Gilbert and Sullivan's "The Yeomen of the Guard" casts a darker shadow for light comic opera

THEATER & DANCE PREVIEW

UMGASS's Yeoman of the Guard

Photo courtesy of UMGASS.

Comic operas usually live up their genre name: lively songs, light humor, and endings filled with satisfied characters.

For the most part, Gilbert and Sullivan's twist on the style, Savoy operas, are no exception. But their The Yeomen of the Guard mixes playful puns and broken hearts, making for an emotionally complicated environment that is a distinct change from standard comic-opera fare.

The play debuted in London on Oct. 3, 1888, at the 1,200-seat Savoy Theatre, which was built to showcase Gilbert and Sullivan's comic operas. The University of Michigan Gilbert & Sullivan Society (UMGASS) is staging its take on The Yeomen of the Guard at the 600-seat Lydia Mendelssohn Theatre, December 5-8, which will give attendees a more intimate look at a play Sullivan described in his diary as, "Pretty story, no topsy turvydom, very human, & funny also."

Fifth Avenue Press celebrates the release of 9 new books on November 10

WRITTEN WORD PREVIEW INTERVIEW

Fifth Avenue Press logos and November 2019 authors

The Ann Arbor District Library's Fifth Avenue Press celebrates the release of its latest batch of books with a release reception at the downtown branch on Sunday, November 10, at 1 pm.

AADL cardholders can download PDF copies of the books here; print copies for most titles will be on sale at the reception.

To read interviews with the other authors, click on the book titles below:

➥ The Elements: A Love Letter to All Things Everywhere written and illustrated by Hannah Burr
➥ Intersections by Shanelle Boluyt
➥ All That We Encounter by Bethany Grey
➥ Shape Notes by Judy Patterson Wenzel
➥ Fantastic Planet: Modern Crab Adventures written and illustrated by Douglas Bosley
Over in Motown by Debbie Taylor, with illustrations by Keisha Morris
The Dragon Library by James Barbatano, with illustrations by Douglas Bosley
➥ Breaking Through by Johnny Thompson
➥ The Planet We Live On by Shanda Trent

Lineup announced for the 43rd Ann Arbor Folk Festival

MUSIC PREVIEW

Calexico and Iron & Wine, Nathaniel Rateliff, Ingrid Michaelson, Bettye LaVette

Top: Calexico and Iron & Wine. Bottom: Nathaniel Rateliff, Ingrid Michaelson, Bettye LaVette.

The annual Ann Arbor Folk Festival, a fundraiser for The Ark, returns to Hill Auditorium on Friday, January 31 and Saturday, February 1, 2020. A combined performance by Calexico and Iron & Wine headlines the first night and a solo Nathaniel Rateliff tops the second evening.

Calexico and Iron & Wine released the collaborative album Years to Burn last year, but the groups' artistic relationship stretches back to the 2005 EP In the Reins.

Rateliff is leaving his soul band the Night Sweats at home and will perform songs from his earlier, folk-based albums (but don't let that stop you from shouting out requests for "S.O.B." -- the audience can handle the hand-claps).

Check out the rest of the lineup below along with videos for each of the artists.

The Comic Opera Guild focuses on the funny in "Follies"

MUSIC PREVIEW

Comic Opera Guild logo & singer Tiffany Thorpe

Tiffany Thorpe is one of the singers who will perform at the Comic Opera Guild's Follies. Photo by Larri Slade Photography.

The Comic Opera Guild was founded on the premise that the operetta (or comic opera) was the perfect vehicle to introduce people to opera and the thrill of listening to classically trained voices. Comedy makes everything approachable. Comic songs were common in the last century, either as pop music or taken from Broadway shows. Unfortunately, the comic song is uncommon now, and so we decided to produce a show that brought this idiom to people's attention.

On Friday, Nov. 1, at 7 pm at the Ann Arbor District Library's downtown location, the Guild presents Follies, a revue-concert featuring high-spirited and comic entertainment reminiscent of the Ziegfeld Follies. Classically trained singers and instrumentalists will cross over into light-hearted music from the 1920s to the present day, from shows, Vaudeville, and even Tom Lehrer and Eric Idle.

The 2019 edition of Rasa -- Akshara's annual multi-arts, inspired by India festival -- hits the home stretch

MUSIC THEATER & DANCE PREVIEW

Akshara dancers

The fall 2019 edition of Akshara's Rasa Festival is coming to a close, but not before it celebrates with four "multi-arts, inspired by India" events.

