The Friends of Way Park invite you to a special benefit concert for Way Park on Saturday, April 2nd at First United Church of Christ, 300 Union Street in Northfield. The music of Johann Sebastian Bach will be performed by St. Olaf music faculty Andrea Een, violin and viola, Dana Maeda, oboe, and St. Olaf Music Professor Emerita, Theo Wee, organ and piano. Doors will open at 7pm, with music beginning at 7:30. A dessert reception will follow the concert. The price for the concert is a suggested donation of $15 ($10 for students, and $5 for children 12 and under). All donations will help fund the implementation of park improvements to realize the Way Park master plan.
The featured work will be the "Concerto in C minor for Oboe and Violin," BWV 1060, a reconstruction of a lost concerto by Bach for two keyboards. The concert will open with the "Violin and Keyboard Sonata No. 3 in E-major," BWV 1016 and continue with Suite No. 1 in G major for Solo Cello, performed on viola. The first half will close with two organ pieces, one of which is based on the famous Preludium for Violin Solo from the Partita No. 3 in E major. Two fine instruments belonging to the UCC church will be used: the Boesendorfer grand piano and the Johnson organ from the 1880's which was moved from a church in Buffalo, N.Y. and refurbished and installed at the church a few years ago.
This will be a family-friendly event appropriate for children five years and above to benefit one of the most well-used and beloved parks in Northfield. Planning is actively underway to integrate the two halves of Way Park, which are at last joined together. (Prior to last summer's street work, First Street had bisected the land; now the landscape is one contiguous plat of land with parking cul-de-sacs on both ends of 1st St.) A map of the Master Plan will be displayed at the church for those interested in the next phase of development.