The Performing Arts Center at Purchase College announces 2010-2011 season

  The Performing Arts Center

735 Anderson Hill Road • Purchase, New York 10577

Administration 914.251.6222 • Ticket Office 914.251.6200 • Fax 914.251.6171

www.artscenter.org

Press Release

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE

CONTACT:  Barbara A. Heins, Public Relations Consultant

                            The Performing Arts Center,  914.251.6166

                                                 barbara.heins@purchase.edu

PURCHASE – Legendary conductors and their orchestras, ballet and modern dance masters, Sunday salons of music, and spectacular performances of classical, world and gospel music, drama and circus, are all planned for the 33rd season of The Performing Arts Center at Purchase College.

Drawing from the best the world has to offer in music, dance, song and performance, The PAC's Executive Director Wiley Hausam describes The PAC's upcoming season as "interactive and intellectual" – one which will continue The Center's tradition of showcasing world-class performers here in our community. Several of the artists are performing at The Center before they appear in New York City.

"We are particularly excited to bring to Westchester and Fairfield counties a season featuring world-class artists of great breadth.  Valery Gergiev, André Previn, Bill McGlaughlin, Bernadette Peters, Suzanne Farrell, the Merce Cunningham Dance Company, the Orion String Quartet, Anna Deavere Smith and Los Munequitos de Matanzas are some of the finest artists in the world of performing arts.  We are fortunate to have them interact with us here in an intimate setting."

Mr. Hausam adds, ""The season is designed to provide audiences and donors with a series of intimate opportunities to engage in dialogue with great artists.  These dialogues are meant to dig deeper – so that great performances are enhanced with the big ideas that inspire them. They will be up close and personal."

Among the interactive highlights next season are prima ballerina Suzanne Farrell introducing and contextualizing "The Balanchine Couple" on November 7, 2010; award-winning actress Anna Deavere Smith who will conduct a question-and-answer session with the audience following her November 13, 2010 staging of her critically acclaimed "Let Me Down Easy;" and the ever-popular National Public Radio host Bill McGlaughlin as the interlocutor for The Center's three-concert Chamber Sundays Series.

And for The Performing Arts Center's major donors, there will be an opportunity to meet Maestro Valery Gergiev following his performance with the Mariinsky Orchestra of St. Petersburg on October 23, 2010.

FESTIVAL OF ORCHESTRAS

The 2010-2011 season gets a resounding launch on Oct. 23rd, 2010 with the celebrated and incomparable conductor Valery Gergiev leading the Mariinsky Orchestra of St. Petersburg in the Mahler's monumental Fifth Symphony. This concert will feature the orchestra's only evening New York-area performance of Mahler's Fifth Symphony. The concert is part of an opening night benefit which will feature a pre-concert reception and dinner and a post-concert reception to honor Maestro Gergiev.

 The Festival of Orchestras continues through the season with two performances by the Orpheus Chamber Orchestra, first with violin virtuoso Vadim Gluzman (Jan. 30, 2011), the second with German violinist Arabella Steinbacher (April 30, 2011). And the legendary composer and pianist André Previn will grace The Concert Hall stage (March 20, 2011) as the conductor of the NHK Symphony Orchestra of Japan, with the eloquent cellist Daniel Müller-Schott as soloist.

DANCE MASTERS

The Performing Arts Center continues its rich tradition of presenting both the classical and contemporary works from legends of the dance world. The series opens November 7, 2010 with The Suzanne Farrell Ballet as it carries on the lush legacy of dance master George Balanchine with The Balanchine Couple – a series of nine pas de deux from the Balanchine lexicon. Legendary Balanchine ballerina Farrell will host this performance.

Perennial audience favorite Pilobolus brings its gravity-defying and delightful choreography to The PAC on February 5, 2011.

And the farewell tour of the Merce Cunningham Dance Company makes a stop in Purchase on March 19, 2011, before it disbands later in the year after its final performance at New York's Park Avenue Armory. Cunningham, who died in July 2009 at the age of 90, has been called one of the greatest artists of the past century.

CHAMBER SUNDAY SERIES

Mr. Hausam also is announcing the enhancement of The Center's popular Sunday afternoon Chamber Sunday Series. The PAC is launching "Musical Adventures with Bill McGlaughlin and Friends" for its Chamber Sunday Series. Mr. McGlaughlin, an accomplished musician, composer and conductor who is well-known from NPR with his programs "Exploring Music" and "St. Paul Sundays," will help provide a deeper understanding of each program by contextualizing the music and interacting with the musicians and the audience. The series will include the acclaimed Orion String Quartet (December 5, 2010); violinist Daniel Hope with pianist Jeffrey Kahane ( February 20, 2011), and FIRES New York (March 6, 2011) with the program "The Roaring '20s," performed by top New York area musicians.

