Matt Smith News

  The Swedish label BIS Records releases the final recording of the Minnesota Orchestra's celebrated Sibelius symphonies series. Conducted by Music Director Osmo Vänskä, who is known for his Sibelius interpretations, the album features the Finnish composer's Third, Sixth and Seventh Symphonies. The new recording will be released nationwide in the United States on September 9, but is available now through the Orchestra's website at minnesotaorchestra.org.

Mohegan Sun Pocono is excited to announce the nationwide stand-up tour of Tracy Morgan, titled 'Picking Up The Pieces.' Known for starring in Saturday Night Live, NBC's Emmy and Golden Globe Award-winning hit series 30 Rock, The Tracy Morgan Show and his renowned standup specials, Tracy Morgan is one of the most respected comedians in his field. Performing in the Keystone Grand Ballroom and presented by COMIX Comedy, the standup act will begin at 8:00pm. 

NEW YORK, NEW YORK (July 25, 2016)—Conducted by Semyon Bychkov in May 2016, the 13th annual Vienna Philharmonic Summer Night Concert Schönbrunn will be released on CD, DVD, Blu-Ray, and digital platforms by Sony Classical on August 12 and broadcast on PBS's Great Performances on Friday, September 30 at 9 p.m. (check local listings.). The Summer Night Concerts are presented free each year in the gardens of Vienna's Imperial Schönbrunn Palace, and Mr. Bychkov—conducting the event for the first time—led the Vienna Philharmonic in front of its largest Summer Night Concert audience ever (102,000 spectators). The performance reached an additional 585,000 people through TV and radio, having been broadcast by 83 stations on five continents.

MINNEAPOLIS (July 29, 2016) – Minnesota Opera today announced that Head of Music Robert Ainsley has accepted the position as the new Director of the Domingo-Cafritz Young Artist Program and the American Opera Initiative, effective next month. For the last three years, Rob has served as the Head of Music Staff, Chorus Master and Coach at Minnesota Opera and Opera Theatre of Saint Louis. He has worked on several world premiere and American operas at both companies, including Minnesota Opera's The Dream of Valentino, The Manchurian Candidate and The Shining.

Celebrating the 30th anniversary of Metallica's Master of Puppets album, Metallica: Back to the Front chronicles the amazing, fully authorized story of the band's seminal album and tour.

HOUSTON (July 25, 2016) – September 2016 marks the beginning of the Houston Symphony's 103rd season and the diverse orchestral programming Houstonians have come to love. From classic rock to Judy Garland, Seth MacFarlane and Mahler, the season's first month of concerts will span several decades and genres of music.

The National Portrait Gallery will create the world's first museum permanent collection Choral Audio Guide, it was announced today, Monday 25 July 2016.

Sioux Falls (7/25/2016) The Washington Pavilion Visual Arts Center is excited to announce the opening ofNo One Asked Us, a fine art photographic exhibition by local photographer and Assistant Professor of Photography at Augustana University, Anna Reich, in the Center's Jerstad Gallery. The exhibition runs now through October 16, 2016.

What:              Boston Ballet proudly presents a one-day-only performance, First Look, featuring new and returning dancers in Boston Ballet II (BBII), the second company, and select Boston Ballet School Summer Dance Program (SDP) students. SDP students will perform alongside BBII company members in a range of works curated to reflect the main Company's diverse repertoire. 

New York... Beginning 8 September 2016, Hauser & Wirth will present 'Fly Away', an exhibition of new paintings and sculptures by Rashid Johnson, complemented by a monumental installation that engages the gallery's soaring architecture. Taking its name from the time-honored 1929 hymn 'I'll Fly Away', a song reinterpreted over decades by scores of artists – from gospel legends of the Dust Bowl era to such contemporary pop performers as Kanye West – the exhibition reveals Johnson pondering themes of history, yearning, and escape while intensifying his longstanding investigation into the relationship between art, society, and personal identity. 

