“Lancaster is fortunate to have The Arts at MU within arm’s reach. Who needs New York?”
In a performance that audiences hailed as “unbelievable,” the musicians of Jazz at Lincoln Center brought the sounds of the Crescent City to their sold-out performance of New Orleans Songbook at the Ware Center in Lancaster, PA on Saturday, February 22, 2025.
Photo by Taylor Ann Photography
Through the music of Louis Armstrong, Ellis Marsalis, Jelly Roll Morton, and other music legends of the bayou, the band, led by acclaimed pianist Luther Allison, took audiences from downtown to uptown New Orleans and back again, featuring Allison’s exceptional jazz arrangements.
Photo by Taylor Ann Photography
(Keep your eyes on Luther Allison! With a talent and a presence like that, he is bound to be a household name faster than you can say “Jon Batiste.”)
The smooth vocals of Milton Suggs spread like honey over the lush sound of the band, while the incredible versatility and nuance of Quiana Lynell—particularly in her show-stopping rendition of “La Vie en Rose,” which saw her sliding effortlessly between classical soprano and a jazzy, fluttery mezzo—brought audiences to their feet mid-show.
Photo by Taylor Ann Photography
To top it off, guests enjoyed signature New Orleans-inspired cocktails and beignets from the Lancaster Beignet Company to make it, as one patron described, “a welcome evening of joy and exuberance.”
With a performance that proved timely, emotional, and educational, the theatre company Grand Pistachio brought a puppet play with a whole lot of heart to the Winter Visual & Performing Arts Center in Millersville on January 25.
Layer the Walls: Midcentury asked some interesting questions – What if you discovered an old apartment covered with forty layers of wallpaper? What if each layer revealed the stories of past tenants? But on a deeper level, the questions posed by the play were much more resonant – Why do the stories of immigrants matter? And how have they shaped the America we know today?
The play, the second in the Layer the Walls series imagined by Grand Pistachio, explores the living history of a tenement apartment in New York City that was once home to hundreds of new immigrants and migrants. The performers use shadow and rod puppetry, along with half masks, to bring to life the stories of Jewish, Chinese, and Puerto Rican families between the years of 1930 and 1970.
Gwok Sing & Yuk Laan (1930-1965) follows the story of Gwok Sing, who traveled to New York City in 1930 and undergoes an epic journey to enter the country—including jumping into the freezing Hudson River—before he can finally reunite with his family in 1965. Based on the true life story of the company’s choreographer’s father, the piece also explores a young woman’s challenges in adjusting to a new life in America and her discovery of Chinese dance as a way to communicate.
Sadie & Lazer (1948) explores the journey of Lazer Rosenberg, a Holocaust survivor who writes over 400 letters to find his last remaining family member and travels to New York City to start a new life. As he gets to know his long-lost cousin, he tries to find a way to honor his family and previous life amidst the hustle and bustle of the city. In the end, his story makes you wonder—when taking in someone who has survived the unthinkable, who is really saving who?
Finally, Josefina & Carlos (1970), tells the tale of young Josefina, who comes from a family of Puerto Rican immigrants. Watching her mother go in and out of the hospital, Josefina is desperate for change. Her cousin joins the Young Lords to fight for the rights of Puerto Ricans, but Josefina has much to learn about the power of protest and the importance of community.
The engaging use of puppetry and masks made the show a moving experience for both adults and children alike.
“We LOVED this performance,” said one attendee. “It was incredibly moving, visually stunning, and had us engaged in conversations for days afterwards with our kids. These stories have uncovered more stories!”
As part of our ongoing efforts to make the arts more accessible, our young audience members were invited to a pre-show touch show for blind and low-vision patrons, ASL interpretation was performed throughout the play, and the members of the cast hosted a bilingual post-show workshop on shadow and rod puppetry with children who are involved with the PA Migrant Education Program.
The event was typical of the incredible experiences offered by Grand Pistachio.
