The choirs of King University's Music department, in partnership with the Highlands Youth Ensemble, have been invited to participate in the 10th annual international Festival of the Aegean held in the historic Apollo Theatre, "La Piccola Scala," on the island of Syros, Greece.
The festival takes place July 2 through July 16, 2014 and will celebrate the 150th anniversary of the Apollo Theatre, which opened with a performance of Verdi's "Rigoletto" April 20, 1864. The theatre is the 11th oldest opera house in Europe and the first opera house in Greece.
The festival will include performances of major works by Beethoven, Mozart, and Rutter in the Apollo Theater; a grand program of "Puccini in the Plateia;" and solo performances in St. Nicholas Church as part of the "Sacred Music in a Sacred Place" Sunset Series. Throughout the festival, major choral works by Beethoven, Mozart, Gershwin, Poulenc, Rutter, Verdi and others will be presented.
"The Festival of the Aegean brings together people from all over the world for dance, theatre, art, photography, and music," says Pat Flannagan, King professor of music. "Students will have the opportunity to become not only acquainted with world-class artists with whom they would likely not have another opportunity to do so but also be able to sit down to lunch and get to know them."
The choirs will be working with John Rutter, one of the most famous composers and conductors in the world, along with Françis Bardot, Patrick Gardner, Jerry McCoy and Harold Rosenbaum.
The Highlands Youth Ensemble, under the director of King University's Lecturer in piano Jane DeLoach Morison, is the premier four-part choir of the Mountain Empire Children's Choral Academy. Selected by audition, members come from throughout East Tennessee and Southwest Virginia. Members, ninth through 12th grade students, have sung in Hungary, at Carnegie Hall, in yearly concerts at Biltmore Estate, and are regularly chosen for district, state, regional, and national honor choirs.
Approximately 40 HYE students with chaperones will be accompanying King University choirs to the festival.
