Berks Ballet Theatre's 'Nutcracker' set for Dec. 17-18 at Kutztown University [Spotlight]
Oct. 30—Tickets are on sale for Berks Ballet Theatre's Dec. 17-18 performances of "The Nutcracker," kicking off its 47th season. The ballet company traditionally performs three shows; however, this year, the annual holiday classic will be performed four times in a new location, Schaeffer Auditorium at Kutztown University, due to a fire at its traditional home, the Scottish Rite Cathedral of West Reading.
For the fifth year, Tchaikovsky's memorable score will be performed by the Reading Pops Orchestra under the direction of conductor Willis Rapp to accompany BBT's dancers.
Aaron Smyth, a well known dancer from Los Angeles, will join the company in the ballet's leading male position. Smyth is best known for his associations with American Ballet Theatre II In New York, The Royal Ballet in London and The Joffrey Ballet in Chicago, as well as being an original cast member in London's West End production of "An American In Paris."
Smyth also played the role of the Snow Cavalier in Disney's "The Nutcracker in the Four Realms" feature film dancing with Misty Copeland. Additionally, Smyth appeared on two series of the "Got Talent" franchise, coming third in Australia and making the quarter finals in America.
Other notable cast members include Madeleine Scott (a dancer with Dance Aspen) as the Sugar Plum Fairy, Francis Lawrence (a New York-based dancer who recently toured with "An American In Paris" in Australia) as the Snow King, and Daniel Mayo (a Philadelphia based professional ballet dancer and instructor) as Drosselemeyer.
BBT's artistic director, Kelly Barber, and ballet master and resident choreographer, Nathan Bland, are co-choreographing the ballet with 20 company dancers and 30 students from the company's namesake, Berks Ballet Theatre Conservatory of Dance.
BBT company soloists include, Ellie Folga (a Wyomissing High School senior) and Jessica Bealer (a Reading High School junior), who will share the role of Snow Queen; Christina Kopecky (an Exeter High School senior), who will dance the role of Mouse Queen; Kaia Kantner (a Berks Catholic High School senior), who will dance the role of Trepak; and three young dancers, Colette Jordan, Maeve Keeler and Hennessey Kehs-Rossi, who will share the coveted role of Clara.
Performances are scheduled for Dec.17 at 1 and 6 p.m., and Dec. 18 at 1 and 5 p.m. For tickets and additional information, visit BerksBalletTheatre.com or call 610-373-7577.
Music
Reading Choral Society and the Bucks County Choral Society will team up for concerts on Friday at 7:30 p.m. at SS. Constantine & Helen Greek Orthodox Church, Reading, and next Sunday at 4 p.m. at Our Lady of Mount Carmel Church, Doylestown. The Reading Choral Society Orchestra will accompany.
Under the direction of RCS Music Director Dr. Graham Bier and Thomas Lloyd, BCCS artistic director, the two choral groups will present Dominick Argento's rarely performed "Revelation of St. John Divine" for tenors and basses, Reena Esmail's recently composed "I Rise: Women in Song" for sopranos and altos, and Randall Thompson's "Alleluia."
Timothy Bentsch will be the tenor soloist for the Revelation. A leading tenor with the Hungarian State Opera for 10 years, with a repertoire spanning early baroque to the large works of Mahler and Verdi, he has sung with the philharmonic orchestras of Lille, France; Strasbourg, France; Avignon, France; Saint Petersburg, Russia; Sofia Bulgaria; Warsaw, Poland; the Israeli Chamber Orchestra; the South Dakota Symphony; the Ars Nova Symphony in Chicago; the Costa Rica National Symphony; the Hong Kong Bach Festival; and the Hungarian National Philharmonic.
For concert tickets, visit www.readingchoral.org or www.buckschoral.org.
----The Reading Symphony Orchestra will be back on the stage at the Santander Performing Arts Center on Saturday at 7:30 p.m. to perform Holst: The Planets with special guest Lisa Pegher, percussion soloist on Joseph Schwantner's Concerto for Percussion.
Gustav Holst's The Planets is a seven-movement orchestral suite that resulted from the composer's fascination with astrology and the cosmos. The music depicts our solar system, with each movement titled after a planet known at the time (1914-16) along with a description of that planet's character: "Mars, the Bringer of War," "Venus, the Bringer of Peace," "Mercury, the Winged Messenger," "Jupiter, the Bringer of Jollity," "Saturn, the Bringer of Old Age," "Uranus, the Magician" and "Neptune, the Mystic."
