The American Handel Society is gathering in Seattle for its biennial conference, and even if you’re not a Handel scholar (look, no one’s saying you’re not), there are plenty of performances to take in at the American Handel Festival, or “Handel in Seattle.” More than two dozen performances are scheduled between now and March 27, with many taking place on Capitol and First Hill.

The Seattle Symphony kicked off the festival downtown this weekend, with conductor Nicholas McGegan and soprano Isabel Bayrakdarian in Songs of Cleopatra. Your typical G. F. Handel work will feature an antique god or goddess, or at least a king and queen or mythical figure, and often some fireworks on the harpsichord. Handel shredded, harpsichord-wise. I’m told it’s no longer de rigueur to wear the buckled, platform shoes and silk hose to a Handel concert, but suit yourself.

It’s not all Handel all the time though–March 17, the Frye Art Museum hosts the world premiere of the one-act stage-fright opera, The Man in the Mirror, by Ben Bernstein, master teacher at the San Francisco Opera and director of the Singer’s Gym. A tenor, warming up in front of a mirror, begins to hear voices in his head. At first, they’re congratulatory, but then they turn on him and his self-esteem. The tenor in this case is Ross Hauck, a popular Seattle singer and voice professor at Seattle University. (You may know him from such early music hits as Il ritorno di Ulisse in Patria and L’incoronazione di Poppea.)

You can also catch the opera on the 19th, at the Sorrento, at a $50/person fundraiser, where the opera comes with wine and dessert. That’s probably the best opportunity to break out the silk hose.  

But back to the Handel. Also on March 19, at St. James Cathedral at 2 p.m., the Seattle Recorder Society and Moss Bay Recorder Society, conducted by Peter Seibert, host a Handel “play-in” of Water Music and Music for Royal Fireworks. “Come prepared to enjoy playing through these marvelous works. Players of recorders, viols, baroque flutes and related instruments should bring an instrument (pitch A=440) and a music stand. Parts will be provided.” You may not believe it, but it’s free.

Stick around St. James, Saturday and Sunday at 8 p.m., for Seattle Pro Musica performing Dixit Dominus and the Coronation Anthems, conducted by Karen P. Thomas.

Or, if your tastes incline to the episcopal setting, stop by St. Mark’s Cathedral on Sunday at 2 p.m. for sopranos Gakyung Chung and Heidi Kim performing Two Italian Duets and organists J. Melvin Butler and Alan DePuy throwing down Organ Concerti, Op. 4, Nos. 5 and 6.

At 3 p.m., over at Town Hall, the Early Music Guild and Portland Baroque Orchestra hit you with  Bach’s St. John Passion, with choral support from Cappella Romana and vocal soloists from Montreal’s Les Voix Baroques. Also at Town Hall, March 22 from noon to 1:30, landscape architect Paul Willen presents a slide show with music that sets up the synergy between Handel’s pastoral music and pastoral English gardens of the early 18th century.

The final weekend, March 24 to 27, is when the Handel scholars really kick out the jams. “Leave it all in the cathedral,” they like to say. See the schedule for full details, but you’ve got baroque harpists at Town Hall; the actual American Handel Society Conference: “three days of papers, lectures, research, lively discussions, and great food with leading international Handel scholars”; and a a harpsichord master class with Byron Schenkman as part of the Western Early Keyboard Association Conference. 

On Friday, March 25, at 8 p.m. at Town Hall, Pacific MusicWorks presents Handel’s Acis and Galatea, the 1718 chamber version of Handel’s beloved pastoral opera by the Boston Early Music Festival, with stage direction by Gilbert Blin, and musical direction by Paul O’Dette and Stephen Stubbs. If you see one nymph-and-shepherd early music extravaganza this year…! 

Saturday, St. James Cathedral hosts “Handel: the Oratorio Esther from 1720″ by Pacific MusicWorks and the Tudor Choir (Doug Fullington, director), conducted by Stephen Stubbs. Sunday, Town Hall rings down the curtain with the Seattle Baroque Orchestra, led by Ingrid Matthews, performing Handel’s Grand Concertos. 

