Music

Chamber Orchestra Honors Haases

Barbara Arnold |

The Eau Claire Chamber Orchestra will pay tribute to UW-Eau Claire’s first chancellor, Leonard Haas, and his wife, Dorellen, at its “An Evening of Grace” concert at 7:30pm on Saturday, March 11, at Grace Lutheran Church, 202 W. Grand Ave., in Eau Claire. ECCO Music Director Emeritus Ivar Lunde Jr. will lead the orchestra on this special night. The concert is sponsored jointly by UWEC and Grace Lutheran Church as part of the university’s centennial celebration. Chancellor Haas and his wife were great supporters of the arts, music, and theater, and the university’s Haas Fine Arts building on Water Street bears their name. Grace Lutheran Church organist Elaine Mann is the featured soloist in Francis Poulenc’s “Concerto in G-Minor for Organ, Strings, and Timpani.” In addition to ECCO playing Carl Philipp Emanuel Bach’s “Symphony in B-Minor,” Lunde has composed three new works which will premiere at the concert: Everyone Suddenly Burst Out Singing,” commissioned by Grace Lutheran Church in honor of Leonard and Dorellen Haas and featuring concert master and violinist Ryan Poquette; “The Island,” a movement from Lunde’s film score for Shanghai Legend, an animated movie currently under production in China; and “The Prairie-Grass Dividing,” with text by poet Walt Whitman performed by the Osseo Evangelical Lutheran Church Chancel Choir under the direction of Dr. Daniel Newman. Tickets are available Festival Foods, Neff’s Piano Shop, the UWEC ticket office in Davies Center, or online at uwec.ly/tickets.