Neighborhood Community Day with Ars Lyrica

Neighborhood Community Day
Presented in partnership with the Menil Collection, featuring Ars Lyrica
Pay What You Can $5-20 | In-person event with bench seating

People Enjoyed an afternoon of free art, music, poetry, and family activities in celebration of our vibrant neighborhood. Participating organizations include: DACAMERA, Houston Center for Photography, Inprint, The Menil Collection, Pride Chorus Houston, Rothko Chapel, Writers in the Schools (WITS), and Watercolor Art Society. 

Ars Lyrica presented an interactive, family-friendly musical story time featuring Maria’s Magical Music Adventure focused on mindfulness, with narrators reading the book in English and Spanish with live string quartet accompaniment. The performance included excerpts from Vivaldi’s Four Seasons and was followed by a book signing by author Emma Kent Wine and translator Verónica Roméro at the Suzanne Deal Booth Welcome House between performances. Presenters for this event included Emma Kent Wine, author and English narrator; Verónica Roméro, translator and Spanish narrator; Joanna Becker, violin; Maria Lin, violin; Matthew Weathers, viola; and Fran Koiner, cello.

Schedule of the Events
1-1:45pm - Reading & Performance inside the Rothko Chapel
2-2:45pm - Book Signing at Welcome House
3-3:45pm - Reading & Performance inside the Rothko Chapel

About the book
Maria’s Magical Music Adventure is an Ars Lyrica Houston children’s book, underwritten by Connie Kwan-Wong and CKW LUXE Magazine. The book features a girl named Maria, who loves to sing. When Matthew the Magician appears, Maria is hesitant, but after Matthew explains that he is a magical musician with the ability to time travel, the two travel to Venice, Italy to meet Antonio Vivaldi, who has just written The Four Seasons. With breathtaking illustrations and a story full of adventure and excitement, Maria’s Magical Music Adventure transports readers back in time alongside Maria and Matthew, delighting and inspiring audiences of all ages.

About Ars Lyrica
Ars Lyrica Houston presents music from the Baroque era, the “golden age” of the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries, performed on period instruments with careful attention to historical style and context for a wide range of dramatic, sacred, and chamber works.