The University of Rochester is supporting the first-ever First Niagara Rochester Fringe Festival (Sept. 19 to 23) both as a sponsor and supporter of 30 shows. Faculty, students, and staff will perform at numerous festival events and locations, and the University’s Eastman School of Music will host both students and faculty members and guest artists and ensembles. Below is a wrap-up of performances featuring artists affiliated with the University and events taking place at a University venue. For more on the festival, visit http://rochesterfringe.com/.
SAVOR: PORTRAITS OF EATING (visual art)
Sproull Atrium, Miller Center, Eastman School of Music (next to Max of Eastman Place)
Wednesday, Sept. 19 & Saturday, Sept. 22 Free
Savor is a series of portraits by Sara Basher, a recent MFA graduate of RIT. The series was inspired by her friends and coworkers at Questa Lasagna.
PRESENT TENSE DANCE: VERITAS
East Wing, Rm. 415, Eastman School of Music
Thursday, Sept. 20, 6:45 to 7:30 p.m. $7
Present Tense Dance Company examines the bluntness of truth in this compelling new work,Veritas, by choreographer Anne Harris Wilcox. Additional highlights in the concert will be Wilcox’s comical work, Magnum Opus; the upbeat and swinging Reunion; and Wild Swans at Coole, a collaboration with Eddie Murphy of Drumcliffe Irish Arts.
SHIMMY SHAKE DOWN
Sproull Atrium, Miller Center, Eastman School of Music (next to Max of Eastman Place)
Thursday, Sept. 20, 9 to 10 p.m. $10
Tribal Goddess Collective presents a Middle Eastern-inspired dance featuring a dozen Rochester dancers showcasing swords, veils, and more.
A CAPPELLA HOUR
RAPA’s East End Theatre
Friday, Sept. 21, 5 to 6 p.m. $12/$8 students
A Cappella Hour features the University’s YellowJackets and RAPA’s Roc City Singers. The YellowJackets recently competed on season three of NBC’s The Sing-Off, and the Roc City Singers are Rochester’s own “Glee!”
ROCHESTER PHILHARMONIC ORCHESTRA: MARIMBA BAND
Hatch Recital Hall, Eastman School of Music
Friday, Sept. 21 5:30 to 6:30 p.m. $15
The RPO Marimba Band continues a half-century tradition that was established in the 1950’s by the Eastman School of Music’s Marimba Masters. Specializing in music written and arranged for melodic percussion instruments, the RPO Marimba Band primarily features ragtime xylophone pieces and novelty music from the early decades of the 20th century as well as many Latin and jazz tunes, and performs on xylophone, two marimbas, vibraphone, steel drum, drum set, and various percussion instruments.
HARLEM GOSPEL CHOIR
Kodak Hall at Eastman Theatre
Friday, Sept. 21, 8 p.m. $10 – $40 ($10 tickets with a valid student ID only.)
The world-famous Harlem Gospel Choir is America’s premier gospel choir and has performed around the globe for 25 years. Rochester’s own sacred steel superstars, The Campbell Brothers, will open the show. ASL Interpretation provided.
DRAG 101
Sproull Atrium, Miller Center, Eastman School of Music (next to Max of Eastman Place)
Friday Sept. 21, 11 p.m. to 12:30 a.m. & Saturday, Sept. 22, 12:00 p.m. to 1:30 a.m. $8 DeeDee Dubois hosts Drag101, a unique blend of Rochester’s best drag entertainers. A different show each night, featuring new and seasoned performers.
OLIVER BROWN AND HIS EXTRAORDINARY UKULELES
Bernunzio Uptown Music, 122 East Ave.
Friday, Sept. 21, 7 to 8 p.m. $5
Oliver Brown performs Shakespearean tales about milk runs, girls with cotton-candy hair, and master-servant deli situations. Featured in the documentary, Rock that Uke, Brown also has a song on Sesame Street.
ON TAP: ORIGINAL MUSIC WITH DANCE
Sproull Atrium, Miller Center, Eastman School of Music (next to Max of Eastman Place)
Friday, Sept. 21, 7 to 8:15 p.m. $10
Live contemporary jazz and classical music, composed by Eastman School of Music and Nazareth College students and alumni, meets local professional dancers. Featured composers Jennifer Bellor, Matt Evans, Josh Forgét, Colin Gordon, and Aaron Staebell collaborate with featured dancers and choreographers, including Hannah Beach Chisholm, Alex Dugdale, Rebecca McArthur, Missy Pfohl Smith, and Courtney World.
