One of the Newnan community’s most anticipated events, the 2017 “Friends of Wadsworth Concert – The Legacy Continues” is coming March 11, and general admission tickets are now on sale.
The “Friends of Wadsworth” is Saturday, March 11 at 7:30 p.m. (doors open 6:30 p.m.) at Charles Wadsworth Auditorium, 25 Jefferson St. in downtown Newnan. General admission tickets, $25 each, went on sale Feb. 13 at Newnan-area outlets and on BrownPaperTickets.com .
Local outlets include: on Newnan’s Court Square at the Coweta County Visitors Bureau in the Historic 1904 Courthouse and at Let Them Eat Toffee, 18A N. Court Square,; in Ashley Park shopping center at Branch and Vine, 340 Newnan Crossing Bypass; and in the Thomas Crossroads area at Matrix Insurance, 3111 Highway 34 E., Suite B.
Newnan’s own Courtenay “Becky” Budd, a talented soprano, has been asked by Newnan Cultural Arts Commission to return as host of the Friends of Wadsworth concert, and she brings a lineup of both new and some familiar faces.
The series carries on the spring concerts made popular by Newnan famous son and world renowned pianist Charles Wadsworth, founding director of the Chamber Music Society of Lincoln Center in New York City.
For some two decades Charles Wadsworth brought world class talent from the classical music scene to perform in his hometown. Early Wadsworth and Friends concerts helped raise funds to renovate the 1939 art deco auditorium and outfit it with technical and acoustical enhancements. The city of Newnan honored Wadsworth by naming the performance hall in his honor.
Returning to the Wadsworth stage this spring are Atlanta soprano Indra Thomas and pianist Andrew Armstrong. They will be joined by violinist Soovin Kim, clarinetist Narek Arutyunian and cellist Sang-Eun Lee. Narek Arutyunian and Sang-Eun Lee are both associated with Young Concert Artists Inc., the non-profit organization founded in 1961 by Susan Wadsworth, wife of Charles Wadsworth.
“This year’s program is extra fun, with returning favorites Indra and Andrew, as well as newcomers Soovin and young YCA artists Sang-Eun and Narek,” said Budd. “The program features works by Brahms and Mendelssohn, a heart-stirring section from Messiaen’s ‘Quartet for the End of Time,’ French and American vocal works, and a nice dose of George Gershwin, finishing with an arrangement of ‘Rhapsody in Blue.’”
Budd and Thomas were recently preparing for a Feb. 11 appearance in Poughkeepsie, New York – the “Healing & Hope Concert” to benefit The Harriet Tubman Academic Skills Center in Poughkeepsie. The center provides an after-school mentoring and tutoring program for youngsters living in poverty.
Atlanta-born soprano Indra Thomas also was scheduled to perform in the Stern Auditorium of Carnegie Hall Feb. 13. The concert, “Mahler for Vision: A Concert for the Restoration of Vision,” was presenting Mahler Symphony No. 2 “The Restoration.” Earlier, on Jan. 31 Thomas appeared in metro-Atlanta with the Atlanta Chamber Players in Lawrenceville in the Concert at 550 Trackside.
Thomas is familiar to Newnan audiences as part of the all-star cast in October 2015 for “Rags to Riches,” an evening of musical theater organized by Budd at the Wadsworth. The evening featured Warren Martin’s humorous “The True Story of Cinderella,” and Thomas sang the role of the First Stepsister. She has also performed in “Amahl and the Night Visitors” with the Newnan High Chorale at the Coweta School System’s Centre for Performing and Visual Arts – recently renamed the Nixon Centre in honor of its late longtime director Don Nixon.
Thomas has performed in opera roles and with top orchestras throughout the U.S. and overseas from Spain and France to Austria, the Netherlands, Finland, Abu Dhabi, South Korea, Japan, Malaysia and South Africa.
Considered one of the foremost Aidas in the world today, Thomas sang the role at the Choregies, d’Orange in a performance televised throughout France during the summer of 2011.
Encouraged by her mother, Mary, an amateur soprano, Indra discovered music early. She sang solos in church, participated in school choirs from elementary through high school and gained knowledge and experience through voice lessons and competitions. After graduation, she made her movie debut in the 1989 Academy Award-winning film “Driving Miss Daisy,” which was partially filmed in Coweta County.”
A graduate of Georgia’s Shorter College, Thomas attended Philadelphia’s highly regarded Academy of Vocal Arts, where she received an Artist Diploma. Her big break came in 1998, when she became one of 10 first-place winners in the prestigious Metropolitan Opera National Council Auditions.
