Wednesday, January 4,2012

When 'Eroica' was new

Lansing Symphony Orchestra strips away the varnish from Beethoven’s breakthrough masterpiece

by Lawrence Cosentino

There comes a time when the voice deepens, strange new emotions stir and hair grows in interesting places. Adolescence? No — there’s something even hairier, deeper and more emotional than that. Nothing surges through a culture more powerfully than a major change in music.

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Wednesday, December 28,2011

‘Like wind I go’

Remembering 10 Lansing-area people who died in 2011

by Lawrence Cosentino

To write this story about 10 people who died in greater Lansing this year, I looked at every daily obituary for 2011. Why? Shawn Riley, father of Aaron Riley, the 21-year-old MSU student who drowned in July, said it perfectly: "It's a shame we don't know more about our fellow people."

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Wednesday, December 28,2011

Jazz and classical: Endangered? Not here

by Lawrence Cosentino

What Madagascar is to endangered lemurs, America's universities have become to those exquisite and rarely observed species, classical and jazz music. In 2011, bucking all market trends in the surrounding musical ecosystem, greater Lansing was lemur central.

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Wednesday, December 14,2011

Year-round market

East side warehouse will become Food Resource Center

by Lawrence Cosentino

It s sad to stand on bare asphalt where giant rutabagas once roamed, but this could be the last winter Lansing s east side will fend for fresh food without the Allen Street Farmers Market, on seasonal hiatus since Nov. 9.

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Wednesday, December 14,2011

'Jazzy Little Christmas ' gets a little bigger this year

Tenor Richard Fracker, soprano Melanie Helton and renowned jazz singer Marion Cowings are among the guest artists

by Lawrence Cosentino

Ding-dong! Now who could that be? With a casual mix of Michigan State University s top-drawer classical vocalists, New York jazz singer Marion Cowings and the MSU Professors of Jazz, this year s Jazzy Little Christmas harks back to radio and TV specials of yore.

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Wednesday, December 7,2011

‘She goes for it every day’

Selma Hollander’s life in the arts is still in full swing

by Lawrence Cosentino

Michael Rush, the founding director of MSU s new Eli and Edythe Broad art museum, came to East Lansing last year with the daunting mission of selling cutting-edge art and architecture in the heart of Michigan. He quickly discovered an invaluable ally, a kindred spirit and a personal hero.

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Wednesday, November 30,2011

A house gets its ‘before’ picture

Ingham County Land Bank gives 530 Pacific Ave. a second chance

by Lawrence Cosentino

Sure enough, the leaky, abandoned house on Lansing s south side is slated for a $50,000 renovation in the next three to four months. The Land Bank bought the two-story 1925 house across from the old John Bean factory in July for $6,371 in back taxes owed by the absent owner.

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Wednesday, November 23,2011

‘Radicals’ revisited

Michigan State University law professor looks at controversial characters throughout history

by Lawrence Cosentino

By LAWRENCE COSENTINO The Thanksgiving playbook calls for the whole family, from Tea Partiers to Occupiers, to sit down for an all-American truce, lubricated by gravy and minimal meaningful conversation. Michigan State University law Professor Michael Lawrence has a radically different feast in mind.

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Wednesday, November 16,2011

Back to the dulcimer

Wanda Degen ponders her future after 25 years as East Lansing Art Festival performance coordinator

by Lawrence Cosentino

In the summer of 1967, between eighth and ninth grade, young Wanda Degen decided to have a hippie party. She went to a head shop in her little hometown of Montague Whitehall, on the dunes of west Michigan, and fell in love with a trippy poster for a Jefferson Airplane show at the Fillmore in San Francisco.

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Thursday, November 10,2011

Brushfire over bullying

Michigan lawmakers take heat for religious ‘blueprint for bullying,’ go back to drawing board

by Lawrence Cosentino

After years of urging Michigan s legislature to pass a comprehensive law cracking down on bullying in the state s schools, Senate Democratic Leader Gretchen Whitmer reconciled herself to the idea that something would be better than nothing until last week.

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