Adelphi center celebrates the arts with a 2018-2019 season

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Chita Rivera, who will perform at Adelphi on Friday, September 28

For more than 10 years, the Adelphi University Performing Arts Center has provided entertainment and cultural experiences for the campus and larger communities. This season’s 2018-2019 lineup includes a variety of performances from all-star actors/actresses, dancers, singers, students and more.

This year’s 11th season promises to be unforgettable. The line-up kicks off with the Larson Legacy Concert on September 23 and hits high gear with the legendary Chita Rivera on September 28. Tickets for the entire season are on sale now. A few highlights for the fall include:

Larson Legacy Concert: Jay Adana
Sunday, Sept. 23
2018 Jonathan Larson Grant winner Jay Adana presents a concert of pieces from the new musical The Loophole, book by Zeniba Britt with music and lyrics by Jay Adana. Polly Danfield is a brilliant biracial scientist and cartographer sequestered in her white father’s house on the outskirts of Atlanta in the last year of the American Civil War. When she discovers that her long-lost lover has marched with the Union as part of the all-black 33rd Regiment she must choose whether to protect her family and her life’s work or fight for love and freedom.

Chita: A Legendary Celebration!
Friday, Sept. 28
Celebrate the one and only Chita Rivera in a unique solo concert event. The incomparable Tony Award winner will recreate signature moments from her legendary career including numbers from West Side Story, Sweet Charity, Chicago, Kiss of the Spider Woman, Bye, Bye, Birdie, The Rink and The Visit. In addition to a special tribute to her dear friends John Kander and Fred Ebb, the timeless music of Leonard Bernstein, Charles Strouse, Jerry Herman and Stephen Sondheim will also be featured, accompanied by her long-time trio.

WindSync
Friday, Oct. 5
In its ninth season, the prize-winning Houston-based wind quintet builds highly thematic programs that feature landmark quintets, new works by American composers, and premiere arrangements of standard repertoire with the goal of increasing accessibility and cultural significance of wind chamber music. WindSync is recognized for dramatic, fully memorized concert presentations that often feature collaborators from the worlds of music, dance and multimedia.

Best of Broadway: Razzle Dazzle – a Kander and Ebb Musical Celebration
Saturday-Sunday, Oct. 13-14
This amazing writing team is responsible for giving us the classics Cabaret and Chicago as well as many other stage works and music for concerts, film and television. Adelphi’s talented students bring this amazing music to life.

Adelphi Symphony Orchestra
Friday, Oct. 26
The Adelphi Orchestra proudly presents Haydn’s famous early trio of linked Symphonies, Nos. 6, 7 and 8 : Le Matin, Le Midi, Le Soir (Morning, Afternoon, Evening). These are works in Baroque format, requiring harpsichord continuo. In addition, the program includes the world premiere of Binelli’s Violin Concerto.

Greater Nassau Chorus
Sunday, Oct. 28
Join the award-winning Greater Nassau Chorus for an afternoon of ringing chords you won’t soon forget. Since 1960, this women’s barbershop chorus has been bringing four-part a cappella music to Long Island and beyond with a repertoire of contemporary music, show tunes and popular favorites. Under the direction of Master Director 700 Harriette Walters, the Greater Nassau Chorus invites you to journey with them through the history of a uniquely American art form: barbershop vocal harmony, the black belt of a capella singing!

The Rimers of Eldritch by Lanford Wilson
Tuesday, Oct. 30, through Sunday, Nov. 4
The mystery is, who he is, who murdered him and what were the circumstances? And to solve it, Wilson looks at the outsides and insides of his tiny, Midwestern town. He looks at the middle-aged woman who falls in love with the young man who comes to work in her cafe. He looks at the coarse, nasty woman mistreating her senile mother, who is obsessed with visions of Eldritch being evil and headed for blood-spilling.

He looks at a tender relationship between a young man and a dreamy, crippled girl. But Wilson sees far more than this. He is grasping the very fabric of Bible Belt America, with its catchword morality and its capability for the vicious.

He senses the rhythm of its life and the cruelty it can impose. He understands the speech patterns of its loveless gossips, its sex-hungry boys, its compassionless preachers, its car-conscious blondes. In the end, his portrait of Eldritch is full length, and the truth of its revelations will be pondered long after the stage lights have dimmed and the play has ended.

Dance Adelphi: Le Lien
Wednesday, Nov. 28, through Sunday, Dec. 2
The world premiere of Manuel Vignoulle’s Le Lien (The Link) has been created for students of Adelphi’s Department of Dance.

Le Lien explores the diverse situations where we are linked to one another, feeling independent at times, but actually always being codependent on a higher scale. This piece examines the thread that connects not only humans to other humans, but also humans to nature, beings to beings, and life to life.

Eileen Ivers: A Joyful Christmas
Friday, Nov. 30
Grammy-winning violinist Eileen Ivers and her band capture the spirit and magic of the season in her heartwarming holiday show. Nine-time All-Ireland Fiddle Champion and music star of Riverdance, Eileen Ivers will change the way you think about the violin. Hailed as one of the great innovators and pioneers in the Celtic and World Music genres, Ivers has established herself as the pre-eminent exponent of the Irish fiddle in the world today. The program of American and Irish songs, original tunes and holiday favorites, arranged with her unique style, are centered around the meaning of Christmas.

Adelphi Chorale and Adelphi Vocal Ensemble
Sunday, Dec. 9
Adding to the holiday spirit, the Adelphi Choral Ensemble and Adelphi Vocal Ensemble bring the joy, hope and wonder of the season to life with both contemporary and classic works, under the baton of Karen Faust Baer. In an annual tradition, the singing of Handel’s “Hallelujah Chorus” will conclude the afternoon’s program.

A Reading of A Christmas Carol
Saturday, Dec. 15
Charles Dickens’ classic story of Ebenezer Scrooge has become a holiday favorite. Once again, Adelphi brings the Victorian classic to life as it would have been performed in a radio studio in the 1930s, as a dramatic reading. If you are able, please bring a nonperishable food item to be donated to the Mary Brennan Interfaith Nutrition Network Food Kitchen in Hempstead for those in need.
* PLEASE NOTE: This event takes place at the Cathedral of the Incarnation located at 50 Cathedral Avenue in Garden City.

SPRING 2019: THE PAC SEASON CONTINUES
The season continues in February through late spring with offerings including SingStrong A Cappella Festival, a performance by Broadway star Norm Lewis, powerhouse vocalist Maxine Linehan in a celebration of Petula Clark, Agatha Christie’s The Hollow, the Celtic group Dervish, legendary music arranger (and member of The Four Seasons) Charles Calello, Madeline and the Bad Hat, the Chamber Orchestra of New York, Trio Solisti, Axiom Brass and much, much more.

See the complete 2018-19 season schedule. Tickets are now on sale with discounts available to seniors, students and alumni. Information is available at the Lucia and Steven N. Fischer Box Office at 516-877-4000 or boxoffice@adelphi.edu. The box office is open Tuesdays and Thursdays from noon to 5 p.m. through August, then begins regular hours of Tuesday through Friday from 1 to 6 p.m. after Labor Day.

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