Conductor and harpsichordist Joseph Gascho enjoys a varied career as a baroque keyboardist—performing as a soloist and collaborative artist; conducting opera, orchestra and choir; editing and arranging scores; and teaching and lecturing. He has won numerous grants and prizes, including first prize in the 2002 Jurow International Harpsichord Competition, and this year, the Pomeroy Prize from the University of Maryland. Recent performing highlights include an American premiere recording of a newly discovered aria by J.S. Bach for National Public Radio, a production of Purcell’s Dido and Aeneas in Aix-en-Provence, France, conducting Vivaldi’s Gloria at the Magnolia Baroque Festival in Winston-Salem, and performing his own transcriptions of works by Bach and Charpentier. In October, he conducted four performances of Cosi fan tutte with Opera Vivente, and he will return to conduct Monteverdi’s The Return of Ulysses with them in March, and Handel’s Alcina in October. He has also conducted operas and other staged pieces at the Peabody Conservatory and the University of Maryland.

This year he founded the chamber ensemble Harmonious Blacksmith, which he directs with recorder player Justin Godoy. This season they will present a four concert series at An die Musik LIVE! in Baltimore. He will perform one of the most ambitious and powerful keyboard works of all time, The Goldberg Variations. These pieces display the staggering intellect and profound spirit of their composer, Johann Sebastian Bach. While the work has been recorded over one hundred times, live performances of the Goldbergs are a rare and special event. A lecture will precede the recital, and a wine reception will follow.

The concert will be on Sunday, February 11th at 3pm, with a Pre-concert lecture at 2:15pm, at An Die Musik LIVE!, 409 North Charles St. in Baltimore. Admission is $15/$10 students & seniors. For tickets and directions contact: henry@andiemusik.com or call (410) 385-2638.

Harmonious Blacksmith
An Die Musik LIVE!

Everyone knows the story of "The Wizard of Oz" when little Dorothy and her friends, the Scarecrow, the Tin Man and the Cowardly Lion travel through the magical kingdom of Oz to ask the Wizard for his magic. The land is governed by two witches—one good and one bad. And yes there's some struggle over a pair of ruby slippers. Great story—but there's a "Back Story" too!! Stephen Schwartz, composer of such theatre classics as "Pippin" and "Godspell", applied his creative blessings to a fresh new look at what happened before Dorothy's house dropped out of the sky. He tells the musical story of these young witches who met when they were very young.What happened to them explains a lot about what we already know about "The Wizard of Oz". We had a chance to talk with Stephen Schwartz about his hit musical and some of his own "Back Story" there! "Wicked" runs at The Hippodrome in Baltimore through February 18.

The Hippodrome Theatre

Irene Lewis has brought Alice Childress' play "Trouble in Mind" to Center Stage. This play is set in the mid fifties and deals with the tightrope that black actors faced in the performing arts "back then". But, as the audience will see very quickly, these tricky barriers still exist today. The story is told with humor, a honey that you will find sticking to your shoes and hands as you realize how deadly serious this play really is. Heading this marvelous cast is Center Stage Associate Artist E. Faye Butler, a powerful actress who portrays the lead actress in this play within a play. Other Center Stage veterans include Laurence (Larry) O'Dwyer and LeRoy McClain who join Rhea to talk about this very moving production. "Trouble in Mind" runs at Center Stage through March 4.

Center Stage

Artist and sculptor Hilmar Udo Fister Gottesthal was born on Christmas Eve 1942 in Carinthia, Austria. He studied at the University of Vienna and the Vienna Academy of Fine Arts where he graduated in 1966. His interest in Byzantine art took him to Greece and Turkey where he spent 30 years painting and sculpting. He arrived in Istanbul and it was there that he was discovered by Nancy Hanks, later Chairman of the National Endowment for the Arts, and invited to his first American showing in Rockefeller Center, New York. Gottesthal is now a U.S. citizen and resides with his photographer wife Penny Knobe-Besa in Western Maryland on a mountain top across from his woodland gallery, Sanctuary Studios.

This week's Salon art is from Andrea Sauer. Her work can regularly be seen at Gallery RoCa in Havre De Grace, the Art and Artisan Gallery in Ellicott City, and Gallery 1683 in Annapolis. Andrea Sauer's beautiful watercolors are fresh, natural and bold. She trained under David Zuccarini, a renowned Maryland oil painter, who himself trained under world renowned oil painter, Joseph Sheppard. In 2006, she was selected by the Los Angeles County Museum of Art as one of the top 12 Emerging Artists in the United States and recently was accepted into the Art In Embassies Program; a program where the U.S. State Dept. sends artworks to various embassies overseas. Currently, she has two paintings in Tajikistan.

Andrea Sauer

On ArtChat This Week, Nate and Rhea discuss the pending forclosure of the historic Senator Theater in Baltimore and the upcoming sale of some one of a kind oddities from the soon to close American Dime Museum. And for the second year, Artscape is awarding a $25,000 prize to a visual artist or artist collaborators working in the Baltimore region. Submission deadline is Friday, February 23 by 4pm to The Janet & Walter Sondheim Fellowship.

Janet & Walter Sondheim Artscape Prize
The Senator Theatre