CONWAY — The Conway Symphony Orchestra will perform Peter and the Wolf at 2 p.m. Saturday in the Donald W. Reynolds Performance Hall at the University of Central Arkansas.
The Conway Symphony Orchestra is participating once again in the Orchestras Feeding America national food drive, so those attending the concert are urged to bring food items for collection at the concert. Suggested items include rice, dry soup, powdered or canned milk, cereal, peanut butter, beans and canned fruits, vegetables, meat and soup. Last year 250 orchestras collected more than 200,000 pounds of food nationwide.
Tickets to the children’s concert are available at the Reynolds Box Office, by phone at (501) 450-3265 or toll free at (866) 810-0012, and online at www.uca.edu/tickets. All tickets are $5 for this special performance, which will be open seating, making the concert an affordable outing for the whole family. The concert is sponsored by First Security Bank.
Children’s activities will be offered immediately following the one-hour performance, including refreshments sponsored by Aramark, and hands-on art projects. Musicians will also join families in the lobby for an “instrument petting zoo,” inviting children to touch and play the instruments.
“The CSO Children’s Concert is always a fun performance, and this year is no exception,” Conway Symphony Orchestra Conductor/ Music Director Israel Getzov said. “Peter and the Wolf has been consistently delighting and inspiring audiences for years”
With the help of narrator Matt Chiorini, producing director of the Arkansas Shakespeare Theatre, the instruments will tell the story of Peter and his furred and feathered friends. Composer Sergei Prokofiev gave each character in Peter and the Wolf story and instrument and musical theme: Bird, flute; duck, oboe; cat, clarinet; wolf, French horns; grandfather, bassoon; hunters, timpani; and Peter, string instruments.
Orchestras Feeding America, a national food drive by members of the League of American Orchestras in partnership with Feeding America.
This is the second consecutive year that America’s orchestras have mobilized their musicians, staff, volunteers, and audiences to help alleviate hunger in communities across the country. Student groups at UCA and Hendrix College are also organizing collections on their campuses, to include in the food drive. The food collected will be donated to Conway food pantries at First United Methodist Church, St. Peter’s Episcopal Church and Community Action Program for Central Arkansas (CAPCA), which serves lowincome residents in Faulkner, Cleburne and White counties.
To date, 112 orchestras are participating in Orchestras Feeding America. The project is organized by the League of American Orchestras, which represents the nation’s professional, volunteer and youth orchestras, and Feeding America’s network of more than 200 food banks and 63,000 agencies. In 2009, 250 orchestras in all 50 states collected more than200,000 pounds of food.
Conway Symphony Orchestra Board President Allison Vetter said, “The economic downturn has impacted many of us, individuals and businesses alike, but now is the time for us to help our neighbors most in need. This food drive is one way our orchestra can give back to the community that has supported it for so long.”
River Valley Ozark, Pages 165 on 03/07/2010