Wednesday, March 30,2011

Hitting the bricks — gently

Masons restore a colossal flame to its original glory

by Lawrence Cosentino

The most compelling reason to spend millions of dollars to gut, refit and save the Ottawa Power Station is its unique shell, tapered and colored like a giant flame burning from black at the bottom to red to orange to yellow on top.

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Wednesday, March 30,2011

Transom zaps redux

Lightning strikes twice at the doors of the Ottawa Power Station

by Lawrence Cosentino

Lorenzo Ghiberti’s 15th-century bronze doors at the Baptistery of Florence have God, Noah, Adam and Eve going for them, but even the fabled “Gates of Paradise” don’t have transom zaps.

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Wednesday, March 30,2011

Skeleton crew

Dancing delicately with the Ottawa Power Station’s steel bones

by Lawrence Cosentino

Imagine replacing a dinosaur’s skeleton, working through a small hole in the top of its head, while the dinosaur is still alive.That’s pretty much what steelworkers had to do when they set about to convert the Ottawa Street Power Station to the world headquarters of the Accident Fund Insurance Co. of America.

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Wednesday, March 30,2011

From power to people

How designers made Planet Machine habitable by humans

by Lawrence Cosentino

Enter the Accident Fund Insurance Co. of America’s new headquarters in downtown Lansing and you walk into a naked tug of war between a 20th-century power plant and a modern office building.

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Wednesday, March 30,2011

Hardhats and high hopes

Economic echoes of an urban renewal thunderclap

by Lawrence Cosentino

Tell someone Lansing’s historic Ottawa Power Station is 172.2 feet tall and you might get a “hm.”Take a friend downtown to see the big orange flame jet into the blue or tremble in the river and you’ll get an “ohhh.”

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Wednesday, March 30,2011

Opera with punch

MSU Opera Theatre takes on Ricky Ian Gordon’s fierce ‘Grapes of Wrath’

by Lawrence Cosentino

Sing a song of hope, love and family. Is it the great American song yet? Try a song of unemployment and foreclosures, union busting and immigrant bashing, alcohol and suicide. Need more? Sing of vigilantes with torches, reformers branded as communists, and bankers golfing while depositors lose their shirts.

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Wednesday, March 30,2011

Farewell and zwee-bop

MSU Jazz Vocal Ensemble assembles for the last time

by Lawrence Cosentino

As part of a university-wide 20 percent slash of programs across many departments, the School of Music’s 7-year-old vocal jazz program has been dropped. The program’s founder, MSU vocal jazz luminary Sunny Wilkinson, will not be re-hired next year after 17 years with the school.

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Thursday, March 24,2011

Violins and Valkyries

Lansing’s Melissa White tops varied LSO program

by Lawrence Cosentino

For Melissa White, headlining Saturday’s Lansing Symphony concert doesn’t mean hotel food and hangers you can’t pull off the rack. Born and raised in Lansing, the peripatetic violinist can look forward to home-cooked meals with her mom and dad and a sleepover with her sister.

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Wednesday, March 16,2011

Absolute Music ventures into the night Friday

by Lawrence Cosentino

But the most attractive part of Absolute Music is the chance to get close and personal with an A-Team of Michigan State University and Lansing Symphony musicians, including pianists Deborah Moriarty and Derek Polischuk, Richard Sherman on flute, and Yuri Gandelsman on viola.

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Wednesday, March 9,2011

Out of the maw of Minnesota

Globetrotting St. John’s Chorus makes a stop in Lansing during national spring tour

by Lawrence Cosentino

When the 46-voice St. John’s University Men’s Chorus rattles the apses and naves of Lansing’s First Presbyterian Church Saturday, local music lovers will have a chance to witness one of America’s regional wonders without hitting the interstate..

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