The A+C Top Ten: September

IMAGE ABOVE: Don’t miss Rick Robinson performing with the River Oaks Chamber Orchestra in Houston on Sept. 26 at The Church of St. John the Divine and again on Sept. 27 at Miller Outdoor Theater.  Photo courtesy of the artist.

#10 – Deep Listening at the Blanton

AUSTIN—The next SoundSpace at The Blanton Museum of Art at The University of Texas at Austin  will focus on the work of Pauline Oliveros on Sept. 13 at 2pm.

Saxophonist Joe McPhee, Austin Hall of Fame inductee Heloise Gold, and other Oliveros collaborators will perform pieces from her extensive Anthology of Text Scores, Sonic Meditations, and participatory text scores.

Photo courtesy of the Blanton Museum of Art.

#9 – AMoA Biennial: 600 Sculpture

AMARILLO—Artists could be considered for the Amarillo Art Museum’s sixth Biennial if they a. worked in the realm of sculpture and b. lived and worked within a 600 mile radius of the museum.

Guest Curator Leigh Arnold, Assistant Curator at the Nasher Sculpture Center served as the sole juror of the exhibition which will be up at AMoA through October 9th.

Danielle Georgiou, Paper City, mixed media installation, 2015. Photo courtesy of the artist.

#8 – Cecil Touchon at William Campbell Contemporary Art

FORT WORTH—Cecil Touchon’s influences may be far-reaching, but language and abstraction have been omnipresent in his artistic career.

Sept. 12-Oct. 10 Fort Worth’s William Campbell Contemporary Art presents Beyond Words, a selection of Touchon’s tension-filled, yet elegant pieces exploring the relationship between language, art and beauty.

Cecil Touchon, Post Dogmatist Painting #801, 2015,  Acrylic and Collage on wood, 48″ x 48″.

#7 – Twyla Tharp at TITAS

DALLAS—TITAS opens their 2015-2016 season celebrating Twyla Tharp’s  50 years of dance-making on Sept. 18-19 at AT&T Performing Arts Center‘s Winspear Opera House, featuring two new works commissioned by performing arts organizations ranging from TITAS to the The Joyce Theater in New York City.

The 10-week tour also includes a stop in Austin at TX Performing Arts on Oct. 20.

Photo by Ruven Afanador, courtesy of AT&T Performing Arts Center.

#6 – Tommy Gregory at Redbud Gallery

HOUSTON—Houston-based artist Tommy Gregory returns to his near-manic interest in devices that rule our lives (and his) in Unloading at Houston’s Redbud Gallery, Sept. 5-27.

The show will involve sound elements, relief works, animated neon wall sculpture and an interactive confessional booth.

Tommy Gregory, Holy Loading Cross, Animated neon on steel, 2015.

#5 – Art History Goes to the Theatre at the McNay Art Museum

SAN ANTONIO—Following in the footsteps of last year’s Artists Take the Stage, the McNay Art Museum continues their exploration of the myriad connections between the art forms with Art History Goes to the Theatre: Research Secrets of Great Designers, on view Sept. 21 through Jan. 31.

In recent years the revisionist trend in art and traditional historiography has led scholars to reexamine the myriad influences of artists of all stripes, and while El Greco and Frank Stella may not be mentioned in Playbill, the McNay aims to illustrate for museum-viewers how some of the world’s greatest artists made their mark on the stage.

Franco Colavecchia, Front Cloth Design for Treemonisha, 1974. Collage and watercolor on paper sheet. Gift of the artist.

#4 – Classics and New Works at Houston Ballet

HOUSTON—Houston Ballet kicks off its 2015-2016 season at the Wortham Theater Center with performances highlighting works by choreographers with long-term associations with the company, including Sir Kenneth MacMillan’s moving ballet, Manon (1974), Sept. 10-20, followed by a fall mixed rep with works by Christopher Bruce, Houston Ballet Artistic Director Stanton Welch, and a world premiere by former Houston Ballet dancer Garrett Smith, Sept. 24 to Oct. 4.

Artists of Houston Ballet in Christopher Bruce’s Ghost Dances.  Photo by Jack Mitchell.

#3 – Donald Moffett at the Blanton

AUSTIN—A broad-ranging artist who experiments with diverse media, including digital chromogenic prints, drawings, video projection paintings and lush, bold abstract oil paintings, Donald Moffett—or at least a representative sampling of his work—is getting a homecoming of sorts.

This month the Blanton Museum of Art presents the first in a two-part installation of newly acquired works by Moffett as part of an initiative to increase its holdings by artists from Texas.

The work will be on view through February 28.

Donald Moffett, Texas, 1969 (from the series, “What Barbara Jordan Wore”), 2001 Digital chromogenic development print in artist’s frame 44¼ x 35½ inches framed (112.4 x 90.2 cm framed), Edition of 3 Gift of the artist in  honor of Jeanne and Michael Klein, 2014 © Donald Moffett. Photo: Milli Apelgren.

#2 – ROCO in the Groove

HOUSTON—Andrés Cárdenes conducts River Oaks Chamber Orchestra (ROCO) in “Gitcha Groove On!,” with a world premiere by Rick Robinson on Sept. 26 at The Church of St. John the Divine and again on Sept. 27 at Miller Outdoor Theater. Works by José Pablo Moncayo, Poulenc and Erich Wolfgang Korngold complete the program.

Rick Robinson.  Photo courtesy of the artist.

#1 – Ballet Folklórico de México

TEXAS— Amalia Hernandez and the dancers of Ballet Folklórico de México whip up a frenzy of motion in their extravagant production of Mexican folk dances that draw from many traditions, on Sept. 14 at the Tobin Center and Sept. 16 at the Verizon Theatre in Grand Prairie/Dallas.

Photo courtesy of The Tobin Center.