The New Year Brings Nurturing Entertainment
By NANCY HERMANN
Courtesy Tulsa PAC
The Grammy Award-winning Ladysmith Black Mambazo brings the rhythms and harmonies of South Africa to the Tulsa Jan. 22, presented by Choregus Productions.
The Miró Quartet performs the work of Haydn, Philip Glass and Brahms for Chamber Music Tulsa on Jan. 29.
English writer G. K. Chesterton, often referred to as the “prince of paradox,” wrote, “The object of a new year is not that we should have a new year. It is that we should have a new soul.”
We all fill our life’s coffee cup in different ways: whether we need a slight warm up, a refill to the brim, or a new brew entirely. Having worked at the for a while, I’m sold on the prospect that experiencing the arts can be nurturing and even transformative. Here are a few events coming up at the in January that might help you get your year in gear.
Theatre Tulsa’s Waiting for Lefty is loosely based on a New York taxi cab driver strike in the 1930s and comprises a series of vignettes that form a one-act play written by Clifford Odet. Depression-era America, where the rich get richer and the poor hardly have a chance, is brought front and center. This dramatic examination of society’s inequities is just the kind of thing the “occupy” demonstrators are decrying. Catch this show Jan. 13-21.
Music to move the soul comes in the form of Ladysmith Black Mambazo on Jan. 22, presented by Choregus Productions. This Grammy Award-winning group from South African has performed at two Nobel Peace Prize ceremonies, for the Pope, the Olympics and Queen Elizabeth’s 50th Anniversary celebration. The rhythms are going to get you, along with exquisite harmony, Jan. 22.
More family entertainment is offered with Tulsa Children’s Museum’s Jeff Porter & the Claptet, also on Jan. 22. Jeff Porter, a Tulsa native and the group’s lead percussionist, is joined by a troupe of entertainers who will bring the sounds of Africa and South America to the PAC’s Williams Theatre.
A highly anticipated show is Celebrity Attractions’ The Addams Family (finger-snap, finger-snap) Jan. 24-29. This is going to be a whole lot of fun when Gomez, Morticia, Uncle Fester, Lurch, Gandmama, Wednesday, Pugsley and, of course, Thing, take the stage in a delightful musical created by the same team who put together Jersey Boys.
A concert I have been looking forward to is the Jan. 29 appearance of the Miró Quartet for Chamber Music Tulsa. This is soul food for the classical music fan, and on the menu are Haydn, Philip Glass and Brahms. The Haydn piece is nicknamed “The Joke,” for the liberties Papa Haydn took with it. If that bit of fun was enough to stir things up with the Haydn crowd, one wonders what his patrons would have thought about the music of Philip Glass! The reviews of the Miró Quartet playing the 1991 minimalist String Quartet No. 5 composed by Glass have been glowing to say the least. The quartet finishes the concert with a lush Brahms selection.
Refresh your mind, tune your ears and open your heart at Tulsa’s home to the arts. Happy new soul, and the best to you in the coming year!
Nancy Hermann is Director of Marketing at the Tulsa Performing Arts Center.
Updated 01-09-2012
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