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Set to brighten the new year, the McAninch Arts Center has announced its winter and spring programming. Selections include a one-night-only engagement of The Texas Tenors, streamed live from the MAC’s Belushi Performance Hall, the international hit “Piaf! The Show” and the debut of three New Philharmonic concerts.
Tickets are now on sale at AtTheMAC.org.
“We’re thrilled to have the Emmy Award-winning Texas Tenors back on our stage on Sunday, April 11,” MAC Director Diana Martinez stated in a news release. “This livestreamed, one-night-only concert is as close to an in-person MAC experience as you can get. They were a huge hit when we first presented them in March 2019, and we are excited to replicate this experience virtually. I personally am looking forward to presenting the pre-recorded smash hit, ‘Piaf! The Show.’ It’s been performed in more than 50 countries and even at Carnegie Hall. I fell in love with this musical celebration of the life and music of the legendary French chanteuse when I saw it, and I know our audience will too.”
New Philharmonic, under the baton of Kirk Muspratt, presents three streamed concerts, all pre-recorded exclusively for MAC audiences. The concerts include “A Night of Broadway & Opera” (premiering Jan. 23 and available until Feb. 28); “Rachmaninoff Piano Concertos” (premiering April 17) and “A Salute to Frida” (premiering May 15). The “Rachmaninoff Piano Concertos” and “A Salute to Frida” concerts will be viewable on demand from their premiere date through June 15.
By popular demand, the livestreamed magic show by Dennis Watkins, “The Magic Parlor At Home,” has been extended again through Jan. 30.
2021 also marks the grand opening of the Cleve Carney Museum of Art with the “Frida Kahlo: Timeless” exhibition from June 5 to Sept. 6.
“The College and the MAC are closely following all CDC and state regulations,” the release stated. “It is our hope that public health officials will deem cultural institutions safe to reopen in time for us to have the Kahlo exhibition in the summer of 2021. In anticipation of the exhibition, CCMA and the MAC have created a series of events through May. In addition, in collaboration with the College of DuPage Foundation, the MAC will host its ‘For The Love of Frida – Bringing It Home’ Virtual Gala March 20.”
For more information, visit frida2.givesmart.com.
Tickets are currently on sale for the “Frida Kahlo: Timeless” exhibition set for June 5 to Sept. 6. Tickets cost $18 (timed) and $35 (untimed). For tickets and more information, visit TheCCMA.org.
Additional programming is being offered by the College of DuPage. Building on the success of streamed performances during the fall season, COD College Theater presents virtual stagings of two works, “Under Milk Wood” (streaming Feb. 25 to March 7) and “War of the Worlds: The Panic Broadcast” (streaming April 15 to 25). The public also is invited to enjoy concerts by DuPage Community Jazz Ensemble (May 6) and COD College Music Jazz/Pop Ensemble (May 7), Chamber Orchestra (May 11) and Chamber Singers (May 13), as well as Free Music Friday concerts, Jan. 29 through May 14 at noon.
The MAC encourages everyone enjoying the offerings to consider making a donation to support the MAC’s ongoing ability to continue to provide fun, creative and thought-provoking programming.
The MAC schedule of events follows, and is subject to change. Tickets are on sale now at AtTheMAC.org.
Dennis Watkins – “The Magic Parlour At Home”
8 p.m. Friday and Saturday, through Jan. 30
$49 per household
Award-winning magician Dennis Watkins has created an all-new live virtual show that delivers world-class interactive magic and mind reading directly to living room screens. Broadway World hails “The Magic Parlour at Home” as “a theatrical, mind-jazzing magical-hybrid show!”
New Philharmonic: “A Night of Broadway and Opera”
Premiering Saturday, Jan. 23, 7:30 p.m., then on demand through Feb. 28
Featuring Alisa Jordheim (soprano), Kate Tombaugh (mezzo-soprano), Jesse Donner (tenor) and Bill McMurray (bass/baritone)
$40 per household
Four acclaimed guest artists join New Philharmonic in a program of works from some of the best-loved Broadway musicals and operas.
Frida Kahlo Event
Cesáreo Moreno, “Folk Art to Fine Art, Mercados a Museos”
7 p.m. Friday, Feb. 5
Free
Cesáreo Moreno, chief curator at the National Museum of Mexican Art in Chicago, presents a talk about 20th century Mexican art and its development from local markets to museums around the world. The presentation will reveal artistic movements that emerged from the Mexican Revolution, along with the role of nationalism and the visual arts. He will explore the didactic murals, prints and the iconography that ultimately inspired the 1960s Chicano murals in the U.S. and led to public art on the streets of the Pilsen neighborhood.