"Dances of India: classical and folk traditions" happens Thursday, September 19, at 7 pm, at AADL's downtown location. It will feature classical and folk dances from India, plus a discussion on the historical and cultural context of each.

The following night at 7 pm will be "Music from the East and the West," also at AADL's downtown branch. Indian and western musicians will talk about the concepts behind Indian and western music, and how they collaborate to create new music. This will be accompanied by a short concert.

The largest event of the festival is "Rasa Performing Arts Weekend: dance|music, east|west, classical|folk" on Saturday, September 21, 4 pm, at Towsley Auditorium, Washtenaw Community College. This is an evening of classical and folk dances from India as well as a concert that brings together Indian and western music traditions.

Brazilian mandolinist Danilo Brito returns to Ann Arbor with a new album and the history of choro at his fingertips

MUSIC PREVIEW INTERVIEW

Danilo Brito

Brazilian mandolin wizard Danilo Brito is returning to the Metro Detroit area for what now annual performances in Ann Arbor (September 1 at Kerrytown Concert House), the Detroit Institute of Arts (August 30), and the GlasSalon in the Toledo Museum of Art (August 29). Brito (mandolin and tenor guitar) will be joined by Carlos Moura (7-string guitar) and Guilherme Girardi (6-string guitar).

Brito's new album, Da Natureza das Coisas (The Nature of Things), is bookended by two important works of Heitor Villa-Lobos, closing with "Melodia Sentimental" and opening with "Chôros No. 1 (Chôro típico Brasileiro)," which was composed for guitar in 1920 in tribute to composer Ernesto Nazareth. Villa Lobos grew up among choro musicians and said that the soul of Brazilian people is found in choro. Many classical guitarists play this work, but Brazilians such as Turíbio Santos play it with a distinctive verve absent in the others. Brito takes this a step further -- arranging the work for his mandolin in the lead voice with two guitars carrying the others. The bright, clarion sound of his mandolin riding the group's Brazilian drive leaves Brito thinking that it would make Villa Lobos smile. 

"Chôros No. 1 (Chôro típico Brasileiro)" sets the tone for the album which journeys through composers venerated and new. Works of Garoto and Jorge Santos are mingled with newcomers Brito, Penezzi, and Arante.

Brito's U.S. booking agency, Musica Extraordinaria, is based in Ann Arbor and its leader, Michael Grofsorean, conducted an interview with the Brazilian mandolinist. (For even more Brito, Pulp editor Christopher Porter interviewed him before his April 1, 2017, appearance in Ann Arbor.)

Tagging the Spirit World: The Kelsey Museum explores "Graffiti As Devotion Along the Nile"

VISUAL ART

Graffiti at the Kelsey

Top: Graffito of two horses and a bird. Bottom: Two bull heads with hooves. Images courtesy the International Kurru Archaeological Project.

The best-known graffiti in Ann Arbor is in an alley off East Liberty.

But through March 29, 2020, the most important graffiti will be at the University of Michigan Kelsey Museum of Archaeology.

Graffiti As Devotion Along the Nile: El-Kurru, Sudan explores the practice of carving a picture into the walls of pyramids and temples as an act of religious ritual during the ancient Kush period, which was ruled from the capital of Meroe (300 BCE to 300 CE), a city along the Nile that's around 100 miles north of modern-day Khartoum. The exhibition displays a series of graffiti discovered during a Kelsey Museum archaeological field project on a pyramid and in an underground temple at the site of El-Kurru.

Co-curator Geoff Emberling -- an associate research scientist at the Kelsey Museum and co-director of the International Kurru Archaeological Project -- says the graffiti includes Kush symbols such as the ram, which represents the local form of the god Amun, and a long-legged bowman who symbolized Kushite prowess in archery. There are also intricate textile designs, as well as animals: horses, birds, camels, and giraffes. A press release states: "The most common marks are small round holes gouged in the stone -- by analogy with modern practices, these are likely the areas where temple visitors scraped the wall of the holy place in order to collect powdered stone that they would ingest to promote fertility and healing."

Well-Read: A brief history of A2 libraries from the book "Vanishing Ann Arbor"

WRITTEN WORD PREVIEW

Ladies Library Association, 1885

In 1866, 35 women had put in $3 each to start the Ladies' Library Association and pledged a dollar a year to purchase books for the public to borrow. After moving from one location to another, the Ladies' Library (since demolished) was built at 324 East Huron, on the south side west of Division in 1885. Frame location: Corner of State and Huron, Northwest. This image may be protected by copyright law. Contact the Bentley Historical Library for permission to reproduce, display or transmit this image. Repository: Bentley Historical Library.

