Grace Strassburg as the title character in the Pembroke High School production of "Cinderella." Photo by Howard Owens.
Opening on Friday night in the Pembroke High School Auditorium is the school's production of the musical "Cinderella."
Performances are at 7 p.m. on Friday and 2 and 7 p.m. on Saturday. Tickets are $12 for adults and $10 for students.
"Come watch that sweet, innocent young maiden as she is terrorized by those closest to her and by the evasive love she so desperately craves," said Director Andy Clark. "Witness a brand new script with new characters and new songs in addition to some of the songs and characters from the original musical."
The cast:
Cinderella, Grace Strassburg
Prince Topher, Charles Stringham
Madame, the Stepmother, Sarah Forness
Charlotte, Stepsister, Emily Guilian
Gabrielle, Stepsister, Mikayla Stringham
Marie, the Fairy Godmother, Lindsey Zanghi
Sebastian, the Lord Chancellor, Sam Burton
Lord Pinkleton, James Childs
Jean Michelle, Micah Forness
"Our show this year also features a brand new set design team that far exceeded my expectations," Clark said. "I call them the 'Amazing Eight.' They are Stephanie and Tim Benson, Jessica and Zack Dawson, Summer Forness, Justin Reynolds, Patti Schafer and Rodney Stringham. We couldn't have done this show without them. "
Le Roy Jr.-Sr. High School presents "Chicago," a teen edition of the musical, this Thursday, Friday, and Saturday.
All show times are 7 p.m. Performances are in the school auditorium.
Tickets at the door are $15 for adults and $12 for students and senior citizens.
The music is by John Kander, book by Fred Ebb.
The cast includes Aubrey Puccio as Velma Kelly, Anna Long as Roxie Hart, Ethan LaBarbera as Fred Casely, Jameson Zitz as Sergeant Fogarty, Kira Ryan as Matron "Mama" Morton, Judge Biviano as Amos Hart.
The artistic director is Jacqueline McLean, Joe Kusmierczak is the co-director, and the choreographer is Jessica Pcioneck.
The Roberts Wesleyan University Brass Quintet will perform a free concert at the Bergen Evangelical Presbyterian Church at 6 p.m. on Sunday, March 10.
The Roberts Wesleyan Brass Quintet performs various styles ranging from early Baroque to modern music. It regularly performs at special events on and off campus, including commencement, accompanying the Chorale, and performing in departmental recitals.
The quintet is directed by and performs with Dr. Paul Shewan, professor of instrumental studies, who teaches conducting and trumpet. Dr. Shewan is a member of the Rochester Philharmonic Orchestra trumpet section and has been a guest conductor numerous times. He has also performed with the Buffalo Philharmonic Orchestra.
The concert is part of a series the church offers to celebrate the renovation of the historic Viner pipe organ installed in the sanctuary in 1907. “We want to share a variety of music with our community, so we have planned a spring series of concerts in celebration,” said Alden Snell, church organist.
The evening’s performance will include a performance of a hymn on the organ.
Other concerts in the series are:
Jaclyn Breeze, flute, April 14, 6 pm. Ms. Breeze, from North Chili, is an American composer and flutist crafting pieces and programs that foster community between artists and audiences. Her works have been commissioned and performed by groups in North America, Europe, and Asia.
George Collichio, guitar, special Door of Hope Coffeehouse event at the church, April 27, 6 p.m. Mr. Collichio is a national recording artist, performer, educator, and private guitar instructor from Rochester. He has nine national CD releases and plays over 100 shows per year. He is a college professor (guitar and music theory) and founder of "Collichio School of Music" with two locations and hundreds of students.
An organ recital featuring students from the Eastman School of Music will be held on Sunday, May 5, at 6 p.m.
All concerts are at the Church, 38 South Lake St., Bergen. A free-will offering will be accepted.
BHS Production Club presents "Footloose the Musical" this weekend, running at 7 p.m. Friday and Saturday and 2 p.m. Sunday at Batavia High School, 260 State St., Batavia. Photo by Steve Ognibene
Amidst the stress of rehearsals, learning lines and choreography, and directing 34 people with varied levels of experience, there were welcomed moments of levity tucked into the tension for everyone taking part in “Footloose the Musical,” Director Caryn Wood says.
Take, for example, Batavia High School senior Ephraim Hanna, who is playing the character Willard Hewitt.
