Click here to subscribe today or Login.
CLARKS SUMMIT — Music will fill the sanctuary at the First Presbyterian Church, 300 School St., at 4 p.m. March 29, as seasoned musicians present the first spring concert of the Arts at First Presbyterian Church Series.
The first half of the program will include piano-organ duets performed by two virtuosos, Rick Hoffenberg on piano and Mark Laubach on organ. The second half will feature the Marywood University Chamber Singers, a select group of vocalists from Marywood University.
The Marywood ensemble is directed by Hoffenberg, an associate professor at Marywood University, where he is director of choral activities and coordinator of vocal and keyboard studies.
Hoffenberg spent the past 15 summers at Chautauqua Opera, where he is a pianist, coach, and assistant conductor on the music staff. As a pianist, he has performed at Orchestra Hall in Chicago, the Music Institute of Chicago, Rockefeller Chapel in New York City, Richardson Auditorium, Taplin Auditorium, and Bristol Chapel, all in Princeton, New Jersey. He was the state winner, division winner, and national finalist in the 1994 MTNA Wurlitzer Piano Competition.
Since January 1986, Laubach served as organist and choirmaster of St. Stephen’s Episcopal Church in Wilkes-Barre, where he administers an active liturgical and choral music program, concert series, and “Music from St. Stephen’s,” a radio broadcast heard weekly on WVIA-FM Public Radio.
Since winning first prize in the 1984 American Guild of Organists National Competition, he performed in many prominent churches and concert halls in the USA, and in Great Britain and Germany. Canon Laubach teaches organ students privately and at Marywood University.
The Marywood University Chamber Singers are a select ensemble of undergraduates. The group’s repertoire encompasses accompanied and a cappella repertoire ranging from masterworks of the Renaissance through world premieres by living composers, as well as vocal jazz.
There is no charge for the concert, but a free-will offering will be taken to help support the Arts at First Presbyterian Church series. This series is supported in part by a Lackawanna County Arts and Cultural Grant, a program of the Lackawanna County Commissioners and the Lackawanna County Council on Arts, Culture and Education; a Pennsylvania Partners in the Arts grant, which is administered by the Pocono Arts Council and gifts from individual donors.
For more information or directions, contact First Presbyterian Church at 570-586-6306 or visit fpccs.org.