Each of the concerts will be followed by informal receptions with the artists and Mr. McGlaughlin.

SELECTED SINGLES

Foot-stomping singing and music, a Broadway legend and dazzling international circus and theater round out the 2010-2011 season.

A theatrical performance by the acclaimed actress Anna Deavere Smith will feature excerpts from her moving and virtuosic solo production of "Let Me Down Easy" on November 13, 2010. This new piece, created from her trademark first-person interviews, is about the power of the body and the resilience of the spirit.

"Anna and I enjoy a 20-year professional relationship and I am delighted to bring her to Purchase in what I believe is her finest theatrical work to date," explains Mr. Hausam.

On December 11, 2010 The Performing Arts Center will host the rousing and inspirational vocals of the internationally renowned Harlem Gospel Choir. The Brandenburg All-Stars will kick off the holiday season with a lively afternoon program of four of Johann Sebastian Bach's Brandenburg Concerti, a collaborative presentation by some of New York's leading musicians.

Another family-friendly program is "CiRCA – 46 Circus Acts in 45 Minutes," (February 27, 2011) an entertaining troupe from Australia that has drawn audiences around the world to witness their breathtaking, heart-stopping show.

            Seven-time Tony nominee and two-time winner, Bernadette Peters, is the quintessential Broadway Baby and she will grace the stage of The Performing Arts Center's Concert Hall in a concert on May 6, 2011. Miss Peters is best known for her dazzling and loveable star performances in Sunday in the Park with George, Into the Woods and Gypsy – which also have earned her eight Drama Desk Awards.

The season finale will be May 8, 2011 with the performance of Los Muñequitos de Matanzas, the Grammy-nominated group that has been continuing the rousing Afro-Cuban rumba tradition for three generations. From 1992- 2002, Los Muñequitos thrilled U.S. audiences and built a devoted fan base with their performances and workshops throughout the country.  Finally, after nine long years, Los Muñequitos returns to the U.S. in spring 2011 with a brand new program: Tambor de Fuego, featuring work from their latest recording, tributes to legendary members and new pieces created especially for this eagerly awaited tour.   

TALK CINEMA

This year, movie buffs will get a jump-start on their weekends as Harlan Jacobson's Talk Cinema moves to Thursday evenings. This 10-session series features independent and foreign films selected by Mr. Jacobson, a veteran film critic and international film festival curator. Each screening is followed by a discussion with a critic, scholar, actor or director.  In the 2009-2010 season, Talk Cinema audiences viewed such movies as "An Education," "Men Who Stare at Goats" and "The Girl With the Dragon Tattoo," before they became national box office hits. (Dates are: September 23, October 7 and 28, November 11, December 16, February 10, March 3 and 24, April 14 and May 12.)

In addition to buying individual performance tickets, there are three easy ways to subscribe:

• Series Subscription (10% savings off regular ticket price)
• Create Your Own 3+ package (10% savings off regular ticket price)
• Create Your Own 5+ package (15% savings off regular ticket price)

        Subscriptions are available now. Single tickets will go on sale August 24, 2010.

For more information and to purchase tickets, call The Performing Arts Center ticket office (914-251-6200).  For more information, log onto The Center's website: www.artscenter.org.

The Center's 33rd season is made possible, in part, by the Basic Program Support Grant of Arts Westchester with funds from Westchester County Government.  Major sponsorship for the 2010-2011 season is provided by Vivian Milstein through the SVM Foundation.  We thank our dear friend Vivian Milstein for her generous gift, which has made possible this concentration of great artists this season.  The Festival of Orchestras is presented, in part, with the support of the Tanaka Foundation. The tour of CiRCA is made possible by a grant from Mid Atlantic Arts Foundation with support from the National Endowment for the Arts.

Purchase College, 735 Anderson Hill Road, Purchase, N.Y., is located 28 miles northeast of New York City at the Connecticut border. The College, part of the State University of New York, is an institution of public higher education encompassing the liberal arts and sciences, professional training in the performing and visual arts, continuing education, The Neuberger Museum of Art and The Performing Arts Center.