friday may 16th 2008
Buffalo Select Chorus
Susan Marie
The Buffalo Select Chorus will perform their 3rd Annual Concert June 4 at 7PM in Asbury Hall at Babeville. The recital and reception is free and open to all who would like to view the evening's mixed musical repertoire and any students wishing to participate in the upcoming 2008-2009 Buffalo Select Chorus.
Sponsored by the Righteous Babe Foundation, it is the only chorus made up of Buffalo high school students, with nine different schools represented. The Buffalo Select Chorus is a talented, dynamic group that has persevered despite challenges for funding in the arts in the Buffalo schools.
In the spring of 2005, Linda Appleby (creative director and vocal instructor), along with Susan Mann Dolce (executive director) and other interested community members and parents set out to create a citywide Buffalo Public High School Chorus to begin that fall. The group would have weekly practices, play in a variety of venues over the year, have a final concert and reception, a…
User Options
thursday may 15th 2008
Clay Olympics Challenges High School Artists
Eli George
For ten years, Professor Robert L. Wood at Buffalo State College has run a ceramics programs dubbed the “Western New York Clay Olympics”. This fun event takes place at the college’s Upton Hall 128, tomorrow, May 16, and is open for the public to come and watch.
Wood says, “In order to keep it to a scale in a manageable size, we decided to invite alumni who are teachers.” Those alumni are Matt Sagurney of Kenmore East, Ann Perry-Smith of Lancaster, Brett Coppins of Lewiston-Porter, and Scott Losi of Pioneer. These four teachers and high schools have participated in this event during its ten-year run, typically involving around 35 students.
“They’re just sort of fun events that build camaraderie among the students participating. It’s a way for these kids to share their love and enthusiasm for the medium,” says Wood.
The students compete in teams, using clay and…
Anthony Swinnich
It's still early in 2008, but Edison Glass' “Time is Fiction” could very well end up at the top of many people's “Best of” lists at the end of the year. The Long Island quartet has put together a modern rock masterpiece with their newest album, flexing their musical muscles in ways many bands can only dream.
The disc hits the ground running with the energetic and poppy “Let Go.” The opening melody is incredibly catchy and cleverly written. While the singer comes in quickly, he opts not to clash with the guitarist's rapid strumming and utilizes a drawn out style of singing, eventually meshing brilliantly with the higher back-up/co-singing voice. The band then continues on with a choppy interlude and gang-vocals, which leads into a low-to-high singer trade-off in the next verse. At the end of the verse it builds quickly into a drop-out where the gang-vocals return…
monday may 12th 2008
GUTWorks Presents Vamping
Susan Marie
Buffalo native Kali Quinn returns home to perform her original play VAMPING at the Market Arcade Film and Arts Centre in conjunction with Road Less Traveled Theatre.
GUTWorks, a theatre & multimedia company, presents this original multimedia 5 character solo show about renewed hope and fading memories that runs from May 13 – 18. Inspired by her grandmother’s experience and set in Buffalo against Jonathan Maloney's video, Quinn creates unforgettable characters weaving a story of one woman's struggle with Alzheimer’s disease. The May 17 performance @ 2PM is especially for local caretakers & families affected by dementia. This includes a panel discussion with the following local organizations and experts:
• WNY Alzheimer's Association: Linda Sabo, Executive Director • Hospice Buffalo: Kathy LaPres, Provider Liaison • DENT Neurological Institute: Dr.…
saturday may 10th 2008
Lenny Revell Band ~ Lessons
Susan Marie
Lenny Revell hails from Buffalo, NY and began classical piano at the age of nine. Seven years later, he wrote his first song and therafter began singing lessons. His first CD “Lessons” was engineered at Pine Audio Studios with Dave Camarda in Williamsville in 2007.
Lenny Revell is solo on piano, vocals and lyrics, yet often has a band behind him. The musicians are diverse. He has performed with: Tim Webb (Gruvology), Jason Neubauer (That 80’s Hair Band) , Ric Stave (Disco Duck), Dave Camarda, Larry Perry, Amanda Nagurney, Brian Seeger, Mark Verdino and Tim Collins. Lenny has been featured in WNY Music, ArtVoice, The Buffalo News, Rochestor At Home, Keyboard Magazine and Teen Ink Magazine.
