Join us Friday, September 9, for a musical performance at the KC Streetcar River Market West Stop inspired by the current political thaw between Cuba and the United States.  From 11:30 a.m. to 1:30 p.m., Ensemble Iberica will present “Cubanisms”, a continuous acoustic performance of traditional Cuban “son”. The performance includes Ensemble Iberica musicians, Michael McClintock (Cuban tres), Beau Bledsoe (guitar), Jordan Shipley (bass), Brandon Draper (percussion) and Cuban national, Dálida Teresa Pupo Barrios (percussion and documentation).

Listeners/passengers will be taught traditional “coros” (repeated participatory choruses) and given percussion instruments to play such as the Cuban clave or bongos.

Ensemble Ibérica performs the music of Ibéria (Spain and Portugal) and the colonial Americas while educating the public about Iberian cultural influence. Programs explore diverse time periods, styles and locations including the Spanish baroque, Portuguese fado and Argentine tango. The Ensemble features extraordinary musicians from classical, jazz and folk traditions both locally and from around the world.

The rooftops of Downtown Kansas City will come alive on Tuesday evening September 20, at 6:00 pm,when composer and musician Daniel Morel presents Kansas City Calling with the Jibrish Horn Quartet and members of the University of Missouri, Kansas City Conservatory of Music and Dance Horn Studio.

The performance will take place at Prairie Logic, the public art installation and performance venue on the Green Roof above Cosentino’s Parking Garage, 1261 Main St, on the 6th floor.

Kansas City Calling is an evening-length musical happening that evokes both the bustling past and thriving current day of Kansas City. The program draws on original and borrowed music to represent the history of Kansas City with a wafting soundscape that builds over the course of the evening. The entire rooftop will come alive with historical sounds, virtuosic solos, displaced melodies, and an ambient hum that coalesces into the story of Kansas City told through music. The program concludes with a final concert featuring the Jibrish Horn Quartet and members of the UMKC Conservatory Horn Studio.

Daniel Morel is a Kansas City-based composer whose works are permeated with the Western sensibilities of his Colorado upbringing, drawing on influences ranging from prairie thunderstorms to classic American poetry.  Performance details and further information are available at www.danmorel.com.

This performance is free and open to the public and is part of the 2016 Art in the Loop Project: Connect brought to you by the Art in the Loop Foundation with the support of the Downtown Council, Downtown Community Improvement District, City of Kansas City, Missouri, KC Streetcar Authority, Missouri Arts Council, Neighborhood Trust and Development Fund, ArtsKC and many corporate sponsors.

On Friday, August 26, between 11:30 a.m. and 1:30 p.m., Matthew Bennett will present “Then & Now” a musical performance in Ilus Davis Park, 11th & Oak St, Kansas City, MO.

“Then and Now” will feature American music from the Colonial period to the present performed on period-appropriate instruments. This unique performance will allow the audience to experience music as it was performed in early America and hear how it changed over the years.

Matthew brings a joyful dedication to his work in orchestral music, the avant­garde, music education, and historical research. He has been a member of the Tulsa Symphony Orchestra, the Taneycomo Festival Orchestra, and the Eutin Opera Orchestra in Germany. His solo and chamber recital work has included Juilliard’s Morse Concert Hall, NYC’s Advent Lutheran Church, and The Lied Center of Kansas. In teaching, Matthew has served as Guest Violin Professor at Pittsburg State University, Director of Chamber Music Studies at Bishop Seabury Academy, and private pupils for 11 years. In his own education, he immerses himself in music otherwise forgotten ­­ bringing the works and lives of Colonial American composers to print and to practice.

This performance is free and open to the public.  Food trucks will also be present.

CONNECTIONS

Presented by Jon Michael Johnson and SITU INC.
11:30am and 12:30 pm, Friday, August 19, 2016
Starts at Union Station Streetcar Stop

CONNECTIONS is a site-specific performance piece.   This mostly improvised event, as presented by Jon Michael Johnson and SITU INC., will follow one passenger as he boards the streetcar at Union Station.  He will be connected with someone new at each stop as the streetcar progresses through the route.  Will it be someone too different, someone too much the same, someone laughing,  crying,  spying,  hiding, someone lost — or found?
The theater of life will play out on the enclosed “stage” of the streetcar.  Each interaction should give us a glimpse into how we connect with those around us, and by extension, the community at large.  As the streetcar makes its way around the route and back to Union Station, CONNECTIONS will be an opportunity to tell a few tales — some tall, some with a spark of truth — and with the telling and a little luck, maybe we can create a “connection” or two.
Make a connection on Friday, August 19 at 11:30am and again at 12:30pm, starting and ending at the Union Station Streetcar stop.

This performance is free and open to the public and is part of the 2016 Art in the Loop Project: Connect brought to you by the Art in the Loop Foundation with the support of the Downtown Council, Downtown Community Improvement District,  City of Kansas City, Missouri, KC Streetcar Authority, Missouri Arts Council, Neighborhood Trust and Development Fund, ArtsKC and many corporate sponsors.

Kansas City’s newly opened streetcar stops are not just a place to sit and wait!

On Friday, August 12, from 11:30 to 1:30 at the Metro Center Northbound Streetcar Stop (12th and Main, adjacent to the Town Pavilion), multi-instrumentalist Amado Espinoza, along with his wife Karen Lisondra, will surprise pedestrians and streetcar commuters alike with their cosmopolitan playfulness, performing music from around the globe – with a twist: their instruments are made from recycled materials and found objects!

Constructed by Amado himself, you will hear a classical Arabic flute made out of a broom, an Andean pan-flute made from dried-up markers, a Bolivian guitar made from a cookie tin, and much more, inspiring listeners of all ages to use their imagination and help protect our environment. A concert to indulge the eyes, ears, and our inherent necessity to be a little silly, it might just make you tap your feet while waiting for the next streetcar!

Espinoza’s music is rooted in the spiritual traditions of the Andes mountains, while drawing inspiration from his musical-wanderlust personality. As a current Charlotte Street Studio resident and recent recipient of an ArtsKC inspiration grant, he is artistic directing and composing for a new theatrical collaboration called “We Are The Landscape” scheduled to debut this fall.

He will be performing with his wife and collaborator, Karen Lisondra, who is back in KC after more than a decade touring the globe with different South American theatre companies.

This free performance is part of the 2016 Art in the Loop Project: Connect brought to you by the Art in the Loop Foundation with the financial support of the City of Kansas City, Missouri, KC Streetcar Authority, Missouri Arts Council, Neighborhood Trust and Development Fund, ArtsKC and many corporate sponsors.