SUMMER MUSIC FESTIVAL 2024

Summer Music Festival 2024

June 4, 11, 18 and 25

Concert Begins at 7:30 p.m.

Reception Follows

Season Tickets are $60 and are available for purchase online or at the door.

Individual Concerts are $20 and are available for purchase at the door the night of each concert.

June 4 – The Kosher Klezmer Band performs traditional Jewish music from Eastern Europe, America, and Israel. Based in Houston, the band members have worked together for the past decade. All accomplished musicians, most of them classically trained, their home countries include Israel, Bulgaria, Russia, Latvia, and even Texas. Expect a rollicking, joyous evening with an Old World flavor. Led by clarinetist Pamela Bingham Sheppard, the band includes singers Moshe Ben-Bassat and Marina Mizelkova, accordionist Villie Schumann, trumpeter Zachary Lerner, and violinist Aija Izaks. www.kosherklezmerband.com 

June 11 – BonaVox, a chamber choir of professional musicians formed in 2022, will present Journey: from Earth to Heaven. This Lake Charles group will sing a wide array of sacred songs from Renaissance composers Thomas Tallis and Palestrina, English composer John Rutter, to Leonard Cohen’s “Hallelujah,” as well as American classics such as “Hark, I Hear the Harps Eternal” and “Precious Lord.” Each of the BonaVox members is trained and/or has extensive experience in both solo and choral singing. Their mission is to provide access to high-quality music performance for the enrichment of Louisiana and beyond, by presenting free concerts throughout the year and performances at assisted living facilities and hospitals, with plans for other venues in the works. www.bonavoxswla.org

June 18 – Boomtown Brass Band Plays the Music of Fats Waller & A. J. Piron. Enjoy an evening of early jazz with this five-piece band of professional musicians: Danielle Reich, vocalist/percussion; Doug Wright, clarinet/sax; George Chase, cornet; Morris Moon, banjo; and Thomas Helton, sousaphone. They will perform Piron’s “Kiss Me Sweet” and “I Wish I Could Shimmy Like My Sister Kate,” as well as Fats Wallers “Honeysuckle Rose,” “Ain’t Misbehavin,’” and “Squeeze Me.” They’ve even thrown in pieces by Duke Ellington and Jelly Roll Morton. You don’t want to miss it!

June 25 – Soprano Rachel Looney and pianist Lina Morita present A Concert of Classics. Their program includes Puccini’s ravishing aria “O mio babbino caro”, and art songs by Debussy, Richard Strauss, and American composer Amy Beach. Their foray into the world of musicals also features well-known songs from Rodgers and Hammerstein’s The Sound of Music and Carousel. Rachel Looney is a hometown girl currently based in New Orleans. Praised by The Times Picayune for her “smooth, silvery tone,” and “ringing top notes,” she has performed with the New Orleans Opera, the Summer Lyric Theatre at Tulane, and debuted with the Louisiana Philharmonic Orchestra in “A Night on Broadway.” Brazilian pianist Lina Morita made her Carnegie Hall debut in 2013.  Her international career has taken her throughout the U.S., Brazil, Mexico, France, and the Czech Republic, and she has played solo recitals in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil and in Mexico City. Morita is currently an Associate Professor of Piano at McNeese State University in Louisiana.

Rachel Looney

Lina Morita

Please note: Due to ongoing hurricane renovation, the entrance to the concerts will only be through the Bell Tower; there will be a ramp on the north side of the Tower.\

For more information, call (337) 433-5244

Children under 12 are admitted free.