Philadelphia, PA (July 26, 2016) – Pennsylvania Ballet and Artistic Director Angel Corella are pleased to announce Anastasia Babayeva and Denis Gronostayskiy, co-founders of the Academy of International Ballet in Media, PA, have joined the School of Pennsylvania Ballet as Co-Principals for the 2016-2017 school year.  

DENVER – Colorado Ballet Artistic Director Gil Boggs promoted Corps de Ballet dancers Morgan Buchanan and Kevin Gaël Thomas to Soloists.  In addition, Boggs promoted two Studio Company dancers to Apprentices, for a total of 30 professional Company dancers for the 2016-2017 season.

Beginning around the year 1000, Jerusalem attained unprecedented significance as a location, destination, and symbol to people of diverse faiths from Iceland to India. Multiple competitive and complementary religious traditions, fueled by an almost universal preoccupation with the city, gave rise to one of the most creative periods in its history. Opening at The Metropolitan Museum of Art on September 26, the landmark exhibition Jerusalem 1000–1400: Every People Under Heaven will demonstrate the key role that the Holy City, sacred to the three Abrahamic faiths, played in shaping the art of this period. In these centuries, Jerusalem was home to more cultures, religions, and languages than ever before. Through times of peace as well as war, Jerusalem remained a constant source of inspiration that resulted in art of great beauty and fascinating complexity.

John Crawford, a Brooklyn-based artist whose output consists of welded steel sculptures, spent 10 years (1976–86) in Tuscany working at a blacksmith's shop after graduating from the Rhode Island School of Design. Since 1995, he has been interested in the smithing works of various West African cultures. As a result of these models, his work is highly tactile, abstract, and often totemic. Abstract steel sculpture has a long, illustrious history in the U.S., but Crawford's vision is quite different. He borrows from the forms of other places to create work that openly relates to its making, as well as to the history of American creativity. Interestingly, there is a sensuality and organic quality to his forms, often made of rings and coils, somewhat at odds with their industrial construction. Such differences, however, thrive and meld in Crawford's work.

(New York, July 28, 2016)—The Costume Institute's Fall 2016 exhibition, Masterworks: Unpacking Fashion, on view in the Anna Wintour Costume Center from November 8, 2016, through February 5, 2017, will feature significant acquisitions of the past 10 years. The show, curated by Assistant Curator Jessica Regan with support from Curator in Charge Andrew Bolton, will explore how the department has honed its collecting strategy to amass masterworks of the highest aesthetic and technical quality, including iconic works by designers who have changed the course of fashion history and advanced fashion as an art form.  

Lexington, KY—University Press of Kentucky biography, Russell Kirk: American Conservative by historian Bradley J. Birzer has been named a finalist for the Henry and Anne Paolucci Book Award given by the Intercollegiate Studies Institute. ISI is a non-profit educational organization devoted to the promotion of conservative thought on college campuses. It was founded in 1953 by Frank Chodorov with William F. Buckley Jr. as its first president. The award honors the book that best advances conservative principles. 

Mori Art Museum is proud to present “The Universe and Art: Princess Kaguya, Leonardo da Vinci, teamLab” from Saturday, July 30, 2016 to Monday, January 9, 2017.

Publishing 30th September 2016 by Roundfire Books, an imprint of John Hunt Publishing Ltd., The Worst Generation by Dan P. Greaney is aimed at the American electorate, current and future. Consumers. Baby Boomers. Parents.

Wizard World, Inc., (WIZD) the preeminent producer of Wizard World Comic Cons across North America, is excited to announce the addition of Doctor Who's Matt Smith and Karen Gillan to the Wizard World Austin lineup, September 23-25.

DENVER – Colorado Ballet will perform a collection of classical and contemporary works at An Evening under the Stars at 7:30 p.m. on August 20, 2016 at the Arvada Center Outdoor Amphitheater, 6901 Wadsworth Blvd., Arvada, CO 80003.