Museum of art opens series of free Great Performances concerts

Jazz artist Ramona Collins sings Sept. 12 in Gesu Church for its Gift of Music series. MAXWELL / BLADE Enlarge

Resident conductor Jeffery Pollock conducts the Toledo Symphony Sept. 12 at Put-in-Bay. NOT BLADE PHOTO Enlarge

The Toledo Museum of Art will kick off its Great Performances series of free Great Gallery concerts on Sept. 12 with Alice Petersen and Friends: A Program of Baroque Music, at 3 p.m. Petersen is the founder and director of Musica Antigua de Toledo, a group dedicated to the promotion and performance of pre-Classical music on replica instruments from the time.

If you can't tell a shawm from a sackbut, this group will help straighten you out and offer a sense of popular music for instruments and voice from centuries before this electronic age.

On the program will be works by Caccini, Handel, Castello, Schutz, and LeClair.

Performers will include Petersen, a professor in the University of Toledo Department of Music, plus Barbara Craig, Sandra Kellogg, Andrea Kissell, Don Jackson, and Carol Goodman.

Musica Antigua will continue its 2010-2011 season with a concert titled Many Facets of Love at 3:30 p.m. Nov. 21 in St. Andrew United Methodist Church; a 3:30 p.m. Jan. 16 production titled Story and Song for a Midwinter's Afternoon, with narrator Robert Rudolf in the UT Center for Performing Arts; and Eat, Drink, and Be Merry, a concert at 3:30 p.m. May 1 in Epiphany Lutheran Church, 915 North Reynolds Rd.

• Gesu Church will launch its Gift of Music series with a concert featuring jazz vocalist Ramona Collins with Bill Meyer, piano; Jordan Schug, bass, and Jerry Powell, drums, at 5 p.m. Sept. 12 at the church, 2049 Parkside Blvd. The concert is free, with donations accepted.

• Grammy and Pulitzer award-winner Jennifer Higdon, a Bowling Green State University alumna, will speak at the College of Musical Arts convocation at 2:30 p.m. Sept. 10 in Kobacker Hall of the Moore Musical Arts Center. The BGSU Wind Symphony will perform Higdon's “Fanfare Ritmico” under the direction of Bruce Moss. The event is free.

A Faculty Artist Series event will present violinist Penny Thompson-Kruse at 3 p.m. Sept. 12 in Bryan Recital Hall of the Moore Center. Like most faculty and student events at BGSU, this will be free.

• The Toledo Symphony will launch its 2010-2011 Regional Concert Series Sept. 12 with its annual performance at Put-in-Bay on South Bass Island. New resident conductor Jeffrey Pollock will lead the orchestra in a 6:30 p.m. performance of patriotic and light classical works by Victor Herbert, Leroy Anderson, Tchaikovsky, and Sousa.

• Kerrytown Concert House will launch its new Edgefest Sept. 29-Oct. 2 at the historic venue at 415 North Fourth Ave., Ann Arbor. True to its “Edged in Brass” title, this year's cutting edge series will focus on brass, but also will include other instruments performed by soloists and ensembles from the Southeast Michigan region.

• The University Musical Society in Ann Arbor will hold orientation for new and returning ushers for its 2010-2011 season starting Thursday and continuing through Sept. 11 in Auditorium 3 of the Modern Languages Building on the University of Michigan campus. Anyone wishing to usher during any of the 60 concerts planned needs to attend one session. For more information, contact the UMS Front of House Coordinator at 734-615-9398 or fohums@umich.edu.

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