Coalition benefit concert good for whole neighborhood

PHOTO COURTESY NATHAN HILL The Ave Maria Choir with Choirmaster Tim McDonnell What might happen one evening next week at Moorings Presbyterian Church in Naples — with its newly refurbished, 600-seat venue and superb acoustics — is what happened on occasion in renaissance or romantic Europe centuries ago: Urbane music lovers of wide experience would gather with those who had never before listened to a surging tide of human voices joined by the instruments of a great symphony, to celebrate an evening of music.

On Tuesday, March 31, beginning at 7:30 p.m., the combined choirs of Ave Maria University will join musicians from the Naples Philharmonic Orchestra in a concert to benefit the Coalition of Immokalee Workers.

In works from Haydn, Mendelssohn, Schubert, Brahms and Bach they will offer the music of compassion and peace, with Lenten-season and Easter themes of lamentation, suffering, redemption and resurrection.

Listeners are invited not only to purchase the $35 tickets for themselves, but to consider buying a ticket for a man or woman who harvests food in the region's farm fields and who is unlikely ever to have heard such a splendor of sound in a single place.

It is the Ave Maria choir's debut with orchestra, says Geoffrey Day, a violinist who organized the concert with Ave Maria conductor and Director of Music Timothy McDonnell.

"My role was to put together the orchestra; Professor McDonnell selected the program. It was easy for me to do, even in a time when it is difficult to ask people to work for free," says Mr. Day, who relied on the good will of colleagues and friends in the Naples Philharmonic, where he plays.

The program's selections include "an important convergence of themes, both musical and moral," says Mr. McDonnell, who arrived in Southwest Florida two years ago from Europe. Educated in part at Yale University (choral conducting) and the University of South Carolina (orchestral conducting), he was director of Liturgical Music at the Pontifical North American College in the Vatican, and has conducted orchestras in Italy, the Czech Republic and China. He is also founding music director of Schola Nova, the resident ensemble of the International Institute for Culture, in Philadelphia.

Since 2007 he has prepared the Ave Maria choir to take on difficult challenges, although never one as significant as this benefit concert — the first time this choir has ever appeared with orchestra off campus, he says.

"Many of these singers come from large families. They're extended to the hilt to go to college — and they had not had the opportunity to study music and be exposed to classical music until they came here.

"I found them to be so enthusiastic and excited by doing the classics that I have pushed them to the limits. They don't know how hard this is, and nobody has told them."

Everyone involved, however, understands and appreciates the importance of the cause for which the concert has come together.

"All of us recognize the importance of the work done by the Coalition of Immokalee Workers," Mr. Day says.

Mr. McDonnell adds, "These folks (in Immokalee) are our neighbors, and this is a good way for us to integrate our cultural academic program with giving something to the community.

"In an era when there's no such thing as purely civic art — when everybody wants their name on everything — we're trying o offer something beautiful that will enrich everyone.

"I don't want to have a utilitarian attitude toward classical music, but it serves a vital role — a vital role in the lives of students who perform, and of those who get to enjoy it, and perhaps a role for people who would reap some community benefit from those in attendance. So this is good for the whole neighborhood."

An internationally recognized human rights organization, the Coalition of Immokalee Workers seeks to improve wages and working conditions for migrant and field farmers, and put an end to modern-day slavery in the agricultural industry.

To buy tickets individually or in groups, go to ciw-concert. org, call 986-0847, or e-mail ciwconcert@gmail.com.