Land, Freedom and Friends, featuring Furious Flower Poetry Center poets and Diane Phoenix Neal, viola.

Celebrating the literary arts and melody, JMU’s Furious Flower Poetry Center joins forces with faculty violist Diane Phoenix-Neal in a concert affirming the collaborative kaleidoscope of music and poetry.

Molly and Kevin are engaged. They have “normal” jobs. Kevin and Nate have known each other since they were kids. Nate used to be famous once. He just broke up with Lil, who does performance art, and she used to work with Molly, who wanted to be an actress a long time ago. These relationships come to a head when Kevin decides he no longer wants the regular life he convinced Molly to live with him. This show is directed and produced by JMU students. Friend Art is presented by arrangement with Concord Theatricals on behalf of Samuel French, Inc. www.concordtheatricals.com.  Contains adult content, adult language and haze. 

Soprano Symone Harcum comes off of the 2022-2023 season with a successful string of role and house debuts including the Glimmerglass Festival in the role of Micaëla in Bizet’s Carmen, Almirena in Handel’s Rinaldo and Donna Anna in Mozart’s Don Giovanni at Minnesota Opera, and, at the Lyric Opera of Chicago, she sang the role of Sandra in the world premier of Will Liverman’s Factotum. Last season, Harcum appeared with Minnesota Opera as Léontine in The Anonymous Lover and Micaëla in Carmen, and Virginia Opera as La Contessa in Le Nozze di Figaro.

Pianist Lori Piitz is a versatile artist whose career includes such diverse opportunities as playing chamber music at Lincoln Center in New York City and performing in a German opera house dressed as a baby chick!  She holds graduate degrees from Indiana university as well a Certificate in Injury-Preventive Piano Technique from Salem College.  She has spent the past seventeen years teaching at JMU, working with talented piano students and teaching courses in pedagogy and “Preparing for the Job Market”.