Do you play classical music? Playing in a local orchestra or band just got easier.

The TCC Symphonic Band, and the TCC Chamber Orchestra are inviting local musicians to participate in their rehearsals and concerts.  The two ensembles are a combination of students and community musicians, and perform  several times a year s in free public concerts.

Here’s what ensemble director and music department chair John Falskow has to say: “Although these are not ensembles for beginners, we are very welcoming and have a wide range of community participants.”

Those interested in joining should contact John to obtain rehearsal schedules, …

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Historic Tacoma Old House Tour

Join in the annual tour of historic homes, this year focusing on the American Four-Square house. Docents and informational posters will be at each of the seven North End houses. 10 a.m.-5 p.m. Sept. 12. $20 tickets from Dave’s Meat and Produce, 1312 North I St., Tacoma. 253-591-2026, www.historictacoma.net

Sumi-e at the Handforth

The Puget Sound Sumi Artists are on show in “Harmony: East and West” at the Handforth Gallery, together with two guest artists from Japan. The opening reception features demonstrations of sumi-e painting, calligraphy, dance and music. Opening 2-4 p.m. Sept. …

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Okay, let’s admit it: Seeing art is not the primary reason most of us go the the Puyallup Fair. Having said that, though, it’s one of the fun things at the Fair that a) is free, b) is new each year and c) offers quality without pretention. So what’s on the walls this year at the Fair?

Number one is Charley Harper, the featured artist in the 2009 Pavilion Art Show. Harper, who died two years ago at the age of 85, had a long career in design, painting and illustrating. His “minimal realism,” which portrays animals and nature …

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If you were part of the audience at “Joe Turner’s Come and Gone” last June at the Washington State History Museum, you’ll know that it was an impressive performance. Part of a series of readings of August Wilson’s ten-play Pittsburgh Cycle, “Joe Turner” was read by a cast of mostly amateurs as a collaboration between the Broadway Center, the Museum and Northwest Playwrights’ Alliance. But in a way, that made the performance all the more powerful: Without set or costumes, Wilson’s poetic words took first place, and if the reading lacked professional smoothness, it had a raw, emotive grittiness (along …

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Telephone Room artists do LEGO

If you think things can’t get any more bizarre at the tiny Telephone Room gallery (than, say, a dead guy in the closet and a shelf full of bones) then come along tonight to see the small space filled with artist-sculpted LEGO. Opens 5-9 p.m. tonight, then by appointment through Sept. 31. Get address by RSVP to thetelephoneroom@gmail.com

Get the works at Bumbershoot

The Seattle arts and music festival never fails, and this year’s promising good things on the art front: the Portland Cello Project, …

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Finally, a flash-mob art event in Tacoma! They’ve been happening in Seattle for awhile now, mostly courtesy of Greg Lundgren and team, but ours is going to be much, much better. (Isn’t it?!)

So what’s happening? Art chairs. Lance Kagey, half of letterpress guerrillas Beautiful Angle, is organizing an art sit-in at 4 p.m. next Thursday (Sept. 10) on Tollefson Plaza downtown. Bring a chair (any kind) and some blue painters’ tape, and work with artist Joe Penrod to create a plaza full of blue chair shadows (see above pic.) The first 50 people …

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Go Arts has changed blogging systems and the URL. Please go here to check out the new site.

Make sure to update any bookmarks or RSS feeds you had pointing to our old system as they will no longer work.

New blog URL: http://blog.thenewstribune.com/arts

New RSS feed: http://blog.thenewstribune.com/arts/feed

New Atom feed: http://blog.thenewstribune.com/arts/feed/atom

We’re switching to a new blogging system here at The News Tribune and hope you’ll like the changes. We also hope you’ll try it out and give us your feedback.

A few of the changes you’ll notice:

• We’ve separated content and advertising by implementing the right ad column you’ll see on the rest of our site and a left content “widget” column.

• In that left column, we’ve added a tag cloud that shows the most blogged current topics. The tag cloud also allows us to streamline our category lists which got out-of control after awhile (sorry about …

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