The following is an excerpt from the book "Vanishing Ann Arbor" by Patti Smith and Britain Woodman.

Just three years after Allen and Rumsey founded our fair city in 1824, a group called the Ann Arbor Library Association began meeting. This was not a public library as we know it; it relied upon the dues paid by patrons. Using the dues it collected, the association purchased 100 books by 1830.

Around the same time, the Ann Arbor Circulating Library sprang up at the office of the Western Emigrant (the first newspaper in Ann Arbor). Dues were $2.50 per year and were mainly used to purchase reference books. The following decade produced another Ann Arbor Library Association and the Working Men’s Library Association. Like that very first group, these were not funded by taxes but by private dues and donations. However, government-sponsored public libraries were coming soon.

In 1843, the state school superintendent decreed that all school districts had to set up their own libraries, earmark at least $25 for the collections, and share the books with local townships. Since these were to be public, non-dues-paying organizations, the state government announced two years later that various collected fines by local government units would go to the libraries. (The only exception was in cases where the monies were instead needed for the local poorhouse.)

U-M music professor / Beatles expert returns to AADL to discuss the "White Album"

MUSIC PREVIEW

The Beatles' White Album

Walter Everett, professor of music theory at the University of Michigan and author of The Beatles As Musicians: Revolver Through the Anthology, returns to AADL on Thursday, April 25, to deliver a lecture titled "Children of Nature: Origins of the Beatles' Tabula Rasa" in honor of the Fab Faux's upcoming performance of the "White Album" at Michigan Theater on Saturday, May 11.

The Beatles continually reinvented themselves. In 1966, Revolver announced itself with a warped reinvention of the 1-2-3-4 count-off that had introduced their first album. A year later, for Sgt. Pepper's, they created another band in their own image. The slate was wiped clean again with the "White Album," not only by their desire to return to the natural state sought in their early-1968 Himalayan meditative rituals but also through their 180-degree turn from the lavish artifice of Pepper, an album high with artistic pretensions, groundbreakingly imaginative lyrics, radically colorful instrumentation, and a deep exploration beyond the limits of four-track recording, its extravagance marked by a groove intended only for dogs, all wrapped in a cover as opulent as it was mystifying.

In contrast, the plain white cover of the 1968 double album emblematized the group's return to nothingness just as surely as did their removal of the garish 1967 paint jobs from three of their guitars, now stripped down to bare wood. This new blank slate cast the group not in the austere, somber tones of the With the Beatles cover photo from 1963, but in a new light as if an optimistic eggshell of unlimited possibilities was about to hatch. In this presentation, Everett aims to show that in many ways, a post-India back-to-nature simplicity may be seen to have guided much of the "White Album"'s motivational impulses.

Check out the videos below of Everett's previous visits to AADL when he discussed Sgt. Pepper's and Abbey Road.

"Guardians of Detroit: Architectural Sculpture in the Motor City" documents the artistry and symbolism during the city's golden age

VISUAL ART WRITTEN WORD PREVIEW

Guardians of Detroit

A collection of guardian faces from various Detroit buildings.

Due to a fortunate confluence of water, geography and entrepreneurial vision, Detroit at the end of the 19th century was poised to experience unprecedented growth. Even before the Ford Motor Company was established in 1903, Detroit was a major industrial center and transportation hub. All this commercial activity and prosperity led to a building boom of incredible proportions at a time when the most popular architectural styles were Beaux Arts, Gothic Revival, Classical Revival, and Art Deco. Each of these styles typically required extensive ornamentation and because of this, Detroit became a treasure trove of architectural sculpture. 

Jeff Morrison’s new book for Wayne State University PressGuardians of Detroit: Architectural Sculpture in the Motor City, documents these incredible features in a city that began as a small frontier fort and quickly grew to become a major metropolis and industrial titan. Morrison will be at Ann Arbor District Library's downtown location on Wednesday, March 27, at 7 pm for a presentation where he'll share more than 100 spectacular close-up pictures of architectural sculpture from throughout the city of Detroit. You will also learn about the symbolism behind the ornamentation and hear some of the untold stories of the artists, artisans, and architects involved in its creation, all drawn from the book. 

Below is a sneak peek of 10 photos from Guardians of Detroit: Architectural Sculpture in the Motor City: