 Purchase, NY - Former New York Yankee centerfielder Bernie Williams headlines the list of performers and participants in the third annual Purchase Wide Open Festival on October 17 & 18 at Purchase College. The Purchase Wide open Festival celebrates the extraordinary creativity of the Purchase community with dozens of performances throughout the campus.
Featured are presentations of the conservatory programs and the independent work of Purchase musicians, writers, scholars, actors, dancers, artists and filmmakers. Free except for events at The Performing Arts Center.
Bernie Williams a Yankee superstar with four World Series titles, five American League championships, a batting average of .308, and four All Star game selections, is currently a Music Composition student in the Purchase College School of the Arts Conservatory of Music. With his focus now on a music career, Williams has become a composer and recording artist. He plays guitar on his debut album “The Journey Within.”
Williams will join Professor David Gluck, head of Studio Production in a discussion of the similarities and differences in the worlds of sports and music at a talk titled “In The Zone: Parallel Mindsets,” at 2 PM Oct. 18 in the Music Building’s Recital Hall.
The weekend includes Alumni Homecoming and Family Day events.
The festival begins with the 5:30 PM opening reception on October 17 for the Tom Burckhardt exhibition in the Richard and Dolly Mass Visual Arts Building. This is the ninth in the continuing David Schwarz Project series, supported by a grant from David and Jeanne Schwarz, which focuses on cutting edge work by innovative contemporary artists. The exhibition features recent work by Tom Burckhardt a 1986 visual arts graduate. His work invites viewers to enter a world of juxtaposed commonplace objects, precariously balanced, sometimes covered with meticulous patterns that comment humorously on consumerism and contemporary culture.
The Purchase Repertory Theatre will present “The Last Days of Judas Iscariot” on October 17 and 18 at 8 PM ,and Oct. 18 at 2 PM in the Performing Arts Center. This explosive comic fantasia by Stephen Adley Guirgis explores not simply the fate of Judas’s soul, but the nature of God and the very meaning of love. It takes place in a courtroom in Purgatory where the conviction of Jesus’s betrayer is being appealed before a Southern hanging judge from the nineteenth century with a collection of witnesses including Sigmund Freud, Mother Teresa, and Satan.
The Christian McBride Band will perform in the Performing Arts Center October 17 at 8 PM. The Grammy award winner is considered one of the most dynamic acoustic and electric bassists working today. He has accompanied such artists as Sting and Kathleen Battle. Tickets. Box Office 914-251-6200.
The Soul Voices Gospel Choir under the direction of Pete Malinverni will perform rousing renditions of old favorites and new classics including: gospel, soul, spirituals, funk and jazz, in the Music Building Recital Hall from 3-5 PM.
The Orpheus Chamber Orchestra renowned for their conductorless model will perform in The Performing Arts Center. Pianist Jean-Yves Thibaudet is featured. Tickets. Box Office 914-251-6200.
Throughout the festival there will screenings of student and alumni films, dance programs and exhibits of student art.
For a complete schedule go to www.purchase.edu and click Purchase Wide Open events. Purchase is located at 735 Anderson Hill Road, Purchase New York.
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