Capital Region Performance Gallery

Have you seen published reviews of performing arts events lately? Of course you haven’t. They don’t sell papers, and reviewers have to be paid. But reviews are important. They are written, lasting feedback to the performers and their supporting organization for the months of work that went into each concert or theater run. They can be printed and stored in scrapbooks and shared with family and friends, whether they attended or not. They can be important news to donors. They can be used for publicity, as back-up for grant requests, and even for recruiting.

Over the past 12 years, as editor of the Placer Performance Calendar and the Sacramento Choral Calendar, I have written hundreds of reviews, each one a gift to the performing organization. Originally, I wrote them simply because of my enthusiasm for the performing arts and because I felt that the general public needed to appreciate the brilliant creative work that I was observing. Eventually though, I came to understand that those who most appreciated the reviews were the performing organizations themselves, and I saw that they found many ways to use what I had written.

In recent years, though, the demand for these reviews outstripped my ability to produce them (and recruit and edit the work of assistant reviewers). I was overwhelmed, so I withdrew from all the writing.

But then an idea hit. If newspaper editors won’t pay reviewers, maybe at least some performing organizations will. If this could be run as a business, maybe it could be self-sustaining. So I reached out with the idea to my many contacts in our regional performing arts community, and I was encouraged by their initial response. I launched the Capital Region Performance Gallery on November 3, 2018, and it led to a steady stream of reviews interrupted only by a self-imposed hiatus in the spring of 2019 — and the pandemic of 2020-21.

Why the Broad Scope?

Why all performing arts, you ask? I come from a lifetime of choral singing, but I discovered — late in life — an appreciation for all performing arts. I knew virtually nothing about ballet when I wrote my first ballet review, but looking at the performance from the perspective of an open-minded observer turned out to be something that the ballet company valued. I told them what it felt like to be a member of the audience, how my fellow audience members were responding, what seemed truly entertaining and satisfying in what I was observing. That’s the way it has been for me with the other performing arts. I ask myself what is truly good about this performance, what is memorable, what is exceptional? And through that lens, I have discovered individual and collective talent that has excited me, soothed me, made me laugh, made me think, and occasionally brought me to tears.

So why go all the way to Grass Valley or Woodland or Placerville for a good performance? Over the years I’ve been to all those places (and many points in between), and I’ve found true excellence everywhere. Organizations in these areas get local support, but they deserve wider recognition, and I hope that the Capital Region Performance Gallery will provide that recognition.

To me, the performing arts are all about discovery. In each concert or show, the performers discover something about themselves and the material they are working with, and the result so often is magical. I’m looking forward to recording some of that magic for a long time to come.