Last year, Eastman School of Music faculty and students, Rochester Philharmonic Orchestra members, and guest musicians helped raise $575 and 781 pounds of food for Rochester’s Foodlink.
A second season of benefit concerts begins on Sunday, Oct. 24, at 7:30 p.m. at St. Paul’s Episcopal Church, located on the corner of East Avenue and Westminster Road in Rochester. There is no cost for admission, but instead attendees are asked to bring canned goods and non-perishable food items to help stock the Foodlink shelves. Cash donations will also be accepted.
Carol Rodland, Associate Professor of Viola at the Eastman School, created the concert series, If Music Be the Food . . ., in 2009 with the assistance of Robert Poovey, director of music at St. Paul’s Episcopal Church. Musicians donated their services and St. Paul’s assisted with the collection of food and cash contributions.
Season Two of If Music Be the Food . . . opens with a concert that features J.S. Bach’s Brandenburg Concerto #3, piano music by Frederic Chopin and Robert Schumann, and Felix Mendelssohn’s Quintet for Strings, Opus 87. Performers include RPO Concertmaster Juliana Athayde, Eastman School alumna Patricia Van der Sloot, and Eastman School faculty members Mimi Hwang, Rebecca Penneys, Carol Rodland, George Taylor, James Van Demark, and Keiko Ying. Some Eastman School students will also be participating alongside their mentors. Canned goods, non-perishable food items and cash donations will be collected at the door.
Future programs in this season’s If Music Be the Food . . . benefit series for Foodlink include works of Brahms and Soler on Sunday, Jan. 30, 2011, and works of Brahms and Schumann on Friday, May 6, 2011. Performers in the upcoming concerts include Katherine Ciesinski, Nicholas Goluses, Mikhail Kopelman, Jan Opalach, and the Ying Quartet, as well as special guests Marcantonio Barone, Tatevik Mokatsian, and Frances Rowell.
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.
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