Chicaco Opera Vanguard Commemorates World AIDS Day 2009 with the Chicago AIDS Quilt Songbook 2009

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In recognition of World AIDS Day, Chicago Opera Vanguard will present the World Premiere of The Chicago AIDS Quilt Songbook - a one-night only benefit concert by various Chicago musical artists artistically responding to the HIV/AIDS crisis. Monday, December 1, 2009. The concert will be held at Center on Halsted in the Hoover -Leppen Theatre located at, 3656 N. Halsted St. in Chicago . All proceeds will benefit the Center’s programs.

The AIDS Quilt Songbook was started on World AIDS Day 1992 in New York by the late baritone William Parker who passed away in 1993 of AIDS-related illness. For this concert, Parker invited various composers to add a "song panel" to a musical quilt of remembrance commemorating those infected or affected by HIV/AIDS.

Following this tradition, a new songbook, The Chicago AIDS Quilt Songbook, created by Chicago Opera Vanguard’s Artistic Director Eric Reda has also commissioned works from a wide variety of Chicago-based and associated artists. The concert will include classical, pop, traditional, experimental, musical theater and cabaret style music. “I am so excited to help facilitate the revival of this powerful tradition,” said Chicago Opera Vanguard Artistic Director Eric Reda. “This is an amazing opportunity for Chicago ’s rich and active musical community, both composers and performers, to share their voices in remembering those infected or affected by HIV/AIDS.”

The composers include “Adding Machine” composer Josh Schmidt, CUBE Ensemble members Patricia Morehead & Lawrence Axelrod, DePaul University professor Robert Steel, Accessible Contemporary Music Artistic Director Seth Boustead, cabaret artist’s George Howe and Diana Lawrence, Anomie Ensemble Artistic Director Evan Kuchar, jazz saxophonist Amos Gillespie, pianist Myron Silberstein, Randall West, and Chicago Opera Vanguard Artistic Director Eric Reda.

This one-night only benefit concert featuring songs by Chicago musical artists responding to the HIV/AIDS crisis will be presented on World AIDS Day, December 1, 2009.

A pre-concert reception will begin at 6:30pm. $40 VIP Tickets feature premiere seating and two complimentary drink tickets. $20, General Admission tickets are also available. Purchase tickets online at www.centeronhalsted.org or at-the-door.

Chicago's Center on Halsted is the Midwest ’s largest community center for LGBT persons. As a resource and gathering place for youth and adults in a safe, inviting atmosphere, the Center offers comprehensive support networks and programming to meet the cultural, emotional, social, educational and recreational needs of all LGBT and non-LGBT persons.

Employing the daring aesthetic of an off-Loop theater, Chicago Opera Vanguard has quickly emerged as the Mid-West’s foremost home for engaging and challenging theatre-with-music. This season, Chicago Opera Vanguard will present a staging of Schubert’s WINTERREISE and the U.S. Premiere of Per Nørgård’s anti war “operatorio” NUIT des HOMMES.

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