By 1974, Wrightson had moved into work for Warren Publishing, contributing to its line of black‑and‑white horror magazines. He produced adaptations of classic stories such as Poe’s The Black Cat and Lovecraft’s Cool Air, and later illustrated Stephen King’s screenplay for Creepshow in 1982—a collaboration that led to several more projects with King. Wrightson also devoted years to an illustrated edition of Mary Shelley’s Frankenstein, published in 1983, a project often regarded as one of his defining achievements.

KC Arts Beat is sponsored by Get Well KC, which offers a body‑mind‑spirit approach to health and healing, helping individuals alleviate pain and optimize their overall well‑being. Learn more at www.getwellkc.com.

For a loving embrace of spiritual communities sharing delicious food and gratitude, join us for our annual Thanksgiving Interfaith Dinner.

The Greater Kansas City Interfaith Council is excited to bring our community together in person for a warm and welcoming Interfaith Thanksgiving Dinner. It’s a perfect chance to share stories, enjoy delicious food, and celebrate gratitude across different faiths. Whether you’ve attended before or this is your first time, come hungry for good vibes and great company! The honoree of this year’s Vern Barnet Interfaith Service Award is Alvin L. Brooks, a treasured Kansas City civic leader who is a powerful example of what genuine love of a community and its people can lead us to do in our faith communities to make our world a better place.

3:30 PM - 4:00 PM
Music from The Bohemian Dandelions
Jim Snead, Band Leader

4:00 PM - 4:30 PM
Welcome from our Sponsors and Gratitude Prayers before dinner
Faith Leaders from the Heartland Alliance of Divine Love, the Greater Kansas City Interfaith Council, and the Kansas City Pipe Circle offer prayers of gratitude.

4:30 PM - 5:30 PM
Thanksgiving Dinner and Interfaith Leaders’ after dinner prayers

Vern has often said that no one in the region has done more for interfaith understanding than Alvin Brooks. Here are a few of the many forms of service he has given us:

• Kansas City police officer

• public schools community coordinator, Kansas City Public Schools

• first black city department manager and creator of the Human Relations Department

• councilman and mayor pro tem

• founder of the Ad Hoc Group Against Crime

• school board member, Hickman Mills

• recipient of over a hundred awards including

  • named one of America’s Thousand Points of Light by President G. H. W. Bush

  • the Harry S. Truman Public Service Award

  • Henry W. Bloch Human Relations Award

  • Greater Kansas City Chamber of Commerce “Kansas Citian of the Year”

  • the Thorpe Menn Literary Excellence Award for his memoir, Binding Us Together: A Civil Rights Activist Reflects on a Lifetime of Community and Public Service

• Subject of the 90-minute documentary by Academy Award winner Kevin Willmott, “The Heroic True-Life Adventures of Alvin Brooks”

• a building at Rockhurst University: Alvin Brooks Center for Faith-Justice

• inspiring community speaker and friend

Sunday, November 8, 4 - 6 pm at The Old Stone Church, Community of Christ, 1012 Lexington Avenue, Independence MO

FOR TICKETS: https://tinyurl.com/3fjsxhtt

Purchase Alvin Brooks’ inspiring autobiography, Binding Us Together

As an Amazon Associate, I earn from qualifying purchases

This preview brought to you by the Lyric Opera of Kansas City.

For many listeners, Mozart’s genius is found in the piano concertos, the symphonies or the serenades. But for opera lovers, his greatest achievements lie on the stage, where music and drama become inseparable and his lyrical gift is irresistible.

This November, Lyric Opera of Kansas City presents what many consider Mozart’s crowning accomplishment, The Marriage of Figaro, in a production directed by veteran British stage director Stephen Lawless.

The opera will be performed at the Muriel Kauffman Theatre in the Kauffman Center for the Performing Arts performances only: 7:30 p.m. Nov. 7 and Nov. 13, and at 2 p.m. Nov. 15.

Lawless brings extraordinary experience to the production. His association with Figaro stretches back half a century.

“I started at Glyndebourne as a stage manager in 1976, and the first opera I worked on was Figaro,” Lawless said. Since then, he has directed multiple productions around the world, including stagings in Dallas, Toronto, Hong Kong, Germany and at Glimmerglass Opera.

The opera has become so central to his career that he jokingly calls it “The Marriage of Figaro or ‘The Pension Fund.’”

Yet familiarity has not diminished his fascination with the work.

“The piece never ceases to surprise me or astound me,” Lawless said. “Things in it that I think I know, I suddenly find actually I don’t know what that’s about now, because of something else.”

Mozart and Da Ponte’s remarkable partnership

The Marriage of Figaro emerged from one of the most fruitful collaborations in music history. Mozart teamed with the Venetian-born librettist Lorenzo Da Ponte for three operas: The Marriage of Figaro (1786), Don Giovanni (1787) and Così fan tutte (1790). Together they created works that transformed opera from a display of vocal virtuosity into a dramatically sophisticated art form.

Da Ponte adapted his libretto from Pierre-Augustin Caron de Beaumarchais’ controversial French play La Folle Journée, ou Le Mariage de Figaro. The original play sharply criticized aristocratic privilege and was considered politically dangerous. In France, it was initially banned, and even after its release it was viewed as a challenge to the social order that would soon be upended by the French Revolution.

Vienna in the 1780s was hardly eager for revolutionary theater. Emperor Joseph II had prohibited public performances of Beaumarchais’ play. To secure approval, Da Ponte carefully reshaped the story, softening its most overt political attacks while preserving its essential conflict between servants and their aristocratic master.

Lawless believes Da Ponte deserves equal credit for the opera’s enduring greatness.

“His contribution is absolutely equal with Mozart’s,” he said. “The libretto is absolutely astonishing. It is rare in opera to get a libretto that’s as good as the music.”

He argues that Da Ponte’s writing inspired Mozart to compose at the highest level.

“This libretto clearly inspired Mozart to write,” Lawless said before offering an extraordinary assessment: “I think it is the greatest opera, full stop. Nothing else comes close to it. Not Wagner, not Verdi, certainly not Puccini. I think this is the musical-dramatic equivalent of the Sistine Chapel.”

A wedding day filled with obstacles

At its core, The Marriage of Figaro is a comedy. Figaro and Susanna are preparing for their wedding, but their plans are threatened by Count Almaviva, who hopes to seduce Susanna for himself.

Lawless summarizes the story succinctly.

“It’s the story of Figaro and Susanna, who, as the title suggests, it’s their wedding day,” he said. “But their wedding is being thwarted by the man in the position of power, in this case Count Almaviva.”

The Count publicly claims to have abolished the feudal privilege that allowed noblemen to pursue servants on their wedding nights, yet privately seeks to exploit his position. That hypocrisy drives the plot and sets in motion a maze of disguises, misunderstandings and near-disasters.

For Lawless, however, the opera is about much more than comic intrigue.

“It becomes an examination of marriage,” he said.

The young couple must confront fears and uncertainties even on the happiest day of their lives. At the same time, the troubled marriage of the Count and Countess offers a contrasting portrait of love damaged by infidelity and neglect.

“It explores marriage in many different ways,” Lawless said.

Music that moves “as fast as thought”

Part of the opera’s enduring power lies in Mozart’s astonishing ability to illuminate character and emotion through music. Lawless points to the Act II finale, one of the most celebrated ensemble scenes in all opera.

Referencing Peter Shaffer’s Amadeus, Lawless recalled Mozart’s fictional claim to Emperor Joseph II that “I can write music that’s as fast as thought.”

“And he can,” Lawless said.

