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Tag: Westminster Choir College

Westminster Choir College Saved Sale Planned

If you haven’t heard yet, Rider University has decided to keep Westminster Choir College intact, in Princeton. However, it plans to sell the college and/or its campus. This is certainly preferable to the alternative, with Westminster being dismantled and bits being assimilated into the Rider campus in Lawrenceville. Hopes are for a suitable buyer to step up within the next year. Anybody got $13 million?

http://wwfm.org/post/westminster-finds-reprieve-rider-vote-sell-programs-campus-together

The announcement came shortly after 2:00 this afternoon. This article appeared earlier today on the new WWFM – The Classical Network website:

http://wwfm.org/post/students-community-rally-save-westminster-choir-college

March 28, 2017
Westminster Choir College Protest Princeton

If you’re in the Princeton area, and you just can’t sleep, Westminster Choir College is holding a 24-hour marathon performance-protest against its overlord university.

Rider University, desperate to shore up its own finances, is floating the idea of absorbing the operation of the Princeton music school into its Lawrenceville campus. Of course that would mean the primary artifacts of Westminster’s history, in the form of its neo-Georgian buildings, quadrangles, and invigorating greenery, would be left behind for a new owner to do with what it will. How Rider would propose to move all those organs is anyone’s idea.

Anyway, the marathon began at 11:00 this morning and will run through 11:00 tomorrow morning at Nassau Presbyterian Church. Performances will include the college’s bottomless arsenal of pianists, organists, harpists, and of course singers, with solidarity appearances by Princeton Girlchoir and Orpheus Club Men’s Chorus.

Nassau Presbyterian Church is located at 61 Nassau Street in Princeton. Just be aware that Princeton doesn’t like cars to be left on many of its streets after 2 a.m.

You can read more about it here:

http://www.philly.com/philly/news/new_jersey/Westminster-Choir-College-begins-24-hour-performance-protest.html

And here:

http://www.nj.com/mercer/index.ssf/2017/01/westminster_choir_college_musicians_sing_oppositio.html

February 1, 2017
Marvin Rosen Classical Music Passion

When there’s music to be shared, Marvin Rosen is not one to be hindered by a lack of sleep. The indefatigable Rosen, who shares his passion with listeners every week on his radio show, Classical Discoveries, sets his alarm for 4 a.m., but his innate enthusiasm often has him up earlier, even on the shortest and coldest of days.

Officially, “Classical Discoveries” can be heard on Wednesdays, from 5:30 to 11 a.m., on WPRB 103.3 FM in Princeton. But it’s not unusual for Rosen to start his broadcast at a time when even roosters might consider hitting the snooze. Recordings heard on “Classical Discoveries” are harvested in large part from his own, massive, personal collection and from private recordings sent to him by composers living all over the world.

Occasionally, his exuberance will spill over into day-long marathons. The next such event, his annual Viva 21st Century-24 Hour Plus-WPRB Broadcast with Marvin Rosen, will begin on Dec. 27 at 1 p.m. Rosen will take to the airwaves for 25 uninterrupted hours, to present music by approximately 100 living composers.

On June 8 at 3 p.m., Rosen will present a live piano recital made up of miniatures by 25 living women composers. The concert will take place at Bristol Chapel on the campus of Westminster Choir College. Response to his request for submissions was so favorable that he plans to present a follow-up recital in April at 1867 Sanctuary at Ewing.

For all his evident enthusiasm for the new and unusual, Rosen has never lost his affection for the standard repertoire. He simply understands that the music of Bach, Mozart and Beethoven can be heard anywhere that classical music is played.

His love of Bach earned him an invitation from Choral Arts Philadelphia to host its New Year’s Eve presentation of the “Christmas Oratorio.” The four-hour concert, including all six cantatas, with a break for intermission and refreshments, will take place on Dec. 31, from 4 to 8 p.m., at Philadelphia Episcopal Cathedral.

Indeed, Rosen, who is on the piano faculty of Westminster Conservatory of Music, is a busy, busy man. It was a challenge to fit everything into my article in today’s Trenton Times:

http://www.nj.com/times-entertainment/index.ssf/2016/12/classical_music_marvin_rosen_p.html

December 23, 2016
Save Westminster Choir College in Princeton

Anybody else care about keeping Westminster Choir College in Princeton (as opposed to it being relegated to the music department of Rider University)? Sign the petition now.

Article:

http://www.nj.com/mercer/index.ssf/2016/12/hundreds_sign_petition_against_selling_moving_west.html?utm_source=dlvr.it&utm_medium=twitter

Petition:

https://www.change.org/p/stop-the-unification-of-the-westminster-choir-college-campus-and-the-rider-campus

December 12, 2016
Shakespeare Music Princeton NJ Anniversary
If music be the food of love, play on.
Give me excess of it that, surfeiting,
The appetite may sicken, and so die.
- Duke Orsino, “Twelfth Night,” Act I, scene 1
Are you played out on the Bard yet? April 23rd marks the 400th anniversary of the death of William Shakespeare, and area musicians prepare to strut and fret their hour upon the stage.

Westminster Opera Theatre will present two performances of Verdi’s “Falstaff,” tonight and tomorrow at 7:30 p.m. at the Robert L. Annis Playhouse on the campus of Westminster Choir College in Princeton. Allegedly the run is sold out, but there could be turn-ins.

On Sunday at 3 p.m., Westminster Conservatory of Music faculty singers Danielle Sinclair, Tracy Chebra, Timothy Urban and Krishna Raman will share a recital of Shakespeare in song as part of the Kaleidoscope Chamber Series. The free concert will take place in Gill Chapel on the campus of Rider University in Lawrenceville.

Next Thursday at 12:15, Mary Greenberg will present a program of Bard-inspired music for the keyboard, interlaced with readings from the Shakespearean sources, as part of Westminster Conservatory’s noontime concert series. The free recital will be given in the Niles Chapel of Nassau Presbyterian Church in Princeton.

Next weekend, on Saturday, the actual anniversary of the Bard’s death (also traditionally held to be the anniversary of his birth, 52 years earlier), The Princeton Singers will present “Brush Up Your Shakespeare” at 5:30 and 8 p.m. The concerts will be held at Princeton University Art Museum.

Finally, on Tuesday, April 26 at 7 p.m., The Merrie Companions – Rebecca Mariman, soprano, John Burkhalter, Renaissance recorders, and John Orluk Lacombe, lute – will present “Hamlet’s Castle, or Mr. Shakespeare’s Musicke.” The free concert will take place in the Community Room of Princeton Public Library.

Words, words, words. You can read more about it in my article in today’s Trenton Times.

http://www.nj.com/times-entertainment/index.ssf/2016/04/classical_music_westminster_op_1.html
April 15, 2016

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