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Brown Orchestra heads to China
01:00 AM EST on Wednesday, December 6, 2006
How to do get to Carnegie Hall? You raise money from a concert and silent auction.
That’s what the Middletown High School Chorus is doing tonight so it can sing in the famed New York venue next April. The chorus, under Claudia Vars, is one of five nationally selected to appear in a choral festival April 27-30 at Carnegie Hall. Vars took part in the Carnegie Hall Festival with the Middletown Chorus in 1998.
The cost of the hall is being shared by the participating schools, but there are also the expenses for food, travel and accommodations.
So the chorus is holding its annual Christmas concert at 7 p.m. at the Calvary United Methodist Church, 200 Turner Rd., in Middletown as the first of several fundraisers. The evening will include a variety of musical selections by members of the Chorus and the Select Chorus, plus a silent auction. Items can range from gift certificates to restaurants, event tickets, antiques and art. For information contact Cindy Weininger at (401) 841-5582 or Claudia Vars at (401) 846-7250.
Conductor Daniel Barenboim, who will be in town for a series of talks and workshops at Brown University, will lead his West-Eastern Divan Orchestra in a free concert Dec. 16 at Veterans Memorial Auditorium. The Saturday concert is at 2 p.m., and tickets are required. They can be picked up today from 9 a.m. to 5 p.m. at the Office of University Events, 71 George St., Providence.
Barenboim, the world famous pianist and conductor who once led the Chicago Symphony, will visit Brown with his West-Eastern Divan Orchestra, which is made up of young Arabs and Israelis seeking mutual understanding through music.
A documentary about the project will be shown tonight at 8 in Smith-Buonanno Hall on the Brown campus. Two open “campus conversations” about the orchestra’s political and cultural work will be held Dec. 14 and 15 in Sayles Hall. The Thursday night session will include a rehearsal with the Brown Orchestra at 8 and a conversation with the students at 9. Friday, the West-Eastern Divan Orchestra will perform with the Providence Quartet at 8 p.m. with a conversation following. Call (401) 863-1055 for ticket information.
The Brown University Orchestra is heading out on the road, all the way to China. The 72-piece orchestra will be leaving Dec. 24 and arriving the next day in Shanghai, with 9 concerts scheduled in 13 days in such cities as Shanghai, Beijing. Time, of course, will be made available to see the Great Wall of China.
It was the Dalian Yilong company, a Chinese production firm that brings foreign performing groups to the country, who invited the Brown Orchestra to tour. The company, which sponsored the Oberlin Orchestra last year (making Brown the second student orchestra to tour the country, it appears) will take care of the orchestra’s expenses within the country — food, lodging and travel. The orchestra is covering air fare.
Brown president Ruth Simmons traveled to China last month, and is supporting the orchestra tour by providing some of the funding for it.
A total of 82 people are making the trip, including soprano Kathryne Jennings, wife of orchestra conductor Paul Phillips. She will be soloist for both programs. The orchestra will play traditional Viennese repertoire such as the overture to Die Fledermaus and the Blue Danube Waltz, plus American light classics like Leonard Bernstein’s overture to Candide, West Side Story, and music from Star Wars and Lord of the Rings.
The orchestra returns Jan. 6.
— Channing Gray
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