For directors and performers alike, that speed presents enormous challenges.

“Trust me, that’s really difficult, first for the singers, and then for me to stage,” he said. “You have to be at least one step ahead of it all the time.”

Even after decades of experience, Lawless remains awed by the score.

“The Act II finale of Figaro is one of humanity’s greatest achievements,” he said.

He is particularly fascinated by Mozart’s handling of comedy. Unlike many comic works that rely on exaggerated reactions, Mozart often achieves greater effect through restraint.

Discussing a scene in which Count Almaviva discovers the page Cherubino in an embarrassing situation, Lawless noted that audiences might expect a furious outburst. Instead, Mozart deliberately underplays the moment.

“What you expect in lesser hands would be a big explosion of anger,” Lawless said. “And Mozart totally underplays it with absolute brilliance.”

A traditional setting with revolutionary undercurrents

For Kansas City audiences, Lawless’ production presents the opera in an 18th-century setting while emphasizing themes that still resonate today.

“The costumes are 18th century,” he said. “The set feels 18th century, but is kind of an updated version of that.”

Central to the design is a large family tree of Count Almaviva’s aristocratic ancestors. As the evening progresses, the servants begin dismantling that visual symbol of inherited power.

“The servants start to take these plaques of his ancestors off the wall and smash them,” Lawless said.

The image recalls the political origins of Beaumarchais’ play. Although Da Ponte softened its most radical elements, the work still carries a spirit of social change.

Lawless noted that Napoleon reportedly described Beaumarchais’ original play as “the revolution in action.”

The opera’s servants are not merely comic figures. They possess intelligence, dignity and moral authority equal to, and often greater than, those of their social superiors.

“There is this revolutionary thing about Figaro,” Lawless said. “The servants are as good as the people who rule over them.”

An enduring masterpiece

Nearly 240 years after its premiere in Vienna, The Marriage of Figaro continues to captivate audiences because it combines exquisite music, sophisticated comedy and genuine emotional insight. Its characters are flawed, recognizable human beings rather than mythological heroes.

As Lawless observed, the opera was revolutionary in presenting “real people” on stage.

That humanity may explain why the work remains fresh after centuries of performance, and why even a director who has spent decades with the piece continues to discover new meanings within it.

For Kansas City audiences, this production offers a chance to experience one of the towering achievements of Western art, directed by an artist who has devoted a lifetime to understanding its secrets.

The Lyric Opera of Kansas City Presents

Mozart’s The Marriage of Figaro

7:30 p.m. Nov. 7 and Nov. 13 and at 2 p.m. Nov. 15

Muriel Kauffman Theatre at the Kauffman Center for the Performing Arts

For tickets and more information, 816-471-4933 or kcopera.org

KC Arts Beat is sponsored in part by Get Well KC, which offers a body‑mind approach to health and healing, helping individuals alleviate pain and optimize their overall well‑being. Learn more at www.getwellkc.com.

This preview is brought you by the Choral Foundation.

For nearly three decades, the William Baker Festival Singers have built a reputation as one of Kansas City’s most versatile and accomplished choral ensembles. As the choir prepares for its 29th season, founder and artistic director William Baker says the ensemble’s greatest strength may not simply be its musical excellence, but the sense of community that lies behind every performance.

“The Festival Singers is more than an elite choir,” Baker said. “The Festival Singers is truly a family.”

That spirit will animate a 2026-27 season built around the theme of Revelation, a broad concept that explores spiritual awakening, personal transformation and human relationships through music spanning more than five centuries.

Baker believes the ensemble’s distinctive identity emerges from a combination of musical discipline and personal connection.

“We live with the music and we live with each other,” he said. “That enables an expressiveness, which enables a diversity of repertoire and sound and color that I think is unique.”

The season arrives as Baker approaches a significant personal milestone. Next year will mark 50 years since he began working with choirs.

“And I’ve never worked with a better collection of human beings,” he said. “A more talented, a more dedicated, a more hard-working, a more invested spiritually and emotionally and artistically than the William Baker Festival Singers of ‘26-’27.”

The season-opening concert, scheduled for 3:00 p.m. Nov. 1 at St. Mary’s Episcopal Church in downtown Kansas City, showcases the remarkable stylistic breadth that has become a hallmark of the ensemble. Music ranges from Renaissance composer Antoine Brumel to contemporary gospel traditions associated with the Brooklyn Tabernacle Choir.

“There are groups in this city that can sing Antoine Brumel extremely well, and there are a few groups that can do Brooklyn Tabernacle extremely well,” Baker said. “I don’t know a lot of groups that can do Antoine Brumel from the 1400s and Brooklyn Tabernacle in one concert.”

Among the featured works is Gregorio Allegri’s famous Miserere mei, paired with a modern Kansas City connection: John Leavitt’s Kyrie Eleison. The concert also includes Gabriel Fauré’s Cantique de Jean Racine and Ed Frazier Davis’s At Our Last Awakening.

Baker admitted that Renaissance polyphony was not always his strongest musical language.

“Renaissance conducting is something that I have had to grow into,” he said. “For a number of years, I knew that almost everybody on the planet was better at doing it than me, and I shied away from it.”

His perspective changed over time, aided by colleagues and early music specialists within the Festival Singers.

“The voices are allowed to be free and open and rich and colorful,” Baker said. “It opens a character and a power in the sound.”

The choir’s commitment to musical excellence is matched by an equally strong commitment to community service. On Nov. 20 at 7:30 PM at the Wesley Chapel at the Church of the Resurrection in Leawood, the Festival Singers will present their annual Thanksgiving Concert for Human Need at Wesley Chapel at Church of the Resurrection.

The tradition dates to the ensemble’s founding year in 1998. After participating in a fundraising performance shortly before Thanksgiving, Baker and the singers recognized the profound impact music could have in helping people in need.

“The joy of doing something at Thanksgiving to give back and to help people who are hurting, especially during that time of the year when there’s so much vulnerability, was so appealing and so wonderful,” Baker said.

Over the years, the concerts have generated tens of thousands of dollars for charitable organizations. This season’s beneficiary will be reStart Family Lodge, which helps families move from homelessness toward stable housing and employment.

“We don’t affirm homelessness,” Baker said. “We’re trying to get people out of homelessness and into homes, and into jobs.”

December brings one of Kansas City’s most beloved holiday traditions, Candlelight Carols & Cathedral, presented at 7:30 p.m. Dec. 18 at Grace and Holy Trinity Cathedral and 3 p.m. Dec. 20 at the Cathedral of the Immaculate Conception.

Baker makes no apologies for embracing a traditional Christmas aesthetic.

“At Christmas time, I want the tree, and the lights, and the snow, and my fireplace, and my dog, and my chair, and my glass of Bordeaux,” he said. “And I want to celebrate the greatest story ever told.”

The concerts feature classic carols, traditional choral repertoire, children’s voices and the formidable organ artistry of John Schaefer.

Baker once described the program as “the alternative to alternative Christmas programs.”

“So if you want your heart warmed, if you want beauty and wonder, we’ve got it for you,” he said.

The centerpiece of the season arrives at 3:00 p.m. March 14 with a performance of Bach’s Passion According to St. John at St. Mary’s Episcopal Church. Although Baker has conducted the work elsewhere, this marks his first Kansas City performance of the masterpiece.

The Festival Singers have previously presented Bach’s St. Matthew Passion and Mass in B Minor, making the St. John Passion a natural addition to the ensemble’s masterworks tradition.

“I love the St. John,” Baker said. “It’s almost in some ways like you took the Matthew of three hours and you compacted it into an hour and 45 minutes, but kept all its power.”

