on the book by Joe DiPietro, with music by Jimmy Roberts, the musical takes on the comedic side of love and marriage, painting a series of vignettes about relationships through the tumultuous dating scene, road trips, marriage, kids, and all the other troubles couples face.

 “I Love You, You’re Perfect, Now Change!” has been making auiences around the world laugh and cry for twenty-four years. It tackles the goofy, embarrassing, unspoken truths of relationships with a collection of short stories that span as many different lives. The musical has been translated into 17 languages and performed in over 34 countries. Act one shows the panic, disappointment and excitement of the search for the right someone. Act two reveals the stress of in-law visits, kids, car trips, and all the other adventures couples thought would be different for them. Upbeat from the beginning, the show builds laugh upon laugh until the bittersweet moments before the final curtain.

Tickets are $15 for adults, $5 for children, and no charge for Michigan Tech students with the Experience Tech fee. To buy your tickets, call 906-487-2073, visit mtu.edu/rozsa, in person at the Central Ticketing Office, or at the McArdle Theatre the night of the show. 

Note: This show contains adult language and situations.

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Fiesta! Comes to the Rozsa

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Michigan Tech’s Rozsa Center and Department of Visual and Performing Arts are pleased to present a family friendly event of music, storytelling, puppetry, and more. The Superior Wind Symphony presents a concert of original Latin American music by celebrated Guatemalan composer Raúl López Colibrí. The compositions are arranged by Director of Bands Mike Christianson with children’s choir direction by Amanda Plummer.

The show doesn’t stop there—Local poet, formerly of Guatemala, Hugo Gordillo will present his collection of children’s poetry on which the music was based, in a pre-concert party hosted by Hugo Gordillo and Christ Alquist, with crafts, storytelling, and more fun, in the Rozsa lobby, making this truly an event for the whole family.

Poems and children’s stories will be read in both Spanish and English, and the entire evening will be the culmination of work by poets, Spanish language professors, theatre and fine art professors, and local and Guatemalan poets, writers, artists, musicians, and students.

The pre-concert “fiesta party” begins at 6:15 p.m. on Saturday, February 15, and the concert begins at 7:30 p.m. There will also be a live shadow-puppet performance during the concert presented by Patricia Helsel.

Colibrí is a Guatemalan musician, composer, puppetry artist, and music educator. He has produced six albums of children’s music, a children’s radio theatre, and several musical books for children. He often hosts workshops on creativity, music, puppetry, and theatre to share his skills with the world. He hopes to extend this collaboration with Michigan Tech artists for a long time. The music he composed for Fiesta! will also be performed by the Guatemalan Symphony Orchestra in Guatemala City this and next year. The concert will be accessible via live-streaming, and a concert CD will be created to mark the cultural exchange.

Hugo Gordillo is a prolific poet and the author of Fiesta!, a children’s poetry collection and the inspiration for this musical event. First published in 2013, Gordillo wrote the collection while sitting in the parks of Guatemala City, listening to children playing games and singing songs. The book includes a story about the friendship between a drum and a flute; birds who play musical instruments; magical flowers; and a monkey who is always playing tricks. He is an award-winning journalist and the founder of the PEN Writers’ Center of Guatemala, an organization for supporting journalists, writers, and editors.

Helsel, who is developing puppets for the event, hosted a summer puppetry workshop at the Copper Country Community Arts Center to prepare for it. Participants young and old worked with her to create shadow puppets, dancing flowers, and “el torito del fuego,” (a “little bull of fire”). The bull is part of many Guatemalan celebrations and will make an appearance in the concert. VPA faculty member Lisa Gordillo and her Contemporary Sculpture students helped to develop the concert bull puppet.

Tickets are on sale now: $13 for adults and $5 for youth, or no charge for Michigan Tech students with the Experience Tech fee. To buy your tickets, call (906) 487-2073, visit mtu.edu/rozsa, or in person at the Central Ticketing Office. Tickets are also available the night of the show at the Rozsa Box Office two hours prior to performances.

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Rozsa Receives Grant

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Surround Sound Music Festival to Receive $10,000 National Endowment for the Arts Grant

National Endowment for the Arts logo

Libby Meyer (VPA), Director of Music Composition Program, and Mary Jennings, Rozsa Programming and Development Director, were awarded a $10,000 Challenge America Grant from the National Endowment for the Arts (NEA) to support the Surround Sound Music Festival.

