Copious Notes

Joseph-Beth Booksellers has announced that Joe Scarborough, a former Republican Congressman from Florida who now hosts the hit political chat show Morning Joe on MSNBC, will be at the Lexington Green store at 7 p.m. June 24.

Joe Scarborough.

Scarborough will be there to sign copies of his new book, The Last Best Hope. In the book, Scarborough, “tells Republican Party bosses what they don’t want to hear, explains why Democrats are making matters so much worse, and then shows leaders of both parties the way forward,” according to a Joseph-Beth press release. On Morning Joe, Scarborough has been critical of President Barack Obama and the Democratic-led congress, but also has harsh words for his own Republican Party and its leadership.

Line tickets are required for the signing and are available with a purchase of The Last Best Hope at Jospeh-Beth.

Julie Schindall (right) shows 8-year-old Isadora Koch the proper way to hold marimba mallets Saturday at the WEKU event at Joseph-Beth Booksellers. Photos by Rich Copley | LexGo.

After Lexington Philharmonic bassist Joe Tackett finished his chat with WEKU Morning Classics host Michael Carter at Joseph-Beth Booksellers Saturday, he pointed something out.

During the chat, part of a WEKU/Joseph-Beth Gives Back event at the book store, Carter had played several musical selections like one of Maurice Ravel’s Slavonic Dances.

“Every time Michael played a piece, kids would come over and stand,” Tackett said. “Some of them even started to dance. Kids innately recognize great art.” Then, noting some adults he saw rush their kids along, he added, “It the parents that try to tear them away from it.”

Particpating in the WEKU event were (clockwise from top, left) Joe Tackett, Julie Schindall, Michael Carter and Roger Duvall.

Did we mention Joe is the Phil’s education director, too?

Certainly there were some serious blocks of time in the afternoon event devoted to adults talking about music. I discovered both Joe and I share the same roots in our love for classical music. John Williams’ music caught Joe’s ear when his father took him to see The Empire Strikes Back (1980). So, when I sat down to chat with WEKU station manager Roger Duvall, I had to share my similar experience when my parents gave me the soundtrack to Star Wars (1977).

Classical music probably owes a lot to George Lucas commissioning those iconic scores.

Roger called our conversation Dancing about Architecture, a reference to the oft quoted but hard to attribute aphorism that writing and talking about music is sort of like dancing about architecture. And indeed, while we did have a good conversation about this highly transitory time in Lexington music, from my seat, the most fun was trading short passages of favorite works with Roger. He kicked it off with a segment of Aaron Copland’s Appalachian Spring, and I got to answer with Dawn Upshaw singing the opening passage of Samuel Barber’s Knoxville: Summer of 1915 – if there’s a more perfect representation of a Southern summer evening, I am not aware of it.

Michael and Joe also had a great chat, zeroing in on the idea that enjoying classical music is not so much something you learn as it is something that comes naturally.

And the best demonstration of that came in those children who wandered over from the kids book section to hear, and later in ones who were brave enough to step up and try their hand at marimba with musical guests Julie Schindall and Ian Meiman.

We came in to talk about the future of classical music. But in their faces, we got to see it.

Ian Meiman gives 5-year-old Annika Koch a high-five after she plays the marimba.

If you are a fan of Central Kentucky’s classical music outlet, WEKU-FM 88.9, plan to stop by Joseph-Beth Booksellers Saturday afternoon for a Joseph-Beth Gives Back event celebrating the station.

Roger Duvall

I’m being kind of inviting because I am part of the program. At 2:30 p.m. I will be chatting with WEKU Station Manager Roger Duvall about the future of classical music and some of our favorite music. I think this is a really cool topic because so much is changing locally and globally with classical music, so I am really looking forward to the chat with Roger, and I know he’s selected some great music to bring along.

Preceding us at 1:15 will be WEKU morning classics host Michael Carter and Lexington’s favorite bassman Joe Tackett of the Lexington Philharmonic. I’m note sure what these guys will be talking about, but you know the old line about reading the phone book . . .

Surrounding all of that will be the marimba stylings of Julie Schindall and the Schindall/Meiman Duo.

It should be a tres cool afternoon and I hope to see some of y’all there.

Part of the reason I am participating is because starting in June, I will be contributing to WEKU’s arts coverage. Think of it as Copious Notes podcasts on the air — though probably a lot shorter.

WVLK's Jack Pattie, who has been playing Santa Claus the last few years. He will return to his roots, Lexington Children's Theatre, for a benefit peformance April 25. Photo by Matt Goins | LexGo.com.

A 70th-anniversary party calls for more than one ­celebration, and in reality, the Lexington Children’s Theatre wanted to have two anyway.

So the celebrations will commence with an 18-cake birthday party on Saturday, ­followed by a celebrity  retrospective of LCT’s past seven decades on April 25.

“It just makes me feel old,” Children’s Theatre director Larry Snipes jokes, when asked about the anniversary. Then, looking at the Celebrity Curtain Call show that he is directing, he says, “We wanted to look at what this theater has produced over the last 70 years, and we wanted to have some fun with it.”

The April 25 show will feature excerpts from many of the theater’s past plays over the theater’s seven decades, starting with Noah’s Flood in 1939 up to How I Became a Pirate, which will close out the current season.

It helps that numerous local celebrities are LCT veterans, including WVLK-590 AM radio personality Jack Pattie, actor and attorney Pam Perlman, WLAP-630 AM reporter Karyn Czar and Lexington Center director Bill Owen among others.

“Jack Pattie and I always had supporting roles, and Jim Varney got all the good parts,” says Owen, whose job has him in charge of Rupp Arena and the Lexington Opera House among other facilities.

Varney, who grew up in Lexington, went on to worldwide fame as the goofball character Ernest P. Worrell in television commercials and movies. He died in 2000.

Owen will actually reprise one of his roles, from a play called The Goblin’s Goblin.

Among the other celebs in the show will be Lexington Legends president Alan Stein and his wife, state Sen. Kathy Stein, D-Lexington, who will perform the scene from Tom Sawyer wherein which Tom asks Becky to marry him.

Read the rest of this entry »