First performed in Leipzig on Good Friday in 1724, Bach’s St. John Passion is the earliest of his surviving Passion settings and one of the composer’s most compelling sacred works. The score combines profound spirituality with a striking sense of drama. Revised several times by Bach during his lifetime, the work remained close to the composer’s heart

The Festival Singers’ performance will feature composer, conductor and baritone Ed Frazier Davis in the role of Jesus.

Baker, meanwhile, continues to expand both the Festival Singers and the broader work of The Choral Foundation. The organization now includes numerous ensembles and educational initiatives across multiple states.

“We’ve been so blessed,” Baker said. “The best faculty and staff anywhere.”

And with the organization’s growth, Baker remains grounded in gratitude.

“We’re receivers, not achievers,” he said. “But everything right now is coming up roses.”

The season concludes with a benefit concert for Hillcrest Transitional Housing on 7:30 PM April 27 St. Paul's Episcopal Church, Lee's Summit,and a May 2 finale at 3:00 PM St. Mary's Episcopal Church featuring audience favorites and Baker’s own favorite selections from throughout the year.

For Baker, however, the season is ultimately about more than concerts. It is about service, community and the transformative power of singing together.

“The resources of this organization are here for you,” he said. “Let us serve you.”

For a complete list of all concerts and to learn about the services provided by The Choral Foundation, including the Institute for Healthy Singing and the Jane Sullivan Choral Library, visit the BRAND NEW WEBSITE festivalsingers.org or choralfoundation.org.

On this episode of The KC Arts Beat Report, Patrick Neas speaks with artistic director Joshua Oppenheim and executive director Stephanie Mooneyhan about Echoes in the Walls, an immersive choral experience taking place at the historic Belvoir Winery and Inn in Liberty, Missouri.

More than a traditional concert, Echoes in the Walls blends live choral music, narration, audience interaction, and the atmospheric setting of one of Missouri’s most storied historic properties. Oppenheim and Mooneyhan discuss how Re:Sound creates musical experiences that combine compelling storytelling with extraordinary vocal artistry while welcoming audiences who may be new to choral music.

The conversation explores the inspiration behind the production, the unique history of the Belvoir property, and a program featuring Baltic choral music, works by John Tavener, Einojuhani Rautavaara, and Uģis Prauliņš, alongside Nick Drake’s “Pink Moon.” The result is a suspenseful, immersive evening that feels more like a psychological thriller than a traditional concert.

Echoes in the Walls

October 30, 7:30 p.m.

Belvoir Winery and Inn

Liberty, Missouri

For tickets and more information, visit:

resoundensembles.org

This preview brought you by Kansas City Ballet.

When the tornado touches down at the Kauffman Center this October, audiences will enter a Technicolor, dazzling world where ballet, spectacle, flying effects, vivid costumes and a fresh musical score combine to create a distinctly Kansas City take on The Wizard of Oz.

Kansas City Ballet will revive its acclaimed production of The Wizard of Oz October 16 through 25 at the Muriel Kauffman Theatre. The ballet, choreographed by Septime Webre with an original score by Matthew Pierce, premiered in Kansas City in 2018 and quickly became one of the company’s biggest audience successes.

“This is our third shot at it,” said Kansas City Ballet Artistic Director Devon Carney. “We did it in 2018, then in 2022 after COVID, and here we are again in 2026.”

Carney said the idea for the ballet was on his mind almost immediately after he arrived in Kansas City. And now it’s become a hometown favorite.

“When I had the great opportunity to be chosen as artistic director for Kansas City Ballet, one of the first things I thought of was, ‘Has anybody done The Wizard of Oz around here?’” Carney said. “I thought, what a perfect place for it to be done.”

The connection between Kansas City and Dorothy’s journey has always resonated in this part of the country. Audiences have responded enthusiastically every time the production has appeared, and the ballet has gone on to enjoy a life well beyond its local premiere.

Kansas City Ballet was the first professional company to stage Webre’s full-length production, and since then it has been performed by organizations across the United States and internationally.

Part of the production’s appeal lies in Webre’s highly theatrical choreographic style.

Carney first collaborated with the choreographer through Alice in Wonderland and later brought additional Webre works to Kansas City, including The Great Gatsby. He describes Webre as a creator who embraces contemporary culture and isn’t afraid to mix popular references into classical ballet storytelling.

“The Wizard of Oz definitely does that,” Carney said. “There are some really fun scenes where you can see the Twist, you can see the Macarena in very brief moments.”

For Carney, however, the larger achievement is that Webre creates productions that are simply fun.

“I think it’s important for our audiences to just have fun,” he said. “They’re going to get a story, and they’re going to be transported on this incredible journey.”

L. Frank Baum (1856-1919) was a journalist, playwright, and storyteller who gave the world The Wonderful Wizard of Oz in 1900. The story grew out of bedtime tales he told his children and became one of the most beloved works in American literature. Although Baum never lived in Kansas, he chose the state as Dorothy’s home, using its prairie landscape and reputation for tornados as the starting point for her journey into the fantastical Land of Oz. More than a century later, Dorothy’s adventure remains one of the strongest cultural links between Kansas and the American imagination.

Late in life, Baum became fascinated by the emerging motion picture industry and moved to Southern California, where he founded the Oz Film Manufacturing Company in Los Angeles in 1914 and produced several silent films based on his Oz stories, decades before MGM’s iconic 1939 film made Dorothy and her ruby slippers famous around the world.

The ballet follows the familiar path established by Baum’s novel. Dorothy is swept away by a tornado, arrives in a fantastical land, meets the Scarecrow, Tin Man and Cowardly Lion, and sets off for Emerald City in search of the mysterious Wizard.

Yet one of the production’s most intriguing choices is what it avoids.

Audiences who grew up with MGM’s classic 1939 film might expect to hear “Over the Rainbow” or “We’re Off to See the Wizard.” Instead, the ballet uses an entirely original score by composer Matthew Pierce.

That was a deliberate decision made early in the production’s development.

“As soon as we start using music from the movie, we are compared up against something that has multi-generational history,” Carney said.

The creative team wanted audiences to experience Baum’s story without constantly comparing each scene to famous moments from the film. Pierce’s score allows the ballet to create its own identity while still honoring the spirit of the story.

The music captures the character of Kansas. Carney describes the opening sections as possessing an Americana character, evoking wide-open plains and prairie landscapes. Later, the score shifts dramatically as Dorothy reaches Emerald City.

In one of Webre’s most imaginative concepts, Emerald City resembles a glamorous nightclub populated by flamboyant and fashion-forward citizens. Disco influences appear throughout the choreography, and audiences may spot nods to dance crazes and pop culture icons.

The Lion, for example, is inspired by a 1970s rock star.

The visual world surrounding the characters is every bit as imaginative.

Costume designer Liz Vandal, known for her work with Cirque du Soleil, fills the stage with brilliant colors, elaborate costumes and fantastical characters. The production begins in a gray-toned Kansas. Then Dorothy opens the door into Munchkinland and the stage suddenly explodes with reds, yellows, greens, pinks and purples.

“It’s a feast for the eyes,” Carney said.

That visual feast extends far beyond costumes.

Audiences can expect flying monkeys, airborne witches, projections, puppetry and extensive aerial effects that push the boundaries of what many people expect from ballet.

“Monkeys will fly in this show,” Carney assures us.

The famous flying monkey sequence combines human performers, giant puppets and projected imagery to fill the stage with what appears to be an entire army of airborne creatures.

