Singing for the choir
A concert next week featuring past and present voice students from the University of Otago's music department will raise money for a tour of Asia and Australia by the New Zealand Youth Choir in July.
The soiree-style concert, at Otago Museum's Hutton Theatre next Tuesday at 7pm, will involve talent from the university sextet, alongside other university-trained voices.
Lemalu singing in Japan
Dunedin bass-baritone Jonathan Lemalu continues his globe-trotting career next month, performing in Mozart's Requiem with the Swedish Radio Orchestra at the Opera City Concert Hall in Tokyo on June 15.
Pacific Islands fundraiser
Sisters Rachael Kesha, Debra Kesha-Lloyd and Jules Kesha will perform with Jazzie's Groove Dance Band at a fundraiser at the Dunedin Rugby Football Club at Kettle Park on Saturday, May 29, at 8.30pm.
The event is to raise money for delegates to attend a conference of a Pacific Islands women's group in Rarotonga, to visit its founding national president Eleitino Paddy Walker, and for young members to participate in a homelands experience and attend a women's day in November.
Also performing will be Royal Pasifika Revue, a cultural dance group from Otago University and Polytechnic, and Original Flava.
'Grotesque sublime'
Dunedin-based artist Kushana Bush is showing her intensely detailed gouache works as part of "Ready to Roll", a group exhibition at Wellington's City Gallery from Saturday until September 12.
Her style, described as "grotesque sublime", is reminiscent of Indo-Persian miniatures and Japanese woodblock prints.
The exhibition is curated to showcase eight contemporary artists with "strong individual voices and directions".
Self-contained performance
Oi! 2010 is celebrating the Maori New Year with activities in Dunedin from June 1-7.
Shipping containers placed in the Octagon will be transformed into a picture theatre and an experimental video installation space.
Oi! will team up with graffiti art troupe Visual Intelligence to create a display on the exterior of one of the containers.
The Oi! Film Feast will feature Maori-flavoured documentaries, short films and video installations which will play from morning to evening over the six days.
'Armida' to screen
The Metropolitan Opera's production of Gioachino Rossini's Armida will screen at Rialto Cinemas in Dunedin from the weekend. Riccardo Frizza conducts in the production by Tony Award-winner Mary Zimmerman, with Renée Fleming staring in the title role and Lawrence Brownlee featuring in a tenor role.
Armida will screen on Saturday at 10.30am, Sunday at 1pm, Monday at 1pm and 6.30pm and on Wednesday at 10am.
Tickets are $30 for adults and $25 for seniors.
Changing artwork costly
The mayor of the Malaysian city of Kuala Lumpur has been ordered to pay 750,000 ringgit ($NZ307,265) in damages to an artist for vandalising his sculptures, the first case of its kind in the country.
The High Court ruled that the mayor committed "institutional vandalism" by altering artist Syed Ahmad Jamal's sculpture without his consent.
Syed Ahmad (80) filed the suit in 2003 after the mayor modified his sculpture in a public park as part of maintenance work in 2000.
Teatro Colon reopens
Argentina's famed Teatro Colon, one of the world's great opera houses, reopened this week after a three-year restoration.
The ornate, 2700-seat Colon was built in 1908 modelled on Milan's La Scala and is renowned for its natural acoustics.
