“I saw miiiiles and miiiiiles of Texas…” sing it with us! Okay, if you’re from out of town you may not know the song, but we’re pretty sure you’re familiar with the idea that one can drive for a full day in any direction in the Lone Star State and still not reach the Texas border.
Another not-so-secret Texan sentiment is that we love our state — like, LOVE it. We’re talking the plains, the hill country, the rivers, the landscape, and the wildlife. All the things that make this area as wild and unique as the folks who live here. So naturally, the Long Center jumped when given the opportunity to combine a few of our favorite things together — H-E-B, Texas State Parks, and National Geographic!
A Perfect Match
If you haven’t heard, we’re the new home for National Geographic’s Speaker Series, a part of their national circuit of lectures from Nat Geo explorers, filmmakers, and adventurers. You’ve already missed an incredible talk from one-handed climber Maureen Beck, but don’t worry, there are two more speakers this summer to look forward to (more on that later).
Since the Long Center is located on city park land and built from 95% reycled materials, we love any opportunity to admire the landscape around us and its wildlife, down to the Great Blue Herons that fly over Lady Bird Lake, and our fantastic view of the city and surrounding hill country from the top of our building.
Who better to share all this with than H-E-B? H-E-B is helping to conserve and protect Texas through their commitment Our Texas, Our Future. A long-term partner of the Long Center, we’re super pumped to have H-E-B through their commitment Our Texas, Our Future join us as underwriter for the National Geographic Speaker Series. It’s a perfect match — here’s what we have in common:
We Love Our State
H-E-B is about as Texas as a store can get — we dare you to find one more intrinsic to Texans’ everyday lives! Through Our Texas, Our Future, the grocery staple is also committed to making sure the state’s environment and natural resources are preserved for generations to come.
This includes everything from how they source their products (with local farms and growers), to how they manage food waste and recycling efforts, and even investing in renewable energy.
Our Texas land, water, and air are what we all share, and they want to make it easy for everyone to protect and enjoy that splendor, too.
We Love Our Parks
Texas State Parks is celebrating 100 years! And as a big part of H-E-B’s sustainability journey, they’ve partnered together to make the centennial celebration a fixture in everyone’s minds for the next 100 years.
They’re encouraging everyone to get out, explore, and find your new favorite State Park from the nearly 90 that cover 10 unique ecoregions. TSP & H-E-B have created this handy list of parks to get you started.
We Want to Share a Long Green Future
No better (or cooler) place to celebrate the sustainability of our state’s resources & wildlife this summer than at the Long Center! We’ve got two more guests in our National Geographic Speaker Series, and you can catch Our Texas, Our Future and Texas State Parks at both. Bring your thin film plastic to recycle at their booth, enter to win an annual TSP park pass, and ask all your park-related questions before the show.
FILIPE DEANDRADE, filmmaker
July 8 @ 7:30pm
Nat Geo’s ‘Untamed’ filmmaker invites us to experience the wild through his camera lens as he talks about finding your passion in life, living with intent, and how animals and their stories saved his life.
BRIAN SKERRY, underwater photographer
August 4 @ 7:30pm
Photographer behind the television series “Secrets of the Whales,” Brian will share behind-the-scenes stories from the field and give an inside look into the groundbreaking science of whale culture.
Start making your top ten list of Texas State Parks (remember, almost 90 to choose from) so you can be prepared when you win that annual pass 😉
And keep your eyes peeled for ways to be green at your local H-E-B — look out for the Our Texas, Our Future plastic recylcing bins, and always keep a resusable H-E-B or Long Center tote in your car.
At the Long Center, we’ve always got a new partnership or something cool we know you’ll want to check out! Find and follow us @longcenter on your social media platform of choice, and we’ll see you real soon.
In this town, we all know that you can kick your boots in any direction and come across the best mural you’ve ever seen — every single day! We caught up with muralist Adrian Landon Brooks to see how he draws inspo from our community and those quintessential Texas vibes. He also happens to be the artist behind our Long Center tote bag. Read on to discover your new favorite Austin muralist.
WAIT, THERE ARE TOTES?
Yeah, there are totes! Swing by a free Drop-In show and you can grab yours with a $20 donation to the Long Center. Your donation helps us keep doing cool stuff — you know, like supporting local artists like Adrian 🙂
My name is Adrian Landon Brooks and I’m a Muralist, painter, and creator based out of Austin, TX.
