Amid COVID, Kansas City Ballet, chamber music come alive via 2 new livestream series

Kansas City’s arts organizations have responded to the pandemic with creativity and innovation. Livestream concerts and other virtual options, which were unheard of a year ago, have become mainstays of local classical music. Now they are being refined and perfected, and one senses that they will become permanent offerings, even after concert-going returns to normal.

Two new virtual series would be welcome, even if COVID-19 were not keeping us out of concert halls. The Friends of Chamber Music’s Chamber Music Now promises to appeal to a wide variety of tastes and levels of appreciation. And “New Moves: The Broadcast Series” will feature the Kansas City Ballet performing new works in various Kansas City settings. Both series are free.

Friends of Chamber Music

Education has always been an important component of the Friends of Chamber Music’s mission, and it’s also central to the group’s new streaming service, Chamber Music Now. The service will feature programs appealing to three levels of listener.

“Chamber Conversations with Dr. William Everett” will be geared to listeners who would like to explore music in more depth. Everett, a professor of musicology at the University of Missouri-Kansas City, has given many enlightening pre-concert talks for the Friends, and his streaming “Conversations” promise to be similarly fascinating.

With the assistance of groups like the Dover Quartet and the Parker Quartet, Everett will highlight important breakthrough moments in the history of chamber music. The talks will be 40-minutes, just long enough for a good jolt of intellectual stimulation.

“Listen and Learn with Lacie and Tom” is intended for younger audiences. The programs will be hosted by Lacie Eades, a former public school teacher and musicology major, and Tom Nanney, a Friends of Chamber Music board member with experience teaching music appreciation. They’ll combine their talents and experience to bring music alive for youthful attention spans.

Eades and Nanney will give brief but engaging introductions to performances taken from the Chamber Music Society of Lincoln Center’s “Front Row National” program.

“Backstage” will appeal to anyone who loves great chamber music. The program will feature performances by artists who have previously appeared with the Friends of Chamber Music, like cellist Eckart Runge. You can watch Runge with pianist Jacques Ammon perform music by Piazzolla, Gershwin, Rachmaninoff and Jimi Hendrix, Feb. 18 to March 3.

The Friends of Chamber Music has many more Chamber Music Now programs in the works, including a performance by pianist Richard Goode planned for May.

Free. chambermusic.org. Available through Feb. 17: Listen and Learn with Lacie & Tom, featuring clarinetist Anthony McGill. Available Feb. 18-March 3: An Evening with Eckart.

Kansas City Ballet

We’re all missing the big productions the Kansas City Ballet has presented on the stage of the Muriel Kauffman Theatre. But for connoisseurs of dance, the Kansas City Ballet’s New Moves program performed in the Michael and Ginger Frost Studio Theater was a highlight of the company’s season.

Now you can experience the visceral power of New Moves in the intimacy of your own living room. For seven Thursdays in a row, the Kansas City Ballet will stream seven different New Moves performances.

The 20-minute performances will feature the kind of cutting-edge choreography dance lovers have come to expect from New Moves. Each episode will be filmed in a different Kansas City locale, like the Nelson-Atkins Museum of Art or the Belger Crane Yard Studio.

Devon Carney, the ballet’s artistic director, hopes the series will draw viewers deeper into the creative process.

“We conquered the challenge of working remotely with these talented choreographers and filming on-site with many filmmakers in these iconic cultural spaces,” Carney writes in a press release. “The result is a riveting study of beauty and movement.”

All performances at 7 p.m. Free. kcballet.org.

Feb. 18: “Dances at a Gallery.” Choreography by Courtney Nitting to music by Sundance Remix performed at the Nelson-Atkins Museum of Art.

Feb. 25: “Songs Without Words.” Choreography by James Kirby Rogers to music by Felix Mendelssohn performed at the Kemper Museum of Contemporary Art.

March 4: “Misguided.” Choreography by Caroline Dahm to music by Dahm, Schwarzmodul and Travis Lake performed at the Nerman Museum of Contemporary Art.

March 11: “Bones of Chaos.” Choreography by Marika Brussel to music by Ben Juodvalkis performed at the Belger Crane Yard Studio.

March 18: “What Angel Wakes Me,” “Look Here, Love” and “Hurly-Burly.” Choregraphy by Helen Pickett to music by Peter Salem performed at Kansas City PBS Studio.

March 25: “Felicity Found.” Choreography by Margaret Mullin to music by Antonio Vivaldi performed at the Kansas City Museum.

April 1: “Corridors.” Choreography by Price Suddarth to music by Peter Sandberg performed in the Brandmeyer Great Hall, Kauffman Center for the Performing Arts.

You can reach Patrick Neas at patrickneas@kcartsbeat.com and follow his Facebook page, KC Arts Beat, at www.facebook.com/kcartsbeat.