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Music 59 results
(l-r) Nyckelharpa player Olov Johansson, guitarist Roger Tallroth, and violist Mikael Marin of the Swedish band Väsen will be performing at their ninth Lotus World Music and Arts Festival this year. | Courtesy photo

Two Lotus Fest Trios Offer Twists on Traditional Music
Benjamin Beane
Xöömei and nyckelharpa … must be the sounds of Lotus! A meeting ground of world musical styles, the year’s Lotus Festival brings Swedish string trio Väsen and Tuvan throat singers Alash, offering an innovative twist on the traditional music of their home countries. Click here for videos and Benjamin Beane’s profiles of the bands, including an exclusive interview with Väsen.
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Trio da Kali (Mali/soulful Mandé griot traditions). | Courtesy photo

Lineup for 24th Lotus World Music Festival Announced
Benjamin Beane
The lineup for the 24th annual Lotus World Music and Arts Festival has been announced. In the coming weeks, writer Benjamin Beane will profile some of the more prominent acts that will perform. Lotus, which Beane says “perfectly encapsulates Bloomington’s celebration of cultural diversity,” begins September 28. Click here for the provisional lineup.
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Musical children pass through various stages of development, each step requiring different approaches, encouragement, and patience, says Miller Susens, a cellist in the IU Jacobs School of Music. | Copyright: gonshi4545 / 123RF Stock Photo

Helping a Musical Child Foster a Love of Music
Miller Susens
Musical children pass through various stages of development, each step requiring different approaches, encouragement, and patience, says Miller Susens, a cellist in the IU Jacobs School of Music. Supporting young musicians encourages individual expression and contributes to a more well-rounded and compassionate human being. Click here to read the full story.
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Voces Novae, pictured here giving a concert in February at Unitarian Universalist Church, is celebrating their 20th anniversary with a concert called “The Art and Science of Happiness” on Saturday, May 13. | Photo by Merrill Hatlen

Voces Novae Celebrates 20 Years of ‘Adventurous’ Choral Music
Jennifer Pacenza
Voces Novae has been performing for 20 years, but unlike other chamber choirs, its vision of choral music, says writer Jen Pacenza, is an adventurous experience for audiences and musicians alike. On Saturday, Voces Novae celebrates its 20th anniversary with a thematic tour, called “The Art and Science of Happiness,” at 5 p.m. at Unitarian Universalist Church. Click here to read the full story.
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Rahim AlHaj: Lotus Blossoms Visiting Artist [video]
TJ Jaeger, Dason Anderson
Grammy-nominated oud player Rahim AlHaj, an Iraqi political refugee since 1991, was invited by the Lotus Education and Arts Foundation to participate in the Lotus Blossoms outreach program in March. He performed at various Bloomington locations and also at Owen Valley High School in Spencer. Filmmaker TJ Jaeger recorded the trip.
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A Reimagining Opera for Kids (ROK) performance of "Rufus and Rita," featuring (l-r) Dexter Griffin as the Sloth, Alejandra Martinez as Rita, and Marquese Carter as Rufus. | Courtesy photo

Behind the Curtain: Making Opera ‘Not a Dirty Word’
Jennifer Pacenza
An opera coach at IU has been working to lessen the damage of dismantling arts education in public schools. Kim Carballo’s Reimagining Opera for Kids performs for school children, introducing them to opera and helping to “make opera not a dirty word.” LP columnist Jennifer Pacenza takes a look at ROK in Behind the Curtain. Click here to read the full story.
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Hoagy Carmichael sits at the piano surrounded by friends in the Book Nook on Indiana Avenue, sometime in the 1920s. | Photo courtesy of Indiana University Archives of Traditional Music

Dada a la Bloomington — a 1920s ‘Anti-Art’ Hotbed
Michael G. Glab
When the absurdist art movement known as Dada began spreading to major cities around the world in the 1920s, it rarely found its way to sleepy Midwestern towns. But writer Michael G. Glab looks into how a soda shop in Bloomington became a hotbed of Dada, courtesy of favorite son Hoagy Carmichael and his friends. Click here to read the full story.
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Bloomington’s thriving punk scene of the ’70s and ’80s paved the way for today’s punk bands. Pictured here, Seven Seconds performing at Ricky's Canteena, a Bloomington all-ages club, in 1984. | Photo courtesy of Mike Whybark

Since the ’70s, Bloomington Has Been a Midwestern Haven for Punk
Sierra Vandervort
Punk rock was a lively part of the Bloomington music scene even before the godfathers of American punk, the Ramones, recorded their first album in 1976. And it is still alive and kicking. Sierra Vandervort looks into the hardcore beginnings of punk and how it has influenced today’s stock of DIY musicians. Click here to read the full story.
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Writer Sierra Vandervort says that different music “factions” work together to create a vibrant and independent, yet supportive, music scene that is true to Bloomington’s central character. A part of the Bloomington music scene, the members of Siddius have been bringing their symphonic brand of heavy metal to the scene for more than ten years. Pictured here, (l-r) Andrew Welp (keyboard), Alex Welp (bass), Hayden Frasier (vocals), and Khalid Stetkevych (guitar) perform as Siddius. | Photo courtesy of Siddius

Genre-bending Musicians True to B-town’s Character
Sierra Vandervort
B-town is home to a variety of musicians and bands that bend and blend genres from punk to folk, country to classical, jazz to metal. Writer Sierra Vandervort says these different “factions” work together to create a vibrant and independent, yet supportive, music scene that is true to Bloomington’s central character. Click here to read the full story.
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Miller Susens walks through the Indiana University campus carrying her cello. Susens is studying music education in the Jacobs School of Music and often finds herself having to defend her major. | Photo by Ben Meraz

Major Shaming: A Jacobs School Student Defends Her Major
Miller Susens, Ben Meraz
Since high school, Miller Susens has known what her career would be: teaching music. But now, as a cellist and junior at IU’s Jacobs School of Music, the music-education major has to answer questions like “Is music even a job?” The “major shaming,” she says, has never silenced her desire to teach. Click here to read the full story.
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The Indiana University Arts and Humanities Council has created the First Thursdays Festival at Showalter Arts Plaza — a monthly event that will “celebrate and showcase” a range of arts. | Photo courtesy of IU Office of First Year Experience Programs

IU to Showcase Artists with Massive Monthly Festival
TJ Jaeger
Recognizing the wealth of “artists and thinkers” on campus, the IU Arts and Humanities Council has created the First Thursdays Festival at Showalter Arts Plaza. The monthly event will “celebrate and showcase” a range of arts — musical, visual, performance, and other creative endeavors — free and open to the public. Click here to read the full story.
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Coley D, of Misfit Toy Karaoke, and Stacy Louise Hardy perform during karaoke night at Bloomington's only queer bar, The Back Door. In a post-Orlando world, writer Zak Szymanski argues places like The Back Door, with “its diversity and ideology,” are becoming sanctuaries for the disenfranchised — and “the future of LGBT space.” | Courtesy photo

Queer Space, Post-Orlando: Can Karaoke Save the Misfit?
Zak Szymanski, Andrew Grodner
Many people think what’s happening at The Back Door is culturally transformative,” Zak Szymanski writes about Bloomington’s only queer bar. In a post-Orlando world, places like The Back Door, with “its diversity and ideology,” are becoming sanctuaries for the disenfranchised — and “the future of LGBT space." Click here to read the full story.
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