MUSIC

AFA (American Festival for the Arts) presents the AFA (American Festival for the Arts) Choral Celebration Concert.

Join the AFA Mixed Chorus, Men's and Women's Choirs and the AFA Madrigals as they close the 2009 Summer Concert Series at the UH Moores Opera House. Guest Conductor Lawrence Kaptein (University of Colorado, Boulder) will lead the Mixed Chorus and members of the AFA Faculty in Whitaker's "Five Hebrew Love Songs" and in Mozart's "Regina Coeli, K. 276" with students from the AFA Conservatory Orchestra. Lawrence Kaptein, Guest Conductor; Richard Robbins and Jed Ragsdale, Associate Conductors.

American Festival for the Arts (AFA) was founded in 1993 by Houston composer J. Todd Frazier to provide accessible, high-quality music education and performance opportunities for youth and to broaden the audience for both new American works and the standard classical music repertory.

To achieve its mission, AFA presents an annual Summer Music Conservatory and Concert Series. This unique and acclaimed community-based music education program, featuring faculty members drawn from the nations’ finest educators, performers, composers and conductors, has become recognized as an important annual event in the cultural life of Southeast Texas and as a model for similar programs around the nation. A rigorous curriculum that includes large and small ensemble performance, music theory/enrichment classes and private lessons forms the core of AFA’s orchestra, jazz, choir, piano and composition departments.

The Conservatory is an inspiring, life changing experience for its students. In 2008, AFA’s thirteenth Summer Music Conservatory enrolled 332 students from 109 elementary, middle and senior high schools. AFA presented twenty-one free concerts to thousands of area music lovers featuring more American works and world premieres than any other area presenter. More than three out of every five students received tuition assistance from the AFA Scholarship Enrichment Fund.