At The Parish House
The 2023 Season
The Shenandoah University Conservatory Hot Jazz Ensemble will warm everyone up with music from the Hot Jazz era. Featuring trumpet, trombone, saxophone piano, bass and drum, selections will include New Orleans Blues and Swing from the 20’s, 30’s and 40’s.
The ensemble consists of select students from Shenandoah's Conservatory and Dr. Matthew Niess, director of Jazz Studies and professor of trombone.
The group's roots can be traced back to the 1950s when the Conservatory had one of the first collegiate jazz ensembles in the country.
Over the years, the university's jazz groups have toured China, Japan, Ireland, Iceland, Germany, Spain, France and Senegal, and won acclaim at multiple major jazz festivals. Many graduates have gone on to prominent careers in jazz.
It’s easy to think that our area’s most talented singers are mostly found in local choral groups, churches, bands and at performance venues. Meanwhile, right under our noses, there’s a wealth of singing talent flourishing in our area schools!
Emmanuel Church in Middleburg thinks it’s time to bring many of these young singers together and celebrate their talents with a multi-school concert. Choruses from area schools will showcase their wide-ranging repertoires with genres ranging from Renaissance madrigals, pop, Broadway, folk, contemporary and international favorites and more.
At least one a cappella group will also perform.
Reservations are recommended, but not required. Covid mask recommended. A donation of $5 is suggested, but no one is turned away. Come ready to celebrate and
enjoy our area’s young voices!
Fresh from a performance at the White House, an ensemble of the The Gay Men’s Chorus of Washington, DC, is coming to Middleburg.
Performing will be the Rock Creek Singers, a 32-voice chamber ensemble that sings classical, pop, Broadway and everything in between.
The ensemble is part of the award-winning Gay Men’s Chorus that has thrilled audiences close to home and as far away as Ukraine for over 40
years. The chorus has performed at two presidential inaugurations and average over 100 outreach performances a year.
Reservations are recommended but not required (540-687-6297). A free-will donation of $20 is suggested to help cover the chorus’s travel expenses, but no one will be turned away! Covid mask recommended. A thrilling
performance awaits you!
To celebrate National Poetry Month in April, the “At The Parish House” arts series of Emmanuel Church plans a poetry event featuring local poets of all ages reading their work.
Here's how it works!
• Submit one or two original poems to
Localpoets18@gmail.com by February 25, 2023.
• Attach a short summary of your background.
• Poets should have some connection to the
Middleburg area (i.e., live nearby, work or attend school locally).
• A committee of English scholars will review the submitted work and choose 12 to 20 pieces for the reading event.
• Poets will be notified by mid-March; acceptance requires availability to participate in the reading. We may invite poets to discuss their creative process.
We look forward to helping you share your work!
About
At The Parish House
WHEN • WHERE • WHAT
We offer events nine months a year in our spacious and historic Parish House. You can tell we like variety as our events range from Dixieland Jazz to Celtic folk music, from operatic arias to show tunes, from small theatrical productions to puppeteers, from poetry readings to re-creations of old time radio shows. Pianists particularly enjoy playing our 1896 Steinway grand piano.
PAST PERFORMANCES INCLUDE:
Dixie rhythm jazz band, Gay Men’s Chorus of Washington, singers Jim & Mary Shaffran and Aani Bourassa, Shenandoah Saxophone Quartet, Bob Brown Puppets, Celtic musicians Poisoned Dwarf and Spencer & Beane, pianists Sophia Vastek and Brian Woods, and a local readers theater group.
ADDITIONAL NOTES:
Most events are not ticketed, but we do ask for a donation to help offset costs. However, if you can’t manage a donation, just come. We want everyone to be able to enjoy the performances. What’s most important is that all feel welcome and at home!
EMMANUEL CELEBRATES THE ARTS