Wednesday, September 8,2010

A singular trio

Lansing Symphony starts 2010-11 season with lead-off triple

by Lawrence Cosentino

Ell made it sound even easier than that. “We just have to rely on all our previous concerto experiences and add some chamber music to it,” she said. “We’ve all played with orchestras a lot, so we’ll have the added pleasure of being on stage with each other.

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Wednesday, September 1,2010

The ripening

Six months after a risky move, it’s harvest time at the Lansing City Market

by Lawrence Cosentino

But the plan to demolish the old market and build a smaller one next to the river as part of a larger development stirred doubts. Critics wondered whether the city wasn’t rolling the whole zucchini into the river, $50,000 annual subsidy and all, just to get rid of it.

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Wednesday, September 1,2010

A seamstress’ swan song

Charlotte Deardorff, LCC’s costume queen, retires after 22 years

by Lawrence Cosentino

Charlotte Deardorff’s eyeballs have been red since the Reagan administration.Prized in local theater circles for her unerring sense of color and attention to detail, Deardorff, 60, will retire this month after 22 years as costume designer at Lansing Community College Theatre Department.She leaves a legacy of thousands of hours of close work — up to 13 or 14 hours a day when a show is about to open —hanging on the LCC costume shop’s racks.

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Wednesday, September 1,2010

American original

American original New Orleans’ Henry Butler hurls piano thunder with MSU Professors of Jazz

by Lawrence Cosentino

If the piano is the queen of instruments, Butler, 61, carries the crown proudly. His specialty is a grand, inclusive synthesis of jazz, boogie, gospel, RB, pop and even the art song tradition of Franz Schubert and Hugo Wolf, which he studied in the early 1970s at MSU.

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Tuesday, August 31,2010

American original

Henry Butler conjures up piano thunder at MSU Wednesday

by Lawrence Cosentino

The cyclonic keyboard force of New Orleans piano legend Henry Butler could crack the Pasant Theater stage all by itself. But the structural concrete underneath may also buckle when Butler jams with Michigan State University’s Professors of Jazz Wednesday.

Diversity on stilts

LCC’s Caribbean Festival turns Lansing into Port-au-Prince for a day

by Lawrence Cosentino

With the biggest and most diverse music lineup yet and a sprawling marketplace and food bazaar, the 16th annual Caribbean Festival is expected to draw tens of thousands of people to the campus of Lansing Community College from noon to midnight Saturday.

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Wednesday, August 25,2010

The sound of Mumbai

by Lawrence Cosentino

On an early August evening, a sinuous sitar melody drifted over the tandoori and samosas at Mumbai Indian Restaurant. You could almost smell the incense. And they call this Jazz Thursday? Ah, but this was only an interlude.

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Wednesday, August 18,2010

Curtain up!

Renegade Theatre Festival fills Old Town with comedy and drama

by Lawrence Cosentino

This weekend, the Renegade Theatre Festival will cram dozens of local theater groups and independents into legit venues and odd corners of Lansing’s oldest district to fuel a Big Bang of dramatic possibilities.

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Wednesday, August 11,2010

Confessions of a bicycle reporter

When it comes to getting the story in Lansing, our man Larry is always on a roll

by Lawrence Cosentino

Some people will see this story and think to themselves, “Slow news week.” Maybe, but I’ve wanted to say this for a while.I love being a bicycle reporter in Lansing.

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Wednesday, August 4,2010

Everybody dance now

Community Dance Project brings together professionals, students and energetic amateurs

by Lawrence Cosentino

“There’s an intrinsic impulse in every human to move to music, but you don’t always give yourself permission,” Newman said. “I want people in the audience to look at the dancers and say, ‘I could do that.’” The mass dance draws its energy from R

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