Arts & Humanities
Benefit concert debuts symphony, by Greg Peterson
Art on the Rocks organizers prepare for event, by Jamie Lafreniere
Thimbleberry Jam Fest, lodge opening planned, by Carol Rose
Theatre announces summer season, by Nikke Nason

Benefit concert debuts symphony
Haunting French horn calls, the soothing sounds of water, a thundering storm and flowing interpretive dance using rocks, sand and other items found along the Lake Superior shoreline are all part of the “Concert for Lake Superior: People, Place, Purpose.”
The Boreal Chamber Symphony will make its debut on Lake Superior Day in Marquette in a dramatic benefit concert to protect America’s largest freshwater lake.
With a view of Lake Superior, the concert will begin at 7:00 p.m. on July 15 at UpFront & Company in Marquette, preceded by a 6:00 p.m. social hour.
With a water and environment theme, the concert is sponsored by the Superior Watershed Partnership and Cedar Tree Institute, Marquette nonprofits that founded the Earth Keeper Initiative in 2004.
The concert is free, but donations are encouraged, with all proceeds used for environment projects involving the immense Lake Superior watershed.
“By offering this free concert, we also hope that people will contribute to the Lake Superior Fund so we can continue to expand our incredibly successful Great Lakes protection programs,” said Carl Lindquist, executive director of the Superior Watershed Partnership. “The concert is also a way to show that we all have an important role in protecting Lake Superior.”
In 2001, the Lake Superior Binational Forum designated the third Sunday in July as Lake Superior Day in the United States and Canada.
All donations are tax deductible and go to the Lake Superior Defense Fund.
Master of ceremonies for the concert is Karl Bohnak, WLUC TV-6 meteorologist. The orchestra is comprised of nineteen professional musicians from around the country with ties to the Lake Superior region.
“This concert will be a chance to lift up a vision of a good place and a clean lake - a symbol to the world of water and life,” said Reverend Jon Magnuson, executive director of the Cedar Tree Institute and cofounder of the Earth Keeper Initiative. “This evening will be about a beacon of hope—a shout of thanksgiving and invitation to continue a struggle to protect and defend one of the world’s greatest natural resources.”
The chamber orchestra was named Boreal because the word means “northern regions.”
Conductor Craig Randal Johnson of Minneapolis and members of the orchestra want to bring awareness to ecological issues.
Johnson remembers the exact minute the Lake Superior concert idea was born: at 1:27 p.m. on September 14, 2006.
“It was one of those moments when you realize things are suddenly different,” Johnson said.
At a Marquette café, Johnson and a friend were discussing cultural offerings and the state of music in the U.P. and the annual Baltic Sea Festival.
“We wanted to see how the Baltic Sea project could translate to a similar initiative in the Great Lakes,” Johnson said. “We very quickly narrowed it down to Lake Superior.”
Nature and the environment is an underlining motivating factor for all the music Johnson does. He hopes the concert will educate the public about the environment.
“The convergence of the environment and concerns of the environment are so paramount to us as human beings,” said Johnson, who has a long list of orchestras he has conducted, including music director of the 2005 Finn Grand Fest symphony concert in Marquette, the upcoming July 27 FinnFest concert in Ashtabula (Ohio), the Marquette Symphony and as an instrumental performer at FinnFest 1996.
“We want to harness the power of music and art to wake people up,” he said.
The classical concert will reach many extremes, including traditional works from Mozart and Handel, a religious spiritual piece, and interpretive dance to the music of Finnish composer Kari Tikka and Estonian composer Arvo Pärt.
Marquette organizers hope the event will inspire future Lake Superior Day concerts in other cities encircling the lake, similar to the Baltic Sea Festival.
“In 2006, Earth Keepers received the highest Great Lakes protection award from the U.S. EPA and Canada,” Lindquist said. “The concert for Lake Superior is our way of saying thank you to the thousands of citizens who help us protect this truly great lake.”
Iron County native Evan Premo has been commissioned to create a new work for the concert.
Premo’s composition, Fall Storm on Lake Superior, was inspired by a chapter in Lon Emerick’s book, The Superior Peninsula—Seasons in the Upper Peninsula of Michigan.
“I try to evoke the power of the lake in my music like Lon did in this chapter,” Premo said. “The chapter starts with Lon waking up in his home in Skandia on a fall day and hearing the low rumble of the lake. He then drives to Presque Isle where he takes awe at the mighty waves crashing over the breakwater.”
Emerick’s book remembers shipwrecks during fall storms like the Edmund Fitzgerald.
Percussionists Carrie Biolo and James A. Strain and dancer Maria Formolo are premiering a performance named “Elements” that uses rock, sand and driftwood from Lake Superior.
The performers will recreate a Lake Superior storm by using a thunder sheet, and the wind will be created by a spinning corrugate tube and bull roar, and a plethora of traditional percussion instruments.
“A bowed Chinese cymbal hauntingly reminds me of the men who gave their life to Lake Superior,” Biolo said. “I can hear their screams and last breaths as I drag a bow across the edge of the Chinese cymbal or scrape the back of a drum stick across its surface.”
Formolo will dance in a costume draped in driftwood, simultaneously producing an aural and visual sensation, Biolo said.
“Lake Superior rocks will be rhythmically hit together, sand will be poured and water will be played,” Biolo said.
The event includes an art exhibit by regional nature artists and Great Lakes authors. Displays will offer educational materials and opportunities for people to participate in regional environment stewardship initiatives.
The program also includes Frederic Rzewski, To the Earth; Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart, Symphony No. 29 in A, K. 201; Verne Reynolds, Calls for two French Horns; composer/pianist Carl Lindquist, Lake Superior Suite; Kari Tikka, Exsultate!; Arvo Pärt, Fratres; Georg Fredrich Händel, selections from Water Music.
The Superior Watershed Partnership and the Cedar Tree Institute organize annual Earth Keeper Clean Sweeps that broke EPA household hazardous waste collection records. The groups have collaborated on numerous environmental projects during the last decade, including stream restoration, controlling invasive species, restoring native plant species, storm water management, dune restoration, Great Lakes monitoring, wild rice restoration, erosion control and energy conservation.
—Greg Peterson