“Just in general, the student that plays Willard is hilarious. In personality, the student himself is very calm and quiet. And a little bit reserved and shy. And then when he goes on stage, he's absolutely hilarious,” Wood said during rehearsals Thursday at the high school. “And the kids aren’t used to doing southern or like country bumpkin-type accents. And so, one of the students who plays Reverend Shaw Moore (student actor Peyton Woeller) has to say the word creek and, of course, pronounces it crick. And a lot of the cast laughs. They think it’s hilarious because they're just not accustomed to that.”
BHS Production Club plans to present the fun and laughter — plus a whole lot of music and dancing — at the Frank E. Owen Auditorium stage at 7 p.m. Friday and Saturday and 2 p.m. Sunday at BHS, 260 State St., Batavia.
Based on the movie made in 1984, this musical “bursts onto the live stage with dynamic new songs” and celebrates the exhilaration of youth, wisdom of listening to one another and the power of forgiveness, according to its promotional description.
The story is about Ren McCormack, a city kid who loves dancing as a form of escaping the stresses of life, and he and his mom end up moving to Bomont, a small southern town where Rev. Shaw Moore just effectively banned the activity. Ren and Willard end up befriending one another as Ren also gradually builds relationships with others as they discover they may have more similarities than differences.
With the title of “Footloose,” it might go without saying that this show includes a lot of fancy footwork, from jazz and lyrical to country line dancing to tap influences. However, it really also means “a lot of choreography and a lot of intense, long dance rehearsals,” Wood said.
Dance instructor and choreographer Denise Leblanc-Chatt returned again for what has become a longtime relationship of providing her experience and expertise so that students can envelop those lessons and deliver them onto the stage.
“The kids have no dance experience. And this is a very physical thing for them that they are not accustomed to,” Wood said. “And they have done an excellent job rising to the challenge to bring a ton of energy to this dance-heavy show.”
They have been learning dance steps and practicing since the end of December for about two hours at a time for two to three days a week and for even longer as it grew closer to show time, she said.
LeBlanc-Chatt owns and is head instructor at The Dancing Place Dance Academy in Batavia and has studied the art for the past 50 years.
“She’s a phenomenal choreographer and dance teacher, and we are lucky to have her,” Wood said. “She does an excellent job of making non-dancers look impeccably energetic on stage.”
So, most definitely, learning the dance routines in and of itself was a major challenge, she said. But there are always other hurdles to consider, especially when you’ve got a mix of more versed actors and newcomers, which was true of many of the freshmen, sophomore and some junior novice actors, she said.
“I also think that any time you're working with students, especially students who don't have a lot of performance experience but want to be involved, you're really training them physically and emotionally, to deep dive into characters and what are their characters' motivations? Why are they doing this? What are they feeling? What is their physical appearance right now? Making fully well-rounded, fully fleshed-out characters can also be a challenge for a new performer,” she said. “Our cast is made up of kids that had been performing for several years and done a couple of shows a year, and kids where this is their very first show.”
Most of the characters are high school kids, along with some parents, school administrators, and a restaurant owner. Costumes are street clothes, but they had to be plentiful, with characters needing five or six different costumes throughout the show, Wood said.
If you’re at all familiar with the original movie, you will “definitely hear and see all of those people,” she said. And then some.
“There’s also a lot of additional music and dance numbers added to make it a full musical. I think that the musical version of Footloose stays really true to the original movie but also pulls in influences to make a broader range of shows where it doesn't have to be set in the 80s; it is applicable in its message at any time period. It will always work, and it's very transferable and very, very entertaining, very upbeat and positive and can be explosive with energy at various points,” she said. “Overall, I feel like the message is of healing and forgiveness, definitely forgiveness. I think that there's some characters who are struggling with forgiving themselves and other people for tragic events in their past. And that message of forgiveness and healing through music and dance and relationships is a powerful one. And I think the kids are doing a fantastic job relaying that message.”
Advance sale tickets are $10.50 online, $10 for students/seniors and $12 for adults at the door.
Giovanni Morant, lead singer of LoVeSeXy, a Tribute to Prince. Submitted photo.
Prince is a rare form of rock star, according to Chris Botelho, drummer and leader of the LoVeSeXy, which plays at Batavia Downs on March 9.
He was admired by peers and fans alike in his lifetime, and his legend has only grown since his untimely death at 57 in 2016.
