Arts picks: FRONT at Quaker Square, Akron Art Museum; ‘Embarqued’ at John Brown House
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FRONT kicks off in Akron
Two Akron arts organizations — Curated Storefront and the Akron Art Museum — will host opening celebrations for FRONT International 2022: Cleveland Triennial for Contemporary Art, which kicks off across 30 Northeast Ohio venues Saturday.
A reception at Quaker Square will run from 5 to 8 p.m. Saturday, featuring work by artists Alyssa Taylor Wendt, Chakaia Booker and Charmaine Spencer in art galleries activated in Quaker Square's former shops and restaurants at 135 S. Broadway, Akron. No registration is required. (Gallery hours will continue 11 a.m. to 8 p.m. Thursdays and 11 a.m. to 5 p.m. Fridays-Sundays through Oct. 2.)
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Also Saturday, the Akron Art Museum will host a free opening party from 7:30 to 9:30 p.m. with light snacks and a cash bar. Pop-up tours will run throughout the evening at 1 S. High St., Akron.
FRONT 2022, titled "Oh, Gods of Dust and Rainbows," will run through Oct. 2. Its title is inspired a couplet by Langston Hughes, who moved to Cleveland in his childhood. This year's theme embraces art as an agent of transformation, mode of healing and therapeutic process.
FRONT, a free, public contemporary art exhibition in Cleveland, Akron and Oberlin, features more than 100 artists from across the country. The event was launched in 2018. For more information, see https://www.frontart.org.
‘Embarqued’ at John Brown House
New York choreographer Stefanie Batten Bland and her dance company are visiting Akron through the National Center for Choreography Akron (NCCAkron) to reimagine her dance “Embarqued: Stories of Soil” as a gallery installation at abolitionist John Brown’s former home.
A free opening event, "Embarqued: Stories of Soil" will be from 5:30 to 6:30 p.m. Thursday at 514 Diagonal Road, Akron, including an outdoor reception and talk with the artists.
Batten Bland's original African American dance theatre work — an oral, visual and physical history of slave ships — is the inspiration for an art installation reimagining the work's sails and set pieces. The installation is open to the public Friday through Sept. 3, in partnership with the Summit County Historical Society. The NCCAkron project is supported by a grant from the National Endowment for the Arts.
Aaron Diehl at Blossom
Columbus native and jazz/classical pianist Aaron Diehl will perform Mary Lou Williams' masterpiece "Zodiac Suite" with the Cleveland Orchestra at 7 p.m. Saturday at the Blossom Music Festival at1145 W. Steels Corners Road, Cuyahoga Falls. Also on the program are Respighi's symphonic poems "Fontane di Roma (Fountains of Rome)" and "Pini di Roman (The Pines of Rome)."
Pavilion tickets start at $36 for adult and $15 for children; lawn tickets start at $26. Two under-18 lawn tickets are available for every adult lawn ticket purchased. See clevelandorchestra.com or call 216-231-1111.
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Kent Blossom Music Festival
The Miami String Quartet and pianist Spencer Myer will perform at 7:30 p.m. Tuesday at Ludwig Recital Hall, 1325 Theatre Drive, Kent State University.
Cost is $30, $25 for senior citizens, $10 for college students and free for under 18.
In other festival concerts this week, young artists will perform free concerts at 2 p.m. Friday at Laurel Lake Retirement Community, 200 Laurel Lake Drive, Hudson; 7:30 p.m. Friday at Ludwig Recital Hall and 2 p.m. Saturday at the Hudson Library and Historical Society, 96 Library St. Hudson.
Call 330-672-2787 or see https://www.kent.edu/blossom.
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Downtown at Dusk
Downtown at Dusk's kickoff concert, which was delayed a week, will happen with a free performance by Chris Coles' Gleam (Jazz-fusion originals) from 6:30 to 8 p.m. Thursday in the Bud and Susie Rogers Garden at the Akron Art Museum, 1 S. High St., Akron. Gallery admission is also free.
The originally planned July 7 performance is rescheduled for Aug. 4, featuring Anne E. DeChant or TBA. Call 330-376-9186 or see akronartmuseum.org.
This article originally appeared on Akron Beacon Journal: FRONT kicks off at Quaker Square, art museum; pianist Diehl at Blossom
