Judge Rendell Addresses "Rising Stars" Arts Supporters
January 22, 1999
The role of the region’s young adults in supporting Greater Philadelphia’s arts and cultural institutions, including the new Regional Performing Arts Center, will be the topic when the Hon. Marjorie O. Rendell addresses several hundred young professionals from across the region on Wednesday, January 27.
The event will take place from 6-8 p.m. at the Top of the Tower in the Bell Atlantic Building, 1717 Arch St. Also attending will be Regional Performing Arts Center President Stephanie W. Naidoff and Robert Driver, general director of the Opera Company of Philadelphia.
For the past eight years, Judge Rendell, chair of the board of the Avenue of the Arts, Inc., and vice chair of the Regional Performing Arts Center board, has been at the forefront of the massive civic effort to develop the numerous venues along the entire Avenue of the Arts along with her husband, Mayor Edward G. Rendell.
Judge Rendell will share her views on the efforts to build the Regional Performing Arts Center and the other venues on the Avenue, the legacy they will create, and the role of the region’s young adults in carrying that legacy forward.
The occasion is a reception for young professionals aimed at introducing them to the Regional Performing Arts Center and its growing group of young supporters, the "Rising Stars".
Co-sponsors of the event are the Junior Guild of the Opera Company of Philadelphia, an RPAC Resident Company, and the Young Professionals Network of the Greater Philadelphia Chamber of Commerce. The Junior Guild and the Chamber’s YPN have been among the leaders regionally in efforts to involve young people in the region’s business, social and cultural activities.
These efforts have intensified greatly in recent months. They have been spurred on by the desire to build future audiences and by the perception that many young people, including many of the 50,000 annual graduates of the more than 80 colleges and universities in the region, leave after graduation.
Among the Opera’s Junior Guild activities are the securing of good house seats for its members and invitations to exclusive meetings with opera stars. The YPN offers a mix of programming and social activities geared to its members’ careers. And Last summer, Mayor Rendell hosted a highly-successful reception for college students at the annual Yo! Fest at Penn’s Landing.
By forming its "Rising Stars" group now, the Regional Performing Arts Center’s Rising Stars is ensuring the full involvement of the region’s 20 and 30-year-olds in RPAC’s activities well in advance of its fall 2001 opening.
When it is completed, the new Center will include the Academy of Music and a new, $245 million complex containing a new Concert Hall and Recital Theater now under construction at Broad and Spruce Sts.
The Center’s Resident Companies are The Philadelphia Orchestra, the Pennsylvania Ballet, the Opera Company of Philadelphia, Philadanco, the Concerto Soloists Chamber Orchestra, the Philadelphia Chamber Music Society, and American Theater Arts for Youth.
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