The Balagan, originally uploaded by Matt Uses a Mac.

The Pike/Pine corridor’s ongoing development means musical chairs for tenants. As is the Seattle way, people don’t take the real estate markets machinations personally, but there it is. Shop space that rented for hundreds of dollars can go for thousands, which means that the street ecology is shifting to suit those revenue-per-square-foot demands. The good news is, the arts are displaying plenty of adaptability. 

In 2010, the year rent was too damn high, both Balagan Theatre and the Martin-Zambito Gallery said goodbye to Capitol Hill. Balagan was founded on Capitol Hill in 2006, but is now heading into a “gypsy” season, having left their home below Boom Noodle, just off 12th Avenue on Pike. Martin-Zambito had been at 721 E. Pike since 1989, when the Pike/Pine area was in such a slump that they received nine months free rent on moving in. Rent back then was $475 per month for the storefront.

“When the building was sold, the rent naturally increased,” said David Martin, and when their lease ended, they were faced with a choice to renew or not.

Their gallery, with its focus on American artists, particularly Northwest artists, had developed its own clientele over the years, and walk-in traffic was less a factor in sales. With Martin taking on more writing work, working on catalogues for museums, he was in need of a gallery that had office space, and serendipitously, a conversation with Historic Seattle led to them inviting Martin-Zambito to take up space in their building on Minor.

It’s a loss for looky-loos because you’re now encouraged to view the art by appointment. But the rent is “way less,” laughed Martin. On the bright side, he mentioned that the new tenant, the Other Coast Café, makes “great sandwiches,” so Martin and Zambito still find themselves visiting their old Pike Street haunt about once per week. 

Balagan Theatre founder Jake Groshong replied via email that “We’d outgrown our space. We felt we had accomplished what we had set out to do and wouldn’t be able to grow in the ways we wanted to as an organization if we stayed where we were.” But that said, he couldn’t give the owners high marks for their support of an indie theatre, after they twice filed noise complaints with the police. (Landlord-tenant tensions are a Pike/Pine staple.)

To give you a sense of what Pike/Pine development has done to the market, Balagan’s basement rental space–echoing with the sound of Boom Noodle diner chairs scraping on their low ceiling, impossible to keep cool with bright lights and packed crowds, short on storage–was going for almost $5,000 per month. “All of our profits going toward our rent,” wrote Groshong, “but we were consistently selling out shows and turning away would-be patrons.” 

“We’re making this our gypsy season,” continued Groshong. “We’re doing Dr. Horrible at ACT [Jan. 28 to Feb. 12], and then we’ll be doing a piece in a warehouse.” At the warehouse, they’re producing three shows, and showing them in repertory over one month. After that comes a museum piece, followed by a summer show. 

Paint By Numbers, originally uploaded by One More Salute to Vanity.

Yet relocation is not at all a one-way street. SCCC’s Erickson Theater Off Broadway (just around the corner from the Egyptian) is currently the home of the acclaimed Strawberry Theatre Workshop, and is about to welcome New Century Theatre Company as well, making it ground zero for award-winning theatre you can walk to. 

“This will be our first venture away from ACT and it’ll be a great litmus test to see if our audience adjusts easily to following us there,” responded NCTC’s Paul Morgan Stetler. “So, we’ll see how it goes…we’re super excited about being at the Erickson. It’s a fantastic little space and our next show, O LOVELY GLOWWORM by Glen Berger, is going to be a perfect fit for that venue.” Directed by Roger Bennington, the show runs April 13 to May 14, and features  MJ Sieber, Peter Dylan O’Connor, Darragh Kennan, and Jennifer Lee Taylor.

“Seattle has a real shortage of decent theatre spaces,” noted Stetler, adding that the Erickson was able to give them a “great rate,” and that while it’s early days, they wouldn’t be unhappy to have found a more long-term home. Capitol Hill’s rents have exacerbated the problem; it’s noteworthy that a community college owns the Erickson, and so is not driven to seek top dollar from tenants.