LoVeSexy was formed in 2008 as a Tribute to Prince, who is ranked #27 on Rolling Stone's list of 100 Greatest Artists of All-Time, and Botelho has seen firsthand how Prince continues to attract new fans and old fans who hunger to hear his music performed live.
"He's pretty much a real rock star when there's not a lot of those types of people around any more," Botelho said. "He was someone who was real special, like just the type of person who would walk in the room and everyone would just stop and be quiet and kind of like be like, 'Can I talk and I say hello.’ Like they would be that afraid to even speak. You don't get that from other people, even other stars. And that was with everyone, not just regular people but movie stars and top musicians."
There are several quality Prince tribute acts, Botelho noted, a level of reference that is seemingly missing from the legacy of other dead megastars of the era, such as David Bowie and Michael Jackson.
"Michael Jackson, I would think, would have big tributes, and there are some tribute shows, but there's really not as much talk about him as much as you would think. It's weird. But Prince, if you go online and search 'Prince,' there are fan sites, Facebook pages, and media coverage like this. There are so many fans all over the world, so many people still, every day, posting and talking and sharing his music. It's kind of amazing."
Prince was born Prince Rogers Nelson, the son of a father who was a jazz pianist and composer and a mother who was a jazz singer. He grew up in Minneapolis, Minn., and never did forsake his hometown, maintaining Minneapolis as his base and where he recorded most of his music until he died of an accidental fentanyl overdose.
Signed by Warner Brothers when he was only 19, Prince released 40 studio albums during his life -- playing all of the instruments on some -- covering a range of musical genres, from funk, R&B, new wave, soul, jazz, blues, and hip hop. He sold more than 100 million records. His biggest hit singles included “When Doves Cry,” “Let's Go Crazy,” “Purple Rain,” “Raspberry Beret,” “Little Red Corvette,” and “Kiss,” among his 19 Top 10 hits.
For a time, Prince was known by a symbol, or The Artist Formerly Known as Prince, or just The Artist (because of a contract dispute with Warner Brothers), and it is said that he has enough unreleased material in his vault that his estate could continue releasing new albums of new material for the next 100 years.
That means there's a lot of material for a Prince tribute act to pick from, and for the 90-minute set at Batavia Downs, LoVeSeXy will concentrate on the hits, but if needed, LoVeSeXy can dig deep into the Prince catalog -- deep enough to cover two 90-minutes sets if needed, Botelho said.
"We've played shows that are, you know, entirely Purple Rain (the album) or 1999, but there's so much more to him in just that era that we feel like people already know what is there, so we like pushing out other stuff to them that maybe they've never heard before," Botelho said. "It's kind of bring the music of Prince for Prince. It's one little thing to kind of keep his memory and music alive."
And the music is the thing to LoVeSeXy, Botelho said. There are a lot of Prince tributes that concentrate on the showmanship and the craft of creating a Prince concert. For LoVeSexy, the goal is to bring the music alive. The entire six-piece band is comprised of top-tier musicians, Botelho said, and they all get their moment in the spotlight.
"It's a team sort of situation," Botelho said. "It's not about just the lead singer and a bunch of players behind. It's like the six of us together, creating and making the sound of the band. We have four lead singers in the band, so the vocals are extremely strong."
It's not that showmanship isn't there -- the primary lead singer does look like Prince, after all -- but Botelho said the band really wants to put on a show that lives up to Prince's musical legacy (if you haven't seen it, check Prince's lead guitar on this performance of While My Guitar Gently Weeps (at about 3:30 into the song.)
"His live shows, I think, was a big part of why a lot of people really feel that he was above the rest as far as a performer," Bothelo said.
The LoVeSeXy lineup is:
Giovanni Morant, Lead Vocals, Guitar, Keys & Trumpet
Anthony C. Grant, Sax, Keyboards, Flute, Vocals & Percussion
Jodee Frawlee, Lead Guitar & Vocals
Brian Eggleston, Keyboards & Vocals
Jeffrey Gilman, Bass & Vocals
Chris Botelho, Drums & Samples
It's amazing, Botelho said, to see how much love the world had for Prince when he died and how that love and appreciation has just continued to grow.
"It is a testament to how strong it was around the world when he passed," Botelho said. "All the celebrations, the purple lights that were put on all the buildings around the world. It was kind of unbelievable, really, after all these years since 2016 that now the audiences are getting bigger and bigger for all of the Prince tributes."
