EDITOR’S NOTE: Each day this week, The Utah Review will provide short profiles, featuring the 33 quarterfinalists for the 2024 Gina Bachauer International Artists Competition. Afternoon and evening sessions begin Monday, June 17. For tickets and more information, see the Bachauer website. The Utah Review asked each pianist to answer four questions: 1. In addition to … Read more
In 2017, when Ballet West launched its choreographic festival, Adam Sklute, artistic director, told Dance Magazine, “We want this festival for choreography to do what the Sundance Film Festival does for film—create a hub for creativity in dance.” Judging by the exceptionally enthusiastic response from the opening night audience, this week’s Choreographic Festival VI: Asian … Read more
Ballet West’s 60th anniversary season has been simultaneously a celebration of its groundbreaking legacy in American dance and an exploration of fresh artistic possibilities going into the second quarter of the 21st century. Phil Chan, an internationally known choreographer whose organization Final Bow for Yellowface initially engaged the ballet world’s artistic gatekeepers to resist treating … Read more
The electropop opera Natasha, Pierre and The Great Comet of 1812 draws the audience into the stage action in ways unlike conventional experiences with musical theater. Take, for example, the rapid-fire exuberance of the Act II sequence comprising Balaga, The Abduction and In My House. On opening night for Pioneer Theatre Company’s (PTC) Utah premiere … Read more
The idea of turning even a rather small part of Leo Tolstoy’s monumental novel War and Peace into a musical would seem daunting, if not damn near impossible. However, Part 8 of the story, which occurs just before the novel’s midpoint, inspired Dave Malloy to do precisely that. Tolstoy, who achieved the epitome of rich … Read more
Growing up in Moscow during the 1980s, Vassily Primakov was just seven years old when he asked his mother, Marina Primakova, about starting piano lessons. “My mother was a pianist and I grew up with a lot of music around me, hearing her practice, rehearse and teach,” Primakov said in an interview with The Utah … Read more
Ririe-Woodbury Dance Company’s 60th anniversary season has been a unique experience. Last fall, Groundworks, its superb season opener which honored its founders (Shirley Ririe and Joan Woodbury) reminded us of legacies, which define why we cherish and prize something for its excellence and its value in the community. High school dancers were the focus of … Read more
Ballet West’s mixed repertory production Love and War generated some of the season’s most meaningful, sensitive performances of the company’s 60th anniversary season. The program note by Adam Sklute, the company’s artistic director, summarized it well: “Love & War is designed to reflect our humanity, showing us our individual soulful divinity, our power and defiance, … Read more
There are many classical music concertgoers who can rattle off names of some of today’s most respected violinists and pianists but what about guitarists — notably, those who are masters of the electric guitar. How many have heard of masters such as Joe Satriani, Steve Vai, Yngwie Malmsteen, and John Petrucci? Others include Steven Mackey, … Read more
Set to close out a superb 60th anniversary season, Ririe-Woodbury Dance Company’s Ascent show is pulling out all the stops for a thriller. There are two world premieres: Chapters of Being by Charlotte Boye-Christensen, who served as the company’s artistic director for 11 years, beginning in 2002, and Storyograph by current artistic director Daniel Charon. … Read more