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Stephen Sondheim 3/22/1930
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RCS 2016/2017 Concert Season -
Mark Your Calendars!
April 2, 2017 - Rachmaninoff:
Vespers,
aka, All-Night Vigil
Lexington
Presbyterian Church,
7 PM
Advanced tickets at Books & Company or Ladles and Linens, downtown Lexington
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April 18, 2017 - Rockbridge Youth Chorale (RYC)
Spring Concert
Lexington
Presbyterian Church,
7 PM
Free, no tickets required
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On April 2, 2017, the Rockbridge Choral Society will present Sergei Rachmaninoff's Vespers, and we hope you will join us for this ethereal musical setting of texts from the Russian Orthodox liturgical all-night vigil ceremony. It is often praised as Rachmaninoff's finest achievement and was one of his own favorite works.
The Friends of the RCS is excited to invite our audience members to participate in our inaugural Art for A Song contest. We are extremely grateful to two local artists, Lee and Elizabeth Sauder, for donating art works for our first drawing, which will be held on Monday April 3, 2017. Our April 2nd concert audience members will be able to enter at the concert and the winners will be notified by email or mail. Read on for more information on the artists and Art for A Song.
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The Friends of the RCS welcomes our first Art for A Song artist participants, Lee and Elizabeth Sauder, Rockbridge County artists and brother and sister-in-law of our own mezzo-soprano, Anne Sauder. The Sauders
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Elizabeth Sauder |
ha
ve donated two art works to kick us off.
Elizabeth Sauder describes herself as a plein air painter, ie, she paints outdoors. She often visits a site several times during the day, analyzing how light and weather impacts the subject of her paintings. Of her work philosophy, she says "I paint as a way to explore and become intimate with a place and to better understand the visual and environmental phenomena surrounding it...to understand the fundamental characteristics, the very essence of the land that I call home."
You'll encounter Elizabeth painting all over Rockbridge County, from a downtown Lexington street on a warm, fall evening at twilight to the middle of a barn-lot surrounded by curious calves on a snowy morning. Check out her work
www.elizabethsauder.com or at Artists
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Lee Sauder |
in Cahoots in Lexington.
Lee Sauder is a black-smith, bloomsmith, and sculptor and the other member of our artist contributors for April. Lee works in iron. He "digs up iron ore and transforms it into metal by the ancient and long-forgotten art of bloomery smelting...then tries to forge something beautiful out of the iron he's made". Lee produces his sculpture, architectural iron and customized furniture at his home forge, Germinal Ironworks, on the south slope of House Mountain right here in Rockbridge County. He started working in iron as a blacksmith's apprentice at the age of 12. Today he is best known in the blacksmithing community for his research into ancient iron smelting. He travels extensively to research and teach smelting techniques.
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One Important Thing
As our concert season comes to a close, the Friends of the RCS would like to thank our major corporate donors Cornerstone Bank, Davidson & Garrard, and the Southern Inn Restaurant. We could not do what we do without their generous sponsorship! While these funds underwrite a large portion of our season's budgeted expenses which range from printing costs to paying for professional musicians, we occasionally have last-minute financial needs.
Our April 2 concert will be sung a cappella. The chorus will be joined for the first time by three professional singers to support our voice sections as well as soloists Robert Petillo, tenor, and mezzo soprano, Christine Schadeberg. The total cost for compensating these professional singers is $2,550. Through donations to the Friends of the RCS, we have raised about half of that amount. If you can make a contribution to adopt a professional singer, please go to our
website, and click on the Support tab and then scroll down to Adopt a Musician. Or, you may contact Melanie Griffis Hooper, one of our board members on the fund raising committee, for more information and other ways to contribute. Give Melanie a call at 540-460-9560 or send her an email at
mgriffis1@msn.com and thanks so much! All donations are tax deductible. We look forward to seeing you on April 2!
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