ALPENA — Art lovers and entertainment seekers beware — Thunder Bay Arts passes are now available for the 2019-2020 season.

The fun starts in September with TBA’s Annual Showcase Series.

“We’ve been producing a showcase series now for more than 40 years,” TBA President Monte Jahnke said. “And this one in particular has a lot of variety in it. We’ve been working hard over the past couple of years to instill variety, address different audiences across the community, and yet stay faithful to some of our goals — bringing in things that haven’t been here before, fulfilling the mission of the old Alpena Concert Association, which we consolidated into our organization a couple of years ago.”

Here’s the lineup, which Jahnke thinks audiences will surely enjoy.

¯ Sept. 19 — CutTime: Symphonic classical musicians from Detroit offer the classics with a twist, at 7:30 p.m. at Art in the Loft, for $20 per door ticket.

“It’s a group of professional players from the Detroit Symphony who’ve made up a small ensemble, and they present classical music in a very colloquial way,” Jahnke said. “So that people can appreciate how classical music pervades other styles of music, and why it’s not as intimidating as people think it is.”

¯ Oct. 14-16 — Author Carol Trembath: The YouthCORE Program brings the author to visit six elementary schools and speak to students in grades 3 to 5.

“Just for children in the elementary schools, we’re bringing up a very well-regarded author, Carol Trembath, from the greater Detroit area,” Jahnke said. “And she writes award-winning children’s books about Native Americans and their commitment to the preservation of water and water quality.”

He said TBA is dedicated to education.

“That will be our special outreach to the schools, which has always been a primary mission of the Arts Council since day one.”

¯ Oct. 24 — Beatles Forever Pie & Music: This program is a collaboration with the Association of Lifelong Learners. The concert begins at 7 p.m. at Alpena Community College’s Granum Theatre, for $15 per door ticket, which includes pie and coffee following the performance.

“It’s for folks who love Beatles music,” Jahnke said. “It’s a professor of music from Wayne State University in Detroit, and his entourage that come up and they’ll do a lot of Beatles stuff. They do poetry, they do some readings.”

Jahnke said in the past three to four years, TBA has collaborated with other nonprofits to present more programs.

“ALL has been a lot of fun, and it’s one of their pie and music events, so you get to go to the concert, and you get a free slice of pie afterwards.”

¯ Dec. 8 — Holiday Singalong with Thunder Bay Arts Chorus: With the success of last year’s singalong, more holiday tunes are on tap, with a new accompanist and expanded program, at 3 p.m. at Trinity Episcopal Church, for a $10 suggested donation.

Jahnke said the chorus has been around for 37 years of entertaining Alpena through song.

“We’ll be doing an expanded version of what we did last Christmas season,” Jahnke said, “Where we had not only the chorus singing, but the general public and the audience joining in on certain selections from ‘The Messiah’ or Christmas favorites. The chorus is going to do a little more choral music than we did last year, because we were very fortunate to find a new accompanist this summer.”

Her name is Alyssa Payne, a student at ACC who lives in the Ossineke area.

A reception will follow the holiday singalong.

“It was a big hit last year,” Jahnke said of the holiday event. “We had over 300 people show up at St. John the Baptist.”

¯ Jan. 25 — Guitar Summit: This crowd-pleasing concert is at 7:30 p.m. at the APlex, for $15 per door ticket.

“The Guitar Summit is a perpetual favorite,” Jahnke said. “We do that about every other year.”

The concert features selected rock bands and guitar players from around the community.

“They always draw a big crowd, and it’s always a good time,” he added.

¯ April 17 — TBD A Cappella: Men’s A Capella group will sing pop tunes at 7 p.m. at ACC’s Granum Theatre, for $20 per door ticket.

“To end our season, we’re having a group of a capella singers, men’s a capella, there are six of them, and they’re coming up from the Detroit metro area,” Jahnke said. “They are all professional singers. They do close harmony singing, unaccompanied. Really, really stylish stuff. So we hope to load Granum Theatre for that.”

¯ July 18-19 — Art On The Bay at Bayview Park: The annual arts and crafts show features more than 130 vendors offering a wide variety of professional artwork, crafts and handmade items.

“So it’s a really nice season,” Jahnke concluded. “It’s the product of some reevaluation we’ve gone through in the past two or three years as to how to balance and time different events, not only seasonally, but also, from a taste perspective. … There’s so many different types of interests in this community, across the arts spectrum, that we’re trying to respond to all that in various ways.”

A Thunder Bay Arts season pass is $55, which covers admission to all the events in the 2019-2020 season. That is a savings of $25, as an individual would spend $80 if tickets were purchased at the door for all the events.

As always, all events are free to children and students.

Season passes can be purchased by credit card at www.thunderbayarts.org, or in person at Thunder Bay Arts Gallery. Forms and checks can be mailed to Thunder Bay Arts Council, Inc., 127 W. Chisholm St., Alpena MI 49707. For more information, call the gallery office at 989-354-2586.

Thunder Bay Arts is a volunteer-run organization.

Jahnke’s term will expire on Sept. 13, when a new president will be named at the Thunder Bay Arts annual meeting.

“There have been some nominations, and the board has to formally act on those, but I can tell you, they’re all great people,” Jahnke noted.

He said he has several projects he will be seeing through before he will go “riding off into the sunset.”

Mostly, he will be spending more time with his grandchildren in Colorado.