LoVeSeXy performs at Batavia Downs on March 9. Doors open at 6:30 p.m. Showtime is 7:30 p.m. For more information and tickets, click here.
Stephen Van Valkenburg, in Love Lines at Main St. 56 Theater. Submitted photo.
Friday and Saturday evenings, and Sunday afternoon, theater goers can take a special Valentine's moment to explore along with Batavia Players the nuances of love.
The play "Love Lines" was written by Patrick D. Burk, who is also the director of the production, and Vincent M. Gauteri.
The production is described as "a celebration of love and how people fall in love currently or in the past; there are special moments from real people and real-life situations."
Show times are 7:30 p.m. Friday and Saturday, and 2 p.m. on Sunday, at the Main St. 56 Theater in Batavia City Centre.
Melzie Case, a member of the Genesee Symphony Orchestra and president of the board of directors. Photo by Howard Owens.
Music has been a big part of Melzie Case's life since she was four years old when she first started piano lessons at Roxy's Music Store.
Along the way, she's had teachers and mentors to guide her, and one of the most important was Roxie Choate, the former president of the Genesee Symphony Orchestra, herself a retired teacher, who died in October.
Case, who first served on the GSO board as a high school student, has stepped in to lead the GSO.
"Roxie was a passionate and unabashedly determined leader," Case said. "Under her guidance, I learned how to positively steer the GSO Board and how to be a leader in music ministry. We connected and bonded over music, from appreciating classical music to playing piano and organ duets together, and forged a seemingly unlikely friendship through our love for music in the community. Her influence continues to serve me well on a daily basis."
In addition to working together on the GSO board for a number of years, Choate and Case became well acquainted with one another musically at the Batavia First Presbyterian Church, where Coate was an organist, and Case played piano.
Coate had been a music teacher in Oakfield-Alabama. After graduating from Batavia High School, she earned a degree in music education from Buffalo State University. The 30-year-old Case is now a music teacher at Batavia Middle School.
Her musical journey has prepared her well for both roles. Starting with those piano lessons at Roxy's Music, she participated in musical theater as a child, was a member of the chorus in middle school and high school, and along the way, she became a percussionist to go along with singing, playing the piano, and organ. She first joined the GSO as a percussionist while still a teen, and then Choate asked her to be a student rep on the GSO board. Following a break for college, Case rejoined the orchestra and the board as she wrapped up her education in 2016.
"I like GSO because you meet so many people in the community, people from all ages and backgrounds. That is what really drew me in," Case said.
The orchestra, she said, is comprised of “local folks, people from surrounding counties, music teachers and people with jobs outside of music. It’s such a wonderful group of people. We have a wonderful time rehearsing together and putting on concerts together.”
Obviously, Case is passionate about music. She thinks music helps bring people together.
"Music has a unique way of connecting people like nothing else. Music is healing, exciting, joyful, engaging," Case said. "I see every day the impact that music has on people of all ages and how it is a creative outlet in so many ways. Music is a part of nearly every moment of my day, whether I’m singing, playing, teaching, or listening."
One reason GSO has thrived in recent years is the leadership of music director and conductor S. Shade Zajac, Case said.
“I enjoy working with Shade," Case said. "The whole board does. We appreciate that he comes to board meetings when he can or gets on a call with us and that he brainstorms with us about concerts. We really have a great time working with him. He has a great vision when it comes time to select repertoire. The music he picks pushes us all as musicians, and we feel grateful to have him at the helm.”
As president of the board, Case, of course, has a role in ensuring the GSO continues to build on its success, and she that can happen through collaboration with other arts groups in the community and making connections with young people who are interested in music.
Entertaining programs, such as the one Zajac has programmed for Saturday at GCC, will also help garner growing support for the orchestra.
"The program is a blend of emotions," Case said. "There are some familiar pieces and some new ones that people will enjoy."
One of the new pieces is a composition by Paul McCartney. Yes, the former Beatle writes more than pop songs. He has composed a number of classical pieces, including Spiral, which the GSO will perform at the concert.
"I'm a huge Beatles fan, so I'm excited to play one of Paul McCartney's lesser-known works," Case said.
The rest of the program is comprised of pieces by other English composers, as Vaughn-Williams and Samuel Coleridge-Taylor.
The anchor piece of the program is Elgar's “Enigma Variations.”
