Alabama’s own Patterson Hood, singer-songwriter Lucinda Williams, legendary blues guitarist Buddy Guy, R&B king Brian McKnight, comedian Gallagher and his “Last Smash” tour, and singer Aaron Neville will grace UAB’s Alys Stephens Performing Arts Center in 2013.
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This season the Alys Stephens Center also will pair artists audiences know and love to create evenings of unforgettable music and art. These dynamic duos will include Chick Corea and Gary Burton with Harlem String Quartet; Mary Chapin Carpenter and Shawn Colvin; Preservation Hall Jazz Band and The Del McCoury Band; and the Viva Health Starlight Gala featuring Amy Grant and Vince Gill.
Shows will begin in January 2013, and the season will culminate with the Viva Health Starlight Gala on June 6. For a full schedule of all shows presented by UAB’s Alys Stephens Center, visit www.AlysStephens.org.
UAB’s Alys Stephens Center will continue its mission to curate and create community arts experiences with “Lux Somnia: Light Dreams,” a free festival of art, technology and community set for Friday, May 3, with a rain date May 4. For this groundbreaking event, the entire southern façade of the ASC building will be wrapped and transformed into a giant projection screen. Innovative local artists, spearheaded by Birmingham painter, sculptor and digital projection artist Jean-Jacques Gaudel, will use UAB’s Alys Stephens Center as a canvas for digitally projected light dreams. The event’s centerpiece will be an Architectural Mapping Projection show designed specifically for the building. The evening also will feature an illuminating dance piece created by acclaimed choreographer Mary Foshee, the premiere of a giant interactive video game designed by the UAB School of Engineering, interactive VJ’ing by ArtPlay students, live music from Blue Galaxy String Ensemble and more.
The ArtPlay Parlor Music Series will continue with California Guitar Trio, pianist Charlie Albright and another heavenly pairing, violinist Noé Inui and pianist Vassilis Varvaresos. The ArtPlay Parlor Music Series, presented by Patty McDonald, features exciting and innovative artists performing in the intimate setting of the grand parlor of the beautiful Victorian mansion known as ArtPlay, the ASC’s home for education and outreach.
| For tickets, a copy of The Center Magazine or more information, call 205-975-2787 or visit www.AlysStephens.org. |
ArtPlay also will present two shows at the Alys Stephens Center: “Lessons Well Learned,” an original production by the teenagers of the Make It Happen Performing Ensemble celebrating Black History Month, and “Play,” a whimsical contemporary ballet to be performed by an adult ArtPlay Studio Ensemble, set to several movements from the Camille Saint-Saëns musical suite “The Carnival of the Animals.”
Ticket packages are on sale now, and single tickets will go on sale Dec. 3. Choose three or more shows and create the “It’s Your Choice” package to save 15 percent off the total price. Selected performances will feature $20 student tickets. For tickets, a copy of The Center Magazine or more information, call 205-975-2787 or visit www.AlysStephens.org.
More than just a stage for presenting programs, the Alys Stephens Center is a community arts classroom, laboratory, public forum and cultural center for the state. This season the Alys Stephens Center’s focus on presenting great artists has broadened to include original arts programming. The Center Magazine is published twice yearly, with stories and information about the coming season and performances, works being created and commissioned, the latest news on arts education in the community and the growth of the arts and cultural district at UAB.
Looking ahead, the Alys Stephens Center will commemorate the 50th anniversary of the Civil Rights Movement in 1963 and the events of that year with two spectacular events: Alabama Jazz Hall of Fame inductee Eric Essix’s “Evolution” on Sept. 19, 2013, and the ASC’s first-ever commission and world premiere of a work, “A More Convenient Season” by composer Yotam Haber, on Sept. 21, 2013.