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[music]>> George Trudeau: The Center for the Performing Arts vision is Enriching Lives Through Inspiring
Experiences.
This coming season promises many
inspiring and enriching experiences.
[music] We'd like to share with you
our passion for the Center for the Performing Arts
2013-14 season. [music]
We are thrilled to be presenting five Broadway shows this coming season.
We open with the American classic West Side Story.[music]
Disney's Beauty and the Beast features that Academy Award-winning score. [music]
Memphis, set in the underground dance scene of Memphis in the fifties,
was nominated for
four Tony Awards and won best musical. [music]
Bring it On - The Musical was nominated for a Tony Award for best musical this year!
And back by popular demand is Rock of Ages. [music]
>> Amy Dupain Vashaw: If you've ever wanted to try seeing a dance performance, this is your year.
We have fun, accessible, energetic dance for the entire family.
We start our dance series with MOMIX, returning to the Center for the
Performing Arts
with their work called Botanica, which explores the world of flora through
illusions, costumes, and dance. [music]
Moscow Festival Ballet returns to the Center for the Performing Arts with
their take on the ultimate storybook ballet of good versus evil, Swan Lake. [music]
I'm especially excited to introduce our audiences to the masculine hip-hop aesthetic
of Compagnie Kafig.
This Brazilian all-male company is incredible in its simplicity and energy.
And wait until you see what they do with cups of water. [music]
>> Trudeau: The center's classics this season bring back the St. Lawrence and Brentano
String Quartets to
finish their cycle of the great Beethoven string quartets. [music]
The American Brass Quintet is internationally respected as an elite
chamber music ensemble
and recently received Chamber Music America's highest honor.
Newsweek magazine called them the high priests of brass. [music]
We're also excited to be
bringing back Apollo's Fire,
Cleveland's baroque orchestra,
a favorite of audiences here at the
center, to perform those beloved
Bach Brandenburg Concertos. [music]
One of Vienna's acclaimed orchestras will perform next season,
the Vienna Concert-Verein, directed by Philippe Entremont
and featuring Sebastian Knauer as piano soloist, in a wonderful program that
includes Beethoven's third piano concerto and his third symphony, as well. [music]
Pianist Jeremy Denk will perform a solo recital
that will include a work co-commissioned by the Center for the Performing Arts by
Brad Mehldau.
Jeremy Denk is a wonderful pianist, and he's become a favorite of such artists as Joshua
Bell
and Renee Fleming. [music] The reverberant acoustics of the Pasquerilla Center's
worship hall will be the setting for Cantus, the renowned male vocal ensemble,
whose program that they call A Place For Us
celebrates our unique national identity through
song and
includes works from spirituals to Bernstein. [music] >> Vashaw: Engaging families in the arts is one of our most very favorite things to do
here at the center,
and this year our family shows are going to focus on dinosaurs.
The first show that's coming is called Dinosaur Train, and some of you may be
familiar with that because it's the stage adaptation of a PBS Kids
show. And it combines two of the things that little kids love most, dinosaurs and
trains. It's perfect for the littlest paleontologist in your life.
Dinosaur Zoo brings to life all manner of dinosaurs rendered in incredible life-
like puppets, exploring the very, very beginnings of these prehistoric
creatures from swimming in the sea
all the way to extinction. [music]
Other family friendly performances this season include the
return of Japanese drumming wizards, Yamato,
and the incredible grace and beauty of Moscow Festival Ballet's
Swan Lake. [music] 0:05:16.919,0:05:18.520 >> Trudeau: We've got a great jazz line-up this season. [music] It starts with Doc Severinsen and His Big Band bringing Doc's
trademark sound and great jazz standards. [music]
Later in the season, big band and vocal jazz combine with the legendary Count Basie Orchestra and the New York Voices
to recreate their
Grammy Award-winning recording. [music]
In the intimate Schwab Auditorium, we're thrilled to be bringing the jazz
master and Hammond B3 organ legend
Dr. Lonnie Smith and his 'In the Beginning' Octet. [music]
And also in Scwab Auditorium the amazing jazz stylings of guitarist Lionel Loueke. [music]
>> Vashaw: It gives us
special delight here at the Center for the Performing Arts to
introduce audiences in central Pennsylvania to artists from all over the globe. [music]
Two seasons ago we presented a group of amazing musicians from the Chinese
province of Inner Mongolia.
Anda Union's concert here in Eisenhower was a night of unforgettable showmanship on
traditional Chinese instruments and chest- rumbling
throat singing.
The pure joy of music making reverberated throughout
the hall. Our audience was so excited, we decided to bring them back right away so that others might experience
them.
Guitar Passions features three guitarists performing an evening of Latin,
jazz, and Brazilian music.
Three-time Grammy Award winner Sharon Isbin, 0:06:43.809,0:06:48.269 teams with American jazzman Stanley Jordan and Brazilian jazz master Romero Lubambo.
The concert features a mix of acoustic and electric guitars. [music]
We are thrilled to be commissioners of the new work
from one of our most very favorite companies,
the Montreal-based Cirque Eloize.
The new piece that the Center for the Performing Arts is commissioning is called
Cirkopolis.
Audiences may remember Cirque Eloize because they've been here twice before,
once with the
urban-flavored
iD
and the first time they were here with the surreal, dreamlike and very wet Rain. [music]
We are so passionate about the work of this company and we are so gratified
to the many of you
that have swung in behind us to help make this work come into being.
Wherever this piece goes, Cirkopolis, it will carry the Penn State name with
it worldwide.
For many years we have brought the one-man, verbatim
theatre adaptation work of American Place Theatre but strictly for our
school audiences.
This year we decided to opt for a public performance, as well as a school show,
because we are presenting The Kite Runner, and that's been such a book in
our community that's been so resonate with so many book groups and others that
we wanted to give everyone the chance to see this incredible one-man, verbatim
adaptation. [music]
>> Trudeau: Broadway and television star Sutton Foster will present a program
of her favorite Broadway and American songbook hits.
Sutton Foster won Tonys for her roles in Anything Goes and Thoroughly Modern
Millie,
and is currently the star of the ABC Family drama Bunheads.
We're bringing the great singer-songwriters and best friends,
Mary Chapin Carpenter and Shawn Colvin in a very special evening that will
combine their songs, guitars, and great camaraderie. [music]
We are looking forward to a great season
and all the information on the coming season is on our website at
www.cpa.psu.edu. [music]
Tickets go on sale to Center for the Performing Arts members on June 10,
and for current Choice subscribers on June 17.
New Choice subscribers can purchase four or more
events
beginning June 24,
and tickets for individual events go on sale to the general public August 12. Enrich your life, be inspired, engage with great artists, and enjoy.
Come to the Center for the Performing Arts
at Penn State.