"It's one of my favorite pieces in the entire literature," Zajac told The Batavian at the start of the season. "It's a very special piece. I've conducted only one movement from it (previously). It's a remarkable piece of music. Every note and every bar sounds like English music, which is incredible because you can trace every note to some other composer. You can hear the influences of Beethoven and Bach and Wagner. But somehow, he makes it all sound like English music."
Choate is, as they say in show business, a tough act to follow, Case acknowledged. She led the board. She often handled concert publicity. She was also the personnel manager.
"Roxie did so much. We find things all the time we didn’t even know about," Case said. "As a board, we say all the time, 'Oh, Roxie did that, and she did this, and she did that.' She was a huge advocate for GSO and for music education.”
The GSO, with what it has achieved and how it can yet grow, will carry on because of a lot of people over the past eight decades, but Choate certainly contributed to GSO's success.
"I have so much pride in GSO," Case said. "We have a professional orchestra right here in Batavia. We can offer to our community that experience. You can go to Buffalo and Rochester and hear those orchestras, or you can stay right here in Batavia and hear a professional orchestra."
The GSO concert on Saturday at GCC begins at 7 p.m. Tickets are $15 for adults and $10 for seniors, and students with an ID can get in for free.
Some members of First Block Rock Band perform for parents and families. Photo by Steve Ognibene
Music teacher Dan Grillo thinks maybe, as much as it pains him to say it, rock 'n' roll music is a dying art form.
That isn't apparent from the way students at Batavia High School have embraced his elective class, Rock Band.
In the nine years since he started the program, the course has grown from one class with a handful of boys who typically didn't own their own instruments to two packed classes with many students bringing in their guitars.
"(That first year) we had three of the same exact guitars, three of the exact same basses, and we actually started with an electric drum set," Grillo said. "Now, as you know, we have our own nice acoustic drum set."
The program has encouraged many kids to get their own guitars, Grillo said, "which is really good." Another sign of growth -- he doesn't have to sing all the songs any more.
"We started on one song and just kind of worked that song for a while, but none of the boys wanted to sing," Grillo said. "I had to sing it. I had to sing pretty much everything that year."
There are 25 members in three bands.
Rock band class in high school music departments is still kind of a rare thing in the area, Grillo said, so he isn't sure the program will ever grow to the point where -- like for other music genres at the high school level -- there are competitions and festivals.
"It's still kind of a niche thing," he said.
The most telling way things have changed is the engagement of the students.
"As I mentioned in our concert tonight, a lot of the students are suggesting and writing up songs for us," Grillo said. "This is not all just my contributions in terms of -- I thought of a good song, I thought it would be good for the kids, and I gave it to them. A lot of these were songs that the students championed. And that means a lot that they're that invested that they want a say in the music that we're playing and performing."
The students pitching their own favorite songs evolved out of, well, students pitching their own favorite songs and Grillo deciding to students owning their ideas.
"I would have students come to me every day, and they're like, 'You know what song we should do? You know what song we should do? You know what song we should do?' And I got sick of hearing it," Grillo said. "I finally said, 'Look, if you want to do a song, you write it up. I'm not going to write it up. I don't have that kind of time.' Okay, it takes a good half hour to write these songs up (as guitar tablature) because you got to make sure the lyrics and the chords and all that stuff is right, that they're in the right place, that they work. So it does take some work to write up those songs. So the fact that the students are doing some homework is also pretty telling."
The program is popular all over campus, Grillo said. The rock bands occasionally play lunchtime concerts in the auditorium and they're well attended.
"Everybody likes it," Grillo said. "It's not just students that come in. It's faculty and support staff. It's pretty popular with everybody in the building. So we get a lot of support. We're always being asked to do different gigs. We've been asked to perform at open houses; we've been asked to perform like we did the wrestling match this year and last year, we did a wrestling match. ... So it's very popular even though, like I said, rock is kind of a dying style. I used to do barber shop and that's even more so a dying style."
Opening at 7:30 p.m. on Friday, the Batavia Players bring to life Scrooge and his ghosts in a performance of Charles Dickens's “A Christmas Carol” at Main St. 56 Theater in Batavia.
There are also performances on Saturday at 7:30 p.m. and at 2 p.m. on Saturday and Sunday.
Tickets are $18 for adults and $16 for seniors.
The musical is directed by Patrick Burk, with music directed by Kathy White.