Pegher, called "the future of percussion" by the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette, commands the stage and an array of percussion instruments in Joseph Schwantner's Percussion Concerto.
Conducted by Reading Symphony Orchestra's Music Director, Andrew Constantine, the performance will also feature Rossini — La Gazza Ladra Overture.
For tickets, visit www.readingsymphony.org or call 610-373-7557.
----The Friends of Chamber Music of Reading will present a free concert featuring the Aeolus Quartet with guest pianist Ieva Jokubaviciute on Friday at 7:30 p.m. in the WCR Center for the Arts, 140 N. Fifth St.
An audience favorite, the Aeolus Quartet returns for its 13th appearance in the series. Their program will include Beethoven's String Quartet, Op. 18, No. 6; "Strum" by Jessie Montgomery; and Amy Beach's Piano Quintet in F-sharp Minor. The concert is supported by The Gertrude Sternbergh Concert Fund of the Reading Musical Foundation.
Having formed in 2008 at the Cleveland Institute of Music, the quartet, which includes Berks County native Rachel Kitagawa Shapiro on violin, has performed in venues ranging from the Chamber Music Society of Lincoln Center and Lincoln Center's Great Performer Series to Weill Recital Hall at Carnegie Hall, to Dupont Underground, a subterranean streetcar station in Washington, D.C.'s Dupont Circle. They were the 2013-2015 Juilliard Graduate Resident String Quartet and are currently Quartet-in-Residence at Musica Viva NY.
----Local musician Elysian Jane released a song titled "Happy Halloween" on Friday in collaboration with New York-based Jewish rapper Kosha Dillz, who made headlines this week for his new song "Death Con 3," which slams Kanye West for his recent antisemitic remarks. Contributing the instrumental beat to "Happy Halloween" was engineer TunnA Beatz.
The song is part of a three-part project by Elysian Jane, a Berks County native now living in Lancaster. "Mannequin" was released to all music platforms in September. And "Creep," the final song in the trilogy, will be released in November.
"Happy Halloween" was recorded at Pagoda City Studios at the GoggleWorks Center for the Arts in Reading with producer, engineer and studio owner Jason Fritshaffer.
It is about Elysian Jane's struggles with the infidelity, dishonesty and manipulation of a past partner. It was a relationship she finally left on Halloween night as they were preparing to attend a party together dressed in matching couples outfits.
"I felt as though this was a story I needed to tell as it relates to so many others' struggles with relationships," she said. "Sometimes we put so much trust and faith into others, especially when you start to 'fall in love.' After years of believing their lies, not trusting my gut feelings or intuition, I had lost all recognition of myself, and realized that I stayed with them and believed them because I was so codependent on this relationship. I refused to believe they were capable of such monstrosities."
She said she hopes the song encourages other people to trust their intuition if they are in a toxic relationship.
Theater
GoggleWorks Center for the Arts and Genesius Theatre are partnering to present "My Side of the Show," featuring Bill Russell sharing his experience writing the Tony Award-winning Broadway musical "Side Show," on Nov. 11 at 7 p.m. in the Albert and Eunice Boscov Theatre at the GoggleWorks.
Russell will tell the story of writing "Side Show" from the idea through the original 1997 Broadway production, which received Tony nominations for best musical, best score, best book and a historic joint nomination for Alice Ripley and Emily Skinner for best actress in a musical.
In addition, Genesius actors will perform songs from the musical.
Tickets cost $25. For more information and to reserve seats, visit goggleworks.org/event/my-side-of-the-show.
Art
Matika Wilbur, a visual storyteller from the Swinomish and Tulalip Peoples of coastal Washington, will present her photography that portrays contemporary narratives of Native Americans across the United States at 7 p.m. Wednesday in the at Penn State Berks Perkins Student Center Auditorium. This event is free and open to the public.
Based in the Pacific Northwest, Wilbur is one of the nation's leading photographers. She earned her BFA from the Brooks Institute of Photography, where she had a double major in advertising and digital imaging.
Her most recent endeavor, Project 562, covers more than 300 tribal nations dispersed across 40 states. Wilbur has taken thousands of portraits and collected hundreds of contemporary narratives from the breadth of Indian Country for this project — all in the pursuit of one goal: "To change the way we see Native America."
