Dear Friends:
As Zoellner Arts Center looks to celebrate its past 25 years, and envisions the next 25, we want to pause and thank all of our supporters. Each of you, who helped keep us moving forward during these uncertain times, also kept up the spirits of the center’s team.
Over this past year, we found many opportunities for joy: as public school children entered Zoellner with awe and wonder after a two-year hiatus; as the Lehigh University choral and music ensembles' notes soared in Baker Hall; as theatre students smiled working on their craft in the Fowler Black Box and Diamond Theater; and as we walked through Butz Lobby seeing hundreds of students from across campus rehearse for Dancefest.
Now, we have reached a milestone. During this 25th Anniversary Season, we honor some of our founders, who in the early 1990s with Lehigh University leadership, embraced a vision to bring arts to the forefront of our community with a ‘dramatic new facility destined to become a major landmark.’ Years later, Tony Bennett said this right after he sang Fly Me to the Moon a cappella in Baker Hall, “Listen to that, they don’t build them like this anymore. It’s really beautiful. The acoustics in here are amazing.” We agree Mr. Bennett.
This fall season world class artists like Michael Feinstein, Postmodern Jukebox, and the New York Philharmonic, who inaugurated Baker Hall in 1997 and is honoring us with a performance for our 25th, will create many more moments of joy. In the spring, we will expand our cultural programming. Third Coast Percussion and Flutronix perform their new work Rubix and the talented artist Wu Fei joins us for a residency and performs Hello Gold Mountain with Professor Paul Salerni conducting students in Lehigh University’s Philharmonic and Choir.
And be sure to save this date: April 15, 2023, for the return of our gala with The Philadelphia Orchestra featuring Brian Stokes Mitchell, where we will also have a free outdoor performance by vertical dance company Bandaloop. These amazing artists will soar across the sky on the exterior of Zoellner Arts Center. They grace the cover of our Fall brochure and prove that art is not subject to the confines of four walls.
How grateful and excited I am to be the Executive Director of Zoellner Arts Center at this moment in time. We celebrate the impact we've had over the last 25 years, and look forward to the next 25 of engaging and connecting with you in and beyond our building.
Mark Fitzgerald Wilson
Photo Courtesy of Fig Magazine