The Minnesota Orchestra has hired a 22-year-old violinist to one of its top leadership positions. As associate concertmaster, Felicity James will act as deputy to concertmaster Erin Keefe. "We are confident that she will be a huge asset," Keefe said in a statement. "She is a beautiful violinist and musician who impressed the audition committee with her incredible poise as a leader." James replaces 35-year veteran Roger Frisch, who retired after the orchestra's South Africa tour. Despite her youth, she brings considerable experience, having served as concertmaster with the Verbier Festival Orchestra in Switzerland, the Aspen Philharmonic Orchestra and the orchestra at Colburn Conservatory of Music in Los Angeles, where she recently completed a bachelor's degree. She grew up in Seattle, where her father is the Seattle Symphony's second assistant concertmaster. She starts her new job Dec. 10, serving as concertmaster for the orchestra's Home for the Holidays and "Beauty and the Beast" concerts. The orchestra also announced another key hire: Erich Rieppel, 26, a native of Marshall, Minn., who got his start playing with the Southwest Minnesota Orchestra, was named principal timpanist — a position vacated in 2015 by another 30-year veteran, Peter Kogan. TERRY BLAIN
A poet makes the Forbes list
Minnesota poet Danez Smith has been named to Forbes' 30 Under 30 list. In placing Smith among their best in media, Forbes cited the 29-year-old's poetry, which "contemplates police brutality, gender and race." The nod comes toward the close of a huge year for the poet. Smith was a finalist for a National Book Award last November and, earlier this fall, won the prestigious Forward Prize for Best Collection — the youngest poet ever to earn that distinction. Smith tweeted their dad's reaction to the news (Smith uses "they" pronouns): "Wow my dad has me on the phone while he navigates the internet to find my Forbes profile and when he finally finds it he 1. shades me for using the same pic again and 2. has me explain why my pronouns are plural for the 87th time and why it's not a copy editing issue. lol." Smith's mom, meanwhile, "had whatever the good version of a panic attack is. ... I'm both embarrassed and happy drowning in this embarrassment of love." Three other Minnesotans made the Forbes list: cocktail impresario Marco Zappia and Love Your Melon founders Zachary Quinn and Brian Keller.
JENNA ROSS
Ananya goes to India
In September, Ananya Dance Theatre premiered a provocative social justice-themed work at the O'Shaughnessy Auditorium in St. Paul. Now the contemporary Indian dance company is taking "Shaatranga: Women Weaving Worlds" to the home country of its founder, Ananya Chatterjea, on its first-ever tour to India. The female troupe will perform in three dance festivals Nov. 22-30, starting with Aavejak Avaaz in the capital city of New Delhi, then heading to the northeast Indian city of Guwahati, famed for its hilltop temples, for the Pragjyoti International Dance Festival, then returning to New Delhi for the Natya Ballet Dance Festival. The tour follows October performances at the Bethlehem International Performing Arts Festival in Palestine. A professor of dance at the University of Minnesota, Chatterjea grew up in Kolkata (formerly Calcutta) and settled in Minnesota nearly two decades ago.
ROHAN PRESTON
People who need 'People'
A fifth season of offstage melodrama, annoying side hustles and Stacia Rice's judgmental eyebrow is in the offing. "Theater People," the web series that has employed more than 160 Twin Cities actors over four seasons, is raising cash for a fifth. About 30 of the actors, including Shanan Custer, Jeffrey Hatcher, Alex Choi, Sam Landman and Rice, appeared in new videos every hour during Give to the Max Day last week, with fundraising continuing after that at myfilmnorth.org. Written and directed by Matthew G. Anderson, "Theater People" features Rice as an actor who casts a gimlet eye on the behavior of folks in the Twin Cities theater community. "When we started it, we never thought we'd do more than one. We had some creative demons we needed to exorcise — and, when I say 'we,' I mean Matt, who was my nanny at the time," says Rice, whose stage career is currently on hold while she raises her kids. Anderson has a concept in mind for the fifth season, and Rice says she can't wait to see what he comes up with. "There's an energy you get from performing live, in front of people, and I don't ever want to lose that," she says. "But being able to work something out in the series, to capture it and see how it all gets assembled — that's really satisfying, too."
CHRIS HEWITT
Purple rarities
When Prince was alive, a lot of his music videos could only be seen online for a few days before someone in the singer's camp had them taken down. Now, his handlers are posting some of those old clips themselves on the Prince YouTube channel. The singer's estate and its new partners at Sony Legacy are issuing a batch of videos every week through mid-December from the Minnesota music legend's 1995-2010 era, a period that Sony now oversees. Among the highlights is a wonderfully oddball clip for "Rock and Roll Is Alive! (And It Lives in Minneapolis)." It features Prince — then in his "Slave" face-painting mode — wearing ski goggles and a puffy Vikings jacket in a video that was broadcast on VH1 in response to the Lenny Kravitz song "Rock and Roll Is Dead."
![Danez Smith was photographed behind The Boiler Room Coffee Shop in Minneapolis Wednesday. ] AARON LAVINSKY ï aaron.lavinsky@startribune.com Danez Smith is a young (28-year-old) black queer poet who has already achieved fame and prominence. His second collection is out in September from the very prestigious Graywolf Press; he's won national awards as a poet and spoken-word poet, he's performed all over the world, and he has been on the Colbert Show. He was born in St. Paul and now lives in M](https://arc.stimg.co/startribunemedia/GH6KEYE576JT6U2USMQXJZSSPE.jpg?&w=1080)
