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Gardner Museum steps toward its musical future

The Isabella Stewart Gardner Museum has been a forward-thinking home for chamber music in Boston; consider The Concert: A Classical Music Podcast, which topped a million downloads in May, three years after the launch of what some thought was a novelty project. Under Music Director and esteemed violist Scott Nickrenz (left), the Gardner has continued its patronage of chamber music, scheduling concerts of music by the great familiar names (Bach and Hayden and the like) as well as the very new. Now Nickrenz and the museum are launching a series called Avant Gardner.

Nickrenz, 70, says he has tried all along to keep the century-old museum on the cutting edge musically, following the general artistic approach of Gardner, who was "a great adventurer" in all the arts. Six or seven years ago, though, he felt the need for "fresh ears." That meant a collaboration on the Composer Portraits series with George Steele of the Miller Theater in New York, and now Drury and the Callithumpian.

This season Avant Gardner means three Thursday night concerts by the Callithumpian Consort (right), a Boston-based new music ensemble under the leadership of Stephen Drury. But Nickrenz says this is just the start of the program. He hopes to greatly expand it once it moves from the museum's Tapestry Room to the 300-seat concert hall in the museum's Renzo Piano-designed addition, now under construction. (Yazu Toyota, who worked on Frank Gehry's Disney concert hall, is the acoustician, he noted.)

"Right now it looks like three concerts, but it is is really going to be an umbrella for a lot of really magical, exciting and slightly crazy contemporary music, mixed with jazz," he said.

The Tapestry Room can hold up to 300 as well, he notes, but it's a museum, not a concert hall, and they've cut the max. attendance to 250 in recent years to reduce wear and tear. Details on the concerts after the jump.

Two new reads for Boston arts people

It's a strange time in journalism and the arts, both sustaining repeated economic shots above and below the belt. Even trickier for those of us trying to make a living while straddling the two fields. (Need words? Call me. Seriously.) There's a lot of ferment in the non-mainstream-media world - much more than when I launched HubArts waaaay back in 2005 - and it's not clear how any of it is going to shake out. But when it comes to new products, I try to hew to the "a rising tide lifts all boats" theory, so here are two new things you should check out. The folks over at ArtsBoston have ramped up their web presence tremendously already this year, and now they've just put out a .pdf fall preview that while promotional in nature is also a pretty good tip sheet to the best and brightest of their 100-odd members' offerings. And I say that not (just) because I'm quoted right there near the top. It won't take the place of the annual fall preview by the Globe or Herald, but it's a new piece of the puzzle for sure. Also very much worth a look is the Explore Boston Theatre web site by Nicholas Peterson, a labor of love that has a lot of potential for Boston stage fans. Like the classical-focused Boston Musical  Intelligencer, E.B.T. offers fans of one particular artform a deep look at what's going on around town. Here at HubArts, I'll continue offering the latest news and announcements across the board, as well as the occasional review or comment.

Fair trade party in Lowell

The sixth annual New England Culture Fest returns to downtown Lowell on Sept. 2, 2-10 p.m., with a wide variety of music, fashion, food and more. This is an all fair-trade event featuring an "Ethical Art & Biz Expo" and a "Fashionably Fair" runway event that promises "a stunning display of innovative design supporting economic justice and indigenous cultural preservation in the local and global community." Nothing like good beats to cut through all the politics, and the musicians performing include Senegal's Gokhi-Bi System and Boston's own Mighty Mystic (right) and Organ in Orbit. Also on tap are DJs, breakdancers, wall-sized video and film projections and, as state law requires at events of this type, free Green Mountain Coffee. The event is held in the Enterprise Bank Parking Lot, Across From 172 Middle Street, Lowell. Admission is $10 but you can get a two-for-one coupon here. Kids under 12 free. More information.

Big Dogs and new Bull in Newburyport

It looks either a dream or a nightmare, depending on which side of Newburyport's we-need-a-leash-free-dog-park debate you're on. The waterfront lawn behind the Custom House Maritime Museum has been taken over for the weekend by a pack of 20 8-foot-tall dogs, milling about as if the pro-dog-park side has won big-time. The Big Dogs are by sculptor Dale Rogers, best known for the 16-foot dog that looks over Exit 48 on Route 495 from the edge of his family's Haverhill farmland.

Rogers and his family live on part of the farm property, and also spend time on Plum Island. The Newburyport exhibit lasts until Monday; it's one of six Rogers and the pack (and his daughter Beatrice) are making this summer, and he'll be around to talk most of each day. The dogs, with their bone-shaped cutouts, are made of Cor-Ten steel, which rusts to a nice Golden Retriever reddish brown. They are, he says, intended to be a positive presence that makes people happy. (Globe feature on Rogers here.)

