Pilgrim Festival Singers to Perform Broadway Melodies Concert

Pilgrim Festival Singers, a small ensemble drawn from the Pilgrim Festival Chorus (PFC), the region’s principal community choral group, present their summer concert series, Broadway Melodies, on Sunday, June 29, 7:30 pm at Spire Center for Performing Arts, 25 ½ Court Street, Plymouth. The concert consists of highlights from the American musical theater tradition, directed by William B. Richter and accompanied by pianist Elizabeth Chapman Reilly.

Music from four of the greatest Broadway shows will be presented in concert performance.  Each show represents a different period or style from this rich tradition.  The earliest, George Gershwin’s Porgy and Bess (1935), takes place in 1920’s Charleston, South Carolina.  Frank Loesser’s Guys and Dolls (1950) is based on several short stories by Damon Runyon and follows a number of colorful characters from New York’s underworld.  West Side Story, a collaboration of Leonard Bernstein and Stephen Sondheim, was produced in 1957.  A re-telling of Shakespeare’s Romeo and Juliet in a modern setting, West Side Story tells the story of rival gangs whose warfare leads to tragedy.  The 1996 production of Ragtime, based on a novel of the same name by E. L. Doctorow, takes place in the first decade of the 20th century.  Many of its songs are in the “ragtime” style popular at that time, perfectly capturing the excitement and heartache of a turbulent era.

This fast-paced concert will include many of the popular solos and duets from these shows, sung by members of the chorus, such as “Summertime,” “Tonight,” “Fugue for Tinhorns,” “Guys and Dolls,” and “Make Them Hear You.”

Tickets for the performances are $10.00 and may be purchased at the door, by calling Gail at 781-826-8416, or online at www.pilgrimfestivalchorus.org.  Additional performances of this concert will be held on Saturday, June 28, 7:30 pm at Central Congregational Church in Middleboro, and Sunday, July 6, 7:30 pm at First Trinitarian Congregational Church, Scituate.  For more information on the concert or PFC, please visit their website at www.pilgrimfestivalchorus.org, or follow Pilgrim Festival Chorus on Facebook.

About Pilgrim Festival Chorus

The Pilgrim Festival Chorus (PFC) is a volunteer, not-for-profit singing group dedicated to performing choral music in public and private concerts; to providing music education to its members and the public; and to encouraging and promoting the performance of quality choral music.  The PFC is funded in part by grants from many of the region's Cultural Councils, local agencies supported by the Massachusetts Cultural Council, a state agency.  For more information about PFC, please visit www.pilgrimfestivalchorus.org, or follow Pilgrim Festival Chorus on Facebook.