Arts & Entertainment
Duffy’s schedules
‘alternative music’
By Geoff McMurtry
Staff Reporter
Although threatened with ex
tinction by theclosingof the Drum
stick last August, Lincoln’s alter
native music has been granted a
repiieve by Duffy’s Tavern, 1412
OSt.
This Wednesday at 9 p.m., the
New Brass Guns will kick off a
planned weekly series of perform
ances by local bands.
Co-owner A1 Hummel said the
emphasis will be on local alterna
tive music, which isn’t easily vis
ible in Lincoln, though it does
exist.
“We don’t want Wendy O.
Williams or anything that bizarre,”
Hummel said. “But the one thing
we want to avoid at all costs is Top
40 bands.”
Hummel and his partner, Reg
McMecn, who handles the booking
of the bands, said they hope that
Duffy’s can become a place for
young Lincoln bands who aren’t
well established.
“There’s no place for alterna
tive music in Lincoln and we
wanted something to pick up our
Wednesday nights,”said Hummel.
“There was a need. We’ve got the
time, we’ve got the room, and we
thought we’d give them a place to
play.”
Cover charge for these Wednes
day night shows will be up to the
band, but “never over $3,” Hum
mel said.
“We want to make it affordable
— not only to us, but also to our
customers.”
The schedule isn’t set in stone
yet, but the next three weeks are —
the New Brass Guns this week, S1;
next week the Confidentials, $3;
and in two weeks, 13 Nightmares,
$1.
Minors can’t be allowed inside,
Hummel said, but on Wednesday
nights Duffy’s will continue to
offer 75 cent longnecks for those
old enough.
Because this is a new venture,
Duffy’s has no immediate plans to
expand to national acts, Hummel
said, but he’s not against it.
That probably isn’t likely, he
said, because “it depends what we
can get with limited space.” The
performance room at Duffy’s holds
80 people.
Duffy’s will be talking to other
local bands in the following weeks.
“Whocver’s willing to come in and
make a go of it” is welcome,
Hummel said.
Bands interested in booking
information should call 474-3543
and ask for Reg.
Interest in symphony
low; ‘exciting’ shows
scheduled as remedy
By Jim Hanna
Staff Reporter
City wide interest in the Lincoln
Symphony Orchestra is relatively
low, said its manager, Richard
Frcvcrl.
‘‘It could be stronger. We’re
below the national average for a
symphony our size. We have a
subscription rale of about 1 to 2
percent.”
Tocombal this low interestrate,
The Lincoln Symphony Orchestra
is offering a season that Frevert
said is filled with exciting perform
ances.
The symphony, under the direc
tion of Robert Emile, will open its
season Oct. 13 when internation
ally renowned violinist Young Uck
Kim performs with the orchestra.
Kim, a member of the Ax-Kim-Ma
trio (with pianist Emanuel Ax and
cellist Yo Yo Ma) has earned a
reputation as a violin marvel.
On Nov. 17, flutist Walfrid
Kujala will perform. Kujala is a
member of the Chicago Symphony
Orchestra and has been professor
of flute at the Northwestern Uni
versity School of Music for 25
years.
American pianist Jeffrey Sicgal
will join with the orchestra for a
performance Dec. 8. Sicgal, a
Fulbright Scholarship winner, has
received international acclaim for
his piano skills.
The first concert of 1988 will be
a performance by the winner of the
J. Edmunds and Thelma Miller
Audition Award. The award is
presented annually as a part of the
Lincoln Symphony Orchestra’s
Youth Artist’s Competition. The
concert will be Feb. z.
A member of LSO will be high
lighted in a performance on Feb.
25. Principal oboist William
McMullen will give a solo per
formance.
Pianist Gustavo Romero will
perform Mar. 15. Romero has per
formed recitals all over the country
including a concert at Carnegie
Hall with the National Orchestra
Association.
The final concert of the season
will be a performance by lyric
soprano Marvis Martin. Martin has
received international acclaim for
her singing and has performed with
the Los Angeles Philharmonic,
National Symphony and the New
York Philharmonic.
Frevcrt, though excited about
the enure season, said he is espe
cially excited about Kim and Sie
gal.
“Kim is internationally re
nowned. Sicgal has an electric
personality and has a great rapport
with the audience,” he said.
Frevert said he is interested in
improving the image of LSO in the
city.
“People just don’t know about
us,” he said.
The symphony is well-recog
ni/.cd nationally however.
“We have received grants from
The National Endowment of Arts,
which is very competitive," he
said.
