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Baltimore magazine
Q & A: Gary Bartz
Our full interview with the legendary Baltimore-born saxophonist.
Play It
Mikel Gehl, Lisa Mathew & Rainer Friends
Published: April, 2013
Manuel Barrueco & The Stone Hill All-Stars.
Published: March, 2013
Dan Deacon - America (Domino), Height With Friends - Rock and Roll (Friends/Cold Rhymes)
Published: August, 2012
Read It
Jill Smokler & Joy Peterson Heyrman
Published: May, 2013
Daniel W. Webster & Jon S. Vernick, Laura Castellani & Alessandra Catalioti and Justin Sirois
Published: April, 2013
Stephen Hunter, Stephanie Barber & Brian Norman
Published: March, 2013
The Diva Next Door
Don’t look now, but a world-class opera singer is living in Baltimore.

The sounds of tuning violins, deliberate piano notes, and operatic singing bounce through the corridors of Peabody’s Leakin Hall on a Monday afternoon. The singing comes from a spacious, high-ceilinged studio—outfitted with a Persian rug, a pair of sofas, and a grand piano—where voice major Tia Price practices an aria by Italian composer Francesco Cilea. As Price repeats passages, her teacher, perched beside her on a high stool, offers clipped suggestions and encouragement. “Stretch the vowel.” “Don’t back away from that.” “Take a breath there. Take your time.”

Stir It Up
A party at the Creative Alliance celebrates the legacy of Bob Marley.

When Andre Mazelin was growing up in Montego Bay, Jamaica, he went to school with Ziggy Marley and remembers his father, Bob, waiting to pick him up in the courtyard. Fast forward years later and Mazelin, who is now the house and rental manager at the Creative Alliance, is hosting a party that commemorates the reggae legend’s birthday. “Even if I wasn’t from Jamaica, I could still identify with his songs of triumph and love,” Mazelin says. The party, on February 2, celebrates Bob Marley, but it also honors all things Caribbean.

Hair Raising
John Waters performs in the latest version of his cult classic.

The tagline for Hairspray could read something like, “Your favorite movie, now a musical, now a movie, now a . . . symphony concert?” That’s right, John Waters’s beloved 1988 film about racial segregation in 1960’s Baltimore is being adapted once again—this time by the BSO—and staged January 25-27 at the Joseph Meyerhoff Symphony Hall. The kicker? Waters himself will take the stage as a narrator. “The BSO came to me with the idea, and I liked it because it was something different,” Waters says.

Guts and Ghosts
Everyman makes a bold move to the Westside and taps into theater history.

Before giving a tour of Everyman Theatre’s new home on W. Fayette Street, artistic director Vincent Lancisi pauses beside a table of artifacts in the construction office next door. The items on the table were unearthed during Everyman’s 18-month renovation of the 100-year-old structure, which opened as a vaudeville theater (The Empire), before becoming a burlesque house (The Palace), a parking garage, and, once again, a theater (The Town). Workers found gaslights, vintage liquor bottles, Baltimore Brick Company bricks, and even a mysterious bone.

Q&A With Dave Heumann
Our extended interview with Dave Heumann of Arbouretum.

What do you think of Thrill Jockey signing all these Baltimore bands, including Arbouretum, over the past few years?
It's fine with me. We've always had good bands here, but I think it took the situation reaching a certain critical mass in order to interest Thrill Jockey. They’ve been branching out more and more from the kinds of bands they started with in the 90's. From a vantage point a little closer to the inside, it feels quite natural.

Rainboh Bright
A local artist takes Mr. Boh to a whole new level.

Carlos Vigil remembers growing up in Albuquerque, NM, and sketching his favorite doodle: basketballs. “I drew them on everything,” he says. “All the zeroes on my math homework were basketballs.” Vigil, pictured center, now 27, seems to have a new go-to symbol—the Natty Boh man. The MICA alum and his company Super Rad Designs has found success with a T-shirt featuring Mr. Boh faces in a Krylon spray-paint design.

Putting Baltimore in the BMA
The museum’s renovated Contemporary Wing makes good use of local talent.

Kristen Hileman walks through The Baltimore Museum of Art’s Contemporary Wing, looking for signs of progress. The wing closed for extensive renovations almost two years ago, and, on this September afternoon, its 16 galleries are mostly empty. Wooden packing crates outnumber masterworks; a black pulley sits in the central gallery, where two Franz West sculptures rest on quilted packing blankets; and a stack of colorful panels by the collaborative duo Guyton/Walker lean against a wall in an adjacent gallery. “It’s coming along,” says Hileman, the BMA’s contemporary art curator.

Sound City: Michael Formanek
We speak with bassist and Peabody instructor Michael Formanek.

How would you characterize the current group and how has its music has evolved? Will you continue recording/performing with them?

One-Man Poe
Center Stage portrays the famous poet like we’ve never seen.

Edgar Allan Poe has been interpreted many ways—by John Astin, John Cusack, even on The Simpsons. But, starting October 17, Center Stage will show us a different Poe in The Completely Fictional—Utterly True—Final Strange Tale of Edgar Allan Poe. “The show opens and he’s been ushered to this hospital in Baltimore in a drunken, delirious state,” says actor Bruce Nelson, pictured. “And there’s flashbacks, but the audience never knows if they’re seeing a real flashback or if these are ramblings of a diseased mind.” While the play sounds dark, he insists it’s also full of vaudeville-style wit.

Fall Arts Preview: A Charm City Arts Renaissance
Despite the economy, the local arts scene keeps thriving, generating excellent work, a calendar full of can't-miss events, and even a few genius ideas — like OrchKids.

It wasn’t that long ago——just over three years, actually——that the Baltimore Opera Company folded after the economy tanked and many observers (us included) wondered if it was a harbinger of more to come. At the time, MICA president Fred Lazarus told Baltimore that “in terms of the corporate headquarters here, the financial strength of the city, and lots of other things, we don’t have lots of the resources that other cities have,” which sounded downright ominous considering the situation.