Date:
Friday, March 10, 2000
Section: FEATURES - ACCENT & ARTS
Page: 12F
Byline: Barbara Zuck
Source: Dispatch Senior Critic
Last year, the Columbus Symphony Orchestra brought world-renowned
tenor Luciano Pavarotti to town for its annual gala performance and
raised $750,000.
The problem
this season: How to top the Big One?
The orchestra
thinks it may have done it: A Welsh warbler will follow the Italian
heavyweight.
The Columbus
Symphony announced today that 14-year-old soprano Charlotte Church
will join the orchestra for an Ohio Theatre performance at 8 p.m.
April 11. Tickets will go on sale Monday.
The concert
will be her Midwestern debut; the young singer has performed in the
United States only on the coasts.
"We are
honored that Charlotte has chosen to perform with the Columbus
Symphony Orchestra for one of her rare U.S. appearances," said
Carol S. Feinberg, symphony board chairman. "At 14, she is
already -- most simply -- a superstar."
While no single
classically oriented artist exceeds Pavarotti's popularity, with
Church, the orchestra has caught a big name still on the rise
internationally.
Moreover, her
appeal is broader than that of even the best-known of the Three
Tenors, which may attract new audiences to the symphony.
Church is
particularly popular among those who enjoy classical or traditional
religious music with orchestral accompaniment. And her audience
stretches down to younger generations, where she has endeared
herself by remaining wholesome and natural while singing imposing
selections by some hefty figures in music history.
Church's first
album, Voice of an Angel, included renditions of Andrew Lloyd
Webber's Pie Jesu, as well as Ave Maria and Amazing Grace. The disc,
featuring the Orchestra and Chorus of the Welsh National Opera, sold
3 million copies. Her second album, the more operatic Charlotte
Church, went platinum, making her the youngest artist to have a No.
1 album on the classical charts.
She also hit
No. 1 on the Billboard crossover chart, and already has appeared on
TV talk shows with hosts Oprah Winfrey, David Letterman and Jay Leno
and on the CBS series Touched by an Angel.
Born in
Llandaff, near Cardiff, Wales, Church sang in public for the first
time when she was 3, then began studying voice. At 11, she made her
professional debut -- an impromptu rendition of Pie Jesu on a TV
talent show. In the wake of her sudden and enormous popularity,
Church left Wales last year to tour and make public appearances. She
has sung for three world leaders: Pope John Paul II, Queen Elizabeth
II and President Clinton.
Though her
musical inclinations run toward Mozart, Puccini, Rossini and Handel,
she also sings Gershwin and Celtic songs. With the Columbus Symphony
Orchestra, the young artist is expected to perform primarily
excerpts from her two popular albums.
"We think
this is the right kind of thing to follow up Pavarotti," said
Daniel Hart, the symphony's executive director. "It is a very
classical repertoire but the crossover audience is phenomenal."
