Tuesday, October 1, 2024

1:00pm-3:00pm

Sandra K-Horn -  Undercover: Becoming Street Smart in Central Ohio

Sandra K-Horn’s book, Undercover: Becoming Street Smart in Central Ohio, is the chilling biography of two undercover officers' journeys from rookie cop to undercover officer. Mike Powell and Shawn Bain started their careers in the lower echelon of the Franklin County Sheriff's Department. They worked their way from beat cop to undercover drug enforcement. Powell commanded a nine-county bust operation that included a motorcycle gang and a web of traffickers and led to breaking up a conspiracy of Cuban Nationals. He assisted in bringing to justice individuals contributing to the operation of the Mexican Cartel that worked a network between New York, Columbus, Houston, Miami, and Los Angeles. K-Horn will discuss Undercover and the five years during which she interviewed Powell and Bain to amass information for her book. She will be joined by Sargent Mike Powell (ret), who will answer questions about his time in the Franklin County Sheriff's Department and his work with the Drug Enforcement Administration.

About Sandra K-Horn

Sandra K-Horn has worked in education and journalism. She published her first novel in 2007 and won an Honorable Mention by the Eric Hoffer Award. Writing has been her passion since college. She holds a Bachelor of Science in English and Communication from Bowling Green State University and a Master of Education from Otterbein University. She studied at Ohio University, The Ohio State University, Ashland University, and Harvard University. During her teaching tenure, the Television Academy of Arts and Science awarded Sandra and her students 12 High School Awards of Excellence. Time Warner awarded her Teacher of the Year in 2006 and 2008. Sandra writes fiction and nonfiction. Her fiction books are Downward Spiral (Young Adult) and After the Tears Dry (Contemporary Women's Literature). Her nonfiction book is Undercover: Becoming Street Smart in Central Ohio (biography). As she researched Downward Spiral, she met Sargeant Michael Powell (ret.). He came to the high school where she was teaching and gave a presentation about drug paraphernalia and the current street drugs. K-Horn was fascinated by his stories about teens and that teens know much more about drugs than parents and teachers. Mike has been a consultant on two of her novels and is one of the subjects of Undercover. She is a member of the National League of American Pen Women. Her newest novel is The Springridge Incident. It is about how bullying in one generation becomes a tradition in the next. It's an inspirational story about resilience and self-discovery.

Tuesday, October 8, 2024

1:00pm-3:00pm

Brent Davis & Rich Baker - On & On: The History of Bluegrass Music in Columbus

For decades, Central Ohio was a popular destination for Appalachian residents searching for good paying jobs. Arriving from Kentucky, Tennessee, and the Virginias, they brought not only their families but also their love of mountain string music. After working all week in the factories on Columbus's southside, they would relax with food, drink, camaraderie, and the music they loved from back in the hills of home. Join Brent Davis and Rich Baker as they discuss how this traditional American music helped shape the culture of Columbus.

About Brent Davis Brent Davis is a novelist, journalist, and musician, and for many years a documentary producer for WOSU Public Media.

About Rich Baker Rich Baker has served for 38 years as co-host of WOSU's Bluegrass Ramble radio program, one of the longest running locally produced music formats in the nation.

Tuesday, September 17

1:00pm-3:00pm

Sara Abou Rashed - Future Ancestors: Writing Memories & Memoirs We know much about ourselves and the world we’ve inherited, so what inheritance do we plan to leave? In this class, we’ll reflect on being “future ancestors” to generations ahead and travel back in memory to our own beloved ancestors after whom we take in looks, memories, characteristics, likes, dislikes and more. From the artist of the one-woman show A Map of Myself, this session will include writing exercises, a discussion on the value of preserving memories, and creative approaches to writing a memoir.

