The 2021 season of the Performing Arts Series at Davenport’s First Presbyterian Church begins with a Saturday night concert featuring cellist Hannah Holman, accompanied by church music director Matt Bishop on the harpsichord and piano. Due to Covid restrictions, this pre-recorded concert from the church will be virtual only, premiering at 7:30 p.m. Saturday, March 13, and the video will be available for two weeks. The concert is based around a theme of travel – taking listeners on a geographical and musical tour of France, Italy, Germany, Hungary and Russia. Each of the works — by Antonio... Read More

If you think a 22-year-old is too young to be an executive director of a new music school, you don’t know Rishi Wagle. A bright, articulate and friendly 2016 Pleasant Valley High School alum and 2020 graduate of Brown University, Wagle was recently named the first head of the new Deanery School of Music, 1105 Main St., Davenport, whose founder and artistic director is Hannah Holman, principal cellist of the Quad City Symphony Orchestra and a busy teacher (including as cello instructor at University of Northern Iowa). “Rishi, who went through substantial music education here in the Quad-Cities,... Read More

Less than three months after securing its lease and creating its name, the new Deanery School of Music has chosen its first executive director, Rishi Wagle of Bettendorf. A 2016 Pleasant Valley High School alum and 2020 graduate of Brown University, he will work closely with the board and with Hannah Holman, the school’s artistic director, to address the many initiatives associated with the start of this new and unique cultural organization serving the Quad-Cities. “There are so many moving parts associated with an adventure like this that we feel it needs someone who is a quick learner with... Read More

It feels like a broken record, but it’s a broken record that keeps playing on the jukebox of 2020 and into 2021 – we NEED some good news! With everything negative happening in the world right now, we need positive news more than ever! That’s why, every month, we give you What’s The Good News? a look around the Quad-Cities at the positive things happening in our community. We run the column here on QuadCities.com, and in conjunction with our media partners at KWQC-TV6’s “Paula Sands Live,” I go on PSL to chat about some of the awesome things we list here. So, need some good news? We’ve... Read More

Saturday In The Arts is a comprehensive weekly feature looking at a trend, personality, or major subject involving the Quad-Cities arts and entertainment scene. Making it through nearly five months of a paralyzing pandemic was bad enough, but for those of us in Iowa and the Quad-Cities, Aug. 10, 2020 and the days that followed seemed especially cruel. I’ll never forget that Monday afternoon, working on my laptop in the basement, a prisoner in my home trying not to go insane during a crazy year. The power suddenly went out, as a freak inland hurricane (or “derecho” – duh-RAY-cho – as everyone... Read More

Hannah Holman, principal cellist with the Quad City Symphony, got an early Christmas present this month – the keys to the historic Deanery at Trinity Episcopal Cathedral, Davenport. She’s had a longtime dream to start a new music school, which she did online in September, and she is Executive Artistic Director of the Quad City Music Academy. Following months of negotiations between the Trinity Episcopal Cathedral’s Vestry and her academy’s Board of Directors, Holman now has a 15-year lease on the 90-year-old building and the QCMA will rename it The Deanery School of Music. “It’s so... Read More