“While visiting the NYC Tenement Museum, we learned that 40 layers of wallpaper were found on the walls of an old apartment,” says the company’s show information. “Each piece had been applied by a new immigrant family in an attempt to make the space their own – every layer filled with hopes, dreams, and incredible stories of survival. We created Layer the Walls to honor the voices of people often forgotten in history books. As layers of the set are peeled away, the characters’ stories of immigration are revealed; reminding us of the prejudice our country has faced in the past to more effectively examine the prejudice we face today.”
By highlighting the stories of people who might not be in the history books or cultural records, Grand Pistachio helps young audiences build empathy, see resiliency in action, and provide a broader sense of the world and how their own stories fit into that history.
It’s no secret that The Pack Drumline brings big energy – it came roaring through the screen when they performed on America’s Got Talent to widespread acclaim. But when they arrived at the Winter Visual & Performing Arts Center in Millersville, Pennsylvania, for a Family Fun Fest, the Pack Drumline brought an energy that could have filled an entire stadium.
During the performance on Sunday, November 17, 2024, the sold-out audience of 650, including over a hundred children, found it impossible to sit still in their seats as The Pack performed Southern show-style drumming to heart-thumping tracks like “All I Do is Win” by DJ Khaled. The group drummed upside down, in human pyramids, and on moving scaffolding, making beats on actual percussion instruments but also on buckets, stools, and ladders—blending in Step dance and a healthy dose of audience call-and-response to keep everyone on their toes.
Photo by Taylor Ann Photography
The Pack’s musicality was top-notch, but their showmanship and ability to involve the crowd in creating the spectacle set them apart from other percussion shows. Ending with an audience Q&A, one young man wanted to know, “How do we start a petition to get you guys on the Superbowl?” The audience roared its approval as the White Wolf, the group’s director, answered, “We’re working on it!”
Photo by Taylor Ann Photography
The Family Fun Fest began with a packed lobby filled with creative kids’ activities led by numerous campus and community organizations, from Millersville’s “Creative Experiences for the Young Child” class to Girls on the Run to the North Museum of Nature and Science. Children made drums out of paper bowls and kazoos out of popsicle sticks and tried their hand at real instruments, enriching their experience through arts education and cultural learning. (Check out LNP’s excellent photos of kids enjoying the pre-show activities.)
Free School Show
On Monday, November 18, The Pack Drumline gave an encore performance—this time during a free school show that hosted over 600 students from 14 local schools. The energy of the students, from elementary through high school, was palpable. “We live for this,” said the group’s DJ.
The free school show is part of the Arts at Millersville’s youth and community outreach programming, which relies almost exclusively on grants and donations from generous individuals and organizations in the community. Include the Arts at MU – The Ware Center in your giving day plans on November 22 during the ExtraGive and help us to lift all voices, reflect all cultures, and open all doors through the arts!
Photo by Taylor Ann Photography Photo by Taylor Ann Photography Photo by Taylor Ann Photography Photo by Taylor Ann Photography Photo by Taylor Ann Photography Photo by Taylor Ann Photography Photo by Taylor Ann Photography
Chloe Flower may be known to over a million followers on social media as the star pianist and composer who accompanied Cardi B at the GRAMMY Awards, who played for the President of the United States at the Kennedy Center Honors, and who frequently posts stunning videos of herself playing pop/classical mashups on Liberace’s mirrored grand piano as the gorgeous New York City skyline frames her in the background.
To many who attended her performance at Millersville University’s Ware Center in downtown Lancaster, PA on October 18, however, Chloe Flower is also a hometown sweetheart and an inspiring local success story in the arts. On Friday, in addition to a hall filled with enthusiastic local fans, Flower’s former music teachers and family members came out in force to support her.
Flower’s many young admirers in the audience—the next generation of local piano students, from whose ranks Chloe Flower once grew herself—found themselves witnessing a veritable master class in the fruits of working hard, following your dreams, and staying true to what moves you.
Performing her own compositions and productions (such as the vast, cinematic “Flower through Concrete”), masterworks by female composers such as Tania León (the rhythmic, chaotic, and beautiful “Tumbao”), pop covers by songwriting legends such as Joni Mitchell (a sweeping, emotional take on the classic “River”), and innovative mashups of Chopin, Beethoven, and hip-hop beats (“Get What U Get”), Chloe Flower brought a varied and energetic evening of music that ended in a standing ovation.