Another arrival drawn to Capitol Hill’s arts-density is the offbeat Canoe Social Club. Previously housed in the upstairs of the ID’s Theatre Off Jackson, the social club’s leadership, Jennifer Zeyl and Matt Starritt, decided to go where the social is. Now they’re at 417 E. Loretta Place, by the Biltmore. The membership is a who’s who of Seattle’s art scene, some of the “busiest people in Seattle.” They are currently in a membership drive, so if you join, you too can experience “Whittlin’ Wednesdays” or “Secret Cinema.” 

For what seems like months now–since October?–half the street at 13th Avenue East and Denny Way has been under construction, but lately no construction has been evident. After the recent blustery winter weather, a barrier is down and a couple of traffic cones are on their sides, and the area has been acquiring an ambiance fit for an urban apocalypse film. 

A call in to SDOT got Peg Nielsen on the case. The construction is not road repair, but SDOT was able to reference the permit for the street closure, and determine that what’s going on is a particularly troublesome sewer repair project. Apparently no fewer than four sewer-inspecting cameras had to be pressed into use before the problem could be seen in detail, and much of the hold-up has come from waiting on the series of cameras. 

Now that the sewer repair personnel have “eyes” on the faulty area, they anticipate the fix–and subsequent reopening of 13th–to take place early in the New Year. Back to you in the station, jseattle. 

The fifth-graders from Stevens Elementary have assumed near-total control of the fifth floor of Seattle Central Community College by the time I arrive. There are 42 of them, but it seems like more.

They really are in charge–they’re visiting the Creative Academy at SCCC to play the role of creative directors on a team including a graphic designer and photographer. Each of the fifth-graders is in the catbird seat, directing the creation of a poster or ad or whatever. All feature a different Pez dispenser. They had one hour to brainstorm, and have three more to produce.

It’s the idea of Marc Salverda, who runs SCCC’s graphic design department. He has an in with Stevens Elementary–his wife teaches there. They have been collaborating the last few years on smaller projects; Salverda has visited Stevens a few times with PowerPoint shows.

Last year they were talking about careers. Each of the students got a letter of the alphabet corresponding to a profession, and Salverda got the idea to show them what a graphic designer and photographer actually do. Only a few had even heard of the terms, he explains, but even they didn’t know what design involves.

Salverda proudly surveys the creative chaos. “We’re supposed to print out the finished work,” he says. “But it’s 12:30 now….” He trails off. Creative work never arrives before the deadline, so this is par for the course. Besides sending prints to Stevens Elementary for display at parent/teacher conferences, he has plans to hang the works in a local cafe.

Down the hall, the college students and fifth-graders are taking snack breaks, painting ideas in the air before they return to the computer lab.

As CHS reported earlier, an arborist was sent to check out the condition of the sweetgum tree that dropped a huge branch across Aloha near 15th Avenue East, and the news was either not good (certainly for the tree) or good (if you prefer not having huge branches fall on your head). A tree removal notice has been posted, stating that the loss of branches has left the tree’s trunk in a dangerous condition, and you can almost hear the chainsaws approaching. The sweetgum is a “soft” hardwood, so it’s actually valuable. I don’t know what the city does with saleable wood in cases like this. I hope it doesn’t go to waste.

It’s an old story, but a very real one–a cat that ran away as its owners were moving, and has now returned to meow pitifully from the shrubbery at people walking past 15th Avenue East and Aloha. Yesterday, three neighbors congregated to see what the source of the meowing was, and what could be done. I was one, and offered to help get the news out to CHS readers.

Neighbor Toni has been leaving food and water out for the kitty, so that it won’t starve, but it’s clearly not safe for a house cat to be out on the street like this. If anyone would like to adopt the cat and give it a new home, Toni asks you to please contact her at three two two, twelve ninety-one.

You’d also be improving the life of a cat next door, who has food allergies but nonetheless insists on eating the food Toni leaves out and develops itchy rashes that make him miserable. And besides, who can say no to a face like that?