 

 

Art on the Rocks organizers prepare for event
Each summer, Presque Isle Park transforms into an outdoor gallery with crowds of people strolling the beautiful shoreline as they choose from paintings, ceramics, jewelry and photographs. This year’s 49th Art on the Rocks (AOR) again will showcase local artists and talented vendors from around the country.
Work for the show goes on all year, and the committee starts working the week after the show to prepare for the following year’s event. The main committee consists of ten volunteers, but during the actual event there are more than fifty people at work behind the scenes. Most are volunteers, including local artists and instructors from Northern Michigan University.
Volunteer coordinator Sandy Quinnell also makes connections throughout the area to staff booths, and Celsey Deo coordinates everyone from booth sitters to greeters. Some of the same volunteers have been pitching in for years. These AOR ambassadors also include NMU police academy cadets who manage to keep the crowd and the traffic in order.
Another constant presence is show administrator Mary Earle. Her eye for detail and talent for coordinating events have served Art on the Rocks well. Former administrator Judy Johnson brought Earle on board shortly after she moved here.
The two connected when Earle contacted Johnson about copyright laws for a book she was publishing. Johnson was impressed with her production experience, since she had worked in Houston for GDO&W, Houston’s oldest and largest advertising agency. Johnson was so insistent that Earle get involved that she used to pick her up for meetings, and soon made her a cochairwoman.
“I’ve done it all over the years, so I know what each person has to do,” Earle said. “It started when Judy had to attend a convention out of town one year during the show and I filled in for her. Since then, I’ve been registrar, treasurer, grant writer and co-chair.”
Over the years, Earle has seen a lot of change in the event.
“Art shows have become a business,” Earle said. “You can’t imagine how much detail is involved with grant writing and budgets. It’s much different from an administrative point of view.”
Another of her main focuses over the years has been the issue of parking, which she simply said is a real hassle.
“Luckily, we’ve made two changes that make things a lot easier,” she said. “First, we’ve got the NMU students as our security and parking guards. Nobody wants to mess with them. They keep things perfectly in order. And second, we now pay $3,000 for air conditioned buses.”
The change to busing certainly has made an improvement. The streets and lots are no longer packed with unnecessary vehicles.
“You don’t drive right up to the castle at Disneyland, and this is no different,” she said.
There are several pick-up sites around the area and people are getting oriented to the change. Rich LaPlante is the transportation coordinator, and keeps everything moving at a steady pace.
This year’s transportation issues were aided by a new sponsor. The group at Founder’s Landing is donating $1,000. Show organizers also are asking that people donate $1 for the use of the buses to help defray the rest of the cost.
While other major sponsors include Jilberts, Vango’s, Lasco and mBank, funding for the show proves to be tight each year.
Earle said it’s constantly on the radar.
“I don’tthink people really understand the amount of money that goes into the show,” she said. “It takes $40,000 to put this show on.”
Most of the costs are covered by booth fees, but the show took a serious hit a few years ago when grant funding was cut in half as part of the State’s funding downsize for arts programs, and it leaves a huge gap to fill.
“We constantly have to adjust the bud-get and try to make things work,” Earle said. “We’re hoping to get some grant money for next year’s show, but you can never plan for that.”
One thing they can plan on is funding from the sale of posters and T-shirts. One of the key ingredients to each year’s show is the selection of the top design. Many people keep the posters as collectibles and look forward to the new artwork each year, which usually highlights a different medium each time. What does the committee look for in a design?
“Saleability. In these economic times we have to sell the poster and then we will raise money to give back to the art community,” Earle said. “People need to know when they buy a poster or T-shirt, that money goes right back into the arts here in town.”
Last year, they raised about $5,000 from the posters alone. They gave a $5,000 scholarship to Northern Michigan University and about $12,000 to the Lake Superior Art Association.
This year’s poster also marks a first in AOR history—the same winning designers for two years in a row. The 2006 Lake Superior photo is being followed by a gorgeous shot of the Northern lights from Brian and Shawn Malone of Marquette’s Lake Superior Photo.
“We’ve had an artist win twice before, but it was fifteen years apart,” Earle said. “Nobody’s ever come close to winning two years in a row.”
The Malones focus on Upper Peninsula landscape photography, and this year’s poster is sure to please all collectors. Their specialties include ships, lighthouses, camping and all things U.P. The duo is busy traveling to many art shows around the country this summer, but will be sure to make it back in time for Art on the Rocks.
The show will include eighteen other booths from Marquette artists, including the photography of Tom Buchkoe, watercolors from Katherine Brunet and Kathleen Conover, jewelry from Vicki Phillips, ceramics by Patrick Dragon and pottery from Ed Risak and Ryan Dalman.
“It’s going to be a smaller show this year,” Earle said. “The last three or four years, we’ve had over 200 booths, and that’s just too crowded. This year is much more manageable for both artists and people coming to the show. Everyone will be able to appreciate it and enjoy it more.”
And once again we will all be keeping an eye on the sky. Weather is always an issue with an outdoor show, and that point was brought home a couple of years ago when a tree fell on a booth after a lightning storm. Last year’s show also had to be cut short.
Earle says, “There was a huge storm coming through the area and it had already destroyed an art show that was going on in Wisconsin. The spouse of one of our artists was at that show and called ahead to warn us. When the storm made it to Michigamme we asked people to tear down and leave early. Something like that can annihilate everyone’s art work.”
But forecasts for this year’s event, both weather and profit margin, remain optimistic. Earle is constantly pleased with the level of work submitted for judging, and she enlists the help of local experts in picking the show’s winners. Judges get their score sheets and are free to explore the show, taking their time to give honest impressions and score accordingly. Each medium gets its own winner, and there also is a “Best of Show” category for the overall winner. It’s always a tight race.
Next year, Art on the Rocks will celebrate its fiftieth anniversary and plans are underway already. But there is plenty of time left for that.
“We’ve got so much to focus on this year that it’s hard to think what next year will bring,” Earle said.
It will be a great benchmark to reach, but each year’s show is considered a gala. It’s difficult to imagine them topping their already tremendous success.
—Jamie Lafreniere

