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The Summerset "Celebration of Age" Season: Young @ Heart
Stewart & Tricia Macpherson present the Summerset "Celebration of Age" Season
The Young @ Heart Chorus is Alive & Well
New Zealand Tour December 2010
The hippest seniors to ever hit the stage and the big screen now bring their live show "Alive and Well" to New Zealand for the first time! Tickets on Sale. Rock On!
"These gyrating geriatrics travel around the world belting out rock classics and garnering rave reviews" —Time Magazine, June 2005 (www.youngatheartchorus.com) Young @ Heart chorus has become infamous for its defiant and moving performances. As its name suggests, age is integral to this company. Slaughtering any good-natured sympathy by using age as an ironic weapon, Young @ Heart has crafted surprising and hilarious work that is not about old people performing, but rather a performance that happens to feature older people.
The sexy and senior Young @ Heart Chorus, composed of two dozen vigorous vocalists aged 73-89, will tour New Zealand for the first time in December 2010. The Chorus' repertoire contrasts with music from their own 'era', as they exclusively perform rock and pop songs from the late 20th century and new millennium. Based in Northampton Massachusetts they perform for enthusiastic fans of all ages in the US and Europe. They truly rock the stage!
Chorus Master Bob Cilman will visit New Zealand in September to 'scout' talented seniors who will be invited to join the Young @ Heart Chorus for the concert performances in New Zealand.
The concerts will combine "greatest hits" from previous performances and new arrangements, according to choral director Bob Cilman who founded the group 24 years ago.
"We'll be introducing a lot of new songs on this tour," said Cilman. "Everything from Pink Floyd to Fugazi. We reinterpret rock-'n'-roll," said Cilman.
Among the Young @ Heart renditions familiar to its fans are Bob Dylan's "Forever Young," Alan Toussaint’s “Yes We Can Can”, and “You Can’t Always Get What You Want” by the Rolling Stones.
The chorus is accompanied by their American six piece band with piano, guitar, drums, saxophone, clarinet and percussion.
Auckland, Civic Theatre, The
Edge
Monday, 6 December, 6:00 p.m.
Tuesday, 7
December, 7:30 p.m.
www.buytickets.co.nz
Hamilton,
Founders Theatre
Wednesday, 8 December, 7:30 p.m.
www.ticketek.co.nz
Christchurch, Town Hall
Friday, 10 December,
7:30 p.m.
www.ticketek.co.nz
Wellington,
Michael Fowler
Sunday, 12 December, 4 p.m. & 7:30 p.m.
www.ticketek.co.nz
Palmerston Nth,
Regent Broadway
Tuesday 14 December, 7.30 p.m.
www.ticketdirect.co.nz
About Young @ Heart
Founded by Bob Cilman and Judith Sharpe in 1982 in Northampton, Massachusetts, the members all lived in an elderly housing project called The Walter Salvo House.
In 1982, the first group included elders who lived through both World Wars, one had fought at the Battle of the Somme aged 16 and Anna Main, a stand-up comic lost her husband in the Great War. Main remained with the group until she was 100 years old. The initial group also included Diamond Lillian Aubrey who toured with Young@Heart on it's firs two European tours and wowed audiences with her deadpan version of Manfred Mann's "Doo Wah Diddy".
By 1983 the original group were ready to create their first stage production and the show sold out four times and brought in a broad section of younger and older people from the community and also brought in new performers.
In 1984 Eileen Hall originally from the UK, Warren Clark and Ralph Intorcio joined the group. Warren and Ralph were talented female impersonators. Eileen, Warren and Ralph did a memorable send up of Carol Channing's "Diamonds are a Girl's Best Friend". Eileen brought an array of different routines, including strip, mime and the song "Nobody Loves a Fairy when she's ...Ninety." Y@H decided to combine these performances with a group of Latino break-dancers from another local housing project. The result was Boola Bola Bimini Bop and these two shows were the first of many collaborations Y@H created with different arts groups in Massachusetts.
Since 1997, Young @ Heart has performed throughout Europe, Australia, Canada and the United States.
Group member Fred Knittle, who sang Coldplay's "Fix You" in the film and was a frequent source of comic relief, died January 1, 2009, after a short battle with cancer. He was 84.
"The current performers in Young@Heart range in age from 73 to 89. There are some with prior professional theater or music experience, others who have performed extensively on the amateur level, and some who never stepped onto a stage before turning eighty. None of the current performers of Y@H were part of the original group that formed in 1982, but they have kept alive the spirit of the early pioneers and continue to push the group into glorious new directions." - Bob Cilman
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