LANCASTER − It won’t be what was originally planned, but the Lancaster Festival Orchestra will perform Saturday after all.
This week’s flooding at the Wendel Concert Stage at Ohio University Lancaster wiped out all events there this week. But the orchestra will play at 8 p.m. Saturday at Fairfield Christian Church at 1965 N. Columbus St. The concert will be free to attend and the theme will be “Resilience.”
Festival executive director Deb Connell said there will be a video component with the concert.
“We want to go out with an extra special finish because we’ve been through a lot this season and we want to get everybody together one time and go out with a bang,” she said.
Connell said the church space will hold about 1,800 people.
“I hope everybody will come out and come and see the orchestra before they leave town and put 2025 behind us,” she said.
New orchestra conductor John Devlin said concert organizers will “be very thankful” for those who make a donation, and said donations will be encouraged.
“The music is going to be some music that was to have been performed at the OUL site,” he said. “And we’re picking that very carefully to create an arc about the story we want to tell. Which is to acknowledge the tragedy and then give people hope and then end with something very beautiful and uplifting at the end.”
The orchestra will also play new music that was not originally planned for the festival.
“That will shine a very bright light on the talent of the orchestra that comes from all over the country and have used the Lancaster community as their second home,” Devlin said.
From a musical standpoint, he said it is extremely difficult to put such a program together in just a few days and that it usually takes more than a year to plan a concert.
jbarron@gannett.com
740-681-4340
Twitter/X: @jeffrey_ba7142
This article originally appeared on Lancaster Eagle-Gazette: Lancaster Festival Orchestra to perform at 8 p.m. Aug. 2 at Fairfield Christian Church
Reporting by Jeff Barron, Lancaster Eagle-Gazette / Lancaster Eagle-Gazette
USA TODAY Network via Reuters Connect
