Front Row Center

Barbara Koostra, director of the Montana Museum of Art and Culture, and Julie Biando Edwards, associate professor at the Mansfield Library, talk with MTPR's Michael Marsolek about an important piece of Shakespeare history coming to Missoula.

The University of Montana has been named as Montana’s host for the “First Folio! The Book that Gave Us Shakespeare." The Folio is on national tour from the Folger Shakespeare Library. The First Folio exhibition will be on display in MMAC and open to the public May 9-31, 2016. The display in Missoula is sponsored by the Maureen and Mike Mansfield Library and the Montana Museum of Art & Culture (MMAC).

Tom Rigney and Flambeau deliver their fiery, electrifying performances of Cajan, zydeco, low-down blues, funky New Orleans grooves and heartbreakingly beautiful ballads and waltzes to audiences in Central Montana. Sunday, April 3, 4 p.m. Hobson Public School in Hobson Tuesday, April 5, at 7:30 p.m Mansfield Theater in Great Falls. Tickets and information . Tom Rigney and Flambeau are featured as part of the new PBS music series " Music Gone Public " that's currently airing on more than a hundred

Missoula Community Concert Band Silver Anniversary Spring Concert Conduced by Dr. Thomas H. Cook Monday, March 28 at 7:30 p.m. at MCT Center for the Performing Arts 200 North Adams Street, Missoula Doors open at 7:10 p.m. FREE admission (donations accepted) For more information, contact Steve Corn at 406-240-8026 or [email protected]. The Missoula Community Concert Band is now in its 25th year, and has performed about 50 regular concerts and many outreach concerts at schools in Missoula and

Michael Marsolek talks with cellist Fern Glass Boyd and violinist Carrie Krause about the February 21, 2016 performance of the String Orchestra of the Rockies, 7:30 p.m. at the Music Recital Hall in the School of Music at the University of Montana-Missoula.

Documentary filmmaking and Montana are getting along like a house on fire. Every February, Missoula's Big Sky Documentary Film Festival draws a growing audience to more and more non-fiction films that have been submitted by filmmakers from around the globe, furthering the Big Sky Film Institute's mission to encourage media literacy by fostering public understanding and appreciation of documentary film.

Michael Marsolek talks with Anne Basinski, Director of The University of Montana's Opera Theater, about the collaborative production of Gilbert and Sullivan's " The Gondoliers ." Produced at the MCT Center For the Performing Arts and featuring the UM Symphony Orchestra, the cast of this production of "pure melodious goofiness" (and some contemporary satire) includes Roxann Jackson as the Dutchess, Royce Mcintosh as Giuseppe, and Taylor Caprara as Casilda.

The Vienna International Ballet and Contemporary Dance Competition comes to Missoula, January 12-16, 2016 - but according to Charlene Campbell Carey , Artistic Director of Missoula's Rocky Mountain Ballet Theatre, the moniker for the event is "VIBE," or The Vienna International Ballet Experience . That's because the dance challenge is part of a broader, multidisciplinary series of community events , nearly all of them free, all asking the question, "What is the role of the arts in communication,