Join Valerian Ruminski, general director of Nickel City Opera and special guests at the Montante Cultural Center at Canisius College on Friday, March 4 at 3:30 p.m. They will perform excerpts from SHOT! an original opera by composer and retired Canisius College composer-in-residence, Persis Vehar. Valerian will also be performing poems by Charles Bukowski and Vachel Lindsay and will discuss the making of SHOT! This event is free and open to the public.
This is an excellent opportunity to catch a preview of this newly composed opera which was commissioned by Nickel City Opera out of a sense of homegrown spirit and pride. Vehar, a 27-time American Society of Composers Authors and Publishers (ASCAP) award winning composer, has set a libretto to music based on the 1901 Pan-American Exposition assassination of President William McKinley by Polish dissident and self-proclaimed anarchist Leon Czolgosz. Written by her accomplished playwright and daughter Gabrielle Vehar, SHOT! chronicles the events before, during and after President McKinley’s death providing the flavor of Buffalo in 1901 including actual songs that were written about the Pan American Exposition and its’ relationship to the Buffalo economy.
SHOT! will be performed Friday, June 10 at 8:00 p.m. and Sunday, June 12 at 2:30 p.m. at Shea’s Performing Arts Center in downtown Buffalo.
Submitted by: Ellen Barnum, director, ArtsCanisius
