Join the Grand Rapids Public Museum (GRPM) for the final Planetarium Double Feature showing of The Queen Light Show and Dark Side: The Light Show in the Roger B. Chaffee Planetarium on Thursday, August 1.
Music enthusiasts will rock out to the music of Queen and Pink Floyd paired with stunning visuals on the planetarium dome.
The Museum’s doors open at 6:30 p.m. with the first show, The Queen Light Show, starting at 7 p.m. A cash bar will be available before the first show and during a short intermission.
Tickets to the Planetarium Double Features will include both light shows, and are $8 for non-members, $4 for members. Tickets may be purchased at grpm.org or by calling 616.929.1700.
The Queen Light Show
New life is brought to the wildly popular classic rock light show format with an original production set to the music of Queen. Experience 10 of Queen’s greatest hits, including favorite like Bohemian Rhapsody, Another One Bites the Dust and You’re My Best Friend. The Queen Light Show: From Mercury with Love! is brought to the Chaffee Planetarium from Longway Planetarium in Flint.
Dark Side: The Light Show
Experience Pink Floyd’s iconic album as never before in this one-of-a-kind light show, featuring stunning 4k visuals, brilliant LED sequences, and incredibly clear 5.1 surround sound. Dark Side: The Light Show is a GRPM original production, first launched at the Chaffee Planetarium in Spring 2015.
Well, at least to Spectrum Theater – which is on hill – to catch the latest production from Actors’ Theatre Grand Rapids The family-friendly musical “The Burnt Part Boys,” runs through Feb. 9. The country- and bluegrass-themed songs will get you humming as you follow this coming-of-age story set in the Appalachians.
The recent weather may not have been optimal for driving, but the weekend should be great to head over to the Michigan International Auto Show which is at DeVos Place all weekend. From classics to the latest vehicles, it should be a show worth a drive-by peek.
Fun fact:
Queen in Space
Queen guitarist Brian May combined his passion for astronomy (he has a doctorate in astrophysics) and his music to write a song of NASA’s New Horizon’s historic flyby of Ultima Thule, the farthest object in the solar system visited by a spacecraft. (New Horizon flew past it on Jan. 1, 2019.) It is exactly the kind of epic you would expect from the man who wrote “We Will Rock You” with soaring guitars and dramatic lyrics. Check out the video below.
"You get to a certain age, where you know you can’t go over the wall, but I’ll never get to the age where I can’t go through it." - Actor Burt Reynolds, 1936-2018
Lending a Hand
Local nurses were on a hike at Dead River Falls, in the U.P.’s Marquette, but their day hike became a case of being in the right place at the right time. (Supplied)
When a group of local emergency nurses on vacation in Marquette, Mich., learned of an injured hiker they did what anyone with their training and background would do: they went to help. “I fully believe God placed nine ED nurses on that trail for a reason,” said Rylee Kuiphoff, one of the nurses in the group.
Are You Ready for the Challenge?
FIRST Power Up, the theme for the 2017 FIRST challenge, was based on a Mario game.
Hundreds of young technology enthusiasts will gather at Grand Valley State University September 8 to celebrate the beginning of the For Inspiration and Recognition of Science and Technology (FIRST) Tech Challenge season. The event is set for 9 a.m. – 3 p.m. at the Eberhard Center and Keller Engineering Lab building on the Pew Grand Rapids campus. Competitions will take place in the winter.
The Rebels Who Are Turning it Around
Wyoming Lee faces NorthPointe Christian this Friday. The Wyoming Lee team has struggled in years past but last year, Coach Tom DeGennaro credited much of that success to the students: “It’s just the kids buying into the system, working out in the weight room and committing themselves to being here every day. It has nothing to do with coaching. All of the success goes to the kids.”
Killer Light Show
Well you have about a month and a half until “Bohemian Rhapsody,” the film about epic rock band Queen and its frontman Freddie Mercury, hits the theaters. Until then, the Grand Rapids Public Museum has got your Queen-fix as it will be opening “The Queen Light Show: From Mercury with Love” Sept. 15. The show will feature laser lights dancing to 10 of Queen’s greatest hits. And yes, that does include “Bohemian Rhapsody.” For more, visit grpm.org/Planetarium.
Fun Fact:
33.9 Million Miles
Or 54.6 million kilometers. That is the closest Mars and Earth come to each other. Still the distance has not discouraged a love affair with the red planet, which Grand Valley State University explores in its new exhibit "Mars: Astronomy and Culture." The exhibit is set to open Sept. 13 and will feature 140 photographs, drawings, movie posters, book covers and more spotlighting Mars.
The Grand Rapids Public Museum (GRPM) has announced that a brand new show will begin this fall in the Roger B. Chaffee Planetarium line up! Beginning, Saturday, Sept. 15, The Queen Light Show: From Mercury with Love, “will rock you!”
New life is brought to the wildly popular classic rock light show format with an original production set to the music of Queen. Experience 10 of Queen’s greatest hits in this brand new show, including favorites like “Bohemian Rhapsody,” “Another One Bites the Dust” and “You’re My Best Friend.”
