Ford Hall Family Concert to Benefit South Hill Students

Ithaca College’s talented musicians are coming together in a volunteer effort to help its local partner in education, the South Hill Elementary School. "With a Little Help from Our Friends," a special family concert, will be held on Sunday, March 7, at 3:00 p.m. in Ford Hall Auditorium. Proceeds from the concert will benefit the school’s fifth-grade activities. Admission to the concert is $5 per person; tickets can be purchased at Hickey’s Music Center and will also be available at the door.

Participating artists include Kathy Hansen (piano), Michael Galván (clarinet), Pablo Cohen (guitar), Wendy Mehne (flute), Lee Goodhew (bassoon), baritone Randie Blooding, and soprano Deborah Montgomery. Two South Hill graduates are performing as well: pianist Kerry Watkins, a senior music major at the College, and Alternative Community School freshman Zoe Weiss, playing with the Bucephalus Quartet, a cello ensemble. South Hill’s fifth-graders and their kindergarten buddies will also share the stage, performing a choral piece under the direction of Professor Janet Galván, a nationally recognized conductor of children’s choirs.

"We are overwhelmed by the generosity of these gifted professional musicians and extremely grateful for their support of young people in the community," says Janet Galván, who is helping to organize the benefit concert. "Ford Hall is a terrific setting for the event, and we appreciate Dean Arthur Ostrander’s support of the Ithaca College–South Hill Elementary School partnership," she adds.

"We were looking for a method to raise funds for the fifth grade and provide a service to the community at the same time," says Carolyn Ainslie, South Hill parent and member of the concert organizing committee. "With ‘a little help from our friends’ at Ithaca College, we found the perfect way to do that."

The concert is one of a series of activities that support the partnership formalized last spring between the two educational institutions. Activities this year have included a semester-long project that has a theater arts storytelling class teaching fourth-grade students how to improve their communication skills; "Gather ’Round," a program through which Ithace College faculty, staff, and students serve as weekly guest readers to a first-grade class; and a group of Ithaca College language students giving an introduction to Spanish for a fifth-grade class.