About Sara Abou Rashed

Sara Abou Rashed is a poet, storyteller, and public speaker. Her works appear in the anthology A Land With A People, Poetry Magazine, Poetry Wales, Arab Literature Quarterly, as well as the latest High School English curriculum from McGraw Hill. Sara has delivered a TEDx Talk and keynoted many national conferences. In 2018, she created a one-woman show narrating her family’s immigration journey titled, A Map of Myself, which she has performed over 15 times across the US--including at the MAC! With a BA from Denison University and an MFA in Creative Writing from the University of Michigan, Sara is speaking across the country and working on her first book.

Special Olympians, Jake & Liz, invite you to a special concert of singing and dancing to raise money for Upper Arlington Special Olympics (UASO)

The full price of all tickets sales go directly to UASO!

The music is acoustic folk-rock provided by Dr V’s Generations band. In addition to the band, special guests include Erin Helgeson Torres, flute, Megan Wetzel, violin, Jeff and Elliott Weisberger, vocals and guitar, and dancers Chelsea Wintzer and Rebecca Walker!

Dr. V’s Generations Band includes:
Jeff Vasiloff, vocals, guitar, mandolin and banjo
Jake Vasiloff, drums, percussion, and vocals
Stan Smith, guitar
Paul Weiss, piano and vocals
Pete Cary, guitar and vocal

Tuesday, October 29, 2024

1:00pm-3:00pm

Reverend Beth Turner - Reconnect for Better Days

Have you ever felt so mad you couldn’t think straight? Or found yourself endlessly scrolling on your phone after an overwhelming day at work? Does it feel like you’re on a rinse and repeat cycle with pressure building up around you? When we experience ongoing stress, our bodies react in ways that make it feel hard to get off this merry-go-round. Join Reverend Beth Turner for a 90-minute Reconnect for Better Days presentation to learn why this happens to us and, most importantly, what we can do about it. We’ll pull back the curtain on these difficult experiences and explain the science behind what goes on in our brains and bodies when we are stressed. When we understand what’s happening to us, we can learn to spot problems as they arise and use practical tools in the moment that help us feel better and experience better days.

About Reverend Beth Turner

Reverend Beth Turner is an Episcopal priest serving the congregation of St. Alban’s Church, Bexley. Beyond her experience in hospital, parish, and interfaith ministry settings, she is an adult development coach and professional resiliency educator. In 2017, she helped launch Resources for Resilience™, a North Carolina 501(c)3 nonprofit whose mission is to share practical, science-based tools designed to build up and support everyone’s resilience. The nonprofit’s resiliency-focused community education and professional development programs teach individuals, educators, healthcare workers, caregivers, first responders, and other helping professionals how to keep themselves and the people they serve safe, healthy, and resilient in times of stress.

Mahana (Cultural Connections)

Saturday, November 2, 2024 at 7:00 PM

Cultural Connections: At the MAC, we’re bringing the world to you! Join us for a series of events where you will experience multicultural music, film, and dance. Build connections in your culture or immerse yourself in new experiences as we offer an expressive mosaic of passionate artists and the arts.

Mahana Productions is a Polynesian dance group founded in 2015. The goal of the group is to perpetuate the Polynesian culture through the songs and dances of the South Pacific. Mahana brings the Aloha spirit and provides educational opportunities for their community. Mahana Productions currently practices and performs dances from Hawaii, Tahiti, Samoa, and Aotearoa (New Zealand).

More about Mahana

MAC 15th Anniversary VIP Reception

Saturday, November 9, 2024 1:00 PM - 2:00 PM

Join us to celebrate the 15th Anniversary of the McConnell Arts Center!

Registration is Free, RSVP encouraged. Guests are welcome to bring a plus one.

Stay afterwards for the public open house event!

Members Event with Lee Ann Lander

Thursday, November 14, 2024 – 6PM

Join artist, Lee Ann Lander, in learning about her journey into art. Lee Ann will share her artistic endeavors and projects. Members will also see, firsthand, her unique art form of alcohol inks through a live demonstration.
This event will take place in the Savage classroom located on the basement level of the MAC.