The Queen Light Show: From Mercury with Love is brought to the Chaffee Planetarium from Longway Planetarium in Flint, MI.
The Queen Light Show will play at 4 p.m. on Saturdays and Sundays. Planetarium tickets are $4 each with purchased general admission to the Museum, $5 each for planetarium-only tickets and free to Museum members. For more planetarium show times and to purchase tickets, visit grpm.org/Planetarium.
New experiences and new sounds, including a tribute to the rock group Queen, are part of the 2016 D&W Fresh Market Picnic Pops season.
But old standbys, including one of West Michigan’s best fireworks shows of the summer, also returns in July for the Grand Rapids Symphony’s 22nd annual summer series that welcomes the music of the Beach Boys back to the great outdoors of Cannonsburg Ski Area.
Today, your Grand Rapids Symphony unveils the three-concert season of shows happening on Thursday and Friday evenings. Two more special-event, one-night-only shows in early August will be announced soon.
Single tickets plus series tickets and flexpasses, offering substantial discounts, over single-ticket prices, all are on sale. Save up to 28 percent with a 3-Concert Series subscription or save up to 17 percent with a 6-ticket Flexpass. Go online to the Grand Rapids Symphony’s website for more information.
The Classical Fireworks will be lead by Principal Pops Conductor Bob Bernhardt, July 14 & 15.
The 2016 D&W Fresh Market Picnic Pops opens July 14-15 with Classical Fireworks at 8 p.m. Principal Pops Conductor Bob Bernhardt will be on the podium for the show he describes as “classics go to the movies.”
“Wagner, Beethoven and Grieg were great film composers – and didn’t know it,” said Bernhardt who made his Picnic Pops debut last summer at Cannonsburg.
Popular orchestral favorites from movies, such as Richard Wagner’s Ride of the Valkyries, which is heard in films including Apocalypse Now, Full Metal Jacket, and What’s Opera, Doc, are part of the show.
“It’s almost all music not originally for film but for the concert stage,” Bernhardt said.
Two exceptions include music from Harry Potter and the Sorcerer’s Stone and E.T. The Extra Terrestrial, which were composed for film. Next season, the Grand Rapids Symphony will screen both films in their entirety, accompanied by live music, during the 2016-17 season indoors in DeVos Performance Hall.
Tchaikovsky’s stirring 1812 Overture, heard in many films but featured prominently in the 2006 film V for Vendetta, closes each night’s Picnic Pops concert with a pyrotechnic display.
Benefactor sponsors include TerryTown RV, Kennari Consulting and Chemical Bank for the concerts including the second movement of Beethoven’s Seventh Symphony, featured prominently in The King’s Speech, in the climactic scene in which King George VI addresses the nation on radio that the United Kingdom is at war with Nazi Germany.
“Every concert needs moments of reflection,” said Bernhardt, who returns for his second D&W Fresh Market Picnic Pops season with the Grand Rapids Symphony.
The 2016 D&W Fresh Market Picnic Pops continues July 21-22 at 7:30 p.m. with We will Rock You! The Music of Queen.
Special guests Jeans ‘n Classics return to Grand Rapids for such hit music as Bohemian Rhapsody, Another One Bites the Dust, You’re My Best Friend, and We Are the Champions led by associate conductor John Varineau.
The Canadian rock group appeared previously with the Grand Rapids Symphony in a tribute to the music of Elton John in 2010 and in a salute to songs from the James Bond series of films in 2009. Led by guitarist and arranger Peter Brennan, Jeans ‘n Classics is back with a new show with songs made famous by the glam rock band of the 1970s and 1980s. Benefactor sponsors are Mercy Health – St. Mary’s and Universal Forest Products.
The three-concert season ends July 28-29 at 7:30 p.m. with The Music of the Beach Boys featuring the veteran surf rock band
Papa Doo Run Run performs in the Music of the Beach Boys, July 28 & 29.
, which was at Cannonsburg in July 2011 for the Grand Rapids Pops summer season.
Launched in the 1960s in Cupertino, California, Papa Doo Run Run toured behind Jan & Dean and spent 15 years as the celebrity house band at Disneyland. The group earned a Top 40 hit with their cover of Be True to Your School, plus a Gold Record and Grammy Award nomination for the 1985 recording, California Project. Several members of the group have toured and recorded with Brian Wilson and with other incarnations of the Beach Boys. Miller Johnson and Mary Free Bed are benefactor sponsors for Papa Doo Run run’s return to West Michigan.
Gates at Cannonsburg Ski Area open at 5:45 p.m. each night for picnicking and pre-concert entertainment, including free, kid-friendly activities such as face painting, crafts, and a musical instrument petting zoo.
Pack your own picnic baskets and coolers or purchase food from the grill at the Cannonsburg concession stand. Alcoholic beverages are permitted on the grounds, and parking is free for concertgoers.
Jeffrey Kaczmarczyk is the public relations director for the Grand Rapids Symphony. To check out the current season and the 2016 Picnic Pops, visit grsymhony.org.
