Boalsburg Concert/Reception to Feed Both Body and Soul

(Boalsburg, PA) -  Cecilia Dunoyer, a French pianist who has performed to great acclaim all over Europe and at New York City’s Carnegie Hall, will join members of Penn State’s Pennsylvania Woodwind Quintet to present a program on May 12, 2012, of both traditional and modern classical music at “Music at the Boal Mansion.”

The spring benefit concert/reception promises to feed both the body and the soul. Two intermissions will provide champagne and abundant hors d’oeuvres for the guests as well as a look at the 200-year-old Boal Mansion, home of eight generations of the Boal family including pioneers, a founder of Penn State University and five generations of captains in the US Army.

“We recommend our guests come hungry,” says Boal Mansion CEO Christopher Lee, the seventh generation of the Boal family on site and host for the evening. “We’ve set the start time at 7 pm because the reception part of the evening really provides a full dinner, from main courses to desserts, while the wonderful sit-down concert promises to provide food for the soul.”

“Music at the Boal Mansion,” a Centre County tradition for over 30 years, is presented jointly by the Boal Mansion Museum and the Penn State School of Music. Guests will enjoy a wide range of music by composers from Mozart and Beethoven through Maurice Ravel – a specialty of Dunoyer – to Paul Arden Taylor, who was born in 1954.

Dunoyer has appeared on NPR Radio’s “Performance Today” and performs an annual concert of music by French composers at the Smithsonian Institute in Washington DC.

The French connection comes naturally to the internationally renowned Boal Mansion, whose exhibits include a lock of hair of the French emperor Napoleon, the Admiral’s Desk of the famous explorer Christopher Columbus and two pieces of the True Cross of Jesus. The site includes the Columbus Chapel, a centuries-old Spanish chapel inherited and imported to Boalsburg in 1909 by Mathilde de Lagarde Boal (1871-1952), a descendant of both Columbus and Napoleon. The Boal Mansion Museum is open each year from May 1 to October 31.

The event takes place on Saturday May 12, 2012, at 7 p.m. at the Boal Mansion, 163 Boal Estate Drive in Boalsburg. Tax-deductible tickets are $75 per person and benefit both historic preservation and Penn State University’s “Music at Penn’s Woods” taking place in June. For reservations, contact the Boal Mansion Museum at 814-466-6210 or office@boalmuseum.com. For details, access http://boalmuseum.com.

Photo captions: Internationally acclaimed concert pianist Cecilia Dunoyer (right), shown by the Steinway grand piano in the 1898 ballroom of the Boal Mansion Museum, will join clarinetist Anthony Costa (left) and other members of the Pennsylvania Woodwind Quintet at 7 PM on Saturday, May 12, 2012, for “Music at the Boal Mansion,” a benefit concert/reception hosted annually by the Boal Mansion Museum and the Penn State School of Music. For ticket information, contact the Boal Mansion Museum at 814-466-6210 or office@boalmuseum.com. For details, access http://boalmuseum.com.