I’ve spent the majority of my adult years pursuing a career in the visual arts, and the last 5 with a focus on commercial mural work. I’ve created permanent murals/installations for companies such as Facebook, Google, and Indeed. In addition to my mural work, I maintain a studio at Canopy in Austin and create studio work for exhibitions in the states and abroad.
I grew up in Houston, TX, and later relocated to San Fransisco to attend SFAI. After college, my family and I ultimately settled in the hill country oustide of Austin. That combination of places influenced much of what I’m creating now. I was drawn to the bay area by artists like Barry McGee and the beautiful losers era. I found deep inspiration from my time in California, but Texas had a way of pulling me back when the time was right. Austin is where I met my wife and found my creative community.
I’m influenced by the materials I work with and a focus on sharp/clean lines. Most of my work comes from a place of inspiration that is more design based than anything else. I’m influenced by traditional folk art and the utilitarian approach to choosing materials. Most of my studio work is made on Texas native wood chunks and antique objects collected along my journey. The pieces themselves generally dictate my creative process and inspire much of my work.
The murals I create take my interest in design to a different level. They give me the chance to explore shape, color, and composition on a scale much larger than my studio work. It’s an interesting process to take a part of a painting that is a couple feet and blow that section up to 10 feet. Sometimes that process reveals imagery that is universal in scale and at other times is problematic. It’s been a challenging and rewarding process to push my work’s boundaries in that way.
Austin has ultimately made my creative career aspirations a reality. I attribute that to the community around me and the companies/galleries/collectors who choose to support the local creatives as opposed to bringing in artists from out of state. I admire the pride we have here for our creative community and the people who champion our artists.
Much of what I just mentioned applies to my latest project with the Long Center. I find it really admirable for such a large Austin institution to be supporting the local arts in creative ways. I was really excited to create something to celebrate that spirit. My specific design was a visual ode to the building’s architecture and surroundings. I wanted to have the recognizable arch present but intermingled with some of my core imagery — suns, moons, and pattern run through most of my work. I hope this image helps celebrate such an important landmark in Austin.
I just wrapped up my busiest month-to-date creating murals for Indeed, Chick Nic, and Hotel McCoy in College Station. I have one more mural in Austin to complete this summer and will be in the studio creating work for a show in Milan this November. I never lose gratitude for the opportunities that come my way to share the things I create. I’m looking forward to continuing my creative pursuit in Austin and beyond. I welcome anyone looking to elevate their space to contact me via email or social media to chat. I’m always looking to start on the next project.
— Adrian
At the Long Center, we’ve always got a new partnership or something cool we know you’ll want to check out! Find and follow us @longcenter on your social media platform of choice, and we’ll see you real soon.
Happy birthday to us! We’re turning 15 this year, and instead of leaning into that teen angst (jk we’re doing that, too), we’re serving up a special deal so you can celebrate with us.
Bundle & Save
Starting Friday, June 21st
Starting next Friday, when you buy tickets to 2 or more Long Center Presents shows, you can save 15%!
Don’t forget — LC Members always get the best seats with our Member Presale, plus they get 20% off tickets! It’s not too late to check out those perks on perks on perks.
Step 1️⃣ Pick a Long Center Presents show from the list (read below for more info on what’s coming soon).
Step 2️⃣ Pick another!
Step 3️⃣ Enjoy the savings! We’ll see you here soon.
Something else caught your eye? You can add a third (or fourth!) show in the same transaction. We don’t mind 😉
CHEERS TO 15 YEARS
🎉🎁🎂
Beginning Friday, June 21st, just add Standard tickets from 2 of these upcoming shows to your cart 
and you’ll get the discount automatically. Happy shopping!
and you’ll get the discount automatically. Happy shopping!
CONCERT CLUB: THE PETERSON BROTHERS
Friday, June 23 @ 8:00pm
The Peterson Brothers combine infectious energy and modern grooves with jazz, funk, blues, soul to a create their own unique sound.
NATIONAL GEOGRAPHIC: FILIPE DEANDRADE
Saturday, July 8 @ 7:30pm
Filipe DeAndrade believes animals saved his life—and he wants to return the favor. Raised in poverty, surrounded by addiction and abuse, he felt voiceless. Now the star of Nat Geo’s digital series Untamed, he works to save the animals that saved him.
NATIONAL GEOGRAPHIC: BRIAN SKERRY
Friday, August 4 @ 7:30pm
Photographer Brian Skerry has spent nearly four decades exploring and documenting the world’s oceans. For his latest project, he turns his lens to one of the world’s most beloved animals to illuminate groundbreaking new insights into their lives and culture.
