Arts

The Omaha Area Youth Orchestra will play popular pieces from Rimsky-Korsakov, Delius and Mendelssohn at its annual Side by Side program.

The Side by Side Concert takes place Sunday at 7:00 in the Holland Center.  OAYO Executive Director Aviva Segall says the program offers the Youth Symphony the chance to perform alongside Omaha Symphony musicians. 

She says Maestro Thomas Wilkins will conduct the majority of the concert.

"And it is such an amazing experience for them to just absorb what those professionals do.  And there’s really nothing we can offer them that can ever compare to what they can learn just by sitting next to a member of the Omaha Symphony.”

Area students and community volunteers have an opportunity to become “Mindbender Masters” through the Durham Museum’s Good Works Program. 

The program is a service-based initiative that will train participants for the Museum’s summer exhibition, Mindbender Mansion. Volunteers or “Mindbender Masters” will guide visitors through the exhibition, helping them complete brainteasers and challenges.

Durham Museum spokeswoman Shawna Forsberg says the Good Works Program is an excellent opportunity for students who are looking to fulfill service learning requirements, gain experience working with the public and share their academic talents with others.

Omaha South High School’s Ambassadors Show Choir is celebrating its 50th anniversary.

A 50 year reunion concert is scheduled for Saturday evening at South High School. The Ambassadors Show Choir began in 1962 as the Choralaires. Among the 100 participants in this weekend’s reunion show are members of that choir.

Clay Blackman, Director of Choral Activities at South High School, says the Ambassadors Show Choir has 18 members this school year. He says even if participants choose not to pursue a career in performing arts, he hopes Ambassadors Show Choir instills in them a lifelong love of music.

Experimental percussionist Tatsuya Nakatani performs at the Bemis Center Saturday, April 7th.

Joel Damon, Underground Curator, says Nakatani plays a traditional gong with a bow.  He says it creates an atmospheric sound that can be felt and experienced on multiple levels. 

Damon says Nakatani also plays singing bowls, and uses cymbals in new ways.  He says the Bemis is always interested in performers and artists who may not fit comfortably within traditional concert venues.

"The second half of the performance he will take on the role of a conductor and conduct the Nakatani Gong Orchestra.  We will have five or six members of the creative community here in Omaha and from Lincoln that will be playing bowed gongs at his direction.”

Happily Ever After: Wedding Dresses and Traditions is the title of the Douglas County Historical Society 2nd annual luncheon and runway show.

Cassandra Novotne, Coordinator for the Douglas County Historical Society, says the show highlights wedding gowns, bridesmaids’ dresses and other matrimonial clothing from the 1890’s to the 1970’s. 

She says as the models walk down the runway in era-specific gowns, a narrator will discuss what was going on around the world at that time that would have influenced the fashions.  Novotne says one of the biggest challenges in staging the show was the size of the dresses. 

The rock and roll musical is set in 1987 around a club on the Sunset Strip.  Actor Matt Ban plays Dennis Dupree in the production. 

He says Dennis is the 70’s leftover in the show and owns the rock club.  Ban says this is the first rock show he’s ever done and he’s having a good time singing some of the 80’s best hair metal music.  

He says the show gets big reactions wherever it goes and he thinks it’s because the music is so much fun and so well-known.