“It’s going to be a good one,” says Steve Shanley on week six of the Cedar Rapids Municipal Band’s 2023 season. Ryan Smith will be featured with a classical saxophone solo and the band will present a challenging piece by Valerie Coleman that mixes styles from Latin jazz to Turkish music. Other selections this week … Continue reading

Larry Baker managed and owned movie theaters in Oklahoma before moving to Iowa and writing novels. His seventh book, “Harry & Sue,” takes place in just such a theater, populated by a variety of ghosts you will know, such as Marilyn Monroe, Harry Chapin, Mark Twain, Patsy, Cline, and Harry Houdini. But the ghosts, particularly … Continue reading

Community Concert organizations were created in the 1930s, as smaller communities worked to bring musicians and entertainers to towns of all sizes, not just big cities. The Cedar Rapids Community Concert Association has been doing that very thing for 93 years. Board member John Haack says because the group is all-volunteer, they can keep ticket … Continue reading

This is arguably the biggest week of the year for Cedar Rapids Municipal Band, as the patriotic-themed concerts around Independence Day are always popular. But Muni Band director Steve Shanley says the program will not only include expected favorites like America The Beautiful (featuring the Cedar Rapids Concert Chorale), Stars & Stripes Forever, and Armed … Continue reading

Trumpeter John Daversa and pianist Tal Cohen are back in Eastern Iowa as faculty for the annual Cedar Rapids Chamber Music Festival, June 26-30 on the Kirkwood campus. They’ll bookend their week here with two “Art of Duo” shows, June 25 at CSPS Hall, and July 1 at the Sound Conservatory in Rock Island. Five … Continue reading

Steve Shanley, after being out of the country for the first two weeks of the Cedar Rapids Municipal Band season, picks up his baton this week for a program that features his friend and mentor David Lang on euphonium. Also, music from Disney’s “Brave,” a Phantom of the Opera medley, and a song with the … Continue reading

Cedar Rapids Opera brings two comedies to the Brucemore outdoor stage June 22-24, “American Gothical,” a delightful take on the creation of Grant Wood’s masterpiece, from the pen of Cedar Rapids native and award-winning composer Robert Lindsay Nassif, and Puccini’s “Gianni Schicchi,” in which a family must enlist the help of a scoundrel to help … Continue reading

Culture Crawl 828 “Jazz Titans Walk into the Studio” Gabriel Espinoza celebrates his latest album “Bosses & Boleros” with a Cedar Rapids performance on June 23 at the inaugural Jazz on 2nd. Gabriel talks about how a Yucatan native ended up as professor of jazz at Iowa’s Central College, and also the joy (and nerves) … Continue reading

Riverside Theatre’s Free Outdoor Shakespeare series returns this summer with “Twelfth Night,” one of The Bard’s best-known comedies, spinning a tale of mistaken identity, romance, revenge and other hijinks.  Adam Knight and Kathleen Johnson say make sure to come at 6:30 for the “Green Show,” kind of a condensed version of the play to help … Continue reading

Dennis Green was present for the very first July 4 fireworks display in downtown Cedar Rapids, which over the past 40 years has grown into the 3-week Freedom Festival celebration. Freedom Festival celebrates its big birthday with the return of some old favorite events, plus some new ones, including Jazz on 2nd, the Festival’s first … Continue reading