The exhibit will be up on Beverly Common Sept. 3-8 and at Jack Kerouac Park in Lowell Sept. 10-15. Rogers hopes it's a rehearsal for a much larger traveling show. He's also planning a much bigger dog for Exit 48. Also news to those of us here at HubArts World Headquarters: Rogers (left) told me that one of the Big Dogs and another work of his will adorn the rail trail in our end of town, set to open this fall. There's a reception for Rogers and the dogs tonight at Chameleon, 18 Liberty St. in Newburyport, from 5-7 p.m.

It's going to be a busy evening. Just around the corner from Chameleon at 10 Center St. tonight from 6-8:30 our friend the Newburyport artist Alan Bull is opening an exhibit of new paintings and other work. Alan has been more or less the artist in residence at 10 Center in recent months, and as J.C. Lockwood tells us, he's gearing up for a big exhibit at the Governors School in the fall.

I'm going to try to hit both receptions before the Sox game starts, so say hi.

Boston Gay Men's Chorus kicks off 2009-10 season

The Boston Gay Men’s Chorus will kick off its 28th season with a free outdoor concert on Sept. 11 at Christopher Columbus Park as part of the City of Boston’s Fall Arts Festival. They'll reprise their hit show, Boys Just Wanna Have Fun: Totally 80s, featuring hits by Madonna, Boy George, George Michael, Cyndi Lauper and many more. The 2009-2010 season doesn't officially begin until the BGMC's annual holiday concerts Dec. 13, 18, 19, and 20 at Jordan Hall. Subscription sales begin Sept. 1. The complete release with all the details is after the jump.

"Call of the Coast" at Portland Museum of Art. And lobster.

Three of us went up to Portland last Thursday to check out "Call of the Coast: Art Colonies of New England" at the Portland Museum of Art. The exhibit, up through Oct. 12, looks at the work of art colonies in Old Lyme and Cos Cob, Connecticut, and in Ogunquit and Monhegan, Maine. Artists including Edward Hopper and Childe Hassam made merry and painted at these venues, sometimes moving from one to another. Their work on view ranges from lovely impressionism in Connecticut to full-on modernism in Maine.

The exhibit is a collaboration between the Portland Museum and the Florence Griswold Museum in Old Lyme, which means it only covers the four colonies well represented in their collections. It excludes (as Cate McQuad noted in the Globe) Gloucester and Provincetown, a pretty big loss for an exhibit with "Art Colonies of New England" as a subtitle. But once you get over that, the exhibit is well-researched, drawing ties between artists and their environment and their various teachers.

North Shore Music Theatre on the block

The Beverly Citizen has the scoop. The North Shore Music Theatre must truly be all finished, because the property is going up for auction soon. UPDATE: Gloucester Times says there are four new England arts groups interested in buying the property, but there's no sign they get a leg up over any commercial bidders for the 24 acre property near Rt. 128.

Barrington Stage: Theatergoers love Freud vs. God

Barrington Stage Company has tacked on more week onto its production of "Freud's Last Session," which I wrote about in the Globe's Stages column back in June. Martin Rayner stars as the dying Sigmund Freud and Mark H. Dold as the young C.S. Lewis in playwright Mark St. Germain's imagined meeting between the pair. Tickets for the play's June 11-July 3 run went quickly. The production originally rebooked for Aug. 14 through 30 at BSC's Stage 2 theatre in Pittsfield, and now it's been extended again, through Sept. 6. Regular tix, $25-$30. Call 413-236-8888 or click here.

Up-and-comer swap at Tanglewood Jazz Fest

Scott Santoro got a call to go to London and help Sting out with his new DVD, so singer  Kat Edmonson and her Sextet are filling his spot Sept. 6 in the Jazz Cafe at the Tanglewood Jazz Fest. Edmonson is supposedly the big jazz hope out of Austin and just made her northeast debut in New York in June at the Jazz Standard. The Cafe is a club-style venue for up-and-comers like previous performers Esperanza Spalding and Grace Kelly. You get it free with a ticket to the evening's Main Stage event - which on 9/6 features a Kenny Barron/Mulgrew Miller piano duet and the Vanguard Jazz Orchestra. Tix and info: tanglewoodjazzfestival.org or 888-266-1200.

Beantown Jazz Fest grows some more

Updating our item from a couple of months ago, the 2009 Berklee Beantown Jazz Fest is now set for September 18-26. In its 9th year it has expanded to 9 days and 9 stages at locations around the city, from Berklee Performance Center to funky old Wally's. Back in June it was only five days! Saturday the 26th is still the big day, with fun outdoors all over Columbus Avenue. But the schedule also includes Berklee alumnus Branford Marsalis (September 23, BPC); Kickin' the Blues, a concert featuring saxophonist David Sanborn and vocalists Amina Claudine Myers and Kevin Mahogany (September 25, BPC); multi-Grammy-nominated vocalist Kurt Elling (September 24-25, Scullers); pianist/composer Ahmad Jamal (Sept. 18-19, Regattabar); and Love and Hunger, an original play about the life and work of Billie Holiday, written and performed by Berklee students (September 24, David Friend Recital Hall). For all the latest, check the schedule here.