Performing Arts Center

Sunday, May 19 Chamber music The Sundays at Three Chamber Music Series presents Duo Amaral at 3 p.m. at Christ Episcopal Church, 6800 Oakland Mills Rd. in Columbia. The duo will perform music by Scarlatti, Sammartini, Handel, Vivaldi, Franck and Rodrigo, written or arranged for two guitars. Tickets are $15 and free for those 17 and younger accompanied by a paying adult. Information: 443-288-3179 or sundaysatthree.org. Cookbook author appears Chabad of Clarksville and the Jewish Federation of Howard County host an evening with Joanne Caras, creator of the "Holocaust Survivor Cookbook" and "Miracles & Meals" cookbook, at 7:30 p.m. at the River Hill Village Center, 6020 Daybreak Cir. in Clarksville.

Sunday, May 19 Chamber music The Sundays at Three Chamber Music Series presents Duo Amaral at 3 p.m. at Christ Episcopal Church, 6800 Oakland Mills Rd. in Columbia. The duo will perform music by Scarlatti, Sammartini, Handel, Vivaldi, Franck and Rodrigo, written or arranged for two guitars. Tickets are $15 and free for those 17 and younger accompanied by a paying adult. Information: 443-288-3179 or sundaysatthree.org. Cookbook author appears Chabad of Clarksville and the Jewish Federation of Howard County host an evening with Joanne Caras, creator of the "Holocaust Survivor Cookbook" and "Miracles & Meals" cookbook, at 7:30 p.m. at the River Hill Village Center, 6020 Daybreak Cir. in Clarksville.

When the Peggy & Yale Gordon Center for Performing Arts opens its doors tonight for a black-tie gala, it will also be opening an era of easy access to performing arts for many Baltimore suburbanites.Far from downtown, where theaters are traditionally built, the $4 million hall -- attached to the Jewish Community Center in Owings Mills -- provides a high-tech venue for the arts, including classical music, theater, dance and children's programs. It even has the capacity to produce TV shows.

Ski club meets The Columbia Ski Club meets at 7 p.m. Monday, May 13, at Union Jack's, 10400 Little Patuxent Parkway. New members enjoy a 50 percent reduction in fees. Light appetizers will be provided. Open to the public. Information: 410-740-5225. 'The Full Monty' Silhouette Stages presents the story of six unemployed steelworkers who decide to form a strip act. Shows at 8 p.m. Friday-Saturday, May 17-18; 24-25, and 3 p.m. Sunday, May 19, at Slayton House, 10400 Cross Fox Lane in Columbia.

They survived an earthquake, an ice storm and the death of a longtime associate.Yesterday, the partners of Moore Ruble Yudell of Santa Monica, Calif., emerged as the winners of an international competition to design one of the most coveted building projects in Maryland -- a $97 million performing arts center for the University of Maryland's College Park campus.Gov. William Donald Schaefer announced that Moore Ruble Yudell was recommended over four other nationally prominent teams that competed to design the building, which will be one of the largest and most complex in the university's 137-year history.

EFFORTS TO transform the old Hippodrome vaudeville house into Baltimore's performing arts center received a critical boost this week with Gov. Parris N. Glendening's announcement that he will include a $1.7 million planning grant in his supplemental budget.The long-vacant Eutaw Street theater would be the centerpiece of the $35 million cultural complex in an area that has been declining steadily but with considerable redevelopment potential. The Hippodrome's main theater could easily be renovated into a 2,300-seat venue capable of handling touring Broadway shows, smaller stage productions, dance performances and concerts.

The question of how to best revitalize Pikesville's old business district has often sparked controversy, the latest over the use of the old Pikes movie theater.An elaborate plan drawn by the cultural arts foundation that controls the building, and aided by the Pikesville Chamber of Commerce and Baltimore County government, would turn the theater into a 400-seat performing arts center that would draw people nightly to the central business district.Some residents and business leaders think that's a hokey idea.

The Jewish Community Center in Owings Mills gave a public && preview yesterday of the partially built Peggy and Yale Gordon Center for Performing Arts, which is becoming a reality because of a Baltimore man's love for classical music.Construction of the $4 million, 30,000-square-foot auditorium off Gwynnbrook Avenue next to the community center began last fall. Passersby can see the shell of a mammoth brick structure that is half-completed and eventually will house music, dance and theatrical arts.

For a vacant movie theater, the Pikes has had a lot of coming attractions advertised on its marquee this summer.Getting the marquee treatment have been concerts staged at other venues in Pikesville as part of a long-range plan to renovate the Pikes as a performing arts center. The Pikes itself is in no condition to stage any sort of event these days, but that could all change in the next few years."Our mission is to present performing artists, with an emphasis on emerging and mid-career artists," says Aimee Adashek, executive director of the Greater Baltimore Cultural Arts Foundation, the nonprofit group hoping to move forward with a $2 million plan to renovate the existing Pikes theater as a facility for theater, film, music, dance and the visual arts.