WE WERE THERE
Geva Theatre Center Nextstage
Friday, Sept. 21, 4 to 5 p.m. and Saturday, Sept. 22, 11:30 a.m. to 12:30 p.m. $15
We Were There, an original work by Rochester’s Geriactors, dramatizes true stories from personal and ancestral experiences of company members from the Napoleonic wars through WWII.
SPIRITS WITHIN
Christ Church
Thursday, Sept. 20, 9:30 p.m.; Friday, Sept. 21, 8 and 9 p.m.; and Saturday, Sept. 22, 8 p.m. $10 Eastman School of Music’s Stephen Kennedy will improvise on the restored 1790 Christ Church organ while dancers from FuturPointe improvise in movement. RIT professor Marla Schweppe and her 3D Digital Design students also will improvise graphics projected on the organ and dancers.
VANESSA MANGIONE QUARTET
East Wing, Rm. 415, Eastman School of Music
Friday, Sept. 21, 8 to 9 p.m. $5
The Vanessa Mangione Quartet is a young-blood jazz/R&B group with its own take on standards and contemporary hits. With original arrangements of repertoire from Cole Porter to The Beatles to Amy Winehouse, VMQ offers performances that blur the lines between jazz and pop, old and new. All performers are graduates from the Eastman School of Music.
DEAR DEXTER
Java’s
Thursday, Sept. 20, 9:30 p.m. and Saturday, Sept. 22, 5 p.m. Free
Dear Dexter plays acoustic rock ‘n’ roll, meshing acoustic guitar styles with classic rock for a unique sound.
SIGNAL (Film)
The Little, Theatre 1
Saturday, Sept. 22, 2 and 3 p.m. Free
In Signal, visual compositions of sun images interwoven with animated sequences respond to the perceived chaos on the sun. A collaborative work by Prof. Stephanie Maxwell (RIT School of Film and Animation), Peter Byrne (Associate Prof., RIT School of Design), David Saroff (RIT PhD student, Astrophysics), and composer Elizabeth Kelly (PhD candidate, Eastman School of Music).
PEACH PRESERVES
East Wing, Rm. 415, Eastman School of Music
Saturday, Sept. 22, 8 to 9 p.m. $5
Peach Preserves is the inspired musical child of Adrian DiMatteo, several rhythm players from Eastman School of Music, and a night of jamming.
UR AFTER HOURS A CAPPELLA
Bernunzio Uptown Music, 122 East Ave.
Saturday, Sept. 22, 6 to7 p.m. $8
After Hours, the University of Rochester’s co-ed a cappella group, began in 1998 as a vocal jazz group, and was originally called Charivari, after the old French term for “rough music.” Two years later, the group dynamic changed from vocal jazz to rock and pop, making way for the UR’s newest a cappella ensemble, After Hours.
GRR!
Sproull Atrium, Miller Center, Eastman School of Music (next to Max of Eastman Place) Saturday, Sept. 22, 8 to 9 p.m. $10
Original compositions and select cover tunes from the GRR! range from fun and quirky to dark and haunting, always with carefully-crafted arrangements and provocative twists and turns along the way.
PATTON OSWALT
Kodak Hall at Eastman Theatre
Saturday, Sept. 22, 8 p.m. $15 – $55
One of today’s hottest comedians, Patton Oswalt has five TV specials and five critically-acclaimed albums, two of which were nominated for Best Comedy Album Grammys. Opening for Oswalt will be Rochester’s own Jamie Lissow. ASL Interpretation provided.
MANSFIELD AVENUE BAND
Sproull Atrium, Miller Center, Eastman School of Music (next to Max of Eastman Place)
Thursday, Sept. 20, 10 p.m. to 1 a.m. $8
Mansfield Ave delivers a high-caliber, modern acoustic-rock sound and covers music from the 90’s to now.
SONGS BY DAVID TEMPERLEY
Sproull Atrium, Miller Center, Eastman School of Music (next to Max of Eastman Place)
Saturday, Sept. 22, 6 to7 p.m. $10
David Temperley is a professor of music theory at the Eastman School of Music, but in his spare time, he’s written more than 100 songs. The style is a unique blend of rock, classical, and cabaret, with engaging melodies, witty and touching lyrics, and intricate piano accompaniments. Two talented Eastman graduates, Noelle McMurtry and Carli Miller, will sing, accompanied by Temperley at the piano.