 

 

Thimbleberry Jam Fest, lodge opening planned
The Keweenaw Mountain Lodge and Keweenaw Krayons are joining efforts to offer a premiere event this summer. The eighth annual Thimbleberry Jam Festival will be held in conjunction with the grand opening of the newly remodeled lodge. The art and music festival will take place from 10:30 a.m. to 8:30 p.m. on July 21 at the lodge.
Festival-goers are invited to stick around after the Jam Fest for easy listening jazz by Mz. Behavin’ with the Swing Cats inside the Keweenaw Mountain Lodge from 9:00 p.m. until midnight.
Another night-time option is a trip to the Fort Wilkins Historic State Park, where Fiddlehead will be playing during Fort Wilkins by Candlelight, beginning at 8:00 p.m.
Additional parking will be found in Copper Harbor. Day parking at the fort also will be available—motor vehicle permit required. Shuttle buses will run throughout the day between Keweenaw Mountain Lodge, Copper Harbor and Fort Wilkins for a nominal fee.
Artists and vendors will occupy spaces both inside the new conference center at the lodge and outside on the grounds. All vendors will have at least one thimbleberry-related item to display.
Thanks to the ample indoor space at Keweenaw Mountain Lodge, the event will take place regardless of weather. In the case of rain, musical artists will move indoors.
“This is going to be such an amazing event, and we are thrilled with the partners and supporters we have at the Keweenaw Mountain Lodge,” said Carol Rose, Keweenaw Krayons marketing director. “Over the past eight years, this little fundraising function has grown into a major musical event in the Keweenaw. What better way to make it more accessible to all and really create the county-wide event of the summer than to partner with the Keweenaw Mountain Lodge?”
The lodge was built in the 1930s as a part of Civil Works Administration’s solution to decrease the high unemployment rate due to the closing of local mines. Spanning 167 acres, the Keweenaw Mountain Lodge, a county-owned facility, boasts a fine golf course, spectacular dining and beautiful lodging facilities.
With seventy-years of history and experience the lodge is embarking on yet another journey. With the completion of their recent renovation and expansion project, it now has a spectacular 7,000 square foot conference facility that can host up to 250 people for various types of events. Along with the addition of a new conference facility the lodge underwent essential renovations that will allow the main lodge/dining room and eighteen lodging units to remain open year-round.
Keweenaw Krayons began in the summer of 1998 as a way for kids to work on art projects that vary from watercolors and pottery to murals and sculptures that can be seen throughout the Keweenaw Peninsula.
A nonprofit organization, it provides programs art for kids and families for little or no fee. The Thimbleberry Jam Fest is one of the major fundraisers for Keweenaw Krayons held each year.
Vendors and quality artists can call Keweenaw Krayons at 337-4706 or e-mail staff@keweenawkrayons.com or visit www.keweenawkrayons.com or www.AtTheLodge.com
—Carol Rose