The production features eight different flying roles altogether, creating significant technical challenges. Specialized flying professionals install custom rigging systems and train performers once the company moves into the theater.

Flying, Carney noted, is far more difficult than it looks.

“If you move your arm, it’s like being in space,” he said. “You will start spinning, and you can’t stop that spin because you have nothing to stop with.”

The elaborate effects contribute to a production involving more than 80 performers, including approximately 25 children. While not quite on the scale of Kansas City Ballet’s annual Nutcracker, it ranks among the company’s largest undertakings.

The result is a family-friendly show that appeals to audiences of all ages.

Carney especially enjoys seeing patrons arrive dressed as Dorothy, the Scarecrow, the Tin Man or even the Wicked Witch.

“We typically have somewhere between 20 and 30 Dorothys in the audience from the age of 5 to 85,” he said.

That cross-generational appeal may be one of the production’s greatest strengths. Nearly everyone knows the story, yet Webre’s ballet presents it from a fresh perspective.

The production remains faithful to Baum’s narrative while creating its own artistic world. One notable exception involves Dorothy’s famous footwear. Though Baum’s novel featured silver slippers, the ballet uses the ruby slippers made famous by the film. Securing permission required a special licensing arrangement with Warner Bros. because the red slippers are associated with the 1939 film adaptation rather than the original book.

For Carney, however, audiences ultimately connect not because of the special effects or the spectacle, but because of the simple joy at the center of the story.

“It just brings out the kid in everybody,” he said. “Just to have a good time.”

Kansas City Ballet presents

The Wizard of Oz

Oct. 16-25 at the Muriel Kauffman Theatre in the Kauffman Center for the Performing Arts.

Tickets and information are available at kcballet.org.

The Wonderful Wizard of Oz (1910) is the earliest surviving film version of L. Frank Baum's 1900 novel, made by the Selig Polyscope Company without Baum's direct input. It was created to fulfill a contractual obligation associated with Baum's personal bankruptcy caused by The Fairylogue and Radio-Plays, from which it was once thought to have been derived. It was partly based on the 1902 stage musical, though much of the film deals with the Wicked Witch of the West, who does not appear in the musical.

KC Arts Beat is sponsored by Get Well KC, which offers a body‑mind approach to health and healing, helping individuals alleviate pain and optimize their overall well‑being. Learn more at www.getwellkc.com.

French-born illustrator Edmund Dulac was one of the most celebrated Golden Age illustrators of the early twentieth century. After settling in London, he became renowned for his richly colored, highly imaginative interpretations of classic literature and folklore. Drawing inspiration from Persian, Indian, and East Asian art as well as European fairy-tale traditions, Dulac developed a distinctive style marked by jewel-like colors, elegant line work, and an atmosphere of enchantment.

A major turning point in his career came when he began an association with the Leicester Galleries and the publisher Hodder & Stoughton. Under this arrangement, original paintings were exhibited and sold through the gallery, while the reproductions appeared in lavish illustrated gift books. Among the most famous of these volumes are Stories from The Arabian Nights (1907), featuring 50 color illustrations; Shakespeare’s The Tempest (1908); The Rubáiyát of Omar Khayyám (1909); The Sleeping Beauty and Other Fairy Tales (1910); Stories from Hans Christian Andersen (1911); Edgar Allan Poe’s The Bells and Other Poems (1912); and Princess Badoura (1913). These sumptuous books established Dulac as one of the foremost illustrators of his era, and his work remains admired for its dreamlike beauty and masterful storytelling.

KC Arts Beat is sponsored in part by Get Well KC, which offers a body‑mind approach to health and healing, helping individuals alleviate pain and optimize their overall well‑being. Learn more at www.getwellkc.com.

Mary Blair was an American artist, illustrator, and animation designer whose bold use of color and imaginative visual style helped shape the look of many classic Disney films. Working for Walt Disney Productions from the 1940s through the early 1950s, she created influential concept art for Cinderella, Alice in Wonderland, Peter Pan, The Legend of Sleepy Hollow, The Three Caballeros, and Song of the South. A 1941 research trip to Latin America inspired her distinctive palette of vibrant colors and simplified forms, which became a hallmark of her work. Beyond film, Blair illustrated children’s books and designed attractions and installations for Disney, most famously the beloved It’s a Small World ride. Today, she is regarded as one of the most important visual artists in Disney history, celebrated for bringing a modernist sensibility, emotional warmth, and unforgettable color to animation and themed entertainment.

Vintage footage of the It’s a Small World attraction

KC Arts Beat is sponsored in part by Get Well KC, which offers a body‑mind approach to health and healing, helping individuals alleviate pain and optimize their overall well‑being. Learn more at www.getwellkc.com.

Joyce, a Prairie Village native, in case you didn’t know, has appeared several times on the Harriman-Jewell Series, often with Il Pomo D’Oro, who perform with Joyce on Purcell’s Dido and Aeneas.

Congratulations, all!! 👏 👏 👏

Other outstanding recordings with Joyce DiDonato and I’ll Pomo D’Oro:

In War and Peace

Handel’s Theodora

Eden

Handel’s Agrippina

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This preview brought you by the Kansas City Chamber Orchestra.

For 40 years, the Kansas City Chamber Orchestra has been one of the region’s most distinctive classical music organizations, championing repertoire that falls between the worlds of chamber music and the large symphony orchestra while also building a deep connection to Kansas City’s musical community.

The orchestra’s 40th season opens Oct. 20 with Autumn Glow at Grace and Holy Trinity Cathedral, a program that pairs a beloved Tchaikovsky masterpiece with a contemporary Baltic meditation and a deeply personal work by Kansas City composer Jean Belmont Ford. For artistic director Bruce Sorrell, the concert also serves as a reflection on an extraordinary four-decade journey.

“It felt a little bit like we didn’t know what we were getting into,” Sorrell said, laughing as he recalled the orchestra’s beginnings. “It’s like Mickey Rooney and Judy Garland putting up a curtain and saying ‘Let’s put on a show!”

When he founded the orchestra in 1987, Sorrell was simply looking for a way to launch a conducting career.

“I was thinking, ‘Well, how do I start my career?’ And this was a great way to do that,” he said. “And it became my career in many ways.”

That career has become inseparable from Kansas City.

“I never imagined that my career as a conductor would be so rich here in Kansas City,” Sorrell said in announcing his retirement at the end of the 40th anniversary season. “Starting the Kansas City Chamber Orchestra in 1987 was a very exciting yet overwhelming prospect.”

Autumn Glow reflects many of the musical influences that have shaped Sorrell’s artistic identity. His studies took him from William Jewell College to Southern Methodist University, where he studied conducting with the legendary violinist and conductor Anshel Brusilow, and then to London for further study.

Those years exposed him to radically different approaches to orchestral sound.

In London, he absorbed the influence of Herbert von Karajan’s conducting tradition, learning how gesture alone can shape orchestral sonority.

“It was a really interesting, wonderful way to open up my thinking about what a conductor does,” Sorrell said. “You’re not directly making any of those noises. Those beautiful things that you elicit from an orchestra are just because of your gestures.”

At the same time, he found himself fascinated by the ideas emerging from the early music movement.

“People like Christopher Hogwood and Trevor Pinnock informed my conducting,” he said. “There’s that von Karajan sort of big-sound approach, and then there’s the early music movement coming to the fore and influencing what happens with the sound world.”

Those influences can be heard throughout Autumn Glow.

The concert opens with Lonely Angel by Latvian composer Pēteris Vasks, a work Sorrell discovered years ago while serving as executive director of Chamber Music Tulsa.

Almost immediately, he was captivated.

