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Crystal Tung ’11 has had to balance her commitments as a music major with her involvement in Vassar Haiti Project (VHP) this semester. However, this semester, Tung was able to channel both of her passions into an event that will be one of the most impressive and moving musical experiences of the year. The Vassar College Department of Music and the Vassar Haiti Project will present a benefit concert called Harmony and Hope: A Musical Bridge to Haiti on Saturday, April 24 at 7 p.m. in the Vassar Chapel.
“I thought, ‘Great, I can finally take advantage of my involvement in the Department of Music to help the Vassar Haiti Project make a difference,’” wrote Tung in an e-mailed statement.
The concert will benefit the Holy Trinity Music School in the Haitian capital, Port-au-Prince. The school, which was home to Haiti’s only concert hall, was badly damaged by Jan. 12’s disastrous earthquake. Two of the school’s faculty members were killed, and many of the instruments and facilities were destroyed, though all of the students survived .
“Some of the students from the school also visited Vassar a few years ago, so we as an institution have even more of a connection with them,” Tung wrote.
The concert is co-sponsored by the Vassar Haiti Project and the Vassar College Department of Music. Key administrators of the event include Director of International Services and Special Projects Andrew Meade and his wife Lila Meade, founders and co-directors of the Vassar Haiti Project; Karen Murley, Department of Music concert administrator; Kathryn Libin, Music Department chair and associate professor of music; and Christine Howlett, assistant professor of music and director of choral activities.
“It is exciting to think of the opportunity to make beautiful music on our campus in order that music can once again enrich the lives of schoolchildren in Haiti,” said Andrew Meade. He also said that the Project hopes to fill 1,000 seats at the event. Tickets are $10 for students, and a minimum donation of $20 for general admission. Donations of $50 and above will include admission to a post-concert President’s Reception.
“The money will go towards rebuilding the Holy Trinity Music School in Haiti, and that is our primary goal, but it’s also not what the event is all about,” Tung wrote. “We sincerely See
hope that people come and enjoy the music because much of the repertoire is thought-provoking and very relevant to the situation in Haiti—dire, but not without hope.”
The concert will feature hundreds of participants, with performances by nine musical ensembles drawn from Vassar College as well as from the Hudson Valley community.
The concert will bring together faculty-run groups such as the Vassar College Orchestra, Jazz Ensemble, Choir and Women’s Chorus and student-run groups such as Mahagonny and Camerata. The program will also include community ensembles such as the Cappella Festiva Chamber Choir and Treble Choir, two local choral ensembles; Eric Hepp, organist; Vivace, a selective string orchestra made up of highly-trained high school students; and the Strawberry Fiddlers.
Both Vivace and the Fiddlers are part of the Stringendo Orchestra School of the Hudson Valley. Conductors will include Howlett, Eduardo Navega of the Vassar College Orchestra, Jonathan Handman of Vivace, Susan Bialek of the Cappella Festiva Treble Choir, Women’s Chorus and Cappella Festiva, Mark Van Hare ’10 of Mahagonny Ensemble, and Nick Rocha ’11 and Emily Bookwalter ’10 of Camerata Ensemble.
“It’s a huge turnout in terms of performers,” Howlett wrote in an e-mailed statement.
The concert will begin with a prelude of Samuel Barber’s “Adagio for Strings” performed in an arrangement for organ by Eric Hepp. All of the choral ensembles will then sing a group of pieces together. These pieces will include “Requiem” by Eliza Gilkyson, arranged by Craig Hella Johnson, “Sure on this Shining Night” by Morten Lauridsen, “I Have Had Singing” by Ron Jeffers and “The Storm is Passing Over” by Charles Tindley.
“Requiem” is a beautifully simple arrangement of a folk song by Austin, Texas folksinger, Gilkyson,” Howlett wrote. “The other pieces were chosen with the appropriateness of the texts in mind. I wanted the opening of the concert to move from a sense of grief we all feel for what happened to a sense of hopefulness.”
The choirs will also sing with the orchestra at the end of the concert. “It’s a ‘cast of thousands,’” Murley wrote. “The program will be both hopeful and thankful.”
Specific information about performers, including a quote from the community group organizer, can be found on the Vassar Haiti Project’s blog: http://blogs.vassar.edu/haitiproject/. Tickets will be available in advance at the College Center Information Desk in Main Building.
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