Before soprano Jessye Norman strode on stage Saturday night at Morgan State, Bill Clinton quipped to the audience, "I thought for the longest time that I was traveling here to see the Morgan State Choir - and I would gladly travel anywhere in the country to see them - but I think tonight they have a reasonably good stand-in!" Understatement duly noted. Norman is a real diva and a majestic artistic presence who seldom performs recitals these days. Saturday night's concert, marking the opening of the new Carl Murphy Performing Arts Center, was indeed a rare and revealing evening for those who have followed her career.

Spring Party The Columbia Foundation's annual Spring Party will be held beginning at 5:45 p.m. Tuesday, May 14, at Howard Community College's Horowitz Visual and Performing Arts Center, 10901 Little Patuxent Parkway. Tickets are $100. Information: 410-730-7840. Blue Star ceremony The Howard County Garden Club will host a dedication ceremony for a Blue Star Memorial Marker honoring service men and women at 10 a.m. Friday, May 17, at the Howard County Welcome Center, 8267 Main St. in Ellicott City.

Editor: How interesting that The Aegis chose to publish Allan Vought's Aug. 3, commentary, "My string quartet salon vs. your turf field" in the Sports section, pitting the arts against athletics. As the Executive Director of the Center for the Arts and a former Harford County Public Schools physical education teacher and former coach of both field and individual sports, it is very shortsighted that a community as vibrant and educated as Harford County has to choose between the two. Or perhaps, since their earlier objections to the arts center have proven false, The Aegis was just trying another tactic to defeat the arts center by raising the ire of sports fans and parents by inventing a battle.

For years, one group of arts lovers has dreamed of building a "world-class" performance hall in Annapolis. And for just as long, a second group has wanted to renovate and expand the performing arts center the city already has. The future of those dreams may depend on the findings of a feasibility study that the Maryland Stadium Authority is launching this summer. Seeking the best way to support a thriving arts community in Annapolis, state officials have asked Crossroads Consulting Services LLC of Tampa, Fla., to look at options for accommodating local performing groups and their patrons.

If nothing else, state Comptroller Peter Franchot's objection to Bowie State University's purchase of 32 new Steinway pianos for the $79 million new performing arts center it will open next year shows the state's top financial watchdog has a tin ear for value. Who would spend that kind of money on a state-of-the-art music facility and then fill it with penny-whistle instruments? At a meeting of the state Board of Public Works on Wednesday, Mr. Franchot suggested the $553,264 price tag for the Steinway-designed pianos - a mix of concert, budget and entry-level instruments - was excessive at a time of fiscal austerity.

Formed in 1999, Soulive is the funky soul creation of brothers Alan and Neal Evans along with Eric Krasno. Having just completed its sixth studio album, No Place Like Soul, the band will perform at the Clarice Smith Performing Arts Center on Sunday. With diverse musical inspirations, Soulive has toured with the likes of the Rolling Stones, the Roots and John Mayer. A chance to meet the artists will the follow the event. The show begins at 7:30 p.m. Tickets are $7-$30. The center is at University Boulevard and Stadium Drive in College Park.

The proposed $60 million performing arts center at Park Place in Annapolis could host performances ranging from homegrown productions to national tours of Broadway shows. The design, which representatives of the Park Cos. have begun showing to city community associations, calls for a 1,200-seat theater and a smaller performance hall seating 250 inside the massive hotel, office and residential complex on 7 acres near Westgate Circle, said Jerome J. Parks, vice president of the company. "Literally, the sky would be the limit," he said.

The shake-down cruise for the Naval Academy's Bob Hope Performing Arts Center is already attracting more than its share of accomplished participants.The slate of performances on the 1991-1992 Distinguished Artists Series has been announced for the 1,500-seat center in the new Alumni Hall.On Tuesday, Sept. 24, the center will be the site of "Les BalletsAfricains," the national dance ensemble of the Republic of Guinea. Some 35 dancers and musicians will present a program that will combinedance, music, drama, storytelling and a variety of other art forms.

It's the classic story of the understudy who gets a big break and becomes a star.For years, local theater lovers have talked about building a new performing arts center at some prestigious location near downtown -- the Inner Harbor shoreline, perhaps, or the Mount Royal cultural district. But the price tag was always too high. Now they've turned to a promising candidate waiting in the wings.The venerable Hippodrome Theater, a 1914 vaudeville house donated to the University of Maryland last year, isn't in the best part of town and doesn't have the same pizazz as some new showplace on the water.

Theater The Colored Museum Go see The Colored Museum, a satirical look at African-American identity through 11 vignettes, at the Clarice Smith Performing Arts Center's Kogod Theatre, University Boulevard, College Park. The show starts at 7:30 p.m. Tickets are $7 for students; $18, seniors; and $20 general admission. For more information, call 301-405-ARTS or go to clarice smithcenter.umd.edu.