RANDOM ACTS OF CULTURE HIT THE STREETS
You may be familiar with the Opera Company of Philadelphia's Random Acts of Culture - sometimes popularly known as "flash mobs".
The Opera Company has been busy over the past few weeks performing several Random Acts in locations across the city and putting smiles on faces!
These performances are part of 1,000 Random Acts of Culture taking place nationally during a three-year period funded by the John S. and James L. Knight Foundation. Knight Foundation's Random Acts of Culture bring artists out of the concert hall and into the streets and our everyday lives.
We've done random acts in Reading Terminal Market, Macy's locations throughout Philadelphia, the Please Touch Museum, Independence National Historical Park, the Free Library of Philadelphia, and many more.
Over the past month, we hit two of Philadelphia's most visited locations: Geno's Steaks and IKEA.
A true destination location in South Philadelphia, Geno's Steaks is well known for making some of the best cheese steaks in all of Philadelphia. Nothing beats watching the Phillies or the Eagles as you're enjoying a Geno's Steak! Famous for asking its patrons to order "wit" or "widout", meaning with the all-important cheez whiz topping or not, these tasty hot sandwiches are called grinders, hoagies, or subs (short for submarine sandwich) in various parts of the country! Geno's is such a hot spot that it frequently is profiled on such cable channels as The Food Network, HGTV, and on national programs when on location in Philadelphia.
In late April, the Opera Company of Philadelphia Chorus brought the music of Giuseppe Verdi to the eatery, singing the famous "Anvil Chorus" from the opera Il trovatore.
Then a few weeks later, we did it again, this time at IKEA is South Philadelphia on Delaware Avenue. We'd been wanting to do a random act using "found percussion," or everyday items used as instruments.
It seemed like a great opportunity for Lembit Beecher, the Opera Company's first Composer in Residence, to write an interesting piece for a random act. He created an arrangement of the famous Papageno-Papagena duet from Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart's The Magic Flute (Die Zauberflöte) for soprano, baritone, piccolo, and a variety of glasses, bowls and trash cans!
There are more Random Act videos coming, too! Stay tuned over the next few weeks to see one from The Barnes Foundation and a spectacular large-scale random act coming to 30th Street Station in September!
This week a great piece from the American stage can be heard on the radio, Jerome Kern's Showboat. It's filled with many famous songs like Can't Help Lovin' Dat Man, Make Believe, and Ol' Man River - which was made popular by Philadelphia singer Paul Robeson. Showboat is never played on the radio, so here's your chance to hear this American masterpiece when it's broadcast on WRTI-FM. You can listen to it online or on the radio at 90.1FM beginning 1PM on Saturday, June 16th!
Here's a clip of Paul Robeson singing Ol' Man River:
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Until next week…
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