Summer starts early

artbeat

by Louis Meldman

America’s greatest summer celebration of art and entertainment, the Ann Arbor Summer Festival, opens early this year, with Bonnie Raitt at Hill Auditorium on Friday, May 25.  This is the 31st incarnation of the Fest and somehow it keeps getting better, thanks to Festival Director extraordinaire, maestro-with-the-magic-touch, Robb Wolfe.  I asked him for an upcoming sleeper show that might not get the local press it deserves. Answer: Feist at the Power Center on Tuesday, June 5. 

Changing of the guard

The Performance Network celebrates painter Mark Rothko

by Sandor Slomovits

The Performance Network’s next production is Red by John Logan. The play is about the prominent modern painter, Mark Rothko, and focuses on the period in Rothko’s career when he was working on his gigantic Four Seasons restaurant murals. The play won the 2010 Tony Award for Best Play. Its Ann Arbor run, April 19 – May 27, is directed by Carla Milarch, the Network’s Executive Director.

Those girls have moxie

The Moxie Strings drop an album at

Wolverine State Brewing Company

by Sandor Slomovits

The Encarta World English Dictionary defines moxie as courage combined with inventiveness. That definition applies aptly to The Moxie Strings, the duo of fiddler Diana Ladio and cellist Alison Lynn. The pair, under their previous name, String Cheese, has been playing their unique blend of Celtic-influenced, rock-inflected music throughout Michigan and beyond for several years now, and will be releasing their first full length recording with an album release party on May 19 at the Wolverine State Brewing Company... Read more...

Samosa House

Somali food, with a twist

Joe Saul and Lisa Leutheuser

Samosa House

Samosa House

1785 Washtenaw Rd
Ypsilanti, MI 48197
(734) 340-6121
Mon-Sat:  10a-10p
(they hope to add breakfast soon)
Sun: 11a-8p

It’s rare that we get to welcome a completely new cuisine to our area, but this is one of those occasions: Samosa House, in the old Red Sea space on Washtenaw, is our first Somali restaurant. Owned by sisters Amina and Hawa Hassan, Samosa House showcases Somalia’s cuisine, demonstrating its culinary influences from India, the Middle East, and Italy.