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Austin360 blogs > Austin Arts: Seeing Things > Archives > 2009 > March > 16
Monday, March 16, 2009
Craig Hella Johnson spikes Waterloo sales records
Conspirare founder Craig Hella Johnson broke Waterloo Records release week sales records last week with his new CD, ‘Thorns On The Rose. In less than two hours, 341 CDs were sold at the in-store signing party.
Produced by Michael Hynes of Austin’s Hideout Studios, ‘Thorns’ features Johnson in collaboration with Austin musicians. Eliza Gilkyson, Bukka Allen, Kim Deschamps, Andre Moran and Michael Hynes on pop, folk ballads and art songs with covers of Bob Dylan, Billy Jo Shaver, Eliza Gilkyson and four new Craig Hella Johnson originals set to the poems of Emily Dickinson and Tagore.
You can preview ‘Thorns on the Rose’ here.
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Pencil it in: Duke Ellington’s ‘Queenie Pie’
It’s isn’t often that ‘Queenie Pie,’ Duke Ellington’s only opera, is performed. So we’re lucky to be getting a production here in Austin April 17-26.
University of Texas’ Butler School of Music teems up with the Huston-Tillotson University to bring ‘Queenie Pie’ to the stage. World-renowned jazz vocalist Carmen Bradford joins the cast to star in the title role. Ellington’s last large-scale work, ‘Queenie Pie’ merges jazz, opera, and musical theater.
Shows are at 8 p.m. April 17 and 24, 7 p.m. April 19 and 26.
Tickets are available at the door and through www.utpac.org for $20 general public; $17 faculty/staff and seniors; and $10 students.
McCullough Theater, UT campus, 23rd St. and Robert Dedman Dr.
Synopsis, courtesy the Butler School:
Queenie Pie is the National Honorary Degree and Title bestowed annually upon the Beautician-Cosmetologist voted “best” by her professional colleagues. The celebration surrounding the event is a Mardi Gras in Harlem, held on the 13th of every May. For the past ten years, Queenie has earned and held the esteemed title. She came up from the ranks of Beauticians, diligently studying and working to become the best. She has also entered into the business of producing Beauty Products.
With business and position fairly secure, Queenie has settled in to a life of social respectability. Her place is a gathering salon for interesting people. She and they all love each other madly - a most necessary ingredient: a mixture of instant approval and applause.
This years’ contest find Queenie in serious trouble with a beautiful, young contender: the smooth, sleek personification of her name, Café Olay. Possessed of a bad, jealous temper, Cafe Olay is trouble. Holt Fay, a handsome member of Queenie’s circle, is in charge of the contest festivities and has fallen in love with Café Olay.
The contest now becomes a personal struggle for these three and tragedy sets in when Café Olay kills Holt Fay. Queenie wins the title and crown again, but by default. Queenie realizes that time is fast on her heels and during a poignant self-appraisal her faithful old friend and servant guides her thoughts back to his birthplace - an uncharted island, where there is a magic formula for everlasting anythingness.
Queenie embarks on the journey to this island, acquires the mysterious article of necessity only to lose it through a mix-up in the following directions. Throughout the subsequent events, Queenie must now decide what is important in her life: the prize or living while on the road to attaining the Prize. She must learn and choose, as did Holt Fay, where to go to give up.
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