Mason Arts Amplified Releases New Content, including performances by the Royal Philharmonic Orchestra, Cirque Kalabanté, and more!

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New content will launch throughout January 2025 on Mason Arts Amplified, Mason Arts's digital venue which features live and on-demand performances, lectures, behind-the-scenes talks, and more from George Mason University's Center for the Arts, the Hylton Performing Arts Center, and College of Visual and Performing Arts.

The limited-release recordingof the London-based Royal Philharmonic Orchestra (RPO),featuring "phenom" (San Francisco Chronicle) British pianist Isata Kanneh-Mason, will is available to watch through February 16 at 11:59 p.m. ET. Recorded in front of a live audience at the Center for the Arts under the direction of Maestro Vasily Petrenko on January 28, 2024, the program featured Kanneh-Mason's powerful performance of Prokofiev's popular Piano Concerto No. 3 in C major, Op. 26, "a dazzling kaleidoscope of a piece" (The Times). Repertoire also included Debussy's Danse (orch. by Ravel) and Rimsky-Korsakov's beloved Scheherazade, Op. 35, culminating in a standing ovation from the crowd. The concert was described by an attendee as "one of the best concerts we ever experienced at the Center." Another audience member declared, "This performance has to rank among the 25 best I have ever seen."

"Notable for the beauty of the orchestral sound" (The Guardian), the RPO made its triumphant return to the Center for the Arts-having performed there previously in 2022-with rising star Kanneh-Mason, who served as the RPO's 2022/2023 Artist-in-Residence and has been hailed by BBC Music Magazine as "a pianist who makes lines sing beautifully and virtuosic passages dance, finding intimacy and eloquence at telling moments." The eldest of a famous family of seven musically gifted siblings who have been featured on CBS Sunday Morning, Kanneh-Mason performed with Sir Elton John in Los Angeles in 2013, inspiring the pop icon to pay her tuition at the Royal Academy of Music. She has since performed as guest soloist also with the Philadelphia Orchestra, Cleveland Orchestra, Toronto Symphony, and Stockholm Philharmonic, among others; and recorded four solo albums for the Decca Classics label. She recently performed an NPR Tiny Desk Concertthat aired Jan. 7, 2025.

Read Isata Kanneh-Mason's advance Q&A with WETA Classicalabout the Prokofiev and her performance at the Center for the Arts. The performance, which was sponsored by the Tom and Evelyn Kiley Fund, is available on Mason Arts Amplified for $15.

Also available on January 16, 2025 at 1 p.m. ET is the limited release performanceby Cirque Kalabanté, recorded in front of a live audience on November 16 and 17, 2024 at the Hylton Performing Arts Center's Merchant Hall in Manassas, Virginia on George Mason University's Science and Technology campus. This performance is also available to watch through February 16 at 11:59 p.m. ET.

Cirque Kalabanté's multi-sensory extravaganza, Afrique en Cirque, delivers a unique fusion of African arts and European circus traditions. Daring acrobats and dancers perform gravity-defying feats accompanied by the pulsating rhythms of a live Afro jazz ensemble. Inspired by life in his native Guinea, the founder of Cirque Kalabanté Yamoussa Bangoura created Afrique en Cirque to celebrate the vitality, joy, and beauty of African culture. "Explosive drumming and dance routines, the group delivered mind-blowing acrobatic sequences with extraordinary precision" (Vice Magazine). The performance is available for $15.

Additional College of Visual and Performing Arts events released in January will include the Accessibility as Inclusion: Panel Conversation, exploring strategies and practices arts spaces can utilize to provide fully accessible arts programming, and how these techniques impact the audience's sense of inclusion and belonging. Available on January 23, 2025 at 1 p.m. ET for free, this discussion was recorded live on November 13, 2024 at the Center for the Arts, moderated by Niyati Dhokai, Program Director for the Veterans and the Arts Initiative at George Mason University. Panelists included Amanda Loerch, Captioner with c2 and Director of Patron Services at Sixth & I; Betty Siegel, Director of the Office of Accessibility and VSA at The John F. Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts; Ermyn King, Audio Describer, Consultant, and Arts Educator; and Rachael Abbott, Actor, Theater Artist, and Advocate.

Then on January 30, 2025 at 1 p.m. ET, the Legends and Legaciesevent presented by The LIVE Center (The Center for Live Interactive Virtual Education) and George Mason University's College of Visual and Performing Arts. In this first installment of the LIVE Center's new Legends and Legacies series, which celebrates the leading artists of our time, Tony Award-nominated performers and husband-wife duo Terrence Mann and Charlotte d'Amboise participated in a virtual discussion (streamed in real time from the National Dance Institute in New York and projected onstage at the Harris Theatre on George Mason University's Fairfax campus, moderated live by George Mason University School of Theater Professor Edward Gero.

The Mason Arts Amplified platform-formerly known as Mason Arts at Home, launched in April 2020 during the pandemic-gives digital audiences the opportunity to experience the work that takes place across our campuses. Digital programs include pre-performance discussions with world renowned artists like choreographer Mark Morris; the "Silkroad and the American Railroad" course, produced in collaboration with the Silkroad Ensemble and the 92nd Street Y; performances by Mason Jazz, Mason Opera, Mason School of Theater, and much more.

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