The Surround Sound Music Festival is a two-day event that encourages audiences to listen differently. The festival will feature Audio Pharmacy, a Native American Hip Hop band, Evelyn Glennie, a world-class percussionist who has been deaf since the age of 12 and Vieux Farka Touré, a Malian blues guitarist. The Surround Sound Music Festival will take place April 3-4.

The purpose of the Challenge America grant is to support projects that extend the reach of the arts to underserved populations. NEA has approved 1,187 grants totaling $27.3 million in the first round of fiscal year 2020 funding to support arts projects across the country. The Sound of Music Festival is one of 145 Challenge America grants included in this announcement. The Challenge America funding category offers support primarily to small and mid-sized organizations for projects that extend the reach of the arts to populations that have limited access to the arts due to geography, ethnicity, economics, or disability. Each grant is for a fixed amount of $10,000 and requires a minimum $10,000 cost share/match.

“The arts are at the heart of our communities, connecting people through shared experiences and artistic expression, The National Endowment for the Arts is proud to support projects like the Surround Sound Music Festival.”

—Mary Anne Carter, Arts Endowment Chairman
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Puppet Workshops and Performance Open to Ages 6 and Up

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puppets lined up

A puppetry workshop will be held from 3 – 4:30 p.m. tomorrow (Jan. 25) in Walker 208. We will be creating puppets for a performance with the Superior Wind Symphony at 7:30 p.m. February 15.

Puppeteers should be available to rehearse at the following times:

  • 3 – 4 p.m. Saturday, Feb. 1
  • 3 – 4 p.m. Saturday, Feb. 8
  • 8 – 9:30 p.m. Monday, Feb. 10
  • 8 – 9:30 p.m. Wednesday, Feb. 12

Contact Trish Helsel to reserve a spot, or for further information.

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Backstage Jazz Cabaret Friday and Saturday

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Trumpet and vintage microphone

Michigan Tech’s newest director of Jazz Studies, Adam Meckler, presents another backstage jazz experience at the Rosza Center for the Performing Arts at 7:30 p.m. Friday and Saturday, January 24/25. Student jazz combos and a few guest artists will play pieces from across the genre’s history, dipping into traditional jazz, hard bop, funk and more. The Rozsa’s main stage will be converted into a classic jazz club complete with café tables and refreshments. The club atmosphere will help the bands guide you through this colorful history and flex their creative muscles, telling the story of the art as it has evolved through time.

“Our four Jazz combos will perform music by artists such as Charles Mingus, Ornette Coleman, Thelonious Monk, Thundercat, Louis Cole, Roy Hargrove, Snarky Puppy and more. We will transform the stage into a classic jazz club atmosphere. Enjoy some drinks and popcorn while you soak it all in!” – Adam Meckler

This will be the first home show for the Jazz Band after they toured Chicago. In early January, the Michigan Tech Jazz Lab Band went on a road trip down to Chicago to play with the Adam Meckler Orchestra, one of Meckler’s other many projects, at the fast-growing Chicago performance and art space, the Fulton Street Collective. The Lab Band opened the first set for the orchestra, which plays Meckler’s own original compositions. The new director says the experience was a paradigm shift for the band; he believes the group is now reaching a new level of music since experiencing the big city jazz scene.

Meckler joined the Michigan Tech Visual and Performing Arts faculty as the Director of Jazz Studies in the fall of 2019 after a decade-long career playing, writing, and teaching music out of Minneapolis. The Adam Meckler Orchestra’s debut album was listed on 2014’s Best Jazz Releases by iTunes. As a freelance trumpeter, he has worked with artists like The Temptations, The Four Tops, Cory Wong of Vulfpek, and other big names. 

Tickets are on sale now: $15 for adults and $5 for youth, or no charge for Michigan Tech students with the Experience Tech fee. To buy your tickets, call 906-487-2073, go online, in person at the Central Ticketing Office in the SDC or go to the Rozsa Center box office within two hours prior to the performances. 

