| A Benefit Concert for the Tucson Branch of the ESU | ||
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Mad Dogs and Englishmen - |
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an Unusual Afternoon of Words and Music |
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| Featuring pianists: Pamela Decker, Paula Fan, Tannis Gibson, Jeff Haskell, Suzanne Knosp, Rex Woods, Lisa Zdechlik and Nicholas Zumbro | ||
| and singer/speakers: Betty Allen, Grayson Hirst, Bill Pitts, Mary Woods and interesting others.... | ||
| in works by Mendelssohn and Shakespeare, Walton and Sitwell, and Noel and Coward? | ||
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At: Casas Adobes Congregational Church, 6801 N Oracle Rd. |
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| Sunday, February 2nd at 3 P.M. | ||
Tickets (at the door): $10 general admission; $5 for students.
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Press release:
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Mad Dogs and Englishmen: An Unusual Afternoon of Words and Music |
| “Mad Dogs and Englishmen: an Unusual Afternoon of Words and Music” will be presented by a distinguished and sometimes surprising cast on Sunday, February 2, 2003, at Casas Adobes Congregational Church. The University of Arizona School of Music Keyboard Faculty -- Pamela Decker, Paula Fan, Tannis Gibson, Jeff Haskell, Suzanne Knosp, Rex Woods, Lisa Zdechlik and Nicholas Zumbro -- will join forces with singer-actors Mary Woods, Betty Allen and Grayson Hirst, KUAT’s Bill Pitts and other guests in two works in which words and music are intertwined: A Midsummer Night’s Dream by Shakespeare, and William Walton’s Façade. |
| In July 1826, the seventeen-year-old Felix Mendelssohn wrote his sister, Fanny, “I have grown accustomed to dreaming in our garden...Today or tomorrow I will dream there “A Midsummer Night’s Dream. It is, though, enormously audacious.” This heralds the composition of the famous orchestral overture, which the siblings performed in a piano duet version at one of their family concerts. Sixteen years later, commissioned by King Friedrich Wilhelm IV of Prussia, Mendelssohn composed the remaining incidental music to Shakespeare’s play. The February 2nd mini-production of A Midsummer Night’s Dream features Bill Pitts as Oberon, Mary Woods as Titania, Grayson Hirst as Puck, and a special appearance by Jeff Haskell as Bottom. |
| The second half of the ESU benefit concert will consist of selections from Façade, an entertainment conceived in the 1920s by the Sitwell family of poets and a young composer who shared their house, William Walton, who was then nineteen years old. “We sought to reach a country between music and poetry,” wrote Osbert Sitwell, whose sister Edith composed the delightfully surreal verses that are accompanied by Walton’s charming, jazzy music. |
| The concert, which begins at 3:00 p.m., benefits the Tucson Branch of the English-Speaking Union sponsors of the Southern Arizona Shakespeare Competition for High School students, which is part of a national competition held annually at the Lincoln Center in New York City. Tickets for the Sunday, Feb 2 concert will be available at the door. General admission is $10.00, student tickets are $5.00. The church is located at 6801 N. Oracle Road. |