Fri 4/25 @ 8PM
The Cleveland Pops Orchestra pays tribute to a Cleveland pride and joy — NASA — in its upcoming program To Reach the Unreachable Stars.
Carl Topilow conducts the orchestra with Cleveland Pops chorus director Williams Zurkey as they perform a variety of well-known space-themed pieces ranging from music from The Jetsons to Star Wars to Gustav Holst’s The Planets.
But as usual with this group, this won’t be a one-piece-of-music-after-another type of evening. The concert will also feature outer space video accompanying the music and displays of space technology in the lobby, bothcourtesy of Cleveland’s NASA Glenn Research Center. It will include contributions on several numbers from the Contemporary Youth Orchestra, directed by Liza Grossman, as well as vocalists Lindsey Mitchell and Connor O’Brien, who will perform inspirational, reach-for-the-stars type Broadway songs like “Defying Gravity” and “The Impossible Dream.”
And it will have a couple of real, live astronauts onstage. Cleveland Heights High School grad Donald A. Thomas narrates “Voyage into Space,” composed by Peter Nero for former astronaut and former Democratic senator from Ohio, John Glenn. And Wadsworth native Michael J. Foreman will introduce a couple of pieces. And the director of NASA Glenn, James M. Free, will be on hand to offer remarks to open the second half of the program.
Tickets are $40-$82.
Case Western Reserve University, Cleveland, OH 44106