Contact: Jim Carroll, 502-695-5091
jcarroll@mis.net
Grand to Present HD Broadcast
of L.A. Philharmonic Concert
in Venezuela
FRANKFORT, Ky. (Feb. 13, 2012) – Frankfort's Grand Theatre, 308 St. Clair St., will present a high-definition broadcast of an unprecedented live concert of Gustav Mahler's Symphony No. 8 from Caracas, Venezuela, at 5 p.m. Saturday, Feb. 18.
The concert event will serve as a homecoming for the Los Angeles Philharmonic's Venezuelan-born music director, Gustavo Dudamel. The epic musical work, known as "The Symphony of a Thousand," brings together multiple singers, choirs, and instrumentalists for a Romantic-era masterpiece. The L.A. Philharmonic will be joined on stage by the Simon Bolivar Symphony Orchestra of Venezuela and numerous choirs. In addition to the live performance, the broadcast will include a behind-the-scenes look at the enormous musical undertaking. The running time is 2 hours, 30 minutes.
Tickets are $18 for adult, $12 for students and may be purchased at the door, by visiting the ticket office at 312 W. Main St. between 10 a.m. and 3 p.m. weekdays, or by calling 502-352-7469.
***
Contact: Jim Carroll, 502-695-5091
jcarroll@mis.net
Grand to Present HD Broadcast
of Leonardo Exhibit
FRANKFORT, Ky. (Feb. 10, 2012) – Frankfort's Grand Theatre, 308 St. Clair St., will present a high-definition broadcast of a blockbuster exhibition of the works of Leonardo da Vinci at 7 p.m. Thursday, Feb. 16.
The historic exhibition at the National Gallery in London, entitled "Leonardo da Vinci: Painter at the Court of Milan," brings together the largest number of Leonardo's rare surviving paintings. The program is hosted by art historian Tim Marlow and television personality Mariella Frostrup.
Tickets are $10 for adult, $5 for students and may be purchased at the door, by visiting the ticket office at 312 W. Main St. between 10 a.m. and 3 p.m. weekdays, or by calling 502-352-7469.
***
The historic Grand Theatre reopened as a performance venue in the fall of 2009 after a $5 million restoration spearheaded by the non-profit organization Save the Grand Theatre Inc. The Grand opened in 1911 as a vaudeville house and later became a movie theater before it closed in 1966. With its resurrection, the Grand is a 428-seat performing and visual arts theatre featuring state-of-the-art facilities. The Grand also hosts social, educational and civic events.
Contact: Jim Carroll, 502-695-5091
jcarroll@mis.net
Met Presents Wagner's
"Gotterdammerung" in HD
FRANKFORT, Ky. (Feb. 6, 2012) – The Metropolitan Opera will perform the final opera in its new production of Richard Wagner's epic Ring cycle in a live, high-definition broadcast at Frankfort's Grand Theatre, 308 St. Clair St., at noon on Saturday, Feb. 11.
"Gotterdammerung" tells the story of the star-crossed lovers Brunnhilde and Siegfried. Deborah Voigt will sing the role of Brunnhilde; Jay Hunter Norris portrays Siegfried. This new production is directed by Robert Lepage, and the Met Orchestra will be conducted by Fabio Luisi. The running time is about 5 hours, 50 minutes. "Gotterdammerung" is sung in German with English subtitles.
Tickets are $23 each, $18 for students, and may be purchased by visiting the ticket office at 312 W. Main St. between 10 a.m. and 3 p.m. weekdays or calling 502-352-7469.
***
The historic Grand Theatre reopened as a performance venue in the fall of 2009 after a $5 million restoration spearheaded by the non-profit organization Save the Grand Theatre Inc. The Grand opened in 1911 as a vaudeville house and later became a movie theater before it closed in 1966. With its resurrection, the Grand is a 428-seat performing and visual arts theatre featuring state-of-the-art facilities. The Grand also hosts social, educational and civic events.