Frida Kahlo Event
Julie Rodrigues Widholm, “Contemporary Art after Frida Kahlo”
3 p.m. Sunday, Feb. 21
Free
Julie Rodrigues Widholm, former DePaul Art Museum director and current director of the UC Berkeley Art Museum & Pacific Film Archive, gives a presentation on Frida Kahlo’s lasting influences in the art historical canon and explores how this legacy can be seen even through the work of contemporary artists today.
“Piaf! The Show”
7 p.m. Sunday, Feb. 28
$25 per household
More than half a million tickets have been sold internationally for this tribute to French singer-songwriter, cabaret performer and film actress Edith Piaf. Conceived and directed by Nice-based theater producer Gil Marsalla and starring Anne Carrere in the title role, this show is a compilation of Piaf’s memorable songs, such as “Padam … Padam,” “Hymne a l’Amour” and “Non, Je ne Regrette Rien,” arranged to reflect Piaf’s life, from street performer to international star.
Frida Kahlo Event
David Ouellette, “Animals Not Only Companions but Markers of Identity of the Artist”
7 p.m. Thursday, March 4
Free
College of DuPage art history professor David Ouellette explores the dominating theme of animals in Kahlo’s work. Kahlo was known for her love of animals, giving a home to many at the Casa Azul, and they also took on symbolic meaning in her paintings.
Frida Kahlo Event
Adriana Zavala, “Frida Kahlo’s Creativity: Staging Art, Staging Life”
3 p.m. Sunday, March 7
$10 per household
Adriana Zavala, curator of “Frida Kahlo: Art Garden Life,” the 2015 exhibition at the New York Botanical Garden, discusses Kahlo’s keen appreciation for the beauty and variety of the natural world, as evidenced by her home and garden as well as the complex use of plant imagery in her artwork.
Frida Kahlo Gala
“For The Love of Frida – Bringing It Home”
6 p.m. Saturday, March 20
$50-$250
For information, visit frida2.givesmart.com
The Texas Tenors
7 p.m. Sunday, April 11
$50 per household
By popular demand, The Texas Tenors will return to the MAC for a livestreamed performance. Broadway World says, “I think what I enjoyed most about the concert was the down-home-come-pull-up-a-chair-and-hang-out genuineness of the men. Despite accolades, Emmy awards, top Billboard recognition, and tours across the world that could make anyone pompous, they are still as friendly and down-to-earth as they appeared in their first interview for ‘America’s Got Talent.’”
New Philharmonic: “Rachmaninoff Piano Concertos”
7:30 p.m., Saturday, April 17, then on demand through June 15
Featuring Guest Pianist Wael Farouk
$40 per household
This concert features Rachmaninoff’s Concerto 1 in F-sharp minor, Concerto 2 in C minor and Concerto 3 in D minor. Concerto 2 is one of Rachmaninoff’s most enduring works while Concerto 1 was actually Rachmaninoff’s second attempt at a piano concerto and is very different from his later works. Rachmaninoff’s Concerto 3 in D minor builds to what has been described as the Everest of piano concertos. Featured pianist Wael Farouk has performed on five continents in such venues as the White Hall in St. Petersburg, Schumann’s house in Leipzig, and Weill Recital Hall at Carnegie Hall in New York, where his solo debut performance in 2013 was described as “absolutely masterful.” He was last seen at the MAC in “Beethoven: Five Piano Concertos | One Pianist” (2018).
Frida Kahlo Event
John Paris, “Frida Kahlo and the Mexican Revolution”
7 p.m. Wednesday, April 21
Free
John Paris, COD Professor of history and Latin American studies, covers the social and political consequences of the Mexican Revolution, how it sparked the Constitution of 1917, and its impact on members of Mexico’s art community, including Frida Kahlo and Diego Rivera.
Frida Kahlo Event
Celia Stahr, “Frida Kahlo, America, and the Impact of Place”
3 p.m. Sunday, April 25
$10 per household
The author of “Frida in America: The Creative Awakening of a Great Artist” details Kahlo’s early days in San Francisco, New York and Detroit in the 1930s during the early days of her marriage with Diego Rivera. This period saw major steps towards Kahlo’s creative awakening, which Stahr will explore in this fascinating lecture.