RSVP’s are appreciated.

Goya: Visions of Flesh and Blood (Exhibition on Screen)

Friday, November 15, 2024 at 7:00 PM

Heir to Velázquez, a hero to Picasso. Discover Spain’s celebrated artist with this cinematic tour de force based on the National Gallery’s must-see exhibition Goya: The Portraits. Francisco Goya is Spain’s most celebrated artist and considered the father of modern art. Not only a brilliant observer of everyday life and Spain’s troubled past, he is a gifted portrait painter and social commentator par excellence. Goya takes the genre of portraiture to new heights and his genius is reappraised in a much-anticipated landmark exhibition at The National Gallery, London.

Directed and Filmed by David Bickerstaff Produced by Phil Grabsky

Running time: 96 minutes Presented in partnership with the Columbus Museum of Art.

Lisa Ferraro - Jazz Up The Holidays

Wednesday, December 4, 2024
Silent Auction: 5:30 PM – 6:45 PM
Concert: 7:00 PM

Celebrating its 21st season!

With original arrangements by Mike Tomaro! Join Lisa, Mike Tomaro, Max Leake, Reggie Watkins, Kurt Lorence, David Glover, and JD Chaisson! Special surprise guest performance from friends over the years as well!

Lisa Ferraro brings her acclaimed Jazz Up the Holidays back to Columbus to celebrate the 21st anniversary! Over the span of 21 years, this show has toured the country and has been a favorite on the performing arts on tour roster.

Benefiting non-profit SoulCall Global, Jazz Up the Holidays will be both LIVE and in VIRTUAL CONCERT this year. All proceeds benefit the “Soulcall Santa” food and gifts drive to assist families and individuals in need of support this season.

Join us for this internationally acclaimed show and Billboard-charting jazz vocalist Lisa Ferraro as she serves up the holiday classics in swinging style. With arrangements by Grammy-winning composer and arranger Mike Tomaro, who also plays woodwinds. A stellar band of jazz luminaries, featuring the amazing Max Leake, Kurt Lorence, Bob Matchett, David Glover, and JD Chaison, is sure to lift your spirits and ring in the season of Light, Peace, and Love.

Mad, Mad Men - Swingin' Holiday Show 2024

  Playing hits from the Great American Songbook as well as Holiday faves from the early 1960’s, these talented and seasoned members of the well known “Phil Dirt and the Dozers” band are sure to turn out another memorable show! Come enjoy the season and let the music take you back to a simpler time in America… of sharkskin suits, polaroid cameras and the whiskey sour… a time when every AM car radio played the tunes that would become the “Baby-Boomer” hits of today by Sinatra, Dean Martin, Nat Cole and more.  

Thursday, January 30, 2025 at 7:00 PM

The Thomas Worthington High School Jazz Program will present their two jazz ensembles, Cardinal Swing, and Cardinal Jazz, live in concert on Thursday, January 30, 2025 at 7:00 PM at the McConnell Arts Center. Audience members will enjoy a wide variety of music including swing, bebop, funk, and more! We know our students are "jazzed" to perform for you!

Tickets: $5

Matt Butler - Reckless Son

Saturday, February 1, 2025 at 7:00 PM

A 60 minute solo show described as a 21st Century version of ‘On The Road’ meets ‘Folsom Prison Blues’ Written & Performed by Matt Butler Directed by Richard Hoehler

Reckless Son, written and performed by singer songwriter Matt Butler, was inspired by his journey performing over 100 concerts in jails and prisons across the country.  Through a powerful combination of spoken word and song, Reckless Son humanizes the experience of the incarcerated by giving them voice and telling their stories.  Turning a compassionate eye to their lives before, during and after their time behind prison walls, the performance evokes empathy and understanding for those who are all too often considered out of sight and out of mind.  It’s a story of hope, forgiveness, and what it means to discover a deeper sense of purpose through service to others.  Raising awareness, shifting perspectives, and empowering individuals to create change within their communities, Reckless Son is more than just a show, it's a calling. Reckless Son was developed in part by the HB Studio Artist Residency program and was workshopped in Oregon State Penitentiary, The Theater Workshop at Otisville State Prison, and the Chesterfield County Jail.  For additional impact, performances of Reckless Son can be accompanied by visits to correctional facilities, hospitals, treatment centers and schools.  Talkbacks, post-show discussions and workshops are also available.

