The February Arts Alive KC outing takes us to three Crossroads art galleries plus a live concert at the Folly Theater featuring the internally known but locally grown jazz trumpeter Hermon Mehari in his only 2023 concert in Kansas City.
Start the evening at 5 PM at Sherry Leedy Contemporary Art where you will enjoy works by two of our favorite artists, Anne Austin Pearce and Patty Carroll. Anne, who once ran the Greenlease Gallery at Rockhurst University, returns to Kansas City to exhibit her newest work called Midwestern Green/Western Blue. Patty Carroll returns from Chicago where she has worked and lived since the fall of 2022 when she and her husband (former head of the Kansas City Art Institute) moved after his retirement. Walk next door to the Leedy-Voulkos Art Center and Habitat Contemporary to see an exhibit
sponsored by the Society for Contemporary Photography. Also, don’t miss the landscape series by Dillen Peace entitled Navajo Nation.
Dinner by Banksia, one of our favorite caterers, will be available after 6 PM at Leedy-Voulkos. After dinner and drinks, view more art or head to the Folly Theater for a concert by the incomparable Hermon Mahari Quartet beginning at 8 PM. Arrive early if you want to participate in an optional 7 PM pre-show Jazz Talk featuring Steve Kraske and Hermon Mehari. The Hermon Mehari Quartet is currently headquartered in Paris and has spent the last two years touring Europe. An amazing trumpeter with an international reputation, Mehari graduated from the UMKC Conservatory in 2010 and was the winner of the 2015 Carmine Caruso International Trumpet Competition. He was a semifinalist in the 2014 Thelonious Monk Jazz Competition. He won the 2008 National Trumpet Competition and placed second in the 2010 International Trumpet Guild competition in Sydney, Australia.
Cost is $45/pp for the entire evening and includes food, drinks and concert. Tickets are limited, so get your group together and reserve tickets at the newly restored Folly Theater now. This will be an evening you don’t want to miss!
As always, tickets are nonrefundable. Should you find it impossible to attend you are welcome to give or sell tickets to friends. Folly Theater 300 West 12th Street
Sherry Leedy Contemporary Art 2004 Baltimore
Leedy-Voulkos Art Center and Habitat Contemporary 2012 Baltimore
The galleries are steps away from each other, so you only need to park once in the Crossroads.
Hermon Mahari