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Arts Alliance celebrates with MUSE bash Friday
The St. Petersburg Arts Alliance’s 2023 MUSE event happens Friday (March 3) at the Morean Center for Clay, in the Warehouse Arts District. It’s the annual celebrate-the-city bash for the umbrella arts organization, with live entertainment from area musicians and dancers, live art demonstrations and more.
The centerpiece of the event is the presentation of the MUSE Awards. For 2023 – the ninth consecutive year – they’re going to Florida CraftArt CEO Katie Deits, Tampa Bay Times writer Maggie Duffy, patron and sponsor Belinda Dumont, choreographer Alexander Jones and his Project Alchemy company, glass/metals artist Catherine Woods and Mikhail Mansion, the Fairgrounds artist, technologist and installation specialist.
Participating visual artists are Jason Hackenwerth, Judy Vienneau, DemiGod and Janna Kennedy.
The jazz trio La Lucha, singer/songwriter Colleen Cherry and Sarasota-based jazz vocalist Synia Carroll will perform.
Backed by a top-flight band that includes La Lucha’s pianist John O’Leary and trumpeter James Suggs, Carroll will perform Thursday night in the Palladium Theater’s Hough Hall, in a tribute to jazz, R&B, blues and folk singer (and activist) Nina Simone.
Nine Simone, by Herb Snitzer.
Thursday’s concert, “Nina on My Mind – And I’m Feeling Good,” will include projections of classic Simone photos by the late Herb Snitzer, a longtime St. Pete resident, who was a close friend of the performer’s. Several of the images have never been seen in public.
Carroll “inhabits” Simone through songs and narrative stories. “At some point, when I started singing jazz, I understood what it was to tell a story with a song,” she told the Catalyst in a 2021 interview.
La Lucha will support her at the Friday MUSE event.
St. Petersburg Arts Alliance MUSE tickets here
Nina on My Mind (Palladium Theater) tickets here
