There Stands the Glass

One of the most rewarding things about residing in the Kansas City area is also one of the most discouraging elements about life in the center of the country. Disinterest in what’s dismissed by others as highbrow art allows a lowbrow hick like me incredible access to topflight performances of classical music.

I bought two front-row center tickets to Lawrence Brownlee’s appearance at the Lied Center on Tuesday, March 19, for $21 apiece on Cyber Monday last November. Brownlee has been my favorite operatic tenor since he and Eric Owens stunned me at the Folly Theater in 2019.

The 2,000-seat venue was at about ten percent capacity for the star who regularly appears on the world’s most prestigious stages. Brownlee and pianist Kevin Miller didn’t disappoint.

The recital featuring familiar Italian arias, art songs by Austrian composer Joseph Marx and contemporary works from Brownlee’s Grammy-nominated 2023 album Rising couldn’t have been more rewarding. Kudos to presenters who continue to program decidedly unpopular music in the hinterlands.

Much as some professional sports franchises opt for a “best player available” philosophy when drafting talent, I’ll keep allotting my resources to the best deals available regardless of style. Regrettably, I’m priced out of next week’s Bad Bunny concert.

Original image of Walt McClements and Mary Lattimore by There Stands the Glass.

LAAND, the organization responsible for Mary Lattimore’s concert at the Lied Center in Lawrence on Saturday, December 12, got it wrong when it promoted the event as “a blissed out evening.” Lattimore wields a harp, but her instrumental music has little to do with insipid New Age contrivances. The sonic landscapes she created for an audience of about 125 conveyed an imperiled sense of beauty, like laments for a utopia destined to succumb to hostile combatants.

Walt McClements joined her on a couple selections. The accordionist’s earlier solo outing sometimes sounded like an inebriated priest riffing on Johann Sebastian Bach on his church’s dusty pipe organ. The rewarding showcase of innovative ambient music began with a pleasing set by Jackson Graham. The vibraphonist resembled an anxious millennial version of Gary Burton.

Lattimore explained one composition was inspired by her concern that an astronaut’s extended space voyage would inevitably be followed by a comparatively tedious earth-bound existence. I felt a similar form of melancholy as I left the stellar exhibition of (un)easy listening. Spending two ethereally edgy hours with the music of Lattimore, McClements and Graham may make other sounds seem mundane.

Recital Review: Lawrence Brownlee at the Lied Center

Concert Review: Mary Lattimore at the Lied Center