Agatha Beiderbecke asked a close family friend, Albert Petersen, to listen to her seven-year-old son play the piano. According to the biography Bix, Man and Legend, Petersen could hardly contain his enthusiasm. “Agatha, this boy has something.” He said. “Keep me informed about his progress – and whatever you do, get him some piano lessons.” One might expect a friend – and her cousin’s husband – to be encouraging. But Petersen was also one of Davenport’s leading musicians, bandleaders, and teachers. He also began his career in music at a young age.

Insight into the iconic cartoonist responsible for Charlie Brown, Lucy Van Pelt, Snoopy, and the rest of the lovable Peanuts gang will be offered in a special Figge Art Museum program on July 13, with the Davenport venue celebrating its current exhibit The Life & Art of Charles M. Schulz with a Curator Talk featuring Benjamin Clark, curator at the Charles M. Schulz Museum & Research Center in Santa Rosa, California.

With the eagerly anticipated weekend event hosted by Rock Island's Quad City Arts and taking place for the seventh time, glorious colors and imaginative designs will be gracing the pavement of Rock Island's Schwiebert Riverfront Park in the Quad Cities Chalk Art Fest, a June 24 and 25 summertime fixture boasting beautiful artistic creations, live music, children's activities, food and drink vendors, and more than $1,800 in cash prizes.

Boasting a dozen stunning pigment prints by the Iowa City-based visual artist, the Midwestern-themed exhibition Iowa Night Skies: Photographs by Johnny Brian will be on display at Davenport's Figge Art Museum through August 27, the included works created by the photographer exposing film over long periods after capturing the bustling sky from his backyard.