New Philharmonic: “A Salute to Frida”
Featuring Jesse Donner (tenor)
7:30 p.m., Saturday, May 15, then on demand through June 15
$40 per household
In anticipation of the summer 2021′s “Frida Kahlo: Timeless” exhibition, New Philharmonic presents a concert celebrating the Hispanic heritage of Frida Kahlo. Selections will include Mexican composer Agustín Lara’s “Granada,” a work that has been covered by everyone from acclaimed Mexican tenor Néstor Mesta Cháyres to Frank Sinatra to Placido Domingo; Danzón No. 2 by Mexican composer Arturo Márquez and “La Virgen de la macarena” by popular Mexican trumpeter Rafael Méndez; plus “Tico-Tico no fubá,” a Brazilian choro song written by Zequinha de Abreu; “Castilla” and “Tango” by Spanish composer Isaac Manuel Francisco Albéniz y Pascual; “Malagueña,” a song by Cuban composer Ernesto Lecuona, and “Bolero” by French composer Maurice Ravel.
Frida Kahlo Event
Karen Cordero, “Frida Kahlo: A Politics of Subjectivity and Self-Representation”
3 p.m. Sunday, May 23
$10 per household
Frida Kahlo’s work, little known and appreciated during her lifetime, acquired importance and preeminence in the light of second-wave feminism, precisely because of its distinctive qualities that relate it to the feminist motto, “The personal is political,” that underlies the social, theoretical and cultural contributions of that movement. This talk will examine and contextualize specific works by Kahlo in order to illuminate the relevance of her work to contemporary issues of subjectivity, performativity and self-representation, suggesting a reading of the “Frida Kahlo: Timeless” exhibition through this lens.
COD College Performances
College Music
Music Fridays @ Noon
Noon Jan. 29 to May 14
Free
The COD music faculty created Music Fridays @ Noon to showcase student, faculty, alumni and guest artists in a free, accessible daytime series of music performances and related events. The series is open to the entire COD community as a place where a broad spectrum of music is on display. Concerts are about one hour in length.
College Theater
“Under Milk Wood”
By Dylan Thomas
Directed by Connie Canaday Howard
Filmed and produced on Zoom
7 p.m. Feb. 25, then on demand through March 7
$16 per household
A narrator invites the audience to listen to the dreams and innermost thoughts of the inhabitants of the fictional small Welsh fishing village in this “radio play for voices” Thomas finished just before his death in 1953. First commissioned by the BBC, it had its initial broadcast in 1954. It’s been performed and celebrated by Anthony Hopkins, Richard Burton, Elton John, Catherine Zeta-Jones, Elizabeth Taylor, Peter O’Toole and many others.
College Theater
“War of the Worlds: The Panic Broadcast”
Adapted by Joe Landry
Directed by Amelia Barrett
Filmed and produced on Zoom
7 p.m. April 15, then on demand through April 25
$16 per household
In the classic sci-fi novel “The War of the Worlds,” an alien invasion throws humanity into chaos, but it was real-life panic in the streets when listeners mistook Orson Welles’s 1938 radio adaptation for news. Complete with vintage commercials and live sound effects, this radio-play-within-a-radio-play is a thrilling homage to the form’s golden age, a timely reminder of what fear can do to a society.
College Music
DuPage Community Jazz Ensemble
Director Matt Shevitz
7:30 p.m. Thursday, May 6
$7 per household
This ensemble, under the direction of Matt Shevitz, performs dances and concert programs during the academic year as well as numerous off-campus performances. Its repertoire spans more than a century of large jazz ensemble compositions, including original work from members of the ensemble. The ensemble is a frequent presence at the Elmhurst College Jazz Festival, has performances at the Jazz Showcase in Chicago, and in 2004 was recognized by the United States House of Representatives for its work on behalf of the Armed Forces Children’s Education Fund.
COD Jazz/Pop Combos
Director Matt Shevitz
7:30 p.m. Friday, May 7
$7 per household
The Jazz/Pop Combos are designed to address the fundamental concepts of jazz performance.
Chamber Orchestra
Director Philip Bauman
7:30 p.m., Tuesday, May 11
$7 per household
The Chamber Orchestra, under the direction of Philip Bauman, is a mixed group of instrumentalists consisting of student and community members. The ensemble performs both traditional literature for small orchestra/chamber music from the 1600s through the 21st century as well as less traditional chamber orchestra styles such as jazz, contemporary classical, theater and film music.
Chamber Singers: “Songs For These Times: Music Of Loss, Alienation, Doubt & Hope”
Director Lee R. Kesselman
7:30 p.m. Thursday, May 13
$7 per household
Chamber Singers specializes in vocal chamber music of all periods with particular emphasis on Renaissance madrigals and motets, music of the 20th century, and the music of many cultures. Contemporary music includes major composers, avant-garde music and arrangements of folk, ethnic and popular music.