Connecticut Postings

Housatonic Museum of Art opened yet another great exhibit Thursday night with a reception that attracted crowds (from toddlers to senior citizens, students and professors to business people and art-lovers) at the Bert Chernow Galleries at Housatonic Community College in downtown Bridgeport.

 The turnout was a fitting salute to artist Stanley Boxer (1926-2000), a true American master who is renowned internationally for his spirited thickly painted abstract works of art.

“Rememberingstanleyboxer: A Retrospective 1946-2000″  is a  traveling exhibition that celebrates one of the most prolific artists of the 20th century with about 50 of his paintings and sculpture.

It will be on view through March 28. 

In other Bridgeport arts news:

Bridgeport has waited years for an arts council to get up and running. And now that it finally has one, folks had been looking forward with great anticipation to Wednesday’s welcoming celebration at the HMA for the group’s first executive director Penny Harrison.

And we’re still waiting ….

The reception was postponed because of  the snowstorm (which turned out to be a minor one at that!). 

The reception will be re-scheduled for sometime in March, HMA director Robbin Zella has announced.

Harrison was chosen from among 40 candidates to lead the  Bridgeport’s Arts & Cultural Council, Zella has said. Her primary responsibility as executive director will be to organize and enlarge the city’s arts and cultural community so that it can play a more significant role in the city’s economic growth and renaissance.

 Harrison may be reached at 203-505-0200 or via e-mail at Penny.BridgeportArtsandCulture@gmail.com. Her office is in Room C 108 at the college, which is donating office space for two years.

Housatonic Community College is at 900 Lafayette Boulevard in downtown Bridgeport. The HMA galleries are open Monday through Friday from 8:30 a.m. to 5:30 p.m.; Thursdays to 7 p.m.; Saturdays from 9 a.m. to 3 p.m.; and Sundays from noon to 4 p.m. The galleries are closed on all college holidays, including Monday, Feb. 15, for Presidents’ Day. Admission is free. For additional information on the museum, visit www.hctc.commnet.edu/artmuseum/. Additional information on the artist is available at www.stanleyrboxer.com/.

 Phyllis A.S. Boros

Bridgeport has waited years for an arts council to get up and running. And now that it finally has one, folks have been looking forward with great anticipation to Wednesday’s welcoming celebration for the group’s first executive director Penny Harrison.

They’ll just have to wait a little longer.

The reception, slated for Wednesday evening at Housatonic Communtiy College’s Housatonic Museum of Art, has been postponed because of  a snowstorm that is expected to strike the region.

The reception will be re-scheduled for sometime in March, HMA director Robbin Zella has announced.

Harrison was chosen from among 40 candidates to lead the  Bridgeport’s Arts & Cultural Council, Zella has said. Her primary responsibility as executive director will be to organize and enlarge the city’s arts and cultural community so that it can play a more significant role in the city’s economic growth and renaissance.

The part-time position comes with a $30,000 salary; Harrison has a one-year contract that is renewable. A Virginia resident, Harrison is renting a furnished apartment here and plans to spend a minimum of 10 days per month in the Park City.

 Harrison may be reached at 203-505-0200 or via e-mail at Penny.BridgeportArtsandCulture@gmail.com. Her office is in Room C 108 at the college, 900 Lafayette Boulevard in downtown Bridgeport.

 Phyllis A.S. Boros

Good news for local artists!

Word from Caryn Kaufman Communications is that MainState Ventures is looking for six artists to adorn a wall at the corner of Broad and State streets in downtown Bridgeport.

And not only will the winning artists have the pleasure of exhibiting their work, each for a two-month stretch, at one of downtown’s busiest intersections,  they might be wealthier for it. A total of $1,250 will be awarded.

But artists need to act quickly: The deadline for submission is Monday, Feb. 15.

   Here are the details, provided by Ms. Kaufman, publicist for MainState Ventures:  

Six finalists will be chosen to install and display their art throughout the year in a rotating public art exhibition.  The art will be prominently displayed on an 8-foot by 8- foot wall on the Broad Street side of 211 State St. in dowtown Bridgeport, with each artist’s work on display for 2 months.  The year-long exhibition will culminate in the selection of a Grand Prize winner, who will receive a $1,000 cash award and a “People’s Choice” winner, who will be awarded $250.  The competition is open only to artists who either reside or work in Bridgeport.
 
Artists are asked to submit a sampling of their work using a maximum of five (5) jpeg images and one (1) square-format .jpeg image of their proposed piece.  It is preferred that artists work directly on the site to create their piece by hand.  However, artists may choose to have a banner of their work produced.  Artists are asked to indicate at the time of submission whether they will create their work on site or reproduce their work on a banner.  All “reasonable production costs,” up to a maximum of $175, will be reimbursed by MainStateVentures. 