“I thought, ‘Oh, my gosh, this is just a gorgeous work,’” he recalled.

Written for solo violin and string orchestra, the piece unfolds slowly and meditatively. Violinist Anne-Marie Brown will take the solo role.

“It’s highly meditative,” Sorrell said. “The violin solo tends to lay in a fairly high tessitura. Then it has a couple of episodes that remind me of Bach.”

Like many Baltic composers, including Arvo Pärt and Ēriks Ešenvalds, Vasks occupies a unique musical territory.

“Their music sounds ancient and modern at the same time,” Sorrell said.

Sorrell believes the piece will offer audiences a rare experience.

“Vasks is a composer that’s not that well known in the Midwest,” he said. “It’s very exciting to be able to bring this piece to life.”

The program then turns to a work that has special significance both for Sorrell and for the orchestra’s history.

Jean Belmont Ford’s Remembrance was commissioned during the orchestra’s 10th season in memory of a board member who died of cancer. Scored for soprano and strings, the work sets three poems from the late Romantic era.

Ford, who lives in Overland Park, is known internationally for her choral music. Sorrell describes her as both a remarkable composer and a gifted communicator.

“She has a great sense of humor,” he said.

But it is the emotional directness of Remembrance that continues to draw him back.

“It’s a work that I love,” Sorrell said. “Jean’s work is always a little bit surprising, but it’s very tonal, and the way she uses tonality to inform the text and the emotional impact is quite wonderful.”

The performance will feature soprano Alyssa Nance, whom Sorrell says he is eager to collaborate with.

Now receiving its fifth performance by the orchestra, Remembrance has become one of the defining works in the ensemble’s history.

“It’s a piece that always leaves me feeling, ‘Oh, I love what has just happened,’” he said. “The course of the sound world and the music is very moving.”

The work also reflects Sorrell’s desire during this anniversary season to revisit important milestones from the orchestra’s past.

“In this case, that is very much the case,” he said. “As we’ve been moving toward the 40th season, I have been revisiting some of those works that were special in our history.”

The concert concludes with Tchaikovsky’s beloved Serenade for Strings, one of the cornerstones of the string repertoire and a work that Sorrell first studied under Brusilow in Dallas.

“It’s obviously a great work,” he said. “It’s a masterpiece for strings. It’s popular for great reason.”

Sorrell still remembers listening recently to a vintage Karajan recording.

“Man, he is ruthless with those tempos,” he said. “They just come plowing through all those notes.”

Yet what continues to attract him to the piece is its emotional range. The famous waltz sparkles with elegance, while the elegy movement carries the emotional weight often associated with Tchaikovsky.

“The elegy movement is full of that sort of pathos that we associate with Tchaikovsky,” Sorrell said. “It definitely is autumnal.”

His years of conducting the piece have also changed his perspective on the score. As a student, he inherited performance cuts that had been passed down through Philadelphia Orchestra traditions dating to the Eugene Ormandy era. Over time, however, he abandoned them.

“I feel like Tchaikovsky knew what he was doing,” Sorrell said. “I’m just going to leave it alone and let what he wrote do the speaking.”

The opening concert arrives during a season that carries special significance beyond the orchestra’s anniversary with this being the final season Sorrell leads the Kansas City Chamber Orchestra after four decades on the podium.

Looking back, he expresses gratitude not only for the organization’s longevity but for the community that made it possible.

“So many different people over the years contributed to our ongoing success,” he said. “Subscribers, funders, staff, and all the organizations we have collaborated with over the years.”

He is especially thankful for his family.

“I’m particularly grateful for the support from family, including my children who all took turns selling chocolates at performances,” he said.

When asked to identify the orchestra’s greatest achievement, Sorrell’s answer is immediate.

“There are numerous highlights over the years, but I think the most important thing has been working with the extraordinarily talented professional musicians who make Kansas City their home,” he said. “I’m very proud to have supported the infrastructure of Kansas City’s music community.”

That community spirit has defined the Kansas City Chamber Orchestra from the beginning, and it resonates throughout Autumn Glow. From the serene spirituality of Vasks to the heartfelt remembrance of Ford and the emotional richness of Tchaikovsky, the program reflects both the artistic curiosity and the human warmth that have characterized Sorrell’s tenure.

“It’s a lot of really wonderful music,” he said. “I’m quite excited. It’s a great way to start our 40th season.”

The Kansas City Chamber Orchestra Presents

AUTUMN GLOW

7:39 p.m. Tuesday, October 20 at Grace and Holy Trinity Cathedral. Bruce Sorrell will present a pre-concert talk at 6:30 p.m.

Tickets and information are available at kcchamberorchestra.org.

KC Arts Beat is sponsored by Get Well KC, which offers a body‑mind approach to health and healing, helping individuals alleviate pain and optimize their overall well‑being. Learn more at www.getwellkc.com.

Cab Calloway and the Nicholas Brothers - Jumpin’ Jive (1943)

KC Arts Beat is sponsored in part by Get Well KC, which offers a body‑mind approach to health and healing, helping individuals alleviate pain and optimize their overall well‑being. Learn more at www.getwellkc.com.

By Hilary Larkin, special to KC Arts Beat

I have always associated The Wizard of Oz with the zany world-bending traditions first brought into children’s literature by Alice in Wonderland. From Oxford riverbank to Kansas prairie; from rabbit hole to tornado; from idle girl to neglected girl; from Wonderland to Oz. From 1865 to 1900. So far, so comparative. But only recently have I come across a still more arresting theory that The Wizard of Oz is, in fact, an archetypally American Odyssey. Patrick Deneen, the political philosopher, has argued for its inclusion in a recent book, saying that the work is, for Americans ‘what the Odyssey was for the Greeks: a tale that provides a mythic revelation of our deepest inner selves.’ So consider: Dorothy as an American Avatar. There it is, there she is—the restless longing to escape, dreaming the American dream, and the long, strange journey homeward and inward. How had I not noticed this before?

Although not quite attaining a level of the Odyssean grandeur (more on that anon), Septime Webre’s Wizard of Oz performed tonight by the Kansas City Ballet, is, nonetheless, a delightful romp. In fact, I can hardly think of a contemporary choreographer who has more fun than Webre. He clearly loves stories, people, children, a full stage, including dancers dancing ‘scat’ in the background while the main action takes place downstage. The more, the merrier.

Radio City Rockette style Oz. Sado-masochistic Winkies beating out the rhythm with leather whips (a seductively powerful routine). Munchkins and ruffians in parti-colored costumes and tights, where one leg doesn’t quite know what the other leg is wearing (let alone doing; if in doubt, try sliding…).Toto with his very own puppeteer (shout out to Johnny Castle). Even the soporific poppy scene is choreographed busily,although perhaps one could imagine, in other hands, something more languorous here to convey the induced sleep of the main characters.

But Webre is on the button again with the throbbing, anthropomorphic yellow brick road. Think nine male dancers covered in yellow and orange Post-it notes. Or perhaps, if your references are more historical, an update on the Renaissance fashion for jagging garments (which caught on, so the story goes, when Swiss mercenaries slashed up Burgundian silks and velvets after the 1476 war.) Either way, both ways, any way, they’re on the road: in fact, they are indeed the road itself, the directions, the way to Oz.

