By Chip Chandler — Digital Content Producer
A discussion of area women's contributions to World War I, a festival celebrating songs that are "little bites of drama" and more are heading your way in regional arts events.
Women in the Great War
Panhandle-Plains Historical Museum will celebrate Women's History Month and its ongoing exhibitions about World War I with a discussion of women's role in the war.
Women in the Great War runs from 10 a.m. to noon March 11 at the museum, 2503 Fourth Ave. in Canyon.
Panelists include Kristin Kuhlmann, associate professor of nursing; Jean Stuntz, professor of history; Becky Livingston, PPHM curator of history; and Melissa Griswold, World War I researcher.
The event is free. Call 806-651-2244.
Art Song Festival
A celebration of stirring, humorous and sometimes bawdy songs begins Wednesday.
The Song Collaborators Consortia, a group organized by West Texas A&M University music professor Christopher Meerdink and made up of lovers of art songs from around the country, will hold its Art Song Festival from Wednesday through March 10.
Art songs are "classical vocal music that are not from operas or oratorio," Meerdink said. "In three or four minutes, you have an entire character, then you move on to another three or four minutes and another character.
"They're little bites of drama, really compact, dense studies in acting."
Conference attendees will discuss art song composition, analysis and performance in daily sessions at WT, then join together for evening performances at the Fibonacci Space, 3306 S.W. Sixth Ave. in Amarillo.
Soprano Twyla Robinson and pianist Jerome Tan will present "A Celebration of the Early American Parlor, Saloon and Stage" at 8 p.m. Wednesday. Several attendees will perform German art songs in a traditional liederabend at 8 p.m. Thursday. And about 20 attendees will join together for a cabaret, An Evening of Questionable Music, at 8 p.m. March 10.
Performances are free.
Call 806-651-2831.
Epiphany: What Light Does on Edge closing reception
Artist Steven Schroeder's Epiphany: What Light Does on Edge exhibition will wrap with a closing reception March 11.
The reception runs from 6 to 9 p.m. March 11 at Chalice Abbey Center for Spirituality and the Arts, 2717 Stanley St.
The poet and painter grew up in the Panhandle but now lives and works in Chicago. The exhibition was inspired by a literary collaboration with Lithuanian-American poet Jonas Zdanys on Red Stones, a book of poems and paintings.
Schroeder will be joined by Ken Hada, a poet and professor from Ada, Okla., and Aaron Rudokph, a poet from Las Vegas, N.M., as well as Amarillo musician Mike Fuller.
Call 806-576-2480.
First Friday Art Walk
A few new exhibitions will open Friday at the monthly First Friday Art Walk at the Galleries at Sunset Center.
In addition to a celebration of the late Ann Crouch, who opened the galleries and founded the walk, artists Lauren Dennis and Greg Harms will be featured in new shows.
Dennis' work will be featured in Receiving Chaos in the R Gallery, Suite 48 at the galleries. Dennis also will give a live demonstration.
Harms' work will be featured in Strange Dichotomy: Then and Now in ArtGecko Studio and Gallery, Suite 35 at the galleries. Harms, a Borger artist, began working in realistic drawing and impressionistic oil and acrylic painting and now works professionally as a comic book colorist, inker and penciller.
The walk runs from 5 to 9 p.m. Friday at the galleries, 3701 Plains Blvd.
Chip Chandler is a digital content producer for Panhandle PBS. He can be contacted at Chip.Chandler@actx.edu, at @chipchandler1 on Twitter and on Facebook.
