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Conversations with creators and organizers of the arts scene in West Michigan, hosted by Cara Lieurance

Concert preview: The Battle Creek Symphony presents “A Night At The Opera”

Concertgoers at the Teatro Argentina in Rome in 1747
Wikimedia Commons
The painting “Fete musicale” by Giovanni Paolo Pannini

The communal act of singing was one of the first things COVID-19 stopped. Baritone Dr. Gerald Case-Blanchard and conductor Anne Harrigan planned "A Night at the Opera" as a celebration of the post-pandemic return of singing by inviting around 240 choir members from the region to participate in a concert of operatic highlights from Mozart to Gershwin with the Battle Creek Symphony. It’s set for 7:30 pm on Saturday, Nov 5 in W.K. Kellogg Auditorium.

Case-Blanchard and Harrigan join Cara Lieurance to talk about how opera brings together music, art, theater, craft, and more, and that there are as many ways to learn to love opera as there are facets of the art form.

Cara Lieurance covers local music with live morning interviews, and produces WMUK's Let's Hear It weekday mornings at 10 am Mon-Fri, showcasing local interviews and performances. She also produces The Pure Drop, an hour of Celtic music, with musician Dave Marlatt.