So all told, Webre and a team of talented people, the scenic designer Michaael Raiford, the production designer, Aaron Rhyne, costume designer Liz Vandal, and composer Matthew Pierce are clearly having a great deal of fun out there. Even theopening scene, which take place in idyllic grayscale is quitecharming: not the kind of world one would want to escape from at all, with its thigh-slapping, tumbling and fence-jumping farmdances, to the accompaniment of folksy Copland-esque music.As a result of all this Kansas happiness, there’s little yearning in Webre’s Dorothy; little retreat into bittersweet ‘somewhere over the rainbow’. (The only rainbow that does appear is at the end, when she returns). There’s a small pas de Deux with the magician, and a tiny solo of home-longing before the Wizard, but on the whole, yearning is not a dance register used here: we don’t really see her alone with her dreams. This is perhaps a pity, given what we now feel convinced about her American archetypal status. Naomi Tanioka, however, was light and fleet and danced pleasingly as Dorothy.

Pantomime jazzy music makes the evil of the Witch, Mei McArtor, faintly ridiculous from the start; we are never in the realm of absolute terror. McArtor’s pointedly menacing foot and sharp angular movements did the job beautifully. Aidan Duffyperformed Scarecrow with plenty of goofy charm; Gavin Abercrombie, as Tinman, was daintily neat with his footwork; Cameron Thomas’ Lion had the necessary swaggering stage presence. All in all, it was an endearing quartet.

There were lots of video projections, all apt, some clever, a few maybe a little over-done and distracting. Some of the most alluring stage devices, I confess, were low tech: swirling flags, banners, scarfs—poles raised aloft carrying fantasies and phantasmagorias—pigs, milking cows, the tornado, and lots and lots of monkeys. Moving with a pole (or being elevated over the stage, with or without a bike) is still a kind of dance; a video can suck a bit of the kinetic energy towards a flat screen.

But niggles aside, Webre and his team have produced an eye-catching full-length ballet. It demands an irresistible maverick energy to fuse elements from various genres and time-periods, to create a time-bending, place-bending fantasy in balletic form. ‘Now this is what I call a show’, I heard the lady behind me in the auditorium proclaim. And indeed, so it was.

Wizard of Oz runs through Oct. 25 at the Muriel Kauffman Theatre. Kauffman Center for the Performing Arts. For tickets and more information, kcballet.org

Hilary was born in Dublin, Ireland and currently lives in Kansas City. She has degrees in French and History from University College Dublin and a PhD in History from the University of Cambridge. She has a background in music and drama, and has a teacher's diploma in violin and also in speech and drama from the Royal Irish Academy of Music. She is a free-lance writer, educational consultant and adjunct professor.

KC Arts Beat is sponsored in part by Get Well KC, which offers a body‑mind approach to health and healing, helping individuals alleviate pain and optimize their overall well‑being. Learn more at www.getwellkc.com.

On this episode of The KC Arts Beat Report, artistic director Bruce Sorrell previews Autumn Glow, the opening concert of the Kansas City Chamber Orchestra’s 40th anniversary season and the beginning of his final season leading the ensemble he founded in 1987.

The program features Pēteris Vasks’ meditative Lonely Angel with violinist Anne-Marie Brown, Jean Belmont Ford’s moving Remembrance for soprano and strings featuring Alyssa Nance, and Tchaikovsky’s beloved Serenade for Strings. Sorrell reflects on the orchestra’s four-decade history, the artistic influences that shaped his conducting career, and the community that has supported the organization throughout its remarkable journey.

Autumn Glow begins at 7:30 p.m. on Oct. 20 at Grace and Holy Trinity Cathedral. Bruce Sorrell will present a pre-concert talk at 6:30 p.m.

For tickets and additional information, visit www.kcchamberorchestra.org.

Subscribe to the KC Arts Beat Substack at www.kcartsbeat.com.

KC Arts Beat is sponsored in part by Get Well KC, which offers a body‑mind approach to health and healing, helping individuals alleviate pain and optimize their overall well‑being. Learn more at www.getwellkc.com.

This preview brought you by the Kansas City Chamber Orchestra.

For 40 years, the Kansas City Chamber Orchestra has been one of the region’s most distinctive classical music organizations, championing repertoire that falls between the worlds of chamber music and the large symphony orchestra while also building a deep connection to Kansas City’s musical community.

The orchestra’s 40th season opens Oct. 20 with Autumn Glow at Grace and Holy Trinity Cathedral, a program that pairs a beloved Tchaikovsky masterpiece with a contemporary Baltic meditation and a deeply personal work by Kansas City composer Jean Belmont Ford. For artistic director Bruce Sorrell, the concert also serves as a reflection on an extraordinary four-decade journey.

“It felt a little bit like we didn’t know what we were getting into,” Sorrell said, laughing as he recalled the orchestra’s beginnings. “It’s like Mickey Rooney and Judy Garland putting up a curtain and saying ‘Let’s put on a show!”

When he founded the orchestra in 1987, Sorrell was simply looking for a way to launch a conducting career.

“I was thinking, ‘Well, how do I start my career?’ And this was a great way to do that,” he said. “And it became my career in many ways.”

That career has become inseparable from Kansas City.

“I never imagined that my career as a conductor would be so rich here in Kansas City,” Sorrell said in announcing his retirement at the end of the 40th anniversary season. “Starting the Kansas City Chamber Orchestra in 1987 was a very exciting yet overwhelming prospect.”

Autumn Glow reflects many of the musical influences that have shaped Sorrell’s artistic identity. His studies took him from William Jewell College to Southern Methodist University, where he studied conducting with the legendary violinist and conductor Anshel Brusilow, and then to London for further study.

Those years exposed him to radically different approaches to orchestral sound.

In London, he absorbed the influence of Herbert von Karajan’s conducting tradition, learning how gesture alone can shape orchestral sonority.

“It was a really interesting, wonderful way to open up my thinking about what a conductor does,” Sorrell said. “You’re not directly making any of those noises. Those beautiful things that you elicit from an orchestra are just because of your gestures.”

At the same time, he found himself fascinated by the ideas emerging from the early music movement.

“People like Christopher Hogwood and Trevor Pinnock informed my conducting,” he said. “There’s that von Karajan sort of big-sound approach, and then there’s the early music movement coming to the fore and influencing what happens with the sound world.”

Those influences can be heard throughout Autumn Glow.

The concert opens with Lonely Angel by Latvian composer Pēteris Vasks, a work Sorrell discovered years ago while serving as executive director of Chamber Music Tulsa.

Almost immediately, he was captivated.

“I thought, ‘Oh, my gosh, this is just a gorgeous work,’” he recalled.

Written for solo violin and string orchestra, the piece unfolds slowly and meditatively. Violinist Anne-Marie Brown will take the solo role.

“It’s highly meditative,” Sorrell said. “The violin solo tends to lay in a fairly high tessitura. Then it has a couple of episodes that remind me of Bach.”

Like many Baltic composers, including Arvo Pärt and Ēriks Ešenvalds, Vasks occupies a unique musical territory.

“Their music sounds ancient and modern at the same time,” Sorrell said.

Sorrell believes the piece will offer audiences a rare experience.

“Vasks is a composer that’s not that well known in the Midwest,” he said. “It’s very exciting to be able to bring this piece to life.”

The program then turns to a work that has special significance both for Sorrell and for the orchestra’s history.

Jean Belmont Ford’s Remembrance was commissioned during the orchestra’s 10th season in memory of a board member who died of cancer. Scored for soprano and strings, the work sets three poems from the late Romantic era.

Ford, who lives in Overland Park, is known internationally for her choral music. Sorrell describes her as both a remarkable composer and a gifted communicator.

“She has a great sense of humor,” he said.

But it is the emotional directness of Remembrance that continues to draw him back.

