The UI Center for New Music is no stranger to difficulty. From the challenge of performing complicated pieces to the upcoming decision on where its new home will be, the center is facing many obstacles....

In Shakespeare’s tragedy Othello, the character Desdemona is murdered by her husband for an act she didn’t commit. While many see her fate as heartbreaking, Heather Ross saw it as an opportunity. She...

I would seriously consider marrying Michael Scott. Yes, he’d embarrass me by heckling waiters at nice restaurants, and sure, he’d teach our children skewed moral lessons and insulting jokes, but to...

By the time they are 18, many budding musicians spend time performing in garage bands covering the music of Fall Out Boy or Blink-182. Not Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart. He didn’t spend his time at that age...

Corrine Smith thinks each day is an aesthetic surprise. Smith, a resident of Rock Island, Ill., works as an abstract artist creating work that evolves on a daily basis. Her work can be viewed at the Chait...

Alex Scott will gladly talk about the play he has directed, but don’t even dream about asking him how it ends. “It’s a wild ride, that’s for sure,” he said a week before the show’s opening...

Artist Cathy Patterson doesn’t have to look very far for inspiration. “[I] just look at the world around me for the things that seem beautiful,” she said. Patterson has countless colors in...

While some bands defy categorization, others outright refuse it. When asked about his band’s music, Craig Miller, the bassist for Danger Is My Middle Name, was reluctant to dive into categories. The...

Raise the Red Lantern has one simple goal: sweetness. The metal band plans to showcase this when it plays at the Picador, 330 E. Washington St., at 9 p.m. Saturday in a 19-and-over show. Iowa City-based...

UI International Programs is operating, apparently, at full charge. “I don’t need coffee; I’m already pretty wired,” said Gerhild Krapf, the UI International Programs director of external relations,...

Tim Johnston’s bookshelf may be filled with such literary classics as Vladimir Nabokov’s Lolita and Halldór Laxness’ Independent People, but his original inspiration to write stems from his childhood...

Events in recent years on the local, state, and even national level have hardly been music to the UI band department’s ears. First, the flood in the summer of 2008 irreparably damaged Voxman Music Building...