Contact: Jim Carroll, 502-695-5091
jcarroll@mis.net
Grand To Show English-Language Version
Of "The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo"
FRANKFORT, Ky. (Jan. 30, 2012) – The Grand Theatre, 308 St. Clair St., will show the recently released English language screen adaptation of "The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo" at 7:30 p.m. Friday, Feb. 3, and Saturday, Feb. 4. Tickets are $8.
The film is based on the best-selling crime novel by the late Stieg Larsson, and stars Daniel Craig ("Casino Royale") as a journalist who, with the help of a young computer hacker, portrayed by Rooney Mara ("The Social Network"), seeks to learn the fate of a woman who has been missing for 40 years. Christopher Plummer also stars. David Fincher, who was nominated for an Academy Award for "The Social Network," directed. The movie has been nominated for five Oscars, including Mara for Best Actress.
"Dragon Tattoo" is rated "R" and has a running time of 159 minutes. Tickets may be purchased at the door or by contacting the box office weekdays between 10 a.m. and 3 p.m. at 352-7469.
***
The historic Grand Theatre reopened as a performance venue in the fall of 2009 after a $5 million restoration spearheaded by the non-profit organization Save the Grand Theatre Inc. The Grand opened in 1911 as a vaudeville house and later became a movie theater before it closed in 1966. With its resurrection, the Grand is a 428-seat performing and visual arts theatre featuring state-of-the-art facilities. The Grand also hosts social, educational and civic events.
Contact: Jim Carroll, 502-695-5091
jcarroll@mis.net
Grand to present HD broadcast
of new opera
FRANKFORT, Ky. (Jan. 16, 2011) – The Grand Theatre, 308 St. Clair St., will present a high-definition, live broadcast of the world premiere of a new opera, "The Enchanted Island," at 1 p.m., Saturday, Jan. 21.
Librettist Jeremy Sams draws on two Shakespeare plays when the two lovers from "A Midsummer Night's Dream" are shipwrecked on a mysterious island inhabited by characters from "The Tempest."
Arias and ensembles by Baroque masters that include Vivaldi and Handel provide the music for the new opera. The all-star cast includes David Daniels as Prospero, Joyce DiDonato as Sycorax, and Placido Domingo as Neptune. The production is directed by Phelim McDermott; William Christie directs the Met Orchestra. The running time is about 3 hours, 5 minutes.
Tickets are $23 each, $18 for students, and may be purchased in advance by visiting the box office at 312 W. Main St. between 10 a.m. and 3 p.m. weekdays or calling 502-352-7469, or at the door.
***
The historic Grand Theatre reopened as a performance venue in the fall of 2009 after a $5 million restoration spearheaded by the non-profit organization Save the Grand Theatre Inc. The Grand opened in 1911 as a vaudeville house and later became a movie theater before it closed in 1966. With its resurrection, the Grand is a 428-seat performing and visual arts theatre featuring state-of-the-art facilities. The Grand also hosts social, educational and civic events.
Contact: Jim Carroll, 502-695-5091
jcarroll@mis.net
Saxophone Great Marsalis Comes
To Grand Theatre
Special to the State-Journal
FRANKFORT, Ky. (Jan. 9, 2012) – One of contemporary music's most exciting instrumentalists, Branford Marsalis, will perform with his quartet at the Grand Theatre, 308 St. Clair St., at 7:30 p.m. Thursday, Jan. 19.
Marsalis has established a remarkable career of musical exploration spanning musical genres. He has played saxophone with giants of jazz, hosted the house band for a popular late-night TV talk show, performed with major symphony orchestras, and backed some of pop music's biggest stars.
The casual observer might assume that he was destined for a career in music. He is, after all, one of six sons of New Orleans jazz pianist Ellis Marsalis Jr. Four of the six made music their careers, including his famous younger brother, trumpeter Wynton Marsalis.