From Medieval times through the Renaissance, the classical period, and into modern carols, Christmas music has changed to reflect the times. On Saturday, at St. James Episcopal Church, the Genesee Chorale will take listeners through that journey in a program entitled "Christmas Through the Ages."
"We're going to go through the process of the beginning of Christmas carols back in the 1400s and then work our way up," said Musical Director and Conductor Ric Jones. "It's a wide mix of styles and in music, a lot of things that will be familiar, some that there'll be new."
Jones said he expects the audience to find the performance as entertaining as it is beautiful.
"The whole concert begins with Gregorian chants so that's really cool," Jones said. "We have four instrumentalists. They're gonna be joining us on about six different pieces, so they'll really liven things up. We have some great, really cool arrangement of "Jingle Bells." It's a rearrangement of the Barbra Streisand version of Jingle Bells written for choir. That's a lot of fun. And then "Joy to the World," "Lo, He Comes with Clouds Descending" -- there's some really beautiful, large moving pieces as well."
The concert also isn't without its challenges for the choir, which should also impress listeners.
"The biggest challenging piece is probably "Here We Come A-wassailing," which is a traditional song, but it's super challenging for the choir," Jones said. "It's seven verses, and every verse gets more and more intricate. So it begins with the choir in unison and as we progress, it gets more and more integrated, and it breaks out into eight different parts of one point. So they're going to do great on that."
Jones said he always looks forward to the traditional Christmas concert because, for him, it signals the beginning of the season.
"You get into the mood and the spirit," Jones said. "Also, they're always well attended. They're always popular concerts because people just people want to hear great music at Christmastime."
The Genesee Chorale will perform Christmas Through the Ages 4 p.m. on Saturday at St. James Episcopal Church. For more information, click here. To purchase tickets, click here.
2019 File Photo of Elba Central's production of Beauty and the Beast. The stage is to be transformed this weekend by Rochester City Ballet during a performance of "The Nutcracker Suite" on Friday, Saturday and Sunday. Photo by Howard Owens
Not only will the Elba community be hosting Rochester City Ballet for a seasonal treat of “The Nutcracker Suite” this weekend, but the students have already been able to nibble on portions of the professional troupe’s theatrics while preparing for its debut at Elba High School’s auditorium, Superintendent Gretchen Rosales says.
After GO Art! Executive Director Gregory Hallock found out that his other venue option was booked for the show earlier this year, he reached out to Elba because of its beautiful stage and venue at the school, Rosales said. When she was asked whether she’d consider hosting Rochester City Ballet, it was a most definite yes.
“The arts are a wonderful addition to any community, and I’m very proud of our school, and so, to be able to host them here was an easy decision. And it’s been so fun for our own kids to see how a big production like this takes place. So it’s been great, and it’s been super fun,” Rosales said. “They’ve been here all week (rehearsing) and been in and out the past month or so. Their technical director met with our technical director. (Dancers Shannon Rodriguez and Megan Kamler) did a presentation to our student body, they showed them snippets of the dance but also read the Nutcracker story to them. It was super, it was interactive and a lot of participation from the audience.”
For anyone unfamiliar with that story, it features Clara, a young girl who ventures from her bedroom into the wondrous realm of The Land of Sweets. In this magical wonderland, there are graceful waltzing flowers, twirling snowflakes, and a captivating transformation of enchanted toys.
The Nutcracker and Tchaikovsky’s hypnotic score go hand in hand for a timeless piece of choreography and a classic tale told through leaps and bounds in a mesmerizingly colorful, and graceful, yet athletic, performance.
There are no Elba Central students in the performance itself, but some of them will be supporting the tech people, and about a handful will be ushers during the shows, Rosales said.
“For me, it was important to be able to say yes, we would host them. We’re not charging for rehearsal space, we’re not charging them for the time in which they’ve been in the building, because this is a big opportunity for the community to be able to support in that way and just say yes, we have this ability," she said. "And they loved it. They said, you really have the most beautiful school, you have such a beautiful auditorium. And it's really breathtaking to see the backdrops that they've put up for their presentation and to see how our space was transformed for something of this professional capacity, so it's been great, a great experience.
“There’s been a lot of excitement for it. Students were able to see a part of the presentation ahead of time and said to their parents, get me tickets!"
