Month: May 2019

All Civic Music subscribers are entitled to free admission for our second annual summer opera concert, at 4 p.m. Sunday, June 23 at Heritage Hill State Park. Local standouts Scott Ramsay and Mary Arendt will join the Florentine Opera recitalists. Same as last year, guaranteed preferred seating will be an additional option, $10/ticket, going on sale in late May. Watch for a postcard reminder and notices on the Civic Music and Heritage Hill web pages.

Perkins Restaurant at Military and Shawano donates 10% of all sales between 5 and 8 p.m. on the third Wednesday each month. (Wednesday, May 15, is the next one.) Also, sign up with smile.Amazon.com to designate 0.5% of eligible purchase prices to Civic Music. Find out more about Amazon Smile and the Perkins Dine to Donate programs.

Speaking of TV, tune it to WBAY-TV 2 at noon Monday, May 6, to hear a preview of both the upcoming MSO concert and next year’s Civic Music lineup. President emeritus and board member Tony Staley will appear with host Kevin Rompa near the end of Action 2 News at Noon. (Rompa’s not the only Channel 2 personality to be talking Civic Music this week. News anchor Cami Rapson has agreed to be our special guest announcer for the MSO/Lan concert.)

Our first-ever TV ad campaign is wrapping up. Coinciding with our spring membership drive, we placed a few dozen local airings of our 30-second spot on various cable networks.  While not saturation-level exposure (too expensive), it’s a start.  If you’re at home Wednesday night (May 8), for example, tune in A&E at 6:45 p.m. or Hallmark at 7:16.

If you haven’t done so already, you’ll have another chance to renew your Civic Music membership, in person, at the May 11 concert at the Weidner.  Check in at the Civic Music table just inside the main canopy entrance.

Join us for our traditional post-concert gathering at Titletown Brewing on Dousman Street. There’ll be a cash bar and complimentary light snacks.

Early arrivals to the May 11 concert can choose to listen in on a pre-concert preview by conductor Yaniv Dinur, the MSO’s dynamic, Jerusalem-born associate conductor. Dinur will address his brief remarks to both Civic Music members and the East High strings players at about 6:45 p.m. in the Grand Foyer (lobby).

We believe it’s another first for Civic Music: Local musicians will be featured, pre-concert, as patrons arrive for the Saturday night Milwaukee Symphony concert at the Weidner. The Green Bay East H.S. Chamber Ensemble under the direction of Adam Brown will play during the 6:30 to 7:15 time slot in the Grand Foyer.  Come early to appreciate and encourage these Fine Arts Institute students.

Local concertgoers, for the first time in years, will have the chance to enjoy a full piano concerto by an elite pianist and a major symphony orchestra. The crowd-pleasing Camille Saint-Saëns work, Concerto No. 2 in G minor for Piano and Orchestra, will feature guest artist Catherine Lan at the Weidner’s nine-foot Steinway D. See more on the talented Ms. Lan.

Fans of Tchaikovsky are in for a treat. The MSO program will open with “Polonaise” and “Waltz” from the lyric opera Eugene Onegin. The second half of the concert consists of one of the Russian composer’s true masterworks, the powerful “Pathétique” Symphony No. 6 in B minor in its entirety. Click here for the full program.