On Friday 11th May at 7.30 pm the Abaco Cultural Society will present more than 60 singers from the Keys Chorale for a single extraordinary concert under the stars at the Garden Theatre, Black Sound, Green Turtle Cay. The Chorale will perform an eclectic programme of selections which are favourites, familiar and fun.
The director of the Chorale, Emily Boyd Lowe, "retired" to the Florida Keys from Ann Arbor, Michigan, in 1990 with her fifth generation Conch-born husband, Donald Scott Lowe, and founded the Keys Chorale at the Florida Keys Community College. Awarded the Distinguished Woman of the Arts for the State of Michigan, she and her singers won top awards in 1978 and 1982 at the Cork, Ireland, International Choral Festival.
Professor Lowe's husband, Donald Lowe, is the grandson of William Lowe and Caroline Saunders Lowe of Green Turtle Cay. Mr William Lowe and his siblings emigrated to Key West in the 1840's. These Bahamians contributed enormously to the economic and social development of Key West. The total population of Key West in the 1850 census was 1,944, of which 577 residents gave The Bahamas as their place of birth. Donald's maternal grandmother, Sarah Pinder Sands, immigrated to Key West in 1885 from Cherokee Sound. During the concert, Mr Lowe will be singing bass under his wife's direction.
The concert programme will include classical selections from Beethoven, Mozart and Carl Orff, love songs from the 1940's, Hebrew love songs, and medleys of Broadway musicals. A special feature will be the Missa Luba, and African mass in the Zaïrean style. Accompanying the Chorale on African Drums will be Quint Lange, a student of the internationally famous African music specialist Babatunde Olatunji. Children will particularly enjoy a selection from The Wizard of Oz which will be dramatised and in costume.
This is an extraordinary event not to be missed. Concert tickets cost $15 for adults and $5 for students. In addition, free guided tours through the Lowe Art Gallery will begin at 2 pm and will continue until the commencement of the concert. The Green Turtle Ferry has arranged for additional vessels to be available to carry concert goers to and from Black Sound that evening. In the event of rain, the concert will be rescheduled for Saturday 12th May at 7.30 pm.
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