Last year, during the inaugural season of a new benefit concert series entitled “If Music Be the Food . . .”, Eastman School of Music faculty and students, members of the Rochester Philharmonic Orchestra, and guest musicians helped to raise $575 and 781 pounds of food for Rochester’s Foodlink. The first two concerts of Season Two have already brought in nearly $1000 and nearly 1000 pounds of food for Foodlink.
The final concert of Season Two, featuring chamber music of Barber, Schumann, and Schoenberg, will take place on Friday evening, May 6, at 7:30 p.m. at St. Paul’s Episcopal Church, 25 Westminster Rd. (corner of East Avenue) in Rochester. Rather than pay an admission price, attendees are asked to bring canned goods and non-perishable food items to help stock the Foodlink shelves. Cash donations will also be accepted.
The May 6 concert will open with Samuel Barber’s epic “Dover Beach,” performed by Eastman Assistant Professor of Voice Jan Opalach, bass-baritone, and the Eastman Ahtay Quartet, followed by Robert Schumann’s joyous Piano Quartet in E-flat, as performed by special guests Marcantonio Barone, pianist, and Frances Rowell, cellist, as well as Eastman’s Ayano Ninomiya, violin, and Carol Rodland, viola. The concert will conclude with Arnold Schoenberg’s romantic string sextet, “Transfigured Night,” inspired by a poem of Richard Dehmel, and performed by Eastman’s Ying Quartet, with Keiko Ying, cello, and Carol Rodland, viola.
Carol Rodland, Associate Professor of Viola at the Eastman School, created “If Music Be the Food . . .” in 2009 with the assistance of Robert Poovey, Director of Music at St. Paul’s Episcopal Church. All of the musicians donate their services for these performances and St. Paul’s assists with the collection of food and cash contributions.
Foodlink is a non-profit regional food bank that distributes food to soup kitchens, shelters, and emergency food pantries, and to non-emergency programs such as group homes, and senior centers. Founded in 1978, Foodlink serves a 10-county area in the Genesee Valley and Finger Lakes Region of Upstate New York. Foodlink’s mission is to empower at-risk communities by providing food, nutrition, education and resources in Central and Western New York. Today, the food bank serves nearly 90,000 meals each week or a total of 4.5 million meals annually.
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