Scheide Birthday Benefit Concert to Benefit Community Park Pool

Musician, philanthropist, and humanitarian William H. Scheide will celebrate his 99th birthday on Friday, January 18, 2013 by sponsoring “Forever Young” a concert featuring the beautiful sounds of classical music greats Bax, Vivaldi, Beethoven, Britten, and others.

This is the sixth annual birthday concert and will benefit Princeton’s Community Park Pool. This concert will feature the English Chamber Orchestra — the most recorded chamber orchestra in the world — at Princeton University’s Richardson Auditorium in Alexander Hall.

Maestro Mark Laycock — the Scheides’ favorite conductor — will return to Princeton to lead the orchestra. The stage will be shared by violin soloist Stephanie Gonley, one of the leading British violinists of her generation, Tony award nominee and narrator Malcolm Gets, and local pianist, Andrew Sun, who performed the 2012 premiere of the recently discovered Albumblatt by Johannes Brahms at last year’s benefit concert.

Mr. Scheide’s 99th birthday program will feature a diversity of pieces indicative of his wide-ranging passions and interests in music. The program will include one of the most recent acquisitions for the Scheide Library, a rare first edition of the complete Op. 8, which contains all performance parts to Vivaldi’s The Four Seasons. As a special birthday gift, the English Chamber Orchestra will perform Winter, including the not often heard cello obbligato part without conductor as was the practice when this edition was printed.

Two additional items will be featured at this year’s benefit concert: the score — and newly declared British National Treasure — of Britten’s The Young Person’s Guide to the Orchestra, and pieces from an album recently acquired by Judith Scheide as a gift to her husband, Bill. This album is a collection of Variations on Happy Birthday assembled by American composer Samuel Barber, who, in 1951, wrote to the most prominent composers of the day and asked them to create greetings for Mary Curtis Bok Zimbalist’s 75th birthday, which he then compiled, bound, and presented to the founder and patroness of the Curtis Institute of Music in Philadelphia.

“This collection is remarkable in that none of these musical variations has ever been published, providing our audience the opportunity to hear previously unknown works by such composers as Arnold Bax, Ernst Bloch, Aaron Copland, Ralph Vaughn Williams, and many others,” Laycock said.

“Forever Young” will benefit Princeton Recreation Department’s Community Park Pool. 

"Last year, my birthday concert honored the Princeton Public Library, our community’s living room. This year, we will pay tribute to the Community Park Pool, our community’s summer playground,” said Mr. Scheide, who has spent a lifetime supporting the arts, education, civil rights, health, and poverty-relief programs with special fondness for the Princeton community.

Community Park Pool has been the summertime gathering place for the community for nearly 50 years. The new CP Pool complex opened in 2012 through the efforts of the Joint Recreation Board, the Princeton Parks and Recreation Fund, and the generosity of hundreds of local families, businesses, and partners. The collective effort to get the pool built is a testament to community helping community.

“We are so thrilled to have been selected as this year’s beneficiary and look forward to celebrating Bill Scheide’s birthday with him,” said Ben Stentz, Executive Director of the Princeton Recreation Department, adding “we look forward to seeing everyone there.”

Charitable organizations that have benefited from the Scheide concert series in the past include Isles, Inc. (2008,) Centurion Ministries (2009,) The Arts Council of Princeton (2010,) Princeton Healthcare System Foundation (2011,) and the Princeton Public Library (2012.)

For more information about the concert, visit www.scheideconcerts.com or call University Ticketing at 609.258.9220. Sponsorship opportunities are also available by contacting Jamie Sapoch at jksapoch@gmail.com

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