“It’s a work that I love,” Sorrell said. “Jean’s work is always a little bit surprising, but it’s very tonal, and the way she uses tonality to inform the text and the emotional impact is quite wonderful.”

The performance will feature soprano Alyssa Nance, whom Sorrell says he is eager to collaborate with.

Now receiving its fifth performance by the orchestra, Remembrance has become one of the defining works in the ensemble’s history.

“It’s a piece that always leaves me feeling, ‘Oh, I love what has just happened,’” he said. “The course of the sound world and the music is very moving.”

The work also reflects Sorrell’s desire during this anniversary season to revisit important milestones from the orchestra’s past.

“In this case, that is very much the case,” he said. “As we’ve been moving toward the 40th season, I have been revisiting some of those works that were special in our history.”

The concert concludes with Tchaikovsky’s beloved Serenade for Strings, one of the cornerstones of the string repertoire and a work that Sorrell first studied under Brusilow in Dallas.

“It’s obviously a great work,” he said. “It’s a masterpiece for strings. It’s popular for great reason.”

Sorrell still remembers listening recently to a vintage Karajan recording.

“Man, he is ruthless with those tempos,” he said. “They just come plowing through all those notes.”

Yet what continues to attract him to the piece is its emotional range. The famous waltz sparkles with elegance, while the elegy movement carries the emotional weight often associated with Tchaikovsky.

“The elegy movement is full of that sort of pathos that we associate with Tchaikovsky,” Sorrell said. “It definitely is autumnal.”

His years of conducting the piece have also changed his perspective on the score. As a student, he inherited performance cuts that had been passed down through Philadelphia Orchestra traditions dating to the Eugene Ormandy era. Over time, however, he abandoned them.

“I feel like Tchaikovsky knew what he was doing,” Sorrell said. “I’m just going to leave it alone and let what he wrote do the speaking.”

The opening concert arrives during a season that carries special significance beyond the orchestra’s anniversary with this being the final season Sorrell leads the Kansas City Chamber Orchestra after four decades on the podium.

Looking back, he expresses gratitude not only for the organization’s longevity but for the community that made it possible.

“So many different people over the years contributed to our ongoing success,” he said. “Subscribers, funders, staff, and all the organizations we have collaborated with over the years.”

He is especially thankful for his family.

“I’m particularly grateful for the support from family, including my children who all took turns selling chocolates at performances,” he said.

When asked to identify the orchestra’s greatest achievement, Sorrell’s answer is immediate.

“There are numerous highlights over the years, but I think the most important thing has been working with the extraordinarily talented professional musicians who make Kansas City their home,” he said. “I’m very proud to have supported the infrastructure of Kansas City’s music community.”

That community spirit has defined the Kansas City Chamber Orchestra from the beginning, and it resonates throughout Autumn Glow. From the serene spirituality of Vasks to the heartfelt remembrance of Ford and the emotional richness of Tchaikovsky, the program reflects both the artistic curiosity and the human warmth that have characterized Sorrell’s tenure.

“It’s a lot of really wonderful music,” he said. “I’m quite excited. It’s a great way to start our 40th season.”

The Kansas City Chamber Orchestra Presents

AUTUMN GLOW

7:39 p.m. Tuesday, October 20 at Grace and Holy Trinity Cathedral. Bruce Sorrell will present a pre-concert talk at 6:30 p.m.

Tickets and information are available at kcchamberorchestra.org.

KC Arts Beat is sponsored by Get Well KC, which offers a body‑mind approach to health and healing, helping individuals alleviate pain and optimize their overall well‑being. Learn more at www.getwellkc.com.

On the birthday of Oscar Wilde, it should be noted that in 1882 the great Irish aesthete gave an extensive tour of Missouri and Kansas that included speaking engagements in Kansas City, St. Joseph, Leavenworth, Atchison and Topeka. His over-the-top appearances prompted accusations of “humbuggery” to admiring comparisons to Buffalo Bill. The Kansas City Journal, however, was scathing. It wrote that Wilde’s audience “carried away nothing that they did bring with them.” The lecture was “a tale told by an idiot, full of sound and trash signifying nothing. People will, of course, continue to go and see him as they do to view sideshow curiosities and monstrosities. We can assure them that they will see the biggest fashionable fraud that has ever come to us from over the sea.”

Here you can read a detailed and delightful history of Wilde’s tour of Kansas.

This cartoon by Thomas Nast in Harper’s Bazaar, June 10, 1882, depicted Oscar Wilde making his tribute to Western miners as the “only well dressed men I have seen in America.” On his tour of the United States in 1882, Wilde was attacked by the press for his outlandish dress and his arty and obtuse lectures. The cartoonists had a field day picturing him as a money-grabbing fake. In this example, the lily and sunflower, symbols connected with the aesthetic movement, are evident and Wilde is depicted in an effeminate pose with bags of money protruding from each pocket.

“To love oneself is the beginning of a lifelong romance.”

"Everything popular is wrong."

"We are all in the gutter, but some of us are looking at the stars.

KC Arts Beat is sponsored in part by Get Well KC, which offers a body‑mind approach to health and healing, helping individuals alleviate pain and optimize their overall well‑being. Learn more at www.getwellkc.com.

Tissot was a French painter and illustrator best known for his detailed and elegant depictions of fashionable society in late nineteenth-century Europe. His paintings captured the manners, leisure activities, and refined dress of the Belle Époque and Victorian England, earning him a reputation as a keen observer of contemporary high society. Throughout his career, however, Tissot’s interests ranged far beyond social portraiture, encompassing medieval, biblical, and Japoniste subjects that reflected the broad artistic currents of his time. In addition to his work as a painter, he contributed satirical illustrations to Vanity Fair under the pseudonym “Coïdé.”

In 1885, after completing The Woman of Paris, Tissot experienced a religious vision while visiting the Church of Saint-Sulpice in Paris. The experience prompted a renewed commitment to his Catholic faith and marked a turning point in his artistic career. Thereafter, he devoted much of his time to creating ambitious series of paintings and illustrations depicting the life of Christ and other biblical subjects, works that would occupy him for the remainder of his life.

KC Arts Beat is sponsored in part by Get Well KC, which offers a body‑mind approach to health and healing, helping individuals alleviate pain and optimize their overall well‑being. Learn more at www.getwellkc.com.

Lyric Symphony, Op. 18 (1922-23) is Zemlinsky’s best-known orchestral work, an opulent seven-movement setting for soprano, baritone, and large orchestra. The text comes from The Gardener by the Bengali poet and Nobel laureate Rabindranath Tagore. Inspired in part by the example of Mahler’s Das Lied von der Erde, the work explores love, longing, fulfillment, separation, and acceptance through a continuous sequence of interconnected songs.

KC Arts Beat is sponsored in part by Get Well KC, which offers a body‑mind approach to health and healing, helping individuals alleviate pain and optimize their overall well‑being. Learn more at www.getwellkc.com.

While some of Mariotto Albertinelli’s paintings have been characterized as conservative in style, others exemplify the monumental classicism of the High Renaissance. According to Giorgio Vasari, Albertinelli enjoyed a worldly lifestyle and was known for his fondness for good food, drink, and female company. Financial difficulties led him to operate a tavern in addition to pursuing his artistic career. By the end of his life, he had accumulated debts, including one owed to Raphael. His wife, Antonia, whom he married in 1506, helped settle some of his outstanding obligations after his death.

KC Arts Beat is sponsored in part by Get Well KC, which offers a body‑mind approach to health and healing, helping individuals alleviate pain and optimize their overall well‑being. Learn more at www.getwellkc.com.

This Preview brought you by Re:Sound.