Van Gogh: Poets and Lovers

Friday, February 28, 2025 at 7:00 PM

200 years after its opening and a century after acquiring its first Van Gogh works, the National Gallery is hosting the UK’s biggest ever Van Gogh exhibition. Van Gogh is not only one of the most beloved artists of all time, but perhaps the most misunderstood.

This film is a chance to reexamine and better understand this iconic artist. Focusing on his unique creative process, Van Gogh: Poets & Lovers explores the artist’s years in the south of France, where he revolutionised his style. Van Gogh became consumed with a passion for storytelling in his art, turning the world around him into vibrant, idealised spaces and symbolic characters.

Poets and lovers filled his imagination; everything he did in the south of France served this new obsession. In part, this is what caused his notorious breakdown, but it didn’t hold back his creativity as he created masterpiece after masterpiece. Explore one of art history’s most pivotal periods in this once-in-a-century show. Made in close collaboration with the National Gallery.

This film uses Van Gogh’s revealing letters to better understand this iconic figure. The most exciting and dramatic period of Van Gogh’s life explored on the big screen.

Directed by David Bickerstaff

Running time: 90 minutes

Presented in partnership with the Columbus Museum of Art.

Dawn of Impressionism: Paris, 1874

Friday, March 28, 2025 at 7:00 PM

The Impressionists are the most popular group in art history – millions flock every year to marvel at their masterpieces. But, to begin with, they were scorned, penniless outsiders. 1874 was the year that changed everything; the first Impressionists, “hungry for independence”, broke the mould by holding their own exhibition outside official channels. Impressionism was born and the art world was changed forever.

What led to that first groundbreaking show 150 years ago? Who were the maverick personalities that wielded their brushes in such a radical and provocative way? The spectacular Musée d’Orsay exhibition brings fresh eyes to this extraordinary tale of passion and rebellion. The story is told not by historians and curators but in the words of those who witnessed the dawn of Impressionism: the artists, press and people of Paris, 1874.

Made in close collaboration with the Musee d’Orsay and National Gallery of Art, Washington D.C.

Meet the unique personalities behind the world’s favourite art movement. See the show that changed everything on the big screen.

Directed by Ali Ray

Running time: 90 minutes Presented in partnership with the Columbus Museum of Art.

Friday, April 4, 2025 at 7:00 PM

Tim Carey and Justin Monroe were next door neighbors back in 2014. Over beers one night, Tim asks Justin (a filmmaker) if he would do him a “small favor” … would he make a short promo video for Judson Studios, a family-owned stained-glass company where Tim was the lead artist.. Tim believed Judson needed something special to help them stand out among the 60 companies they were bidding against for a monumental project in Kansas City. This was a once in a lifetime opportunity for any artist who won the job. Not only was the project to make a gigantic window for the biggest mainline church in America – the United Methodist Church of The Resurrection - it was led by Adam Hamilton, a hugely influential pastor and author who spoke at President Obama’s 2^nd Inauguration. But even with all this potential “bigness” and glory ahead of Tim if they landed the project, little did he or Justin know just how much a “small favor” would change both of their lives forever.

In this visceral, three-year race against time, Tim, a talented, yet unknown LA artist bluffs his way into winning the commission to create the world’s largest stained-glass window of its kind. The problem is, Tim doesn’t know how to make it. After a desperate search, he finds someone who might have the answer… a world-famous glass maestro named Narcissus Quagliata. As the fates of three communities hang in the balance, Narcissus arrives like a storm, and changes everything.