 

 

Theatre announces summer season
The stage is set for Lake Superior Theatre’s (LST) 2007 summer season. This year, the theatre, recognized by the National Endowment for the Arts, will present three shows in the Frazier Historic Boathouse. The boathouse is located on Lakeshore Boulevard in Marquette.
The summer season will feature three musicals: Anything Goes, Guys and Dolls Jr. and the world premiere of Keepers of the Light by David Hansen. The season begins July 11 and continues through August 19.
The season begins with the Cole Porter classic Anything Goes. The age-old tale of boy-meets-girl and the complications that ensue intrigue every audience. This show is an amusing story wrapped around one of Porter’s magical scores. Sailing on the S.S. American are a gangster on the run posing as a minister, a former evangelist who is a nightclub singer, four tap-dancing “angels,” a society miss who is engaged to an English gentleman (also on the ship), and her ex-boyfriend who stows away on the boat to try to win her back. A series of comical mistaken identities ensues as the passengers and crew sing and dance their way across the Atlantic. Porter’s magical scores include “It’s De-Lovely,” “Friendship,” “I Get A Kick Out Of You,” “All Through The Night,” “Anything Goes,” “You’re The Top” and “Blow, Gabriel, Blow.” The wonder is that all the romances are sorted out and disaster is averted aboard the ship.
Anything Goes runs at 7:30 p.m. from July 11 through 15 and July 18 through 22.
Lake Superior Theatre has teamed up again with the City of Marquette Arts and Culture Center’s youth theatre program to present the youth musical Guys and Dolls Jr., with music and lyrics by Frank Loesser and book by Abe Burrows and Jo Swerling, featuring two different casts.
Guys and Dolls Jr. tells the story of a group of small-time gamblers and the ladies in their lives. Nathan Detroit bets his pal Sky Masterson that he can’t make the next lady he sees fall in love with him, and when the next “doll” happens to be the prim and proper neighborhood missionary Sarah Brown, the stage is set for an evening of high-spirited entertainment, set to the toe-tapping beat of Loesser’s superlative score.
One of the greatest Broadway musicals, the score comprises classic numbers including “I’ll Know,” “Adelaide’s Lament,” “Sit Down You’re Rocking The Boat,” “Luck Be A Lady Tonight,” “If I Were a Bell” and the title song.
Guys and Dolls Jr. will run at 7:30 p.m. from July 26 through 29 and from August 1 through 4.
LST ends the season with the world premiere of Keepers of the Light by local playwright David Hansen in celebration of Maritime Month. Lightkeepers are men and women who push back the darkness to light the way for others. Keepers of the Light is the story of three historical lighthouse keepers who found their own light and the courage to help others. Along their journeys they encounter shipwrecks, an Irish wake, Mormons, legends, disguises and weather. Your guide on this adventure is a great old storyteller from not too long ago, Aunt Jane. And for a small pint of vanilla ice cream, she will tell you all about the keepers of the light and why she honors their spirit with her stories. This musical and dramatic celebration of lighthouses and their keepers is destined to become a favorite that never loses its magic.
Keepers of the Light will run at 7:00 p.m. from August 8 through 12 and August 15 through 19.
Lake Superior Theatre has been upgraded since it opened in 1999 with padded seating and air conditioning. These improvements are funded by the annual Lightkeeper fundraiser.
The box office is located in Elwood Mattson Lower Harbor Park near the water’s edge. Look for the small lighthouse. Box office hours are 11:00 a.m. to 7:00 p.m. daily. The box office number is 227-7625.
Ticket prices are $12.50 for adults, $10 for seniors, $6.25 for youth eighteen and younger and groups of more than ten are $10 each.
Season tickets are available for $35 for adults, $25 for seniors and $15 for youth age eighteen and younger and must be ordered by July 1. Season ticket holders receive discounted ticket prices and are offered advance ticket exchanges.
Order by phone with a Visa or Mastercard by calling 227-ROCK(7625). For details, call 228-0472, e-mail nnason@mqtcty.org or visit www.lakesuperiortheatre.com
—Nikke Nason