Finalists will be notified by Feb. 18, via e-mail.  Submissions may be sent to maryann@umbrellaarts.com.  For questions regarding submissions, contact Margaret Bodell, (203) 727-7280.  Once chosen, each artist will work with the sponsor to determine an appropriate timeline to produce their artwork and host an official unveiling event. 

Submissions will be judged by Robert Curcio, co-founder of the Scope International Art Fairs of New York; MaryAnn Fahey, curator for  Umbrella Arts, New York; Emily Larned, professor of graphic design at the University of Bridgeport; John Favret, director of the Housatonic Community College art department; and Penny Harrison, executive director of the Bridgeport Arts and Cultural Council.  

MainStateVentures (MSV) is a joint venture between Spinnaker Real Estate Partners and Forstone Capital. It recently acquired the People’s United Bank downtown portfolio, which represents two Bridgeport city blocks including seven buildings totaling more than 255,000 square feet with 2.8 adjacent acres of developable land.

 Mark your calendars now: 

For those interested in Bridgeport’s arts scene, the place to be on two evenings next week will be the Housatonic Museum of Art at  Housatonic Community College.

On Wednesday, Penny Harrison, Bridgeport’s new arts council chief, will be introduced to the community at a free public reception, beginning at 6 p.m.

On Thursday, it’s back to the HMA’s Burt Chernow Galleries for the opening reception for a major traveling exhibition celebrating the life’s work of one of America’s most prolific 20th century artists: Stanley R. Boxer.

Penny Harrison will be introduced to the community  by HCC President Anita Gliniecki. The college is serving as the fiscal agent for Bridgeport’s new Arts & Cultural Council and is donating office space for two years. Harrison was chosen from among 40 candidates to lead the council, according to Robbin Zella, director of the museum and one of the community activists instrumental in the group’s formation.

Harrison’s primary responsibility as executive director will be to organize and enlarge the city’s arts and cultural community so that it can play a more significant role in the city’s economic growth and renaissance.

The part-time position comes with a $30,000 salary; Harrison has a one-year contract that is renewable. A Virginia resident, Harrison is renting a furnished apartment here and plans to spend a minimum of 10 days per month in the Park City.

“I believe the arts can mean prosperity for Bridgeport,” Harrison has said.

Harrison may be reached at 203-505-0200 or via e-mail at Penny.BridgeportArtsandCulture@gmail.com.

 ”Rememberingstanleyboxer: A Retrospective 1946-2000″ will  feature about 50 works from Stanley R. Boxer (1926-2000), renowned internationally for his spirited thickly painted abstract works of art. It opens  with a free, public reception Thursday from 5:30 to 7 p.m. 

 Instrumental in organizing the show was Boxer’s widow, artist Joyce Weinstein, of Ancramdale, N.Y., who is scheduled to attend. Abstract and figurative paintings, as well as examples of his sculpture are included in the show, which runs through March 28.

The college is at 900 Lafayette Boulevard in downtown Bridgeport; free parking is available in the college’s garage.

Phyllis A.S. Boros

Greenwich landscape artist Ernest Garthwaite, a master of the centuries-old technique of applying gold leaf, will be feted at a reception on Friday (Feb. 5) to mark the opening of his exhibit at the new Southport Galleries in Fairfield.

Garthwaite will be on hand from 5 to 8 p.m. at the gallery reception, which is free and open to the general public. The show will be on view through March 3.

As readers of Pulse, the Connecticut Post’s Sunday arts section,may remember, Garthwaite’s work was the subject of a major one-artist show last summer at Fairfield University’s Thomas J. Walsh Art Gallery.

Garthwaite often embeds gold leaf, a foil-like substance that glimmers when struck by light, in his oil and acrylic paintings  — all to dazzling effect.

Southport Galleries, which opened a few months ago, is housed in a landmark building from the 1920s that for decades served as the home of Village Hardware. The gallery, which specializes in American masters and contemporary artists, is at 330 Pequot Avenue in village center (off Exit 19 of Interstate 95). It’s open Tuesday through Saturday from 10 a.m. to 5 p.m., Sundays from noon to 4 p.m. 

For additional information, visit www.SouthportGalleries.com.

Phyllis A.S. Boros

It took about 50 years to complete, but now that Gustav Meier’s magnum opus on the art of conducting has been published by Oxford University Press, the book has become the source of much excitement within the music world.

The Michigan-based maestro, who is now celebrating his 38th season as conductor and creative head of the Greater Bridgeport Symphony, is considered among the world’s most renowned teachers of conducting, having mentored many of the hottest conductors on the scene today (including the Baltimore Symphony Orchestra’s Marin Alsop, the first woman ever appointed to lead a major American orchestra).

