Everything to Know About This Weekend’s Bayou City Art Festival! (Hint: It’s Bigger and Boozier Than Ever)

Robin Barr Sussman

HARD TO BELIEVE it’s been 50 years. What once was a small art show in a wooded park has grown to feature 300 artists from around the country representing 19 different disciplines, live entertainment and food and beverage options. The Bayou City Art Festival, produced by the Art Colony Association, Inc., returns to Memorial Park for its 50th anniversary. The weekend-long event (March 25-27, 10am-6pm) benefits six local nonprofit partners, and this year’s fest ushers in new and interactive happenings for the whole fam.

Symphony Bids Adieu to Orozco-Estrada, Celebration Concludes with a ‘Startling’ New Concerto by Jazz Legend

Chris Becker

“ANDRÉS FEST,” A two-week celebration honoring the eight-year tenure of Houston Symphony Music Director Andrés Orozco-Estrada, concludes this weekend (March 26-27) with two concerts featuring the Texas premiere of Wynton Marsalis’ Concerto for Tubist and Orchestra.

In MFAH’s ‘Extraordinary Realities,’ Pakistani Painter and Glassell Alum Invites Viewers to Confront Biases

GIVEN PAKISTANI-BORN artist Shahzia Sikander’s deep connection to the city, it makes sense that the Museum of Fine Arts, Houston is the final stop for her retrospective, Shahzia Sikander: Extraordinary Realities. The critically acclaimed exhibit, which opened Sunday and is on view through June 5, is a visually sumptuous summation of 15 years of work by Sikander, whose art questions and subverts the viewer’s assumptions regarding ethnicity, gender and history. Interestingly, in several works, Sikander casts that critical eye upon herself, “the artist."

Photo by Lynn Lane

HOUSTON GRAND OPERA’S second fall repertoire production is Gioachino Rossini’s Cinderella. The colorful, commedia dell'arte-inspired production opens Friday, Oct. 25, and stars Grammy Award-winning mezzo-soprano Isabel Leonard — a breathtaking brunette beauty, even when doused in soot — in bel canto role of Angelina, known to her mean step-sisters as “Cenerentola.”

Keep Reading Show less
Art + Entertainment

BRETT MILLER WAS just 10 years old when his parents took him to a screening of the 1925 silent film, The Phantom of the Opera, starring Lon Chaney as “The Phantom” of the Paris Opera House, with an accompanying soundtrack played live by an organist. The film contains one of the most famous “reveals” on celluloid (We won’t give it away!) and is all the more shocking when accompanied by live music played on the Phantom’s favorite instrument.

Keep Reading Show less