In the News: Michigan Tech to hold Jazz Cabaret concerts

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Student Awards at KCACTF

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Last week, Visual and Performing Arts students attended the Kennedy Center / American College Theatre Festival (KCACTF Region 3) in Madison, WI. A number of our students did well at the festival.

Sage Moser, Reece Parsons, and Moira Van Loon were all finalists for the KCACTF unrealized regional sound design competition.

Maddy Hunt was the winner for realized design (for sound design for in Michigan Tech’s production of Eurydice) and will have an expenses-paid trip to the Kennedy Center in Washington, DC for the national festival. While at the festival she will have opportunities for feedback from professional theatrical sound designers and she will compete for other national awards.

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Ken Steiner Memorial Benefit Concert Friday

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When longtime local resident Ken Steiner suddenly passed away three years ago, family, friends and the entire community came together for a memorial to celebrate all the lives he touched through his decades of good work to make the Keweenaw, and the world, a better place.

From a long list of friends playing the music to the majority of area restaurants where he worked providing food, there was an overwhelming outpouring of love, support and goodwill. Above all, there was a strong sense that the work Ken championed, the positive energy and creative spirit he inspired, would continue, carried forward by those who knew and loved him.

This year, the Rozsa Center, Michigan Tech’s Dining Services, Visual and Performing Arts Department, Roy’s Pasties & Bakery, Mu Beta Psi, Fifth & Elm Coffeehouse, and the Bonfire Bar & Grill, want to extend that spirit and goodwill by hosting the third annual benefit in Ken’s honor for his favorite charity: Little Brothers Friends of the Elderly.

The event, from 6 to 11 p.m. Friday (Jan. 10) in the Rozsa Center Lobby, will feature good food, a cash bar, and once again a host of Ken’s friends and former bandmates making the music.

Ticket prices are: $20/donation of your choice. 100% of ticket sales will be donated in Ken’s name to Little Brothers Friends of the Elderly.

Musicians featured:

  • 6:30 p.m. — The Steve Jones Trio
  • 7:15 p.m. — Keweenaw Brewgrass
  • 8:15 p.m. — Bob Hiltunen All Stars
  • 9:15 p.m. —Uncle Pete’s All-Star BBQ Blues Band with special guest John Peiffer

To purchase tickets, call 906-487-2073, go online, or visit Ticketing Operations at Michigan Tech’s Student Development Complex (SDC). Tickets will also be available at the Rozsa Box office on the evening of the benefit.

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Volunteer To Usher

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Users posing for a photo in the Rozsa theatreThe Rozsa Center for the Performing Arts is looking for volunteer ushers to help with events in the new year. The Ken Steiner Memorial Fundraiser is 6:30 p.m. Friday, Jan. 10, on the Rozsa stage. The Rozsa Center, together with the Department of Visual and Performing Arts, Michigan Tech’s Dining Services, and other community partners are hosting an evening of great music and good food in Ken Steiner’s honor to benefit his favorite charity: Little Brothers Friends of the Elderly. The evening will feature good food, a cash bar, and a host of Ken’s friends and former bandmates making the music, including Keweenaw Brewgrass and Uncle Pete’s BBQ Blues Band.

The U.P. North-South Music Festival: “Music from Both Ends of 41,” takes place at 7:30 p.m. Friday, Jan. 17 in the McArdle Theatre; 7:30 p.m. Saturday, Jan. 18 on the Rozsa backstage; and 3 p.m Sunday,  Jan. 19,  in the McArdle Theatre.

“Music from Both Ends of 41” is part of the Surround Sound Music Series. In addition to local, regional and national new music composers and performers, the Pulse New Music Ensemble from Miami, Florida will be heading North to present a concert of music by living composers in a festival of new music featuring concerts, workshops and masterclasses.

Volunteer ushers play an important role at the Rozsa, welcoming and assisting student and community visitors with every aspect of their experience at the largest performing arts venue in the region.

Volunteers are needed to greet and guide guests as they enter the building, take tickets and assist with seating in the theatre, answer questions about Rozsa facilities and programs, and help create a friendly and welcoming atmosphere for all Rozsa visitors.

No previous experience is necessary. Interested individuals can contact Samantha Hoover for more information, or go here to sign up to usher for an event at the Rozsa. We look forward to seeing you at the Rozsa in 2020.

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