“The Score, the Orchestra, and the Conductor” — which was published this past summer — was begun, says the affable Meier, in the early 1960s when he was a young professor of conducting at Yale University’s School of Music. He has worked on the book sporadically through the decades, while leading conducting programs at such distinguished institutions as the University of Michigan and the Tanglewood Music Center in Lenox, Mass.

The 512-page book features 200 line illustrations and 600 music examples ($35 soft-cover; a $99 hardback edition is primarily used as a textbook); the publisher says it anticipates that the book will become one of the leading teaching tools for conducting students around the world. Various aspects of the conductor’s role, including preparing scores, rehearsal techniques, effective cuing systems and other performance challenges, are addressed.  

Meier now heads the graduate conducting program at Johns Hopkins University’s Peabody Institute. In the months since the book made its debut, Meier has been the subject of numerous articles and interviews (including several in the Connecticut Post). The latest is a four-part one-hour interview on banddirector.com, a Web site that is devoted to the interests of professional band directors in public school systems and on college campuses.

Video-taped in his Ann Arbor home, the interview features Meier discussing the conductor’s craft with a passion and graciousness that has become his trademark.

Among the many topics discussed is the meaning of “real podium success.”

When on the podium, “don’t worry about anything else except passing on your musicianship and your dedication to the music, and your sincere and honest feelings about why you have become a conductor,” Meier says in the interview.

To access the interview, visit:

http://www.banddirector.com/article/rl-past-features/interview-with-gustav-meier

For copies of his book, visit Oxford University Press at www.oup.com.

PHYLLIS A.S. BOROS

For several years now, two distinguished orchestras have offered holiday concerts in Bridgeport on the same night — about a mile apart.

On the second Saturday of every  December, the Boston Pops Esplanade Orchestra would perform at the vast Arena at Harbor Yard while the venerable Greater Bridgeport Symphony offered its event at  1,452-seat Klein.

That apparently will not be the case this year, as arena officials say they “do not have any information” regarding a Boston Pops tour stop in Bridgeport. Last year’s visit marked the Boston Pops’ seventh consecutive holiday appearance at the arena.

The Pops appearances, in any case, never bothered the GBS staff or adversely affected box office receipts.

 ”It’s just how the scheduling works out,” Jena Maric, the GBS’ executive director,  pointed out last year. The second Saturday of December was the only date that accommodated a majority of GBS musicians and staff, she explained.   Maric added that the  GBS has a loyal following and the holiday concert traditionally sells out.

“They’re really two different experiences,” she said, noting that the GBS concert is “rather intimate,” whereas the arena concert is a large holiday spectacle.

This year’s GBS concert, on Dec. 12 at 8 p.m. at the Klein, will feature Manhattan-based guest conductor Mark Shapiro, a former student of  GBS Music Director Gustav Meier. The featured soloist will be Metropolitan Opera star Harolyn Blackwell. Tickets, which range from $24 to $58, may be reserved by calling the GBS offices at 203-576-0263.

Phyllis A.S. Boros/arts writer

 The 15-year-old Fairfield piano prodigy, Alex Beyer, was in fine form Thursday night at Bridgeport’s Klein auditorium during his first rehearsal with the Greater Bridgeport Symphony, under the baton of the renowned Swiss-born Gustav Meier.

 Beyer makes his debut with the GBS on Saturday, during an 8 p.m. “Russian Roulette” concert at The Klein, 910 Fairfield Ave. He’ll be performing one of the most beloved Romantic works in the orchestral repertoire: Tchaikovsky’s Concerto No. 1 in B-flat minor.

At rehearsal’s end, the GBS musicians gave him a hearty “round of applause.”  Since musicians’ hands are occupied with their instruments, they demonstrated their support, appreciation and approval in the traditional orchestral manner: By vigorously stomping their feet on the stage’s hard-wood floor.

Beyer, his mom, Misty Beyer, and teacher, Yoshie Akimoto of Wilton, were all smiles following the pianist’s 90-minute workout.

The Beyer clan will again be in Bridgeport tonight (Friday) for the dress rehearsal, in which Meier will put the finishing touches on this rousing program (that includes Rachmaninoff’s emotionally tender “Vocalize”, Stravinsky’s fiery “Firebird” Suite and Tchaikovsky’s Polonaise from his opera “Eugene Onegin”).

The young pianist was invited by Meier to perform with the GBS after winning the orchestra’s 2008 Carlson-Horn Competition for Young Instrumentalists.  

Tickets for Saturday’s concert range from $24 to $58; the Klein box office will be open concert-day only, beginning at 5 p.m. Additional information is available at www.bridgeportsymphony.org.

Phyllis Boros