Arts Bridge Project Lights up the Marcus Center

Spanning three weeks at the Marcus Center for the Performing Arts, “The Arts Bridge Project: A Century of Song” features a centerpiece event on Friday, Oct. 27. Included are performers from the Milwaukee Ballet, Milwaukee Ballet Orchestra and the Florentine Opera Company—along with students from the Marcus’ Arts Connect program, The Jamie Breiwick Quartet and TRUE Skool. Celebrated visiting vocalists Alyson Cambridge and Scott Coulter will also take part, with the latter narrating the event.

What could possibly unite such a diverse group of artists? The answer is twofold: a shared passion for cross-germinating Milwaukee’s vibrant arts disciplines and their audiences, and an important centennial celebration. One-hundred years ago, seven artists were born who would shape the landscape of American music and dance forever: Leonard Bernstein, Dizzy Gillespie, Ella Fitzgerald, Thelonious Monk, Lena Horne, Dean Martin and Jerome Robbins.

Also part of the Arts Bridge Project at the Marcus Center are the Florentine’s production of Franz Lehár’s beloved The Merry Widow (Oct. 20 and 22) and the Ballet’s La Bohème (Nov. 2-5)—Artistic Director Michael Pink’s balletic telling of Giacomo Puccini’s opera.

“It hit the strengths of all the companies,” says Marcus Center Director of Programming and Events John Hassig. “There are great choreographers from 100 years ago and there are great composers, and it made sense to celebrate all the artists that were born 100 years ago with all the artists that are creating art in the city right now.”

Marcus Center Vice President of Sales and Marketing Heidi Lofy explains the project’s major goal: “We felt it was time to try to get audiences to see us holistically, instead of just as individual groups. The talent here is so incredible that it felt like a really great opportunity to do something for the community that would be unique. Oftentimes, events will be centered on a single genre, like an opera festival or a dance festival.” She explains that this is an opportunity to look across genre. “If I’m an opera lover, do I ever choose to go see a popular dance concert or a jazz concert? Maybe or maybe not. But if I’m invited in because there’s a familiarity with one of the pieces, then I get this opportunity to enjoy all of it in one evening of great entertainment.”

Arts Bridge’s centerpiece event will present works by the centennial artists in nontraditional ways. “There might be a traditional song sung by somebody, but maybe with a different kind of accompaniment, and there’s dance happening at the same time,” Hassig explains.

Artists and Artworks

Describing the Florentine’s contribution to the centerpiece event, General Director Bill Florescu states, “Alyson Cambridge, a Florentine favorite who is playing the lead in our Merry Widow the week before, is singing. She is well known for her work in crossover as well, particularly the Great American Songbook (she has released an album of standards). Our principal conductor, Joseph Rescigno, is conducting, and our Studio Artists (young artists) are singing as well.”

Of the Ballet’s contributions, Pink says, “Five Milwaukee Ballet dancers will perform in The Arts Bridge: Parker Brasser-Vos, Erik Johnson, Barry Molina, Lizzie Tripp and Lahna Vanderbush.” He asked three of the company’s dancers—Garrett Glassman, Timothy O’Donnell and Isaac Sharratt—to choreograph a piece each; he created new choreography for Leonard Bernstein’s Overture to Candide, which will be performed by the dancers in the Milwaukee Ballet II Program; and invited colleague Ryan Cappleman to create a work.

Uniting the Arts Bridge project is the Milwaukee Ballet Orchestra, which plays for Merry Widow, the centerpiece event and La Bohème. Lofy says, “Because of this confluence of all of this work, it made sense for the orchestra to be kind of the theme for all three weeks.”

Also notable are the Milwaukee Public Schools students from the Marcus’ Arts Connect program who will take part in the centerpiece event. This program, which features a weeklong summer intensive coupled with satellite events throughout the year, fosters young adults seeking meaningful careers in the arts and elsewhere. This is accomplished by connecting students with touring and local artists, providing valuable audition and college application workshops, and granting students access to the city’s many vibrant arts venues.

Arts Connect strives to inspire young people with the knowledge that all artists and arts professionals find unique paths to their callings. “You never know how that path is going to take you,” Hassig says. “These students eat up these stories because they don’t know what the right path is yet, but it’s helpful hearing that there [are] many different ways to make a living, and, as [New York director] Jonathan Hawkins said [in a workshop with students], ‘You don’t have to be Beyoncé to make a life in the arts.’”

The smaller groups on the docket for Oct. 27 are no less impressive. The Jamie Breiwick Quartet consists of a veritable who’s-who of Milwaukee’s jazz greats: Breiwick on trumpet Mark Davis on piano, John Price on bass and Devin Drobka on drums. TRUE Skool, meanwhile, has been working with area youth since 2004. The nonprofit offers numerous arts-based programs, workshops and community events based on the philosophy that the culture of the “Golden Era of Hip-Hop” can be used to empower positive social change.

Foundational to all performances offered at the centerpiece event are songs from the Great American Songbook, which the seven centennial artists played such a significant role in creating. Like the artists behind Art Bridge, “All of these artists in one way or another expanded audiences by infusing art forms with influences from other forms, i.e. Bernstein introduced jazz elements into classical music and Broadway,” Florescu says.

On the Oct. 27 program, look for favorites including “I Got Rhythm” featuring vocals by the Florentine Studio Artists and Arts Connect students, dance by Barry Molina, choreography by Ryan Cappleman and accompaniment by John Boswell and the Milwaukee Ballet Orchestra; “Summertime” with vocals by Alyson Cambridge, dance by Lizzie Tripp and choreography by Garrett Glassman; and a piece centered on Monk and Gillespie at the top of Act II which Hassig says gives him chills and which he describes simply as “a hot 10 minutes that people are not going to want to miss.”

To learn more about the Arts Bridge Project and purchase tickets, visit marcuscenter.org.