Saturday in the Arts is a weekly feature covering a trend, subject, event or personality of local interest. It runs every Saturday morning on your site for the best entertainment and arts coverage in the area, QuadCities.com! Like the powerful, epic quest taken by their musical’s protagonist, Quad-Cities theater artists Dan Haughey and Michael Callahan have been on an imposing, challenging journey to bring their new theatrical vision to life. Twenty months after holding a staged reading of “Aaron Power! The Musical” at Moline’s Black Box Theatre, the 66-year-old Haughey and 50-year-old... Read More

When it’s in the upper 80s and sunny on Sunday, there may be no better place to be than kicking back a cold one at Go Fish Marina Bar & Grill, listening to the lovely Angela Meyer kick off a new local female vocalist series. The country singer-songwriter will perform outside from 3 p.m. to 6 p.m. at Go Fish, one of her favorite venues, 411 River Drive (U.S. 67), Princeton, Iowa. “It’s a great place, just a great atmosphere. I love it,” Meyer said Thursday. “It’s literally right on the river.” Go Fish – with a full bar – says its good is “some of the best around including... Read More

Charlotte Boyer, a 17-year-old junior at Rock Island High School, made her national television debut Monday night on the final rounds of blind auditions for Season 20 of NBC’s “The Voice” singing competition, which began Monday, March 1. She was featured singing a minute-long rendition of Amy Winehouse’s “Love Is a Losing Game,” and didn’t get the response she hoped for from celebrity judges John Legend, Kelly Clarkson, Blake Shelton and Nick Jonas. None turned their chair for her. “I am so sorry we don’t have better news for you today,” Legend told Charlotte on the show. “I... Read More

Charlotte Boyer, a 17-year-old junior at Rock Island High School, will be featured as one of the contestants in Season 20 of NBC’s “The Voice” singing competition, which begins airing Monday, March 1, at 7 p.m. “It was a very long process and I was lucky to even be a part of it all,” Charlotte said this week of her auditions in October in Los Angeles. “I’m not sure what the number was, but there were a lot of auditions, a lot of people that did try out. I was one of the few that got lucky.” “My mom submitted a video of me to the website and I guess someone found it, and I was... Read More

Lynne Stukart of LeClaire can’t sing the praises of a staggeringly huge virtual choir loudly enough. But that makes sense, since for Eric Whitacre’s Virtual Choir 6 – with 17,562 singers from 129 nations – they literally were told to “Sing Gently.” At a time when we could all use some peace, togetherness and harmony, Stukart, a veteran flute teacher, was thrilled to be part of the online musical project. She’s a big fan of Whitacre, the popular choral composer and his ambitious virtual choirs – a project that started in 2010 with individual videos from 185 singers from 12 countries,... Read More

Live music is returning to the River Music Experience, at 2nd and Main streets, Davenport, next month for the first time since Covid-19 shut down events in mid-March. The outdoor Live@Five series will resume in the courtyard, totally free, for all ages, from 5 p.m. to 7 p.m. each Friday in August and September. New guidelines will be enforced, to ensure safety of guests, staff and musicians – Face masks are required for entry and bar service. Guests will wear face masks when not seated and when not able to maintain six-foot distance from others. • Seating will only be allowed in the boxes... Read More

The local arts scene took a huge blow this spring when Covid-19 shut down the entertainment industry. But it takes a lot more than a pandemic to get Quad-Cities artists down and out. And it takes even more to get the big idea makers to stop dreaming. Enter Royce Barnett, Mr. Crunk Chocolate. Barnett, a Quad City resident and popular voice on social media and podcast platforms, where he often posts under the name Crunk Chocolate, has launched Quad-Cities Repping, a one stop shop Spotify playlist of Q-C artists. “The Ultimate Goal is to have The most complete Q-C Anthology of our local artists,”... Read More

As many musical artists and other performers are sharing their talents online during the coronavirus crisis, some Q-C music and theater groups are also finding new ways to be creative. The Spotlight Theatre in Moline was to open its latest musical, “Oliver,” last weekend. But during the closing, co-owners Brent and Sara Tubbs have used some of the time to record video interviews with friends and colleagues who’ve gone onto big things. Since late March, the husband-and-wife team have individually done six Facebook Live talks (inviting visitors to post questions), including actors who have... Read More

DAVENPORT — Local musician Josh Duffee has long been a scholar of area legends like Louie Bellson and Bix Beiderbecke, and now he’s sharing his encyclopedic knowledge with a new online show, Bix Beiderbecke: A Driving Tour Around Davenport, taking place from 11 a.m. to 1 p.m. Thursday on Josh’s Facebook Live. “When I have the opportunity to travel the country and the world performing the music I love, I am proud to say that my family and I live in Davenport, Iowa, the hometown of Bix Beiderbecke!” Josh said. “The one thing I’ve heard the most from the... Read More

DAVENPORT — Like many of his fellow musicians who are airing videos on Facebook and working to raise money during the Covid-19 pandemic, Don Gustafson is using the social-media platform for good. The 49-year-old Davenport man makes his living as a full-time musician – as bassist in the Q-C band Funktastic Five, assistant music director at Davenport’s St. Paul Lutheran Church, and adjunct music teacher at Black Hawk College, offering private piano, guitar and bass lessons. In response to the coronavirus, which has closed bars and restaurants, and put musicians out of work, Gustofson... Read More