Tickets.com Client Spotlight: GMU Center for the Arts

GMU Summer Concert Series

Entertainment
By Staff
Fairfax County Times

The 2009 Mason Summer Festival, organized by George Mason University’s College of Visual and Performing Arts, kicked off May 31 and continues through June 27 at GMU’s Fairfax campus. This monthlong festival celebrates artists and arts organizations from the university community and around the Northern Virginia region.

It is a collaboration between the university, the City of Fairfax Commission on the Arts, the Virginia Commission on the Arts and the Arts Council of Fairfax County.

Ticket prices vary but have been reduced from last year to make it more affordable for families to attend events together.

To buy tickets, call 888-945-2468 or visit www.tickets.com. In person, visit the Center for the Arts ticket office. For more information about programming, call 703-993-2787 or visit www.gmu.edu/cfa or www.masonfestival.org.

Festival highlights:

May 31 – American Youth Philharmonic Orchestra season finale concert at the Center for the Arts Concert Hall. Under the direction of American Youth Philharmonic conductor Luis Haza and American Youth Symphonic Orchestra conductor Carl J. Bianchi, and featuring trumpeter Thomas Cupples. Program includes Hummel’s Trumpet Concerto in E-flat Major, Mussorgsky’s “Pictures at an Exhibition,” Berlioz’s “Roman Carnival Overture” and Respighi’s “Pini di Roma” (“The Pines of Rome”).

June 6 – GMU pep band leader Michael Nickens – known to Mason basketball fans as “Doc Nix" -- teams up with Matt Nolan of Mason’s new Game Design program to provide improvisational music and Wii technology.

June 7 – French classical guitarist Roland Dyens.

June 13 – Theater of the First Amendment, Mason’s professional theater company, returns with an expanded First Light Discovery Program of new play development, featuring staged readings of emerging work by playwrights Sherry Kramer and Jennifer L. Nelson, and a new screenplay by Wendy L. Anderson.

June 13 – Japan Fair, with performances and demonstrations of arts and cultural practices by 70 students from Japan.

June 14 -- McLean Symphony performs “Sounds and Sights of America,” featuring selections from Aaron Copland’s “Rodeo,” Duke Ellington’s “Harlem,” Thomas Jefferson’s “Testament of Freedom” (set to music by Randall Thompson) and Mark Twain’s “Tom Sawyer’s Saturday” (set to music by John Dankworth).

June 20-21 -- Rick Davis and Jose Caceres direct “Exploring Zarzuela,” a form of Spanish musical theater/light opera, featuring soaring melodies, clicking castanets, dance, romance, comical situations and English dialogue.

June 21 -- Metropolitan Jazz Orchestra presents an evening of West Coast and East Coast jazz at the Center for the Arts Concert Hall. Programs includes the music of Stan Kenton, Gordon Goodwin, Alan Baylock, Gerry Mulligan, Benny Goodman and more.

Visual arts, ongoing – Throughout the festival, works from local artists Kristin Herzog (realistic and abstract works in various media) and Mark Isaacs (colorful landscapes and seascapes) will be on display in the Center for the Arts Concert Hall lobby. Works by Mason faculty and graduate students will be on display in the Mason Hall Alumni Atrium Gallery and the Performing Arts Building.

Music and theater, ongoing – A variety of music and theater arts groups will offer training throughout the festival. Potomac Arts Academy will offer training to young artists in guitar, jazz, strings and more. A Class Act: Acting for Young People offers theater. Mason dance department hosts a two-day dance intensive for area high school students. Theater of the First Amendment offers its First Light student playwriting competition and mentorship program, with development and readings of student work presented by professional actors and directors. Theater of the First Amendment also teams up with the Osher Lifelong Learning Institute and Acting for Young People to present the Generations Playwriting Project, which offers opportunities for students and senior citizens to collaborate in playwriting. These readings, with audience feedback, are offered on Saturdays in June.