Music is magic. Just ask the 200 students at Martucci Music.
Gabriella Martucci, founder and owner of the new school near McKinley Park, says, “Students have embarked on a physical and psychological journey that will shape them into whatever they want to be.” Music transforms.
“Music is a positive force for healing,” Martucci says. “It makes us aware of what we are feeling.”
As you listen to the lush musical splendor of Italian tenor Andrea Bocelli on May 12 at Golden 1 Center, pay attention to the orchestration and choral voices that surround his vocals.
Sixty-nine musicians and 60 singers from the Sacramento Philharmonic & Opera will share the stage with Bocelli for his fourth visit since 2015. This is one of just seven U.S. appearances in Bocelli’s 2023 international tour, a testament to the professionalism of local musicians and the artistic quality Bocelli and his team expect.
“I think they really enjoy coming to Sacramento,” says Giuliano Kornberg, executive director of the orchestra and choir. “We have a good rapport with his team and the energy in Golden 1 is really compelling. We easily get 11–12,000 people in there, which creates a great buzz.”
“Any time we can convert an overwhelming, depressing issue into something we can be creative in thinking about, there is hope for change,” Cindy Fowler says.
She could be talking about any number of issues as facilitator of the Sacramento advocacy team for the Friends Committee on National Legislation, a Quaker lobbying organization on Capitol Hill.
But today she’s referring to the Loving Earth Project, a traveling community textile project that encourages people to think creatively about climate change.
If you jog along the American River Parkway and spot a tree with gnarled roots dangling over the riverbank, stop and say hello to “Mickey’s Tree.”
It’s a bit of Sacramento immortalized in the 40-minute movie of the same name by local filmmaker and composer Belton Mouras Jr.
“I’ve had so many adventures out there,” Mouras says of the trail he pounded thousands of times as a triathlete.
Recalling his late rescue dog, he adds, “Mickey and I would be out there almost every day and he led me to that tree. It’s exhilarating to be out there. A lot of people don’t get to experience the parkway to that degree, so I wanted to showcase all the nature that’s available to us right here in the film.”
In 100 years, people can still admire the work of Stephen Michael Bouska.
The master stone carver works in materials that last centuries with proper care. That’s what he hopes—that his work will survive to “help us express ourselves for multiple generations.”
When he first started in stone work, it was out of necessity. As a teenage father, Bouska needed a way to provide for his young family and “feed my soul at the same time.”
Davy Fiveash is never not creating. When I catch up with him by phone, I hear telltale scratchings of a paintbrush on canvas while we chat.
“I picked up crayons like every kid does and then I didn’t put them down,” Fiveash says of his lifelong love of art and craft. “I always knew I wanted to be an artist.”
On this day, Fiveash is in his East Sacramento studio working on his newest piece, a large-scale, mixed-media painting based on his childhood titled “The Evangelicals.”