Running Time: 120 minutes

Compton & Newberry with The Ramblin' Bluegrass Ensemble

Friday, April 11, 2025 at 7:00 PM

Compton & Newberry

Mike Compton and Joe Newberry, masters of old-time mandolin and banjo/guitar, dig deep into early country music and blues. Their duet-singing, two-man string band ranges between traditional songs, instrumentals, ‘mother’ ballads and original tunes. It’s not about the number of notes with Compton and Newberry, but telling the truth and respecting the song. Mike Compton is a Grammy award winner, IBMA Mandolin Player of the Year nominee, a steady sideman for John Hartford from 1994 until Hartford’s death in 2001, and mandolinist for the Nashville Bluegrass Band. Mike is inarguably the world expert on Bill Monroe-style bluegrass mandolin, and is also steeped in old-time fiddle tunes, early string band music and Delta blues. He’s entertained from Carnegie Hall and the White House. Known far and wide for his powerful banjo playing, Joe Newberry is a prizewinning guitarist, songwriter, and singer to boot. In addition to his work with Mike, Joe plays with fiddler and step-dancer April Verch. He was a frequent guest on Garrison Keillor’s A Prairie Home Companion, and was a featured singer on the Transatlantic Sessions. He won the songwriting prize for “Gospel Recorded Performance” at the 2012 IBMA Awards for his song, Singing As We Rise, and was co-writer, with Eric Gibson, of the 2013 IBMA Song of the Year for They Called It Music.

Learn more on the duo's website

Ramblin' Bluegrass Ensemble

 The Ramblin’ Bluegrass Ensemble is a super-group of roots-based musicians pulled from active central Ohio bands. United by a shared love for Appalachian heritage, harmony singing and innovative improvisational acoustic instrumentation, they each share their unique talents to perform a mix of traditional bluegrass covers with a touch of Western swing and original compositions. George Welling (bass) is otherwise part of the Appalachian Swing project, devoted to the music of the White Brothers and Kentucky Colonels. Brandon Shull (violin) is an Ohio State Fiddle Contest winner and graduate of the Denison University Roots Music Program. John Alge (rhythm guitar) is the founding member of the Slate Ridge Bluegrass Band, now celebrating more than 20 years of performing. Cincinnati-based Trina Emig (5-string banjo) performs nationally including appearances at Nashville’s legendary Station Inn and at venues from the East Coast to Southwestern Ohio and Northern Kentucky. Rich Baker (mandolin) has played banjo and mandolin for several Ohio bands and has co-hosted WOSU’s Bluegrass Ramble radio program for 38 years. From hard-driving instrumentals to gentle love ballads, the unique blend of talent within The Ramblin’ Bluegrass Ensemble is guaranteed to entertain, energize and leave you with a deeper appreciation of authentic traditional American music. Learn more on the band's Facebook page

Dance and Sing with Miss Marlene!

Saturday, September 21, 2024 from 10:00 AM to 11:00 AM

Family Fun Series: It's time for some family fun at the MAC! You'll be delighted with our new family series programming, which is geared toward preschool - young elementary-aged kids and their families. Experience the enchanting world of Miss Marlene, a cherished children's musician captivating Central Ohio families since 2003. Join us at the McConnell Arts Center for a family music concert filled with boundless energy, instant connections, and a repertoire of over 150 songs that blend traditional favorites with new gems. With a dynamic setlist featuring sing-alongs like "Wheels On the Bus" and covers such as "We Are the Dinosaurs," Miss Marlene's concerts offer an interactive and joyful experience for children under 6 and their big people. Don't miss the chance to be part of this musical journey, where laughter, silliness, and cherished memories abound in a celebration of two decades of musical excellence in Central Ohio.