Searles and Allen play Brazilian
popular music in April

—Gary Libman, Board Member, Placitas Artists Series

Matthew Allen, guitarist, and Julie Searles, vocalist, have been playing folk music and original compositions since they met back in 1981. Their music has expanded to include jazz standards and the music of Brazil. The concert on Sunday, April 13, at 3:00 p.m. will focus on current performance repertoire, including folk-oriented and Latin-influenced original compositions, jazz standards, and Brazilian bossa novas and sambas.

Because of a rich community of Brazilian musicians and friends in San Francisco who encouraged their interest in Brazilian popular music, both Searles and Allen concentrated on Latin music and have released popular CDs and cassette albums of their original work. In 1995, they moved to Norman, Oklahoma, to teach world music at the University of Oklahoma, and they were chosen to join the Oklahoma Arts Council’s touring roster. In 1999, they joined the faculty at Wheaton College, in Massachusetts, and in the summer of 2002 moved to Cork, Ireland. They enjoyed the opportunity to pursue their long-held interest in Irish music there. Searles and Allen’s style is unique and should not be missed.

The concert will be held as always at Las Placitas Presbyterian Church, six miles east of I-25 on NM 165 (Exit 242). There will be an artists’ reception at the church before the concert. This month’s featured artists are Adriana Scassellati, Michael Benning, Rose Ruth Ellison, and Kay Richards.

Adriana Scassellati has always been interested in art and the use of colors as displayed in various media. She is drawn to pastels, she says, “for the color variations and the ease of application,” which have opened up a new avenue for her and led her to a new appreciation of the arts which she hadn’t known before. Michael Benning’s work is made from white earthenware clay rolled out into a slab, folded or slumped, then cut or torn to the desired form. His work reflects his interest in artifacts and architectural features of other cultures. Since the early nineties, Rose Ruth Ellison has focused in her paintings on manipulating positive and negative space. Colors are chosen to emphasize strong images and to provide variations on a theme, some of them derived from images seen or photographed. Kay Richards devotes her time to watercolors and collages. She reveals her strong ties to, and personal affection for, the Southwest by capturing the beauty and feeling of each subject with a liberal use of vivid colors. Please view samples of the artists’ work on the Placitas Artists Series Web page, www.PlacitasArts.org.

Tickets for the concert will be available at the door one hour before the concert or may be purchased ahead of time at La Bonne Vie Salon and Day Spa in the Homestead Village Shopping Center in Placitas (867-3333). Tickets can also be purchased on-line. The prices for this concert are $15 for general admission and $12 for seniors and students. For additional information and ticket brochures, call 867-8080 or visit the Web site.

Treat yourself to this wonderful concert and view the art work in the acoustically superb Las Placitas Presbyterian Church. It’s a great opportunity to support your community as well as local New Mexico artists and musicians. There’s not a bad seat in the house for viewing and hearing the concert.

The concert and the art exhibit are made possible in part by New Mexico Arts, a division of the Office of Cultural Affairs, and the National Endowment for the Arts. There is handicapped access and free childcare for children under six.

Albuquerque Chamber Soloists present intriguing mix of works

Camille Saint-Saëns may have been prophetic when he refused to allow The Carnival of the Animals to be published or performed during his lifetime. After all, it had been dashed off in several days as a joke while on vacation, and he wanted to be remembered for his serious achievements. Nevertheless, The Carnival of the Animals became his most beloved work, full of parodies of Berlioz, Offenbach, Rossini, and himself.

The Albuquerque Chamber Soloists invite you to a boisterous chamber version of Carnival, with Ogden Nash’s outrageous and clever verses narrated by Marty Ronish, a radio personality.

Also on the program, entitled “Poetic License—Music Inspired By Poetry: Poetry Inspired by Music,” are Stravinsky’s Duo Concertant and Mendelssohn’s Quartet in A minor, op. 13.

The musicians include Monica Daniel (flute); Lori Lovato (clarinet); Kay Newnam, Leonard Felberg, Kathie Jarrett, David Felberg (violins); Kim Fredenburgh (viola); Joanna de Keyser (cello); Jean-Luc Matton (double-bass); Emily Cornelius (glockenspiel); Jeff Cornelius (xylophone); Astrid Groth, Arlette Felberg (piano).

The concert will be at St. Paul Lutheran Church, 1100 Indian School NE, on Sunday, April 6 at 3:00 p.m. Tickets are $10, $8, and $5 at the door.

Middle Rio Grande choral group promotes world peace through music

Communities on the west side of the Albuquerque metro area are about to be given a great treat: the premiere concert of the Westside Community Chorale, on April 11 and 13.

The chorale is made up of thirty-two residents of Corrales, Rio Rancho, Albuquerque, and unincorporated parts of Sandoval and Bernalillo counties who enjoy making music that promotes, among other things, world peace, with cultural diversity as an imperative.

The April offers music by Irving Berlin, gospel songs, environmentally conscious music, traditional spirituals, folk music and hymns from Japan and Micronesia, songs from contemporary American composers, and especially, music about music.

Performances are scheduled as follows:

• Friday, April 11, at 7:00 p.m. at the First Baptist Church, 3906 19th Avenue, Rio Rancho
• Sunday, April 13, at 3:00 p.m. at the Old San Ysidro Church, Old Church Road, Corrales

Tickets are $8 for adults, $4 for children under age twelve. They may be purchased at the Rio Rancho Chamber of Commerce (1716 Rio Rancho Boulevard), Frame-N-Art (at Corrales and Alameda), Frontier Mart (3677 Corrales Road), Bookworks (at Flying Star Plaza, 4022 Rio Grande Boulevard), and at the door.

