Happy Halloween!
A holiday of tricks, pranks, and masquerade, it seemed like the perfect moment to check out the GAG exhibit at the George Eastman Museum. It's also an apt time to explore art that examines modes of seeing and being seen through humor and illusion. But as I learned, the term gag, which has multitudinous meanings, is being deployed as a deeper conceptual idea from which to view and understand contemporary images. Rochester Overture will publish a forthcoming article about the exhibit.
But the big news of the week:
The City of Rochester and Monroe County joined members of the arts community, arts organizations, and businesses to create a 276-page draft plan to strengthen, invest in, and better coordinate community support for Rochester’s arts and culture. Rochester Overture attended the press conference and went through the document to learn the details of the plan, which you can read about at the site. The public will have several options to provide feedback on the plan, from in-person events to an online form.
Proposed Arts and Culture Plan Aims to Strengthen Rochester’s Arts Funding, Resources, and Reach
And if you didn’t already catch it on the site, contributor Julia Figueras attended the much talked about musical at the JCC CenterStage, Come From Away. The musical is a story of compassion from our Canadian neighbors in the aftermath of Sept. 11. The show hooked onto currents—significantly, the 25th anniversary of 9/11—while celebrating the CenterStage’s 50th anniversary and debuting the Hart Theater’s million-dollar renovation. The show sold out, even after added performances, evidence that the show’s themes resonated both with our times and our community. Read more about the production:
“Come From Away” Converges with Currents for JCC CenterStage’s 50th Anniversary
Earlier this month, I attended the Dear Lara screening at The Little Theatre, which I wrote a preview about. Despite knowing full well what it would detail, the film was still a gut punch. Filmed in a simple and direct manner, the interviews were heartbreaking for several reasons. The sexual abuse of minors is, of course, unacceptable. But it’s also due to the larger culture in classical music where abuse can propagate, where adults charged with the care of minors and young musicians knowingly and continuously uphold ripe environments for abuse and fail to protect students.
But perhaps the most heartbreaking of all was the low attendance at The Little Theatre. A rough estimate, I believe there are at least 4,000 youth studying music in Rochester. Why isn’t our community more concerned with ensuring our musical spaces are safe for them? Attending this film would’ve been an important step in understanding how abuse in classical music festers and provide a forum for thinking about how we can do better here. Fortunately, the audience in attendance was engaged and it lead to an important post-film discussion, with violinist and filmmaker Lara St. John and activist oboist Katherine Needleman in attendance to answer questions via video conferencing. The film is making the festival circuit right now (and picking up several awards along the way). If you can’t make it to a nearby screening—which I highly recommend—I did hear that the film will eventually make it to streaming services.
Although I didn’t get a chance to write about it, I attended the Gateways Music Festival that evening and heard cellist and singer-songwriter Shana Tucker’s ChamberSoul performance in Kilbourn Hall. Tucker’s concert was largely autobiographical, telling stories of her trajectory and life through song. Authentic and amiable, she drew the audience into her world through cello strums, uplifting selections, and effortlessly pure vocals.
As always, more is happening than we can cover as a grassroots publication—and we’ve been busy this month with grant writing and other fundraising strategies. But I hope you’ll support the effort to bolster arts journalism in Rochester. You can support us in several ways: spread the word and share our articles, sign up for a paid newsletter subscription (always optional; we do not have paywalls here), or make a tax-deductible donation. All donations right now go into a contributor fund so we can expand our coverage.
Thank you for reading and supporting arts journalism in Rochester!