by Jarrett Hoffman
Akros Percussion Collective will bring what must be one of the most bizarre works in classical music to Weathervane Playhouse in Akron on Sunday, February 9.
The piece is Karlheinz Stockhausen’s 1975 sextet Musik im Bauch (“Music in the Belly”), which requires the performers to move about the stage like automatons, strike a seven-foot doll — his name is Miron, and he has a bird’s head and a human body — and eventually open up the doll’s belly with giant scissors. No guts inside: instead, music boxes, whose melodies have been informing the complex music all along.
It’s part of a presentation by Urban Troubadour, an organization that fittingly aims to put on non-traditional concert experiences.
It was a flute bonanza for Urban Troubadour’s concert on Sunday, November 24 at Akron’s Blu Jazz. The focus of “Big, Bad Flute” was on composer and flutist Ned McGowan, his engaging music, and his astounding playing of the pillar-sized contrabass flute.
It’s Valentine’s Day all week this week, and aside from the obvious gifts — flowers, chocolates, and shiny bling — there are a number of ways to take to heart the new advice of gifting your love interest experiences rather than things.
Some concert themes restrict the number of compositions that would make sense on the program: opera duets about plant life, string quartets after short stories, art songs about fishing. Others leave the field of possibility wide open. When Urban Troubadour billed their December 1 event a “Concert of Creativity,” they thereby allowed for wide stylistic range while banishing only one kind of music: the dull kind. Even with a more practical concern — instrumentation — guiding the curation process, the organizers chose music that shed unusual light on the theme while offering music of contrasting tone, style, and mood.
“I’m really excited about the kinds of concerts that we’re making happen,” Urban Troubadour flutist and artistic director Jane Berkner told me during a recent conversation. “They’re not only cultural events, they’re also social events. I’m finding that our audiences are enjoying meeting each other over a glass of wine and cultural activity.”
The musicians’ collective Urban Troubadour offers not mere concerts, but 
