Partnership for the Arts announces spring concerts

LAWRENCE – This spring, the Partnership for the Arts will bring top musicians from around the world to Kansas while providing opportunities for local musicians to perform throughout the region.

The spring season will kick-off on Feb. 2 with a performance by the Crossroads Wind Symphony, KU Wind Ensemble and Jazz Ensemble I featuring saxophonist and three-time Grammy Award winner Jeff Coffin. The concert is part of the Prairie Winds Festival, which brings high school students to KU for three days of classes, clinics and performances. Thanks to support from the Partnership for the Arts, Coffin, who is a member of the Dave Matthews Band and a former member of the Grammy-winning Bela Fleck and the Flecktones, will teach master classes while visiting the university.

In its ninth season, the Partnership for the Arts concert series is a collaboration between Reach Out Kansas, Inc., the Law Offices of Smithyman & Zakoura, Zakoura Family Foundation and the KU School of Music. Nearly all of the performances in the concert series are open to the public and free of charge.

Other spring highlights include performances from renowned pianists. Jed Distler, composer, pianist, music writer and radio host of the Classical Network’s “Between the Keys,” will perform on Feb. 5; and Sergei Babayan, a leading pianist who has performed with the world’s foremost orchestras and symphonies, will perform with Steven Spooner, professor of piano, on April 6.

On March 30, Julia Broxholm, soprano and professor of voice, will be accompanied on piano by Russell Miller, a professor of vocal coaching and repertoire at Eastman School of Music. Nick Weiser, a KU alumnus who is an assistant professor at Fredonia State University, will perform with the KU Jazz Ensemble I on May 3.

Thanks to support from the Partnership for the Arts, KU musicians also will perform throughout the region. A favorite springtime tradition, KU Choirs and high school choral ensembles throughout the Kansas City metro area will come together on March 24 for the KU Choral Festival: The Joy of Singing at the Kauffman Center for the Performing Arts. On April 5, the KU Men’s Glee Club and the KU Women’s Chorale will perform in the Kansas State Capitol rotunda in Topeka.

Along with concerts, the Partnership for the Arts season includes master classes, teaching residencies and workshops, all of which are open to the public. In addition to the artists mentioned above, musicians visiting campus this semester include Teng Zhe, John Perry, Nino Sanikidze, Massmiliano Baggio, Alexander Korsantia, Hie-Yon Choi and members of the San Francisco Symphony.

A full list of concerts and resident artists can be found here: https://music.ku.edu/reach-out-kansas-inc-concert-series.

For more information, contact the KU School of Music at 785-864-3436 or visit www.music.ku.edu.

Spring 2019 Partnership for the Arts Concerts