Murder Castle, Unruly Music, MAM’s Euro Mo/Po-Mo Show
Music
Composer Christopher Burns, of Unruly Music.
Chris Burns’ Unruly Music Series returns to Marcus Center Vogel Hall for three nights (Oct. 7-9) of music from the edge. Thursday, the Milwaukee Laptop Orchestra performs works by George Lewis and Marina Rosenfeld, Gavin Bryars, Greg Surges, and Amanda Schoofs, a charismatic young composer at least temporarily ensconced at UWM, where Burns and the series reside. Friday, composer/reed man Matthew Burtner will play music for soprano saxophone and water, wind and sand. (Really; it’s environmental.) Saturday, Chicagoan Elizabeth Block will play the piano along with field recordings, sounds made with found objects and assorted electronic sounds.
Start time is 7:30 p.m. Tickets are $12, $10 for seniors, $8 for UWM types. Call the UWM Peck School of the Arts box office, 414-229-4308, or the Marcus Center box office, 414-273-7206.
Edo de Waart and the Milwaukee Symphony opened a couple of weekends of intense Beethoven and even more intense Mahler. This weekend it’s all Rachmaninoff, with pianist Joyce Yang, who was marvelous in the Rach 3 with the MSO last season. Details here.
Both the Bel Canto Chorus and conductor Richard Hynson have improved a great deal in recent years. If you haven’t heard them in a while, this might be the time to give them another try. The 2010-11 season has a Civil War Theme. The program set for 3 p.m. Sunday (Oct. 10) features songs from the Civil War Era and Carol Barnett’s Bluegrass Mass. With the Bel Canto Boychoir and the vocal group Above the Town. The Kenosha Civil War Museum will set up an exhibition for this and all BCC concerts this year. Preconcert (2:30 p.m.) Tickets are $17-$25. Details and links here.
Theater
Chicago Columbian Exposition tourists checked in, but they didn’t check out.
Can’t wait for Halloween? It’s coming Thursday (Oct. 7) to Alchemist Theater, in the form of Aaron Kopec’s Murder Castle: The Chronicle of H.H. Holmes. The Alchemist team is converting its theater and bar (2659 S. Kinnickinnic) into something like Holmes’ bizarre Chicago hotel, which came complete with mazes and chutes and led to vats of acid. You won’t get a ticket to this show; you’ll get a key. Here’s hoping you live check out. Bwahh-hahhahaaaa….
Tickets $15. Details and links here.
Visual Art
Lamps, furniture, appliances, cookware, tableware, cars — all the stuff we live with every day — look certain ways because people have theories about how they ought to look. Get a load of the work of 90 of the most advanced thinkers in Western Europe at European Design Since 1985, which the Milwaukee Art Museum opens Saturday. Basically, giddy, eclectic Post-Modernism and resurgent, serious, consistent Modernism duke it out. I predict that this show will be a big draw; it’s like shopping, but you don’t have to spend any money. Saturday (Oct. 9)through Jan. 9. Details here.
Frame from Kim Miller’s L’Apres-midi, from the Mary Nohl Fellowship show at UWM Inova.
The Mary L. Nohl Fellowships are a little like the local Oscars in visual art. It’s a big deal to get one, the cash is nice, and the annual fellowship exhibition is an important showcase. The seventh annual exhibition opens with a reception 5-8 p.m. Friday, Oct. 8, at the UWM Inova Gallery, 2155 N. Prospect Ave. The show will be up through Dec. 12, with several related events throughout the run. Like MAM’s Euro design show, the Nohl is a must-see for everyone who’s anyone. Admission free, details here.
Ongoing
At the Milwaukee Rep: Laurel and Hardy (Stackner Cabaret), My Name Is Asher Lev (Steimke), Cabaret (Quadracci Powerhouse). Also at the Rep, 10:30 p.m. Thursday (Oct. 7, post-Asher Lev, one night only), folk-singer-storyteller Li’l Rev, “the Jewish Pete Seeger.”
At Renaissance Theaterworks: Neil LaBute’s Reasons to Be Pretty.
Last Chance
Danceworks Performance Company’s Lying, closes Saturday (Oct. 9).
Next Act Theatre’s Four Places, closes Saturday (Oct. 10).
