• Congratulations to Conspirare on its first Grammy nomination. Requiem – We Are So Lightly Here, the second CD from Austin’s professional company of voices and director Craig Hella Johnson, was nominated in the category of Choral Performance. It’s a well-deserved honor for this double-disc recording, which features major requiems by Herbert Howells and Ildebrando Pizzetti, as well as musical gems by Eliza Gilkyson, Donald Grantham, Eric Whitacre, Bradley Ellingboe, and Stephen Paulus. Back in April, we wrote that the CD “offers the ear – and the soul – a balm for the turmoil within, comfort for that part of us that feels lost.”
• Tapestry Dance Company will bring back its recent production, The Souls of Our Feet, in March at UT’s McCullough Theatre. This is terrific news, as this tribute to rhythm tap masterpieces, as presented in November, was not only one of the most outstanding dance productions of 2006 and deserving of a larger audience, but it showed this already vibrant company working at a whole new level, re-creating classic routines by “Bojangles” Robinson, “Honi” Coles, Buck and Bubbles, Fayard Nicholas, and Gene Kelley with a new confidence and style that evoked the spirit and class of old. The icing on the cake: Tapestry has been chosen for the National Endowment for the Arts/American Masterpieces: Dance 2007-2008 touring roster and awarded $25,000 to support a tour of the production. The NEA has also awarded Tapestry $10,000 to support its annual Soul to Sole Festival to be held May 30-June 3, 2007.
• Soon to be spicing up the western edge of the new Mueller redevelopment: sunflowers, emphasis on the sun. These blooms will actually be solar collectors 16 feet high and 14 feet across but shaped like giant flora. Designed by Mags Harries and Lajos Héder of Cambridge, Mass., SunFlowers is the winner in Catellus Development Group’s competition for public art to go on the I-35 frontage road. The city’s Art in Public Places program helped facilitate the selection process, which included review of 37 proposals by visual arts and design professionals, along with public commentary collected at City Hall and Clementine’s Coffee House and over the Internet. The sculptures, which will offer shade to pedestrians and cyclists, in addition to collecting energy, will be installed in late spring of 2007.
This article appears in December 15 • 2006.