Having a Ball

Ars Lyrica hosted a special event at Downtown’s Esperson building in support of its upcoming production of Handel’s Agrippina, the organization’s first fully staged Baroque opera. ... At the Houston Museum of Natural Science’s glitzy Jewel of the Nile gala, guests were greeted by none other than a pair of camels! Inside, dinner tables and auction items were featured throughout the museum’s exhibit halls. ... And the Reach for the Stars gala, held at the Briar Club, raised funds and awareness for the KnowAutism foundation. Deborah Duncan emceed the event, which included a fashion show presented by The Webster, as well as live and silent auctions touting items like a Hawaiian vacation.

Ars Lyrica by Pin Lim; HMNS by Wilson Parish; KnowAutism by Quy Tran

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art

New Artist-Run Gallery Rises and Hits the Ground Running with Diverse Group Show

Sarah Sudhoff (photo by Katy Anderson)

SINCE THE 1970s, Houston’s cultural scene has only grown richer and more diverse thanks to the DIY spirit of its visual artists. As an alternative to the city’s major museums (which are awesome) and commercial galleries (again, awesome), they show their work and the work of their peers in ad-hoc, cooperative, artist-run spaces — spaces that range from the traditional white cube interiors, to private bungalows, to repurposed shipping containers.

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Art + Entertainment

Houston’s Grammy-Nominated Music Org Gets ‘Bach’ to Basics with Concert and Book Release

Matthew Dirst (photo by Jacob Power)

FOR FANS OF early music — an often scholarly lot who aren’t afraid to wear their hearts on their sleeves — bad-boy Baroque-era painter Caravaggio certainly nailed something in his dramatic 1595 painting, “The Musicians.” (Simon Schama talks about this in his TV series The Power of Art.) One look at his masterpiece, and you feel as if you’ve stumbled upon and surprised a roomful of dewy-eyed musicians, their youthful faces swollen with melancholy, with the lutist looking like he’s about ready to burst into tears before he’s even tuned his instrument. So no, you certainly don’t need a Ph.D. to enjoy and be moved by the music of Handel, G.P. Telemann, or J.S. Bach, but a little bit of scholarship never hurt anyone. Knowing the history of this music may even deepen your appreciation of it.

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