Museum, orchestra pair to bring art to life through music
MUSIC
Pairing art and music
Crystal Bridges Museum of American Art and the Symphony of Northwest Arkansas are joining forces for a concert titled “SoNA Beyond and Crystal Bridges Present: I Paint What I See,” inspired by the museum’s “Diego Rivera’s America” exhibition, 7 p.m. Friday in the Great Hall of the museum, 600 Museum Way, Bentonville. Felipe Tristán conducts a SoNA chamber orchestra in works by Javier Álvarez, Alejandro Basulto, José Pablo Moncayo, Gabriela Ortiz, Silvestre Revueltas and Carlos Chávez, “designed to sonically bring the artwork to life,” according to a news release. (Chavez was a friend of Rivera and his wife, artist Frida Kahlo; members of the Chávez family will travel from Mexico to attend the concert.)
The concert is part of the orchestra’s “SoNA Beyond” concert series. Support comes from Greenwood Gearhart Investments and the Walmart Foundation. Tickets are $30 ($75 for VIP, $15 for students and “self-identified low-income individuals.” Visit tinyurl.com/xxv4rehs.
BOOKS
‘Big Read’ grant
The National Endowment for the Arts, in partnership with Arts Midwest, is giving $20,000 to the Little Rock-based Central Arkansas Library System for NEA “Big Read” programming in 2023-24.
The grant will support a spring 2024 community reading program focusing on the 2018 book “There, There” by Tommy Orange, a finalist for the 2019 Pulitzer Prize and recipient of the 2019 PEN/Hemingway Award. It follows 12 characters from American Indian communities as they travel to the Big Oakland Powwow.
CALS will hold its “Big Read” kick-off event March 8 at Little Rock’s Historic Arkansas Museum. It will be in conjunction with the 15th anniversary of the exhibit “We Walk in Two Worlds,” which tells the ongoing story of Arkansas’ three prominent tribes.
Other project partners include the Sequoyah National Research Center at the University of Arkansas at Little Rock and the American Indian Center of Arkansas.
CALS’ March-May “Big Read” programming will include book giveaways and discussions, film screenings and other activities that explore American Indian history and celebrate its contemporary culture in Arkansas, according to a library spokeswoman.
In total, the NEA is handing out $1,075,000 in grants to 62 nonprofit organizations in 35 states, ranging from $5,000 to $20,000, to support programming centered upon one of several contemporary books from the NEA Big Read Library (arts.gov/initiatives/ nea-big-read) “with the aim of inspiring meaningful conversations, artistic responses, and new discoveries and connections in participating communities,” according to a news release.
FILM
Prize-winning short
“Bienvenidos a Los Angeles,” a short film by Lisa Cole, formerly of Hot Springs, was one of two grand prize winners at the 2023 Diversity in Cannes Short Film Showcase, promoting the work of diverse filmmakers, last month in Cannes, France.
Cole told the Hot Springs Sentinel Record ahead of the showcase that the film is based on a true story about her former babysitter’s experience trying to reunite with her son coming back from Mexico through the Los Angeles International Airport.
Cole, originally from California, moved to Hot Springs when she was about 10, graduated from Lake Hamilton High School and attended the University of Arkansas in Little Rock for about a year. She then spent time performing with and eventually becoming assistant production manager for Up With People and subsequently studied cinema and television at Loyola Marymount University in Los Angeles.
“I think I draw upon a wellspring of experiences (in Hot Springs), and I’m actually in the process of writing something inspired by my childhood growing up there,” she told the Sentinel Record. She now lives in Los Angeles but still has a home in Hot Springs and divides her time between the cities. She is a board member of the Hot Springs Documentary Film Festival.
The other winning film is “Hand in Hand” by New Zealand filmmaker Shelley Waddams. As part of their prize packages, Cole and Waddams will receive complimentary film festival submission, agent/ manager meetings, mentorship sessions with production company and television executives, legal contract review, social media/PR strategy consultation, short film score consultation and a comprehensive list of global film initiatives.
ETC.
D.C. celebrates Ozarks
“The Ozarks: Faces and Facets of a Region” is the theme of the Smithsonian’s Center for Folklife and Cultural Heritage’s 2023 Smithsonian Folklife Festival, Thursday-July 4 and July 6-9, primarily on the National Mall between 12th and 14th streets in Washington.
Daytime programs by musicians, dancers, cooks, artisans, storytellers and others will run from 11 a.m.-5:30 p.m.; 6 p.m. evening concerts include “An Evening with Ozark Women” featuring Melissa Carper (Thursday), “NextGen Ozarks Showcase” (Saturday) and “Ozarks Opry” with comedian Terry Wayne Sanders and headliners Big Smith (July 6). The Ozark Mountain Daredevils will make a special appearance July 4. Smithsonian Folkways Recordings and the Ozarks share the stage July 8 with a show featuring the Po’ Ramblin’ Boys. Community square dances will be held on both Saturdays after the concerts (July 1 and 8). Admission is free.
The name “Ozarks” has its origins in the way native Illini people referred to their southern neighbors who lived in the lands where the Arkansas River empties into the Mississippi River. Today, it is generally recognized as a geographic expanse stretching across portions of Missouri, Arkansas, Oklahoma, Kansas and Illinois.