Jazz for New Ages
Back when American jazz stars still played the Middle-American road, you could hear Phil Woods careen through bebop standards at local haunts like the Jazz Riverboat. That was 30-some years ago. The legendary alto saxophone player has toured since the 1950s, but he can still blow with the youngsters, as many of them will find out at the inaugural Wisconsin Conservatory Jazz Festival. Middle and high school students will spend the weekend in workshops and clinics with the conservatory’s We Six musicians, who will perform with Woods and Milwaukee’s favorite son, Brian Lynch, on March 20. (Paul Kosidowski)
➞ Wisconsin Conservatory Jazz Festival (March 19-21). Wisconsin Conservatory of Music. 1584 N. Prospect Ave., 414-276-5760, wcmusic.org.
History in the Making
It’s not every day that the Milwaukee Public Museum constructs a new permanent exhibit. Heck, it’s not every day that any Milwaukee museum constructs a bevy of permanent displays. That changes when the MPM unveils the Crossroads of Civilization, its newest permanent exhibit in more than a decade. Curators and artists have created a replica of King Tut’s chariot, and a holographic mummy will display a highly modern view of ancient embalming processes. This wide-ranging, $1.3 million exhibit covers the cultures that intersected in the eastern Mediterranean over the course of 5,000 years, and you would do well to devote a full morning to its offerings. (Claire Hanan)
➞ Crossroads of Civilization (opening March 15). Milwaukee Public Museum. 800 W. Wells St., 414-278-2728, mpm.edu.
Fire and Ice
When Viswa Subbaraman arrived as the new artistic director of the Skylight Music Theatre, his past life as founder of Houston’s trailblazing Opera Vista made it clear that new music would be a priority. He’s already brought contemporary work by Philip Glass and Hans Werner Henze to the Skylight, and this month, the theater stages its first world premiere since 2011. Somtow Sucharitkul is a Thai-American composer, conductor and novelist whose work Subbaraman has produced in Houston. The Snow Dragon is based on Sucharitkul’s own fantasy story about a boy who escapes to an imaginary world of eternal snow, and features baritone Dan Kempson – last seen in Hydrogen Jukebox – as the evil Ringmaster. (Paul Kosidowski)
➞ The Snow Dragon (March 13-29). Cabot Theatre. Skylight Music Theatre. 158 N. Broadway, 414-291-7800, skylightmusictheatre.org.
Golden Silence
In a world that constantly goes beep – not to mention the constant clatter, caterwauls and cacophony – it’s a particularly apt time to praise Mummenschanz, the 40-year-old Swiss mime troupe that comes to town this month. Begun as a creative alternative to the white-faced Pierrot figures of street corners and snarky put-downs, the group has changed little over the decades. But the surreal, unconnected and often hilarious vignettes that make up its show are still a marvel of simplicity, bold creativity and, yes, silence. (Paul Kosidowski)
➞ Mummenschanz (March 21). Sharon Lynne Wilson Center for the Arts. 19805 W. Capitol Dr., Brookfield, 262-781-9520, wilson-center.com.
The Glass Eye
Waukesha-based painter Robin Jebavy translates Baroque inspiration into awe-inspiring oil paintings featuring layers and layers of multicolored cut-glass goblets, bowls, flutes and drinking glasses. Sound pedestrian? It is anything but. She creates repetitive patterns with the glasses while leaning on symmetry to balance the intense coloring and hyper-realistic details. The end results are large-scale paintings you could drink in for hours and still not catch all of her clever etch-like strokes. The Lynden Sculpture Garden will display roughly eight of her newest paintings for three months, which will give you plenty of time to take them in. (Claire Hanan)
➞ Robin Jebavy: Recent Paintings (March 1-May 31). Lynden Sculpture Garden. 2145 W. Brown Deer Rd., 414-446-8794, lyndensculpturegarden.org.