All students, from universal pre-kindergarten through 12th grade, were invited to participate in the presentation, and learn how props are brought in and managed, and how backdrops and sets are put up, she said. Other lessons have included make-up and costumes, which might just come in handy for Elba’s own upcoming spring show, “The Little Mermaid,” in March.
It has been a special opportunity for “those that have been bitten by the acting and performing bug,” to be watching in the wings, excited to see what a different kind of production looks like, she said.
Elba students met students involved in ballet who are in the show, and they have talked to one another about the different elements involved in such a production and asked questions about how they got involved in dance, she said.
“So it’s been a neat cultural experience,” she said. “It’s just been a great experience overall.”
This event was funded in part by the Oliver G. And Sarah Sloan Bauman Fund for the Arts through the Community Foundation for Greater Buffalo, facilitated by GO Art! Performances are at 6 p.m. Friday, 2 and 6 p.m. Saturday and 2 p.m. Sunday at the school auditorium, 57 S. Main St., Elba.
For those who love murder mysteries and comedies, the Batavia High School Drama Club is staging The Alibis, a collection of eight interconnected 10-minute plays that revolve around the murder of eccentric billionaire J. Leslie Arlington.
There are plenty of suspects in the murder, and all have alibis, which none of them want to admit to because they were all committing other ridiculous crimes at the time. The suspects include disgruntled chefs, teen detectives, and vengeful divas.
Performances are at 7 p.m. on Friday and Saturday and 2 p.m. on Sunday on the stage of the Batavia High School Auditorium, 260 State St., Batavia.
Genesee Symphony Orchestra Concertmaster Julia Plato. Photo by Howard Owens
It's that time of year when the Genesee Symphony Orchestra rosins up the bows and gets crackin' on holiday chestnuts such as “Christmas Festival,” “Sleigh Ride” and selections from “The Nutcracker.”
The annual holiday concert is at 4 p.m., Sunday, at Genesee Community College.
GSO's concertmaster, Julia Plato, is looking forward to taking the solo on another holiday favorite, the winter movement from Vivaldi's “Four Seasons.”
She's excited about it, she said, because "I think it's insanely easy to make it sound modern, even though it was written through like 300 years ago. It still has so much excitement and vigor and, yeah, personality that you would never know that it was written in the 1700s."
Plato, who is originally from the Hershey area of Pennsylvania, is in her second year as the first chair of the GSO, under the direction of conductor S. Shade Zajac.
She's been involved in orchestra performance since she was a child, participating in the youth orchestra in her hometown.
"That's kind of where I fell in love with playing music," she said. "I went to school for music education in Ithaca and wound up teaching in Pittsford."
Through a friend, she heard about GSO during the pandemic, when the orchestra was still finding ways to perform, and that piqued her interest.
"I was so excited because I just wanted to have a group to play with, and it just lined up really well with the time that I moved to the area, and I found a good group of people to perform with," she said.
She's found it inspiring to work with Zajac.
"He has got such a great taste and repertoire," she said. "He selects very nice, well-rounded programming from all the modern works that you may not have heard to the classics that everyone hopes to hear."
Genesee Symphony Orchestra Music Director and Conductor S. Shade Zajac Photo by Howard Owens.
Good music was part of the Thanksgiving celebration at Ri-Dans in Batavia on Wednesday night with the Rusty Fisher Band and the Growlers Blues Band both taking the stage.
Cara Williams, grade 11, performs "She Used to Be Mine" from Waitress. Photo by Howard Owens.
The Oakfield-Alabama Music Department presented its annual Cabaret night before a packed house in the school's auditorium.
The night's theme was 'Leave your troubles outside, with dozens of students performing solo or in ensembles.
Shane Coast, grade 9, performs Weird Al Yankovic's "I Love Rocky Road," a parody of "I Love Rock and Roll" by Joan Jett. Photo by Howard Owens.
Photo by Howard Owens.
Emily Gould, grade 9, performs "A Million Dreams" from The Greatest Showman. Photo by Howard Owens.
Kaylle Merkel, 9th, Allison Wiliams, 9th, Teagan Falk, 10th, Emily Szplyman, 10th, Jessica Sosnowski, 11th, Cara Williams, 11, and Rachael Wight, 12 (order from the program not necessarily the order on stage), perform "Vienna" by Billy Joel. Photo by Howard Owens.
Amora Mabon, 10th grade, performs "Don't Rain on My Parade" from Funny Girl. Photo by Howard Owens.