Photo by Taylor Ann Photography
During intimate moments between songs, Flower paused to talk about her experiences growing up in Central PA, her classical training at London’s Royal Academy of Music and Juilliard, and the many challenges of entering into the world of classical music as a performer and a composer, where she often found herself the only woman in the room.
“Women are so underrepresented in classical music,” the composer has said. “With less than 5% of music performed by major symphony orchestras written by women and less than 1%written by women of color, I am striving to expand the scope and appeal of the genre.”
Photo by Taylor Ann Photography
Flower celebrated the female composers and artists who opened doors for her and explained how she forged a new path as she began to blend genres and develop her own style as a composer. The result of those efforts was clear on Friday night—the audience for Flower’s show boasted an incredibly diverse turnout, demonstrating the broad appeal of her self-invented genre, a mix of pop and classical she calls “popsical.”
“In order to get the sound I wanted, I learned how to do all of this on my own,” Flower has said.
In an unexpected addition to the night, Flower was joined for several songs by the “violinist of the stars,” Caroline Campbell. During an energetic duet of Chloe Flower’s “No Limit,” each performer’s virtuosic talents amplified the other’s, making for an unforgettable finale.
Photo by Taylor Ann Photography
In the lobby after the show, Flower was surprised by her former elementary school music teachers—with their awestruck current students in tow—as well as close friends from the past, making her homecoming all the sweeter.
It seems without a doubt that Chloe Flower is opening her own doors for the next generation—and we can’t wait to see where she goes from here.
Chloe Flower warms up during a sound check at the Ware Center in Lancaster (photo by Cori Jackson) Canine companion Wolfie Flower joins Chloe during soundcheck (photo by Cori Jackson) Chloe Flower warms up during a sound check at the Ware Center (photo by Cori Jackson)
It was the stuff that dreams are made of. A small, 350-seat theater with acoustics designed by engineering legend Cyril M. Harris. A world-renowned violinist and pianist at the absolute pinnacle of their crafts. A crowd holding their breath to hear the nuance in every shimmering note that resonated throughout the hall.
On October 10, 2024, living legend Joshua Bell performed a once-in-a-lifetime benefit concert at Millersville University’s Ware Center in Lancaster, Pennsylvania in support of the Arts at Millersville and its vital community programming. Through ticket sales and donations, the event raised over $140,000 to support youth and community outreach programs, subsidized tickets for low-income families, accessibility services, school shows, and master classes. Proceeds from the event will also support critical enhancements to the Ware Center that will enable the venue to continue serving as a community arts hub, allowing access to the arts for everyone and a platform for underserved artists to make their voices heard.
Performing works by Mozart, Schubert, and Fauré, Joshua Bell and Peter Dugan captivated audiences for close to two hours.
“This is a real treat for me, to play in a venue this intimate,” said Bell. “It’s a real privilege.”
Bell moved seamlessly through his pre-announced repertoire, but in a poignant moment during his encore, he asked for the audience’s indulgence.
“If you’ll allow me, I’d like to dedicate this number to a dear friend who died this morning,” he said, introducing Chopin’s Nocturne in C Sharp Minor. Bell’s record producer of 20 years, Adam Abeshouse, died Thursday morning after a brief battle with cancer. Two weeks ago, Bell, Dugan, and a dozen other renowned musicians gathered at Abeshouse’s bedside to perform one last private concert for him.
Bell’s final encore was the violin showpiece “Gypsy Airs” by Pablo de Sarasate, which the violinist said he played at his first-ever full-length concert at age twelve. Listening to the virtuosic song, it is difficult to imagine how a child could ever tackle such a piece—but it was a testament to Bell’s incredible talent, which has only grown throughout the years.
Guests enjoyed an intimate meet and greet with Joshua Bell and Peter Dugan after the performance, including young musicians in training representing the Lancaster nonprofit Music for Everyone. It was a night that no one present will be quick to forget.
