During the 2009-2010 academic year, 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 as part of a new benefit concert series titled “If Music Be the Food . . .” The first performance in the second season of concerts, which took place in October 2010, garnered $375 and more than 400 pounds of food for Foodlink.
The next “If Music Be the Food . . .” concert will take place at 7:30 p.m. Sunday, Jan. 30, 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.
Carol Rodland, Associate Professor of Viola at the Eastman School, created “If Music Be the Food . . .” in 2009 with the assistance of Dr. 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.
The Jan. 30 concert will feature a special guest artist from Germany, Professor Tatevik Mokatsian, pianist, in Johannes Brahms’s masterful Quintet for Piano and Strings, opus 34. Also performing in the concert are Eastman professors Katherine Ciesinski, mezzo-soprano; Nicholas Goluses, guitar; Mikhail Kopelman, violin; and Rodland, viola, as well as Poovey, organ, and Eastman students Justin Maxey and Sini Virtanen. The first half of the concert will include works of Ewazen, Soler, and Theodorakis.
The final concert of the season will take place at St. Paul’s on Friday, May 6, at 7:30 p.m., and will feature The Ying Quartet and Assistant Professor of Voice Jan Opalach, bass-baritone, as well as special guests Marcantonio Barone, pianist, and Frances Rowell, cellist.
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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