His song entitled “Who Am I?” has been featured in Regal, Lowes and AMC movie theatres nationwide during the release of Spider Man 3 in May of 2007. Another track o…
thursday may 8th 2008
"Trash and Treasure" Exhibition Opens at Buffalo Big Print
Annie Schentag
After traveling extensively throughout North America, photographer Viktoria Ciostek has produced a body of work that captures an aesthetic reminiscent of Buffalo. In "Trash and Treasure (Life on Forgotten Frontiers)," her images focus on subjects that have been "left to rot beneath a shadow of unappreciated neglect." By examining the beauty hidden in dilapidated buildings and discarded objects, these ten photographs illustrate human patterns of abandonment and shifting cultural values. These visual themes seem particularly appropriate for Buffalo, suggesting a fresh appreciation of our surroundings, be it a renovated cathedral or a crumbling factory. Buffalo's history seems to breed a personal understanding of both ruins and renewal, creating a local form of respect for the kind of beauty that links those two extremes.
Ciostek's exhibit, to be displayed May 10 at Buffal…
wednesday may 7th 2008
Armcannon: Leg Vaccuum
Anthony Swinnich
Back when video games were still in their infancy, developers relied on whichever computer system they were programming for to create any kind of audio for their games. Today's video games can sound like anything from an orchestra to a jazz band because the audio is pre-recorded and loaded onto a CD, eliminating the need to rely on the limited resources a primitive computer provides.
Those limited resources forced programmers to think carefully about what sort of music would play during their games, and there are beautiful compositions hidden in the bleeps and bloops because of this. These songs were so well written that many people feel a nostalgic connection with them today. Enter Armcannon – Buffalo's own video game rock maestros. This 5-piece outfit carefully splices many well-recognized video game tunes with elements of metal, jazz and straight-up rock to create a s…
Eli George
Buffalo Homecoming Weekend is sure to be busy for everyone in Buffalo. With a ton of different events going on, it may be hard to schedule what you’re going to do. If you would like to take a trip off the beaten path, you may want to check out the Market Arcade Theater. For a movie? Well, kind of.
The Buffalo Arts Council will be putting on the Rocky Horror Picture Show at 11:30pm on Friday June 27th and twice on Saturday June 28th, once at 10am and then a traditional midnight showing. It may seem a little early to report on something happening in June, but that’s because the council is looking for people to play the characters and there will be a sign up sheet this Saturday.
Celeste Lawson, Executive Director for the Buffalo Arts Council says, “We were looking to do Rocky Horror apart from that weekend, and then thought that weekend might be a fun time to do it because t…
tuesday may 6th 2008
Ralph Sirianni to Show at Art Council Space
Elena Cala Buscarino
Buffalo born artist Ralph Sirianni will have an opening reception this Friday, May 9. A student of Walter Prochownik at the University at Buffalo, Sirianni describes himself as an abstract expressionist who lives and breathes art.
Indeed, everything Ralph does is art related, but his collective endeavors run the gamut from poetic to scientific. A Marine Corp veteran himself, Sirianni's day job is that of art therapist at the Veterans Administration hospital. In keeping with sharing his art, he is also an instructor of portrait drawing through Ken-Ton Continuing Education.
On the flip side, Sirianni is a police volunteer, doing sketches of criminal suspects for the local news as well as the national television show, America's Most Wanted, when he was asked to draw a 10-year beyond composite of bike path rapist, Altimio Sanchez, based on the description of a past 14-ye…
Eli George
Summer means the third annual Party On The Portico Summer Happy Hour Series at the Buffalo and Erie County Historical Society. Guests get to come and enjoy beer, wine, hors d’oeuvres, free tours of the History Museum, live music, and great scenery, all for only $10.
The party is right in the view of Mirror Lake, Delaware Park, and the Japanese Gardens and while taking in the scenic backdrop, guests get to hear live music from some popular WNY musical acts. May 16th will be the first Party On The Portico featuring John and Mary and the Valkyries. The band is pictured above and plays acoustic rock and features two former members of the 10,000 Maniacs.
The series runs once a month on Friday evenings from 5pm till 8pm and will feature the following artists:
June 20 – Brian What and Groggy Darlin’ (alternative country and indie folk)
July 18 – Wendell Rivera’s La…