For many concertgoers, choral music arrives in familiar settings: churches, concert halls and recital spaces designed to showcase the beauty of the human voice. Kansas City’s Re:Sound Ensemble has other ideas.

On Oct. 30, they will present Echoes in the Walls at the historic Belvoir Winery and Inn in Liberty, transforming a choral performance into something closer to immersive theater. Part concert, part narrative experience and part exploration of place, the evening promises mystery, atmosphere and storytelling, all carried by a chamber choir of 24 professional singers gathered from across the country.

Yet Artistic Director Dr. Joshua Oppenheim is quick to point out that Re:Sound’s productions are not simply concerts with added effects.

“Re:Sound is rooted in choral music, but what we create goes beyond a traditional concert,” Oppenheim said. “They’re really experiences.”

That philosophy has guided the organization from its founding. Oppenheim spent decades in higher education and the choral world before launching Re:Sound, a project he describes as nearly 30 years in the making. Inspired by professional vocal ensembles such as Chanticleer, he envisioned creating performances that would maintain the highest musical standards while welcoming people who might never otherwise attend a choral event.

“I wanted to create something that would appeal to choral and classical music lovers while also lowering the barrier of entry for people who might never have attended a choral concert before,” he said.

Rather than relying solely on musical expertise as an entry point, Re:Sound builds each production around a narrative. Actors or narrators guide audiences through an unfolding story while the music functions as an equal dramatic partner. For Echoes in the Walls, Samantha Georgiana is The Narrator.

“The lyrics are doing just as much as the actors are in telling the story,” Oppenheim said.

The result, he said, is closer to a film than a traditional concert. Audiences may not recognize every technical detail or musical reference, but they can follow the emotional and dramatic arc.

“It’s sort of like movies in a way, too,” he said. “Anybody can come.”

That concept has already attracted listeners ranging from devoted choral enthusiasts to first-time concertgoers. According to Oppenheim, even experienced singers frequently leave surprised by what they’ve encountered.

“People that are choir people have never been to a concert like it,” he said.

For Echoes in the Walls, the setting itself became the starting point.

When Re:Sound was first exploring performance locations, Oppenheim and his colleagues deliberately sought unconventional venues. Churches and concert halls offer excellent acoustics, but he wanted spaces that could become part of the storytelling itself.

The ensemble booked Belvoir Winery and Inn nearly a year and a half ago, long before the final concept had taken shape. Over time, the site’s distinctive history began to suggest possibilities.

Located in Liberty, the property occupies the former Odd Fellows Home and has become something of a local legend. It was formerly a large charitable residential complex operated by the Independent Order of Odd Fellows, a fraternal organization that provided care for orphans, elderly members, widows, and others in need. Now visitors can tour both the winery and the historic grounds, which include a cemetery and a wealth of stories accumulated over generations.

Oppenheim carefully avoids describing the event as a haunted-house experience. Instead, he sees the setting as fertile ground for a different kind of tension.

The building, he said, lends itself to “a story that can be quite unsettling in the best way.”

Stephanie Mooneyhan, Re:Sound’s executive director and one of the ensemble’s singers, agrees that the venue helps create the evening’s distinctive atmosphere.

“I think when the audience arrives, they’re really going to be drawn in just walking into the building,” she said.

While the performance coincides with the Halloween season, Mooneyhan emphasized that the production is not a Halloween concert in the traditional sense. She says the vibe is spooky without gimmicks or cheap scares. Instead, the experience appears aimed at creating a sense of unease, curiosity and discovery.

Oppenheim compares the mood less to horror films than to psychological thrillers.

“I think of it more like a suspenseful thriller as opposed to a horror movie,” he said.

He points to filmmakers such as Jordan Peele and M. Night Shyamalan as examples of the dramatic territory Re:Sound hopes to explore.

“You will be listening and observing and being part of this story,” he said. “There are moments that are placed there to make it like things may not be what they seem.”

Music plays a central role in shaping that atmosphere.

The program draws heavily from Baltic choral traditions, music Oppenheim admires for its unusual combination of folk-rooted directness and sophisticated craftsmanship. Choral singing occupies a unique place in Baltic culture, particularly in Latvia and Estonia, where enormous song festivals can draw tens of thousands of participants.

“It’s really the heart and soul of it,” Oppenheim said. “From the people, by the people, for the people.”

That repertoire often creates a fascinating impression of existing outside time, sounding ancient and modern simultaneously.

Latvian composer Uģis Prauliņš is known for blending the sonorities of sacred choral music with influences drawn from folk traditions and his background in progressive rock. His Missa Rigensis (”Riga Mass”), composed in 2002, is a large-scale setting of the Mass that has become one of his most widely performed works. Echoes in the Walls will include the Crucifixus from that Mass, which is one of the work’s most introspective moments.

Also in the program is work by the well-known Finnish composer Einojuhani Rautavaara, and Re:Sound will perform one of his most popular works. The Suite de Lorca pairs Federico García Lorca’s vivid, dreamlike imagery with soaring melodic lines and richly colored harmonies.

Listeners will also encounter music by composers such as John Tavener alongside unexpected selections from outside the classical canon.

One notable example is Nick Drake’s Pink Moon, which serves as the evening’s opening musical gesture.

“It’s an amuse bouche. It’s setting the scene,” Oppenheim said.

Such eclectic programming is typical of Re:Sound whose productions regularly place contemporary popular music alongside classical masterworks when they serve the story.

““We can’t just pick great music,” Oppenheim said. “We have to pick music that fits the vibe and the feel of the story.”

For Mooneyhan, one of the most compelling aspects of the production is how seamlessly the narration and choral music interact.

“The narration and the choral music blend together so naturally,” Mooneyhan said. “Each one enhances the other.”

She believes the repertoire has been carefully chosen to pull audiences directly into the unfolding narrative.

“Joshua has done such a great job of programming the music,” she said “I think it will really draw the audience into the story.”

As the story develops, the connections between narrator and choir become increasingly elaborate. Oppenheim describes the interaction as beginning subtly before evolving into a dynamic exchange by the performance’s conclusion.

“We’ve never had a concert where the interaction between the choir and the narration goes this deep.” he said.

Adding another layer of intrigue is the extraordinary way the ensemble operates. Rather than maintaining a fixed local roster, Resound draws from a network of professional singers scattered across the country. Performers travel from states including California, Florida, Ohio and Mississippi, often gathering for the first time only a day before the concert.

That unusual process reflects the commitment Oppenheim has cultivated among colleagues who share his vision.

“They believe in the mission of what we’re trying to do,” he said. “They understand what our goals are, what the group is, and they believe in it.”

In some ways, that belief is at the heart of Echoes in the Walls. The performance is not merely an attempt to make choral music more theatrical. It is an effort to rethink how audiences experience the art form altogether.

As listeners move through the evening at Belvoir, they will encounter beautiful singing, certainly. But they will also find a carefully constructed story, a historic setting rich with memory and a sense that the voices around them are doing more than performing a concert. They are revealing clues.

Like any good thriller, the details may not fully align until the final moments. Until then, audiences are invited to listen closely.

Some echoes, after all, have stories to tell.

Re:Sound Presents

Echoes in the Walls

7:30 p.m. October 30.

Belvoir Winery and Inn, 1325 Odd Fellows Rd, Liberty, MO

For tickets and more information, visit Re:Sound Ensembles

Sponsored by the Liberty Arts Commission

KC Arts Beat is sponsored in part by Get Well KC, which offers a body‑mind approach to health and healing, helping individuals alleviate pain and optimize their overall well‑being. Learn more at www.getwellkc.com.