Community Involvement
Second Graders Explore Glimmerglass
In the summer, there are more than 350 people working together to produce The Glimmerglass Festival; however, the season starts much earlier for the 21 full-time, year-round staff members. In addition to preparing for the upcoming season, Glimmerglass Opera participates in and sponsors several between-season events in the surrounding community.
This spring, second graders from Cooperstown and Milford central schools visited Glimmerglass Opera for backstage tours (read more about this at the Glimmerglass blog). Music camps are invited to dress rehearsals as part of their summer program, and Glimmerglass Opera is working with the Center for Continued Adult Learning to offer educational seminars on opera performance.
These spring education initiatives were sponsored, in part, by the Bassett Healthcare and Glimmerglass partnership.
Glimmerglass Opera can also be found participating in the following:
Each year, Glimmerglass Opera collaborates with the National Baseball Hall of Fame and Museum and the Fenimore Art Museum to present Cooperstown’s Cabin Fever Film Series, a free, family-friendly event for community members during the cold winter months.
Glimmerglass Opera sponsors the Music Student Rewards Program, which annually awards two tickets to a Festival Season production to local students who receive music awards from their high school. This program has been expanded to more than 100 high schools in the region. Glimmerglass's new youth ticket prices, paired with programs like the company’s Music Student Rewards Program, have been developed to encourage parents and grandparents to expose young people to opera.
Each May, the Glimmerglass Guild presents “Talking Opera,” a series of free, educational seminars that delve into the history and details surrounding the upcoming productions. Seminars are offered at 7:00 p.m. on four consecutive Mondays in May.
Glimmerglass Opera’s Young American Artists Program is an integral part of the company. Each summer approximately 30 young singers are chosen to participate in the program, which offers training and performance experience. Each member of the Glimmerglass Opera Young American Artists Program presents a 45-minute solo recital in either Cooperstown or Cherry Valley. These recitals are free and open to the public.
In addition to annual programs, Glimmerglass Opera presents season-specific enrichment activities every year. In 2008, Glimmerglass Opera collaborated with the Cooperstown Friends of the Village Library to present “Shake it up with Shakespeare,” a program presented by Glimmerglass Opera staff that featured stories, crafts and hands-on activities related to Shakespeare, the Globe Theatre and life in Elizabethan times. Glimmerglass staff members also collaborated with the Glimmerglass Opera Guild Education Committee to bring “Shakespeare in Opera,” a program that provided an introduction to opera and its connections to Shakespeare, to high schools in Oneonta, Sharon Springs and Richfield Springs. In 2009, Glimmerglass Opera staffers joined second grade classes at area schools for OPERA-tion Quilt. After a presentation on opera, the students illustrated their impressions of the art form on pieces of fabric. The pieces of fabric were combined to create opera quilts, which hung in local grocery stores during National Opera Week.
Glimmerglass Opera staff members are happy to speak at local high schools about the careers available in the performing arts. To find out more information, contact Brittany Lesavoy, Director of Public Relations, at blesavoy@glimmerglass.org or (607) 547-0700 extension 206.
Glimmerglass is happy to consider requests for ticket donations for upcoming fundraising events. Before you make your request, please look over our criteria for donation.
Glimmerglass Opera is happy to support your non-profit fundraising event.
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See Glimmerglass's most recent community adventure.
