Culture

ArtBeat: Better together -- Fischer and Zelinsky album is an impressive collaboration

Jazz pianist and singer Melissa Bledsoe Fischer and saxophonist Rick Zelinsky have each produced good albums over the years. But their newly released "Alone Together" may be the best by either of them. In fact, it may be the best produced-in-Alaska commercial studio album I've ever heard.

Judge for yourself. At 4 p.m. on Sunday, Feb. 8, in the University of Alaska Anchorage Fine Arts Building recital hall, the duo will repeat their show heard earlier this week at Tap Root featuring tracks from the new album.

The recording was done at Surreal Studios with Dirk Westfall on bass and Brandon Cockburn on drums. A couple of the cuts are instrumental keepers: Gerry Mulligan's dreamy "Song for Strayhorn" and Bud Powell's swinging "Celia." But most incorporate Fischer's vocals in well-known standards, like her smoky take on "I've Got You Under My Skin" and a deliciously snarky "Cruella de Vil."

The titles are largely familiar, but the results are unexpected, as in the gorgeous "What a Wonderful World" and a breathtakingly edgy "Nature Boy." The piece I keep going back to is "Alone Together," a duet built exclusively on Fischer's soulfully sung long notes delivered against fabulous, almost hallucinogenic, counterpoint from Zelinsky's sax.

Can't make the show? Hear a sample and buy the album at icygrooves.com.

It's a good week to be a lover of saxophone music in Anchorage. The excellent UAA saxophone ensemble will present a program that includes arrangements of classics by Dvorak, Grieg, Satie and the much-underestimated Jean-Baptiste Lully. The ensemble is a septet coached by UAA music professor Mark Wolbers. The performance will start at 7:30 p.m. on Saturday, Feb. 7, also at the UAA Fine Arts Building. General admission tickets will be $19 at the door -- less for seniors, military and students at institutions other than UAA. But you'll save $3 if you buy on Friday, Feb. 6, at uaatix.com or by calling 786-4849.

Final warning for writing contest

The deadline for the UAA/Alaska Dispatch News Creative Writing Contest is Tuesday, Feb. 10. Categories range from elementary to high school, college and general public and genres include poetry, fiction and nonfiction. Rules and entry information is available at adn.com/creativewriting.

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Breaking through the gloom

A glimmer of dawn on the morning commute and fading sun glow while going home remind us that Anchorage is now getting a little more than eight glorious hours of daylight. Saturday will mark the start of "light spring," the point halfway between December's solstice and March's equinox. It means we've made it through the darkest quarter of the year. As long as the weather stays nice-ish, the change is palpable. The Anchorage Museum's "Cabin Fever" exhibit will close on Feb. 15 and the final installment of the Cabin Fever Pop-Up Film Series -- experimental films, music, food trucks and beer -- will take place at 7 p.m. on Saturday, Feb. 7 at the Kincaid Chalet. (Must be 21 or older; tickets are $8.)

During the darkest quarter just past, the Alaska Design Forum has invited inventive types to develop contemporary cabin designs that specifically address the challenges and take advantage of conditions in high latitudes. Dozens of teams and individuals responded. A sample of entries in the Cabin Fever Design Challenge Exhibition will open with a reception at the International Gallery of Contemporary Art at 5 p.m. on Friday, Feb. 6. They range from relatively traditional to impossible, but some seem both fantastical and practical. The public can vote on a "people's choice" winner through Feb. 9. Winners of the competition -- there are cash prizes -- will be revealed at 7 p.m. on Thursday, Feb. 12, in a ceremony in the Anchorage Museum's fourth floor Chugach Gallery.

Whether you get to any of these Cabin Fever tonics or not, indulge in a celebration of one kind or another. Cold and snow notwithstanding, in a certain sense, it is now spring. But keep plugging in the car.

Varnell wins national award

Ketchikan artist Donnie Varnell, known for his lively re-envisioning of totemic art, sometimes compared to anime, is among the recipients of a Painters and Sculptors Grant from the Joan Mitchell Foundation of New York. (That's Joan, the late artist, not Joni, the singer.) The program gives grants of $25,000 in unrestricted career support to 25 artists each year.

Regional recitations

The Anchorage regional competition for the national "Poetry Out Loud" competition will take place at Loussac Library from 5 to 9 p.m. Friday, Feb. 6. The contest awards cash prizes to students who, in the judges' opinion, best deliver any of several poems provided in an anthology from the organizers. The winner here will participate in the state sound-off in Juneau on March 10 and the winner of the state crown will go on to the nationals in Washington, D.C., April 27-29.

Free symphony Saturday

The Anchorage Symphony Orchestra will present another free community concert at 2 p.m. on Saturday at West High School. The West High auditorium is a big venue, but you may want to show up at 1:30 since it's an unticketed first-in, first-seated affair. The program will include the waltz from "Sleeping Beauty," the "Star Wars" theme and the 1812 Overture.

'Raven’s Gift' picked for Anchorage Reads

Don Rearden's sci-fi tale set in the Bush, "The Raven's Gift," will be the selection for this year's Anchorage Reads community reading program. Between Feb. 20 and March 20, people will be asked to read and talk about the book. Associated events include a "Book and Brew" celebration for adults at Anchorage Community Works, fireside storytelling and a visit from Crawford the Raven for younger readers, a readers' theater performance and an author talk.

A new feature is the Warming Hut on Loussac Library's front lawn. Built with lightweight portable materials, the hut is expected to host a variety of events like book club meetings, dinner parties, movie showings or concerts.

Find out more and, if you can help out, click the donate button at librarychampion.com/donate.html, noting in the comments section, "Anchorage Reads."

Superb recital at UAA

I can't sign off this week without applauding the fine recital given by pianist Edvinas Minkstimas at UAA on Monday. The young Lithuanian virtuoso opened with a brisk, clean reading of Mozart's Sonata in C Major, part of the repertoire of nearly every piano student, but always nice to hear played by a pro. He followed with a stunning tour de force, Liszt's knuckle-busting "Reminiscences de Robert le Diable." Schubert's Impromptu in F Minor was profoundly thought-out and luminous in presentation.

Minkstimas played three pieces each by fellow Lithuanians, the multidimensional Mikalojus Ciurlionis, who composed ravishing music as well being a prominent painter, and the modernist Anatolijus Denderovas. He also played his own arrangement of three short Lithuanian Jewish songs and an impressively substantial set of variations built on a fourth.

The rest of the program included Gershwin's Preludes, the Chopin B Minor Scherzo and, as an encore, the jazzy theme from the "Charlie Brown" cartoons. The concert, as good as anything I've heard in Anchorage lately, was free, courtesy of the local Lithuanian honorary consul and several other humanity-minded contributors.

Mike Dunham

Mike Dunham was a longtime ADN reporter, mainly writing about culture, arts and Alaska history. He worked in radio for 20 years before switching to print. He retired from the ADN in 2017.

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