This week on Open Air, KALW’s radio magazine for the performing arts in the San Francisco Bay Area, host David Latulippe talks with Canadian piano virtuoso Hershey Felder (above, in character) who is currently at TheatreWorks Silicon Valley with his new programA Paris Love Story, in which he captures the life and music of impressionist composer Claude Debussy, and shares his own deeply personal connection to the City of Light and Debussy's music.
Felder’s acclaimed portrayals of Irving Berlin, Beethoven, and Tchaikovsky, have shattered box office records at TheatreWorks, and with this new show A Paris Love Story, he has already broken his own previous records for highest grossing show prior to opening (Tchaikovsky), and for final sales (Beethoven). A Paris Love Story runs through May 5 at the Mountain View Center for Performing Arts (500 Castro St.) in Mountain View.
Also stopping by is choreographer Alyssandra Katherine Wu to share details about the world premiere of Unraveled, a new project by her own Alyssandra Katherine Dance Project (AKDP). Featuring an ensemble of five performers, and film projection design by Clare Schweitzer, Unraveled explores the all too common experience of dependency, addiction and isolation. The five ensemble members blend movement with spoken word, drawing on a mix of personal stories of dependency and addiction, in addition to stories gathered through interviews with members of an East Bay chapter of Alcoholics Anonymous and the Center for Open Recovery in San Francisco. Unraveled is performed on April 11, 12 and 13 (8pm) at ODC Theater (3153 17th St.) in San Francisco.
From the Community Music Center (CMC) in San Francisco, we meet with executive director Julie Rulyak Steinberg and event producer Jennifer Peringer to talk about CMC's sixteenth Annual Faculty Keyboard Marathon, this Sunday, April 14th.
The theme for the marathon is Revolution! Music in Times of Turmoil, Trouble, and Triumph. The program features works by eighteen different composers, from the 18th century to the present date, performed by twenty talented pianists. Composers on the program include Francois Couperin, Frederic Chopin, Ruth Crawford, John Cage and Amy Beach. The event takes place from 1-5 pm at the CMC Concert Hall (544 Capp St.) in San Francisco.
Plus, Open Air’s regular contributor and critic at large, Peter Robinson, discusses the movie The Chaperone, starring Elizabeth McGovern (Downton Abbey); and he reviews the newly opened exhibition of early works by the Flemish painter Peter Paul Rubens (1577–1640).
Early Rubenscan be seen through September 8 at the Legion of Honor Museum in San Francisco.
Open Air with host David Latulippe; heard live on Thursday, April 11 at 1pm. Listen now or anytime…