Two superstar ensembles in the realm of contemporary-Christian music team up for a national tour that makes an April 28 stop at the TaxSlayer Center, with the Moline venue housing an evening with the chart-topping Christian rockers of Casting Crowns and the Dove Award-winning talents of We the Kingdom.

Touring in support of his January album release Frayed at Both Ends, chart-topping outlaw-county singer/songwriter Aaron Lewis and his band the Stateliners perform a May 4 concert at Davenport's Adler Theatre, treating fans to a repertoire that inspired Saving Country Music to rave, “Aaron's voice comes with a familiarity and richness of tone that endears itself to the songs he writes.”

Works by gifted undergraduates and this year's class of graduating BFAs from the University of Iowa Department of Dance will be presented at Iowa City's Space/Place Theatre from April 27 through 29, the evenings a collection of eight stunning dance vignettes choreographed by an octet of wondrously talented students.

Held in conjunction with the April 24 opening of the venue's exhibit Hidden Habsburgs in Iowa: 1846-1868, Davenport's German American Heritage Center will host a free Hidden Habsburgs in Iowa symposium on April 30, a morning and afternoon of presentations in which attendees are invited to learn more about the immigrants who came to the Quad Cities and left a lasting legacy.

Lauded by the Nashville Blues Society as an artist who "has one of those perfect, whisky-soaked-with-honey voices that is full of the passion and conviction that it takes to be a great blueswoman," Skyla Burrell and her band play Bettendorf's Crawford Brew Works as part of the Bettendorf venue's and the Mississippi Valley Blues Society's fundraising Brews 'n' Blues Concert Series, the ensemble praised by Digital Cafe Tour as "one of the most smokin' blues bands in the United States."

Performing a lovely afternoon of works by composers Astor Piazzolla, Eugène Ysaÿe, Gabriela Lena Frank, Pablo de Sarasate, and Johann Sebastian Bach, Quad City Symphony Orchestra concertmaster and violinist Naha Greenholtz and pianist Marian Lee will fill Davenport's Figge Art Museum with classical delights on May 1, the artists combing their talents for the special QCSO presentation Up Close with Naha & Marian.

A special viewing of one of the cinematic works in this year's Rock Island Art Guild Fine Arts Exhibition, the 20-minute performance piece Impermanence will be screened in the Figge Art Museum's John Deere Auditorium on April 28, Daniel Fine's and Dana Keeton's work a combination of live mandala creation, video projection, real-time video, and music by percussion ensemble Loop 2.4.3.

Performing in an April 23 art-song recital sponsored by Opera Quad Cities and Trinity Episcopal Cathedral Music, baritone Nicholas Fahrenkrug and pianist Eleonora Apostolidi, appearing as the Apollo Duo, pay a visit to Davenport's Trinity Episcopal Cathedral with the moving and musical Reality & Escape, a program designed to address our current frustrations, losses, and challenges of life, as well as the various ways in which we cope.

Touring in support of their 2021 album Namesake that Folking calls "a wonderful dream of a record," the Midwestern artists of Them Coulee Boys headline a season-opening concert event at Maquoketa's Codfish Hollow Barn, their April 23 set also boasting performances by fellow Midwestern outfits the Wildwoods and Flash in a Pan.

Appearing virtually in a special event made possible by Illinois Libraries Present, a lauded actor and comedian and world-class musician join forces for the April 27 conversation An Evening with Nick Offerman & Jeff Tweedy, an insightful and hilarious online one-and-one that will find the friends and Parks & Recreation and Wilco talents discussing Offerman's 2021 book Where the Deer & the Antelope Play: The Pastoral Observations of One Ignorant American Who Loves to Walk Outside.

Pages