But, as Branford said in a recent interview, he didn't view music as his career path.
Yes, the Marsalis brothers were the sons of an accomplished jazz pianist, but that doesn't make his family stand out in such a musical mecca.
"My father was the first musician in the family," Marsalis said. "In New Orleans, everybody plays. There must be at least 13 or 14 families where my colleagues were the third generation of musicians. We were relative newcomers."
His father got some family assistance in establishing his career as a jazz pianist. Branford's paternal grandfather, Ellis Senior, was a local businessman. Ellis Junior persuaded his father to open a nightclub in the tiny community of Shrewsbury, a few miles outside New Orleans.
"I think the whole thing was just a ploy to get a piano," Branford chuckled. "The club lasted about six months."
But it was a start for Ellis Junior, who went on to a career performing with some of the greats of bebop jazz.
Branford says he enjoyed music, but as a teenager, didn't consider it a career option. Nor was jazz his first love in music.
"I was just going to get a degree in history and play music on the side. I didn't embrace the idea (of making music a career)," he said.
Branford played in various R&B/funk bands in the late 1970s, then went to the prestigious Berklee School of Music in Boston. His brother Wynton had gigged with Art Blakey's Jazz Messengers, and urged Branford to attend a performance.
"I heard the band and I was knocked out," Branford recalled. Blakey invited him to join the band as an alto sax player, and from there, he flourished as a jazz musician.
In the ensuing years, Marsalis has played with some of the most prominent jazz figures, including Miles Davis, Herbie Hancock, and Dizzy Gillespie. He also has ventured into popular music, collaborating with Sting, Bruce Hornsby, and the Grateful Dead.
In the early 1990s, he served as the music director for the house band for The Tonight Show with Jay Leno.
In recent years, he has ventured into classical performance, serving as a featured soloist with prestigious orchestras such as the Chicago, Detroit, and North Carolina symphonies, and the Boston Pops Orchestra. In 2010-11, he was a featured soloist with the New York Philharmonic.
Learning the vernacular of jazz music has been just one part of the challenge of becoming a leading figure in jazz, Marsalis said. He has also observed how some older jazz performers seem to have failed to connect with their audiences.
"Ninety percent of the people in the audience don't listen to jazz," Marsalis said. "You have to make them curious about you, you have to find a way to take complicated (musical ideas) and distill them. The narrative is emotional, not intellectual."
The three-time Grammy winner's commitment to dynamic stage performance can be seen in the makeup of his quartet. A few years ago, when he had to replace his drummer, he made a deliberate choice to seek out young talent. He chose Justin Faulkner, who was in his late teens.
"The important thing is, after performing all these years, along with the familiarity, there is a complacency that you don't know is there," Marsalis said.
"There's 50-year-old energy, and 20-year-old energy," Marsalis said with a laugh.
He is joined by long-time collaborator Joey Calderazzo on piano and Eric Reves on bass.
The Grand Theatre performance will include selections from his most recent album, "Songs of Mirth and Melancholy."
The Grand expresses its appreciation to tonight's sponsor, Drs. Burch, Renshaw, Wix & Associates.
TICKET INFO
The Branford Marsalis Quartet will perform at the Grand Theatre at 7:30 p.m. Thursday, Jan. 19. Tickets are $55, $65 and $80 and may be purchased online at the Grand Theatre Web site, http://www.grandtheatrefrankfort.org, or by contacting the box office weekdays between 10 a.m. and 3 p.m. at 352-7469. At press time, tickets remained available in all price ranges. ***
The historic Grand Theatre reopened as a performance venue in the fall of 2009 after a $5 million restoration spearheaded by the non-profit organization Save the Grand Theatre Inc. The Grand opened in 1911 as a vaudeville house and later became a movie theater before it closed in 1966. With its resurrection, the Grand is a 428-seat performing and visual arts theatre featuring state-of-the-art facilities. The Grand also hosts social, educational and civic events.