Midbrow

COMMUNE Hue Gallery Hartford Oct. 9, 2026 The Hue Gallery hosted a grand opening Friday for its latest exhibit, COMMUNE. As with everything else at the Hue, there was an impeccable sense of style for the event, as well-dressed artists and their supporters walked the red carpet to enter the gallery space. Hue Gallery co-owner Amber Lewis described the gallery’s previous opening exhibit a few months ago as bright and bold. This exhibition, she said, feels warm.

Thomasina Levy Summer Music Series Connecticut Old State House Hartford Oct. 9, 2026 The final concert in the Old State House’s Summer Music Series was held on a blustery Friday afternoon. Thomasina Levy, the featured artist, stood just in front of the event’s large white tent, with two instruments I’d never seen before. The stringed instrument Levy played is called an Appalachian Mountain dulcimer.

By Allan Appel It’s not every United States poet laureate who has her own band. Yet Joy Harjo does. She sings, plays jazz-infused tunes on saxophone and flute, and incorporates poetry in performance with her group — whose name is, yes indeed, Poetic Justice. Yet even without musical accompaniment, the 23rd national poet laureate, who served between 2019 and 2022, takes you places far and deep.

Glorious Index Institute Library 847 Chapel St. Through Dec. 12th One Korean word flashed in my mind as I walked through the Institute Library’s newest exhibit: yeok-shi. It means “of course,” or “as expected.” Koreans use this word after discovering a wealthy person only carries designer bags, or when a straight-A+ student is titled valedictorian, for example.

Art in Flight: Reinventing Postmodernism Virtual Simsbury Public Library Oct. 8, 2026 Human beings can fly. It’s crazy how mundane the once-impossible has become to us, so much so that we spend more time complaining about the modern miracle of flight than awing at it. That wasn’t true for Robert Rauschenberg, a 20th century artist whose fascination with flight informed his personal and professional artwork.

...and its new spot, a couple days later. Mudeung Art Festival Mudeung Gallery Gwangju Through Oct. 12, 2026 (Jisu Sheen recently moved from New Haven to Gwangju, South Korea, where she’s covering local arts and culture for the New Haven Independent and Midbrow.) It took me three visits to Mudeung Art Festival in downtown Gwangju to realize just how fast the works were moving. It's a group show made up of paintings, drawings, sculpture, textile, and furniture by 115 artists.

Lizzie Steiner Sound Lounge at Percy 1700 N Front St. Philadelphia Oct. 8, 2026 In 1966, a Philadelphia-born harpist named Ann Hobson Pilot arrived in Washington D.C. to join the National Symphony Orchestra. This was not only a great personal achievement for the 23-year-old Pilot. As the first Black principal for any instrument in an American Orchestra, Pilot had taken up a role that had been held by no other Black musician before her.

Tulsa Pie Festival WOMPA October 3, 2026 Pie people have good time management, which explains why I snagged the last parking space in the WOMPA lot at October 3’s inaugural Tulsa Pie Festival, hosted by Common Tart, at 11 a.m., the exact time the festival opened. The first of its kind in Tulsa, the three-part event included pie sales from Common Tart, local food and arts vendors, and a home baker competition that up to 100 festival attendees could help judge for an admission upcharge.

Mei Semones “Howl” Verve / Interscope (available via Bandcamp) If you were to put breezy Brazilian bossa nova guitar licks into a blender with a sprinkle of Django Reinhardt-level complexity and toss in some Breeders records for good measure, you’d end up with Mei Semones. Semones describes her music as “jazz-influenced indie J-pop,” which makes sense. She sings in both English and Japanese, switching between them not only in the same song but sometimes in the same verse.

Audacious Live Show and Tell Dead Language Beer Project Hartford Oct. 7, 2026 Back for its fifth edition, the Audacious Live Show and Tell lets randomly chosen participants share a special object and the story behind it with a live audience, and eventually the world. The event is hosted by CT Public’s Chion Wolf, recorded and turned into an episode of the weekly show. Show and tell is something most of us left behind in grade school, which is honestly a shame.