THEE PHANTOM AND THE ILLHARMONIC ORCHESTRA
Saturday, August 12 @ 7:30pm
When was the last time you witnessed strings, horns, woodwinds, and a pianist at a Hip-Hop concert? Add to that a soul songstress, a crowd-controlling DJ, and a fire-breathing MC and that is still but a fraction of what you’ll get when you catch Thee Phantom & The Illharmonic Orchestra in action.
ADRIAN QUESADA’S JAGUAR SOUND
Saturday, September 2 @ 8:00pm
A lifelong Texan, Adrian Quesada’s deep musical history has seen him producing and performing in projects spanning funk, soul, psychedelia, and diverse strands of Latin music.
CONCERT CLUB: KELLY WILLIS
Friday, September 8 @ 8:00pm
On some other plane out there in the great big multiverse, Kelly Willis could well be the biggest Nashville country music star of the last 35 years. But things panned out rather differently for her here on this Earth.
SPIDER-MAN: INTO THE SPIDER-VERSE LIVE IN CONCERT
Sunday, September 10 @ 6:00pm
Featuring a soundtrack that blends symphonic orchestral music with hip-hop, Spider-Man: Into The Spider-Verse Live in Concert pairs a screening of the Academy Award®-winning animated film with live musicians and turntables featuring a DJ scratcher live on stage.
CONCERT CLUB: SUE FOLEY
Thursday, October 19 @ 8:00pm
Sue Foley has been playing guitar since she was 13 years old. When Austin blues nightclub and label owner, Clifford Antone saw her at the annual Blues Music Awards in Memphis, he knew he’d met an all-timer. Before long, Foley was living in Austin and, in 1992, recorded her debut album YOUNG GIRL BLUES.
JOHN MALKOVICH IN THE MUSIC CRITIC
Monday, October 23 @ 7:30pm
Schumann fancies himself a “composer”, while Brahms is a “gift-less bastard” and Claude Debussy is simply ugly. Equipped with a frivolous potpourri of musical insults, John Malkovich slips into the role of the evil critic who believes the music of Beethoven, Chopin, Prokofiev and the likes to be weary and dreary.
COCO LIVE-TO-FILM CONCERT ON TOUR
Wednesday, November 8 @ 7:30pm
Disney Pixar’s Coco in Concert on Tour features a screening of the complete film with Oscar® and Grammy®-winning composer Michael Giacchino’s musical score performed by the 20-member Orquesta Folclórica Nacional de México. .
GRAHAM REYNOLDS RUINS THE HOLIDAYS
Friday, December 8 & Saturday, December 9 @ 7:30pm
It’s time to Ruin the Holidays… again! For the sixth time in Rollins Studio Theatre, composer and bandleader Graham Reynolds will burn down the house with his raucous, minor key versions of your holiday favorites. Join us to start your holiday season out with a bang!
MIDORI, VIOLIN
Saturday, January 20 @ 8:00pm
Midori is a visionary artist, activist, and educator who explores and builds connections between music and the human experience and breaks with traditional boundaries. She will mark the 40th anniversary of her professional debut this season.
RENÉE FLEMING
Tuesday, February 20 @ 7:30pm
Renée Fleming is one of the most acclaimed singers of our time, performing on the stages of the world’s greatest opera houses and concert halls. Honored with five Grammy awards and the US National Medal of Arts, she has sung for momentous occasions from the Nobel Peace Prize ceremony to the Super Bowl.
AN EVENING WITH BILL NYE
Wednesday, February 21 @ 7:30pm
Best known for his Emmy-winning run as “Bill Nye the Science Guy,” he brings his love of science and flair for comedy to every appearance— deftly translating complex issues to help inspire audiences of all ages to engage with and improve our world.
CASSETTE ROULETTE FEAT. JOHN CAMERON MITCHELL
Saturday, February 24 @ 8:00pm
Tony Award-winning star of stage and screen John Cameron Mitchell joins forces with international cabaret star Amber Martin and special guests for an evening of songs, stories and characters, all chosen by the hand of fate and the ‘cassette roulette.’
You’ve made it this far — sounds like you’re ready to celebrate! And if you’re sold on all things LC, become a Friend Level Member for only $120 to enjoy ticket presales, Member’s Lounge access, and more all year long.
Don’t forget — bundle & save starting Friday, June 21st!
At the Long Center, we’ve always got a new partnership or something cool we know you’ll want to check out! Find and follow us @longcenter on your social media platform of choice, and we’ll see you real soon.
