Sixty-two students - members of the Brass Ensemble, Concert Band, Orchestra and Stage Band - are leaving March 4 for Russia, where they will perform at the Philharmonic Jazz Club and the Glinka Cappella in St. Petersburg, and the Cultural Center and music school in Pushkin.
"This is the second tour to Russia for these groups," says Douglas Weeks, Administrator of Applied Music. "In 1990, we presented concerts on tour in what was then the Soviet Union. As Pushkin is the sister city to Worcester and a suburb of St. Petersburg, there has been major support for the concerts as well as a great deal of excitement at our appearances there." In 1992, Weeks played at the opening of the Philharmonic Jazz Club.
English Professor Edmund Hayes and his wife, Associate Professor of Biology and Biotechnology Pamela Weathers and her daughter, Senior Library Associate Deborah Wright, Irving Orrell '51, Jon Waples '88 and Kimberly Cherko Owen '94 and her husband will also be going to Russia with these musicians.
Sixty-eight members of the WPI Glee Club and the Wells College Choir will spend the break on tour in Ireland and England. The singers will arrive at Shannon Airport on March 1 and tour Galway and Dublin before their concert at Trinity College on March 4. On March 5, they will perform in the Concert Hall at the University of Limerick. "The Concert Hall, the newest one in Ireland, is home to the Irish National Orchestra," says Louis Curran, Associate Professor of Music and Glee Club director. Music Professor Crawford Thoburn leads the Wells College Choir.
The singers will perform in Canterbury Cathedral at noon on March 7, and will give a concert at St. Mary's Church in Walmer/Deal, up the coast from Dover, at 8pm. The tour concludes with a concert on March 11 in Wells Cathedral and another at St. Mary's Church in Bath. "The WPI and Wells groups have been singing together for 25 years," says Curran, "but this is the first time we've collaborated abroad."
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