With a career that includes award-winning videos, New York Times op-eds, a major label split and the establishment of a DIY trans-media mini-empire (Paracadute), collaborations with pioneering dance companies and tech giants, animators and Muppets, and an experiment that encoded their music on actual strands of DNA, OK Go continue to fearlessly dream and build new worlds in a time when creative boundaries have all but dissolved.
Formed as a quartet in Chicago in 1998 and relocated to Los Angeles three years later, OK Go (Damian Kulash, Tim Nordwind, Dan Konopka, Andy Ross) have spent their career in a steady state of transformation. Released in the fall 2014 via their own Paracadute/BMG, Hungry Ghosts is the band’s fourth full-length and the newest addition to a curriculum vitae filled with experimentation in a variety of mediums.
Drawn from the same marching orders issued to big-hearted happiness creators as Queen, T. Rex, The Cars or Cheap Trick, and a lifetime of mixed tapes exchanged by lifelong music fans, Hungry Ghosts is a reaffirmation of the sounds and ideas that brought the band together in the first place. Building on (and deconstructing) 15 years of pop-rock smarts, musical friendship, and band-of-the-future innovations, Hungry Ghosts, offers melancholic fireworks (“The Writing’s on the Wall”), basement funk parties (“Turn Up The Radio”), IMAX-sized choruses (“The One Moment”), and space-age dance floor bangers (“I Won’t Let You Down”).
Internationally praised for both her technical and lyrical command of music, Karina Canellakis, winner of the 2016 Sir Georg Solti Conducting Award, conducts the 2017 debut performance of the World Youth Symphony Orchestra. Already known to many in the classical music world for her virtuoso violin playing, Ms. Canellakis played regularly in the Chicago Symphony for over three years, and she appeared on several occasions as guest concertmaster of the Bergen Philharmonic in Norway. Repertoire for this evening’s performance will include Adams’ “Short Ride in a Fast Machine,” Mendelssohn’s Symphony No. 4 in A major, Op. 90 “Italian” and “La Valse” by Ravel.
Karina Canellakis has received glowing critical endorsements of her performances since first making headlines in 2014 filling in at the last-minute for Jaap van Zweden with the Dallas Symphony Orchestra in Shostakovich’s 8th symphony. She made her European conducting debut with the Chamber Orchestra of Europe at the Styriarte Festival in Graz, Austria, replacing the late Nikolaus Harnoncourt, and has been re-invited to Graz to conduct his orchestra, Concentus Musicus Wien, in four symphonies of a Beethoven Cycle. She served for two seasons as Assistant Conductor of the Dallas Symphony, during which time she conducted over 60 performances with the orchestra, and concluded her tenure at the end of the 2015/16 season.
Highlights of the 2016/17 season include her European debuts with the Swedish Radio Orchestra, City of Birmingham Symphony Orchestra, Royal Scottish National Orchestra, Orchestre National de Lyon, Trondheim, Kristiansand and Mälmo symphony orchestras, as well as North American debuts including the Toronto, Vancouver, and Milwaukee symphony orchestras. In addition, she has been re-invited to conduct subscription programs with the Hong Kong Philharmonic, Dallas Symphony and North Carolina Symphony.
Back by popular demand! The Capitol Steps once again bring their blend of hilarious political commentary to the Corson Auditorium.
With 35 albums consisting primarily of song parodies based on political highs and lows, The Capitol Steps satirize the very people and places that have employed them. And with all the political headlines bombarding us on a daily basis, the Capitol Steps cover every angle with unilateral laughter, no fakin’! No matter what side of the aisle you’re on, The Capitol Steps will bring you together.
The Capitol Steps was born in December, 1981, when some staffers for Senator Charles Percy were planning entertainment for a Christmas party. They decided to dig into the headlines of the day, and created song parodies & skits which conveyed a special brand of satirical humor.
Although not all of the current members of the Steps are former Capitol Hill staffers, taken together, the performers have worked in a total of eighteen Congressional offices and represent 62 years of collective House and Senate staff experience.
Since they began, the Capitol Steps have recorded 35 albums, including their latest, “What to Expect When You’re Electing.” They’ve been featured on NBC, CBS, ABC, and PBS, and can be heard twice a year on National Public Radio stations nationwide during their Politics Takes a Holiday radio specials.
“They’re the best. There’s no one like them, no one in their league.” —Larry King, CNN
“The Capitol Steps make it easier to leave public life.” —Former President George H. W. Bush
July 3, 2017 – 8:00pm
Ticket price(s):All Seats $33
Five-time Grammy Award nominee Michael Feinstein is arguably best-known as a singer whose penchant for crooning the classics of the Great American Songbook has garnered him critical praise and a legion of devoted followers. However, his acumen as a historian, author, archivist and expert on this music is equally as important and allows him an insight into the heart, soul and creation of each timeless song. From Gershwin to Sinatra and back again, Feinstein’s voice, style and intelligence give each tune a special place in his powerful performances.
Referred to as “The Ambassador of the The Great American Songbook,” singer and musical historian Michael Feinstein has built a career over the last 30 years bringing the music created in the 1930s-60s to audiences around the world. With five Grammy Award nominations, as well as several Emmy nominated PBS-TV specials, his acclaimed NPR series, his sold-out concerts around the globe, his appearances at venues like The White House, Buckingham Palace, Hollywood Bowl, Carnegie Hall and Sydney Opera House—Feinstein’s work as an educator and archivist define him as one of the most important musical forces of our time.