Telemann concerts

Albuquerque Baroque Players will conclude their 2002-2003 season with two concerts featuring the work of composer Georg Philipp Telemannon April 5 at 7:30 p.m. at Los Altos Christian Church, 1190 Haines NE, in Albuquerque, and on April 6 at 3:00 p.m.at the Historic Old San Ysidro Church in Corrales. Specializing in music of the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries, the Albuquerque Baroque Players perform on period instruments. Tickets are $10 for adults, $8 for seniors, $5 for full-time students. Tickets may be purchased at the door or reserved in advance. For additional information, call 266-4450.

Concert band plays season finale

The Albuquerque Concert Band concludes the 2003 concert season. The eighty-piece symphonic band, conducted by Bruce Kroken and John Sanks, will perform “Young Talent and Vintage Classics” on Sunday, April 6 at 3:00 p.m. at La Cueva High School Theatre, Wyoming and Wilshire in the Northeast Heights. Featured will be solioist Cedric Knox, oboe, a Senior at Manzano chosen as 2003 Albuquerque Concert Band music scholarship winner. Admission is free.

NMDOT contest offers $5K prize

Win $5,000 for designing a New Mexico State Logo that will help sell “The Land of Enchantment” to the world as a visitor destination. NMDOT Secretary Fred Peralta said “We want something distinctly New Mexican, something that will serve as the state’s ‘brand’ for years to come, something that a tourist will see and in a blink not just know that it is New Mexico’s logo but feel stirred to visit New Mexico.”

For an official entry form, go on-line to www.newmexico.org and click on the Logo Contest button, visit any NMDOT visitor information center, or call 800-733-6396 and request an entry form. The contest runs until April 4.

Lovato show aids cancer research

Last month, the Art Is OK gallery and local artist Jake Lovato teamed up to help the Leukemia and Lymphoma Society with a metal-sculpture reception featuring Lovato’s latest creations “The Katchina Sculptures,” his fun little happy dancers, and one-of-a-kind coffee tables. Art Is OK gave 10 percent of the sale profits from the day. Lovato is committed to raising over $6,000 for the society and has not yet reached his goal. To donate to this fund, please call him at 867-3792 or donate to: The Leukemia and Lymphoma Society, c/o Jake Lovato, RR1, Box 3191, Bernalillo, NM 87004.

Photography exhibit emphasizes traditional approach

—Greg Johnston

Photograph, by John Vavruska

An elegant exhibit by Santa Fe photographer John Vavruska has opened at the Katrina Lasko Gallery in Bernalillo. “Two Decades of Seeing” presents twenty-one black-and-white photographs, the subjects of which are pristine landscapes.

Vavruska’s photos immediately bring to mind the legendary master photographers who have worked in New Mexico: Ansel Adams, Edward Weston, and Elliot Porter. It is apparent that Vavruska approaches photography in the same way: working with a view camera, carefully exposing the film, and laboring over each image in the darkroom. The show pays homage to the masters while allowing Vavruska to develop his own vision.

In a prepared statement, Vavruska says, “The beauty and intricacy of the natural world have inspired me for as long as I can remember. I look for the beauty that is around me and I find the making of an expressive print a satisfying way to show how I felt and what I saw when out in the field.”

Vavruska has taken his camera to far-off destinations, including the Himalayas and the Alaskan glaciers. Subjects closer to home include blades of grass along the Windsor Trail above Santa Fe and a double rainbow near Waldo, New Mexico. Humans are not seen in any of the images. All the photos share a commonality through Vavruska’s eye for detail and great skill in bringing about rich tones and contrast.

Two exquisite photos of sand dunes hang on either side of a gallery doorway. “Dunes, Death Valley, California” is a study of horizontal cascades of light and dark converging in the middle of the frame. Tiny amounts of detail are apparent through ripples in the sand in the lower corners of the frame. “Animal Tracks, Great Sand Dunes National Park, Colorado,” is one of the more intriguing, mysterious photos in the show. A massive wall of dark sand is composed of giant tear-like shapes forming a diagonal curtain against a small patch of sky. Two trails of nonhuman tracks either ascend or descend the dune, leaving peculiar markings in the sand.

“Cottonwoods along the upper Pecos River, New Mexico” shows seven slightly twisted, bright, bare trees forming an illuminating curtain against a deep, dark backdrop. The photo is reminiscent of one by Adams of aspen trees in New Mexico. Vavruska uses a technique developed by Adams called the zone system to achieve a rich range of tones during exposure and developing. Vavruska personally prints all of his negatives in the darkroom—a procedure practiced less and less with the advent of digital photography.

Vavruska’s photos can be viewed Fridays and Saturdays through April 10, and by appointment by calling 867-2523. Katrina Lasko Gallery is located at 336 North Camino del Pueblo.

Klimpert shows on Canyon Road in Santa Fe

 N.M. Door of Garnered Memories, oil painting, 42” x 32”, by Rudi Klimpert

If you haven’t seen Rudi Klimpert’s work on Canyon Road in Santa Fe, now is the time to do it. Some will know Rudi Klimpert for his 12-year contribution of cartoons to the pages of the Signpost; others for his brilliantly colored oil paintings, most recently of Southwestern landscape and door motifs. On Friday, April 4, from 5:00 to 7:00 p.m., Canyon Road Contemporary Art, Inc. will hold a reception for “Southwest Perspectives,” a two-artist exhibition featuring the oil painting work of Rudi Klimpert and watercolor work of Sandy Goins. The Friday afternoon/evening art walks up and down Canyon Road are great fun, with most galleries open for brousing and offering refreshments. When you go, be sure not to miss Canyon Road Contemporary Art, closer to the bottom of the road than the top, at 403 Canyon Road, 877-983-0433, crcontart@aol.com. If you would like to preview the show, call or e-mail the gallery for photographs.