HIDE THE MOON: BASED ON SALOME
RAPA’s East End Theatre
Wednesday, Sept. 19, 8:30 to 9:30 p.m. and Saturday, Sept. 22, 10:30 to11:30 p.m. Free Hide the Moon: based on Salome leaves no emotion undiscovered. In this reinvention of Oscar Wilde’s scandalous 1891 play, Eastman School of Music students combine drama, music, and movement in what promises to be a wild and fresh theatrical event.
BREAKDOWN: DANCE/SOUND
Christ Church
Saturday, Sept. 22, 4 to 5 p.m. $10/6 students The fusion of orchestral music and contemporary dance has never been more interactive, surprising, and engaging. Dancers and musicians alike will test assumptions about the roles of audience and performer, stage and house. This family-friendly, multi-art experiment invites all to become part of the visual and aural landscape. Featuring “some of the area’s top modern dancers,” BIODANCE will playfully premiere new dance works that will fuse seamlessly with the power of Sound ExChange’s 30-member orchestra.
SOLO PERCUSSION & MULTIMEDIA: Peter Ferry
Hatch Recital Hall, Eastman School of Music
Thursday, Sept. 20, 6 to 7 p.m. & Saturday, Sept.22, 1 to 2 p.m. $5 Peter Ferry is an enthusiastic performer of new works written for percussion, using multimedia technology to create an unforgettable experience for all audiences. This Fringe performance will include the Nostalgia Project, a collaboration exploring personal memories created with composer Matt Evans, and students and faculty from RIT.
RENAISSANCE REMIX: 16th-century Art, Music, and Dance for All Ages
Memorial Art Gallery
Saturday, Sept. 22, Noon to 4 p.m. Free with gallery admission
This multi-faceted event celebrates the Memorial Art Gallery’s new Gill Discovery Center exhibit, Renaissance Remix: Art & Imagination in 16th-century Europe. Designed especially for families, the afternoon features performances and mini dance lessons by Rochester City Ballet, interactive organ demonstrations and concerts by Eastman School of Music faculty and students on the antique Italian Baroque Organ, and guided tours of the Gill Discovery Center and other Renaissance artworks.
THREADING
Writers & Books
Saturday, Sept. 22, 10 to11 p.m. and Sunday, Sept. 23, 3 to 4 p.m. Free
Threading is a modern retelling of the Greek myth of the three Fates, the legendary figures charged with spinning, measuring, and cutting the thread of life. It follows three co-workers cooped up in a corporate office, accompanied by their otherworldly supervisor, Moros.
PERFORMING PUBLIC SPACE WITH ROCHESTER CONTEMPORARY DANCE COLLECTIVE RoCo
Saturday, Sept. 22, 3 to 6 p.m. Free
How are dancers, artists, and activists redefining public space today? As part of the exhibition, State of the City 2012: Whose Space? Our Space!, RoCo and The Memorial Art Gallery present: Performing Public Space with Rochester Contemporary Dance Collective.
ROCHESTER PHILHARMONIC ORCHESTRAL ARGOS TRIO
Hatch Recital Hall, Eastman School of Music
Sunday, Sept. 23, 2 p.m. and 3 p.m. $15
Formed in 2007 with violinist Liana Koteva Kirvan, cellist Lars Kirvan, and pianist Chiao-Wen, the Argo Trio has received consistent praise for its superb interpretations of baroque to contemporary music. Combining the strict yet artistic training of the Eastern European School with the refined freedom of the American conservatory, the Trio was recently praised by Stephen Neal Dennis (allartsreview4u.com), after performing Shostakovich’s Trio No. 2, as giving “a defining performance of what must have been one of the greatest piano trios of the twentieth century.
BILL EVANS AND COMPANY: MODERN JAZZ. MODERN TANGO, AND CONTEMPORARY DANCE
East Wing, Room 415, Eastman School of Music
Sunday, Sept. 23, 2 p.m. and 3:30 p.m. $10/$5 (students)
This exciting, dynamic, emotionally-moving and entertaining choreography by award-winning dance-maker, Bill Evans, will be performed by nine world-class dance artists. The 50-minute program includes athletic modern jazz, visually stunning modern tango, and both humorous and lyrical contemporary dance.
