Performance Season

Fun Facts about the 2011-2012 Season...

· Shenandoah Conservatory’s main stage opera production of Le donne curiose (The Curious Women) will be utilizing the original set created for the Wolf Trap Opera Company.

· Ladysmith Black Mambazo (appearing on the Performing Arts Live Series) provided soundtrack material for the film The Lion King II.

· The World of the Piano Series artist Alexej Gorlatch made his Carnegie Hall debut at the age of 19 in April 2007.

· Performing Arts Live Series artist Ravi Coltrane is the son of jazz legend saxophonist John Coltrane and pianist Alice Coltrane. 

· Pete Townshend (music and lyricist for The Who’s Tommy) never had formal musical training.

· In The Hall of the Mountain King was composed by Edvard Grieg for Ibsen’s play Peer Gynt – Shenandoah Conservatory’s production will use original incidental music by Professor Thomas Albert.

· Timothy Roberts, faculty member and guest soloist with the Shenandoah Conservatory Symphony Orchestra, was a member of the U.S. Navy Band for 24 years.

· The “A train” in the famous jazz tune in Take the “A” Train by jazz composer Billy Strayhorn refers to the New York City subway line from Brooklyn to Harlem. The Conservatory’s Jazz Ensemble will perform the music of the famous jazz team Billy Strayhorn and Duke Ellington in February.

· There are five senior BFA dance candidates performing in the Senior Dance Concert.

· Julie Andrews made her American stage debut in the 1954 original Broadway company of The Boy Friend.

· Pride and Prejudice has enjoyed many successful revivals including the TV mini-series starring Colin Firth and movie starring Keira Knightley.

· Elizabeth and Eugene Pridonoff of the Pridonoff Piano Duo are Steinway artists. The Pridonoff Duo appears on The World of the Piano Series in November.

· The Baroque orchestra Tafelmusik will perform on this season’s Performing Arts Live Series. The German word "tafeln" means to dine or to feast. In the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries, German composers used the word "Tafelmusik" to describe music specially composed for a banquet.

· Soprano Lauren Flanigan’s recording of Richard Strauss' Liebe der Danae was nominated for GRAMMY Award.  Flanigan will serve as the creative director for this season's "Opera Up Close production.