NEW YORK (INTERSCHOOL ORCHESTRAS OF NEW YORK) - The InterSchool Orchestras of New York (ISO) will present a benefit concert featuring the music of
Stephen Sondheim at the Kaye Playhouse at Hunter College on Monday, March 6, 2006 at 7:30 PM. The evening, which will benefit ISO's scholarship fund, will honor Mr. Sondheim and two other extraordinary New York culture icons, Kitty Carlisle Hart and Frederic S. Papert. A festive supper party will follow the concert. Tickets for the concert are $125, and $250-$1,000 for the concert and dinner. Tickets are available through the ISO office at (212) 410-0370.
Talented musicians of the ISO Symphony and Symphonic Band will be joined by singers from the musical theater program of the Professional Performing Arts High School for this special event. Conducted by ISO Music Director Jonathan Strasser and Symphonic Band Conductor Brian Worsdale, these gifted teens will perform medleys from such musicals as A Funny Thing Happened on the Way to the Forum, Company, Follies, Sunday in the Park with George, and Sweeney Todd.
The evening's honorees are cultural icons whose life-long involvement with young people has left an indelible mark on musical theatre. Through the legendary Mr. Sondheim's work with Music Theatre International, many great shows, including his own, have been reduced to seventy-five minutes, so they can be performed and enjoyed by school children all over the world. Mr. Papert, as President of the 42nd Street Development Corporation has overseen projects which have renewed pieces of the entire city's historic fabric, in particular, the entire 42nd Street Theater District. His involvement with 'Music and the Brain', which teaches children K-2 to read music and play piano and studies the developmental effects, is thriving in over 75 schools. Ms. Hart, a marvelous performer and tireless promoter of the arts, was for 20 years the chair of the New York State Council on the Arts and a lifetime proponent of her husband, playwright, librettist, and director, Moss Hart.
The ISO Symphony, a talented youth orchestra, and the Symphonic Band are comprised of young musicians from public and independent schools in the metropolitan area. Both are full scholarship ensembles and perform in a variety of venues, including Symphony Space, Lincoln Center and Carnegie Hall. Outreach and community concerts take Symphony and Band members to such places as Good Shepherd Catholic Church, Brooklyn, St. Michael's Church in Litchfield, Connecticut, the Stanley Isaacs Neighborhood House in Manhattan, Mary Queen of Heaven Church in Brooklyn and the New York Botanical Garden in the Bronx. The Symphony is coached each year by members of the New York Philharmonic and frequently by the London Symphony Orchestra. Most concerts are free or very low cost. The season will conclude with a Symphony benefit concert at Alice Tully Hall, June 1, 2006.
The Professional Performing Arts School (PPAS) was created in 1990 to meet the needs of two groups of students: those who want to pursue professional work in the arts and those who want to study the arts as an avocation. It is the special mission of this small, personalized school to develop, refine, and showcase students in dance, drama, and vocal and instrumental music while also providing them with a rigorous, meaningful academic curriculum. Performing arts instruction is delivered by professional dancers, actors and musicians through professional studios.
The InterSchool Orchestras of New York (ISO) is a youth orchestra and music education program consisting of five orchestras, a symphonic band, and a chamber music program for players, ages 6-19, at all levels. Students come from public and independent schools in New York's five boroughs and beyond. ISO welcomes young musicians to its performance program whether or not they can afford the modest tuition fee. In the past two decades, over $2,000,000 has been awarded in scholarships to young musicians who could not otherwise develop their talent. For further information on the Symphony and all ISO programs please call Ellen Brofman at (212) 410-0370 or visit our website: www.isorch.org.