He said that the Orchestra also
fights the stereotype that most
people have about symphony
music.
“People think it’s stuffy, and
you have to wear a tux. That’s just
not really the case. It can be just as
fun and open as other sorts of enter
tainment,” Frevert said.
Frevcrt encourages people to
buy season tickets to take advan
tage of discounts. Prices range
from $35-$85 depending on the
section you sit in. Students are
especially encouraged to buy sea
son tickets because they can buy
them at half-price, he said.
All concerts arc held in
O’Donnell Auditorium, Rogers
Fine Arts Center on The Nebraska
Wesleyan University Campus,
50th and Huntington.
For more information, contact
The Lincoln Symphony Orchestra
main office at 474-5610.
Butch Ireland/Dally Nebraskan
Anne Burkholder in her studio.
Burkholder’s art: A fascination
with sky meeting the earth
By Kevin Cowan
Senior Reporter
For Anne W. Burkholder, the
Nebraska sky is an inspiration; it
shows in her oil and water color land
scapes of the land we label Nebraska.
“I call my paintings Prairie Hori
zons,” she said. “For me there is
something special about where the
sky meets the earth.”
Unveiled Artist
The sun and sky meet the earth
meet the man: An artistic triad of
considerable spirit. The spirit in her
incredibly detailed paintings of vari
ous counties — natural and man
made wildlife — comes through with
earthen
splendor.
She used to draw landscapes when
she was 12, she said. That was quite
a few years ago.
“I’m %,” she said, “ and I’ll paint
‘til I’m 120.”
Burkholder received her Bachelor
of Fine Art degree with distinction
from the University of Nebraska
Lincoln in 1974, backing up her pre
vious liberal arts degrees in Psychol
ogy and Political Science, but Burk
holder doesn’t necessarily think all
the education has made her a better
painter.
“It don’t think it helped much,”
she said.
Burkholder’s paintings combine
precise representational images with
romantic abstraction.
“I deal with some fairly concep
lual art,” she said, “even though the
shapes arc recognizable, 1 like wide
open spaces and distant horizons.”
Though the heavenly outdoors is
the crux of her work, she said, she
prefers to work in a studio. The
weather, she said, doesn’t quite ac
commodate outdoor artwork. To help
retain the farmland imagery, photo
graphs cover one of the tables in her
studio.
“Everything I paint is real,” she
said. “My images and shapes come
from what I’m actually seeing.
Though sometimes I have to manipu
late a bit to make every thing work.”
Burkholder is the epitome of what
one would call a “successful artist.”
Her work has been shown in galleries
and art institutes from Minneapolis to
Kansas City, Mo. Her paintings are
bought by private patrons and corpo
rations all over the world — England,
Switzerland, Germany, France and
Austria . . . even as far away as
Scottsbluff. Thus, Burkholder trans
gresses the realm of “starving artist.”
She is working on a project, however,
that may give undernourished artists
their own start on the razor’s edge of
artistry.
Burkholder is acting as general
contractor for a 16 studio art building
at 738 PSt. logically named the Burk
holder Project. The project, which
started in April, has progressed well,
she said, and has given her a new
experience.
“It’s kind of different” to be acting
as a contractor, she said, though it
seems to agree with her. The entire
building writhes with the whines of
saws — the presence of construction
— and yet her studio is teeming with
paintings cn route to the finish. The
studios proper arc filled with painters,
photographers and people working
with fiber — soon to be engrossed in
their trade — but for now arc placing
the finishing touches on their studios
with the reward of lower rent, she
said.
Though most of her time goes to
finishing the project, Burkholder still
paints, still has paintings bought and
contracted, and still has art exhibits in
progress.
Currently, she has a show until the
end of the month at the Joslyn art
gallery in Omaha and another at the
Bedyk gallery in the Westport area of
KansasCity. lndccd.it would appear
Burkholder is a busy artist. Shc’salso
an artist with a wise word to the many
aspiring to do the same:
“Find another field, if you’re inter
ested in money.
You have to adjust to living on very
little ... that was something I had to
do; you have to have other sources of
income.”
True enough, something many
artists might be inclined to say. But if
distant horizons laid paisley with
clouds melting into field and moun
tain spark the oil and water color of
your soul, make sure the sky is rolls
down from the top of the canvas and
meets the cornfields below. The
paintings ol Anne Burkholder do
justice to the cream- colored canvas
and the com ocean and open pasture
that is Nebraska. V
