Concert Series

RUSSIAN CONCERT pianist and emigre Vladimir Svoysky will take the stage Sunday afternoon at North County High School to open the subscription concert series of the Performing Arts Association of Linthicum.Svoysky was born in Leningrad and earned degrees in piano, organ and conducting from the Leningrad Conservatories. He has conducted major Russian symphony orchestras and opera companies and has given piano and organ recitals throughout the country and on Russian television.He founded the Krasnoyarsk Symphony Orchestra and was musical director and conductor for three years before moving to the United States in 1979.

A Howard County concert series this summer featuring rhythm and blues, rock, zydeco and a vast array of harmonies and sounds offers a musical journey that takes a sojourner from Lake Elkhorn in east Columbia to Centennial Park in Ellicott City to Lake Kittamaqundi at Town Center. Sponsored by several Columbia businesses and village centers, music alfresco has been an area pastime for more than 10 years. "This is my favorite part of the year," said Ann Combs, Centennial's program specialist.

Today marks an auspicious event in South County - the launching of a concert series at London Town House and Gardens in Edgewater. Patterned after the European concept of individually sponsored concerts in elegant surroundings, all three concerts in the series will be held on the banks of South River at the historic site. Wallace Treiber, president of the South County Concert Association, and Carol Treiber, executive director of the Cultural Arts Foundation, will sponsor tonight's concert to start the series.

Linthicum's Jo Barker scarcely had time to wrap up the Concerts in the Park series Aug. 16 when she had to get ready for the Performing Arts Association of Linthicum's concert season.Tickets were mailed Tuesday to PAAL's 650 subscribers, said Barker, the group's president.The 17th season has something for just about every taste, from classic swing to classical piano, choral barbershop harmonies to Broadway show tunes, brass ensembles and New Orleans jazz.The opening concert at 8 p.m. Sept.

It's not every concert series that can deliver Brazilian guitar music, Renaissance love songs, an all-female string quartet from Russia and a musical evening straight from the home of Johann Sebastian Bach all in the same season. But then, Candlelight Concerts isn't just any concert series. And the slate of 2001-2002 events the Columbia-based performing arts organization has just announced is diverse, even by Candlelight's lofty standard for variety. Only one concert pianist graces Candlelight's marquee this season, and he is Joseph Kalichstein, best known for his many collaborations with violinist Jaime Laredo and cellist Sharon Robinson in the piano trio repertoire.

The Severna Park-based Anne Arundel Community Concert Association will celebrate its 50th anniversary with the 2001-2002 season - a concert series longevity record in the county. But in recent decades, the number of its series subscribers has declined from a peak of about 1,000 in the late 1970s to 718 two seasons ago and the current 743. To increase the number for the 50th season, a drive is under way with letters going out to former subscribers who have not renewed. Again this year, the association will offer two concert series subscriptions for the price of one. Those buying the six-show Severna Park series receive a joint subscription to the South County Concert Association's six-concert series in Harwood.

The Performing Arts Association of Linthicum has announced the details of its 1996-1997 concert series.Subscribers to these thriving community arts events will notice that the slate of concerts contains more than a few tips of the hat to Anne Arundel County's own performing arts organizations, a fact that delights PAAL's founder, Eloise Vaughn."

The Shriver Hall Concert Series, Baltimore's leading concert presenter, is on a roll. Its 35th season concluded a few weeks ago and had record-breaking attendance, with an average of 93 percent of available tickets sold, according to managing director William Nerenberg. The 1999-2000 percentage was 87 percent, which was 10 percent higher than the season before. Considering that there were only 358 subscribers during the 1994-95 season, this steady climb to the current 902 -- in a hall that seats 1,118 -- is all the more impressive.

Joyce Sica was burned out. Nancy McAleer was inspired. The Rev. Howard Nash was receptive. So once again the Uptown Concert Series has been resurrected, this time at St. John's of Hamilton United Methodist Church. After five years of suburban shows, the series will return to Baltimore City, kicking off its new season March 4 with a concert by master songwriter Tom Paxton. Sica, of Randallstown, is delighted by the reception she received from Nash and his church. It was "their enthusiasm that made me say, `Sure, I'll do it,' " she says.

Three years ago the Shriver Concert Series seemed to be on its last legs.Even some top-level administrators at the Johns Hopkins University -- people as high up as the president's office -- didn't know the series, located at JHU's Homewood campus since 1966, existed. Subscribers to the series, which was Baltimore's most distinguished venue for recitals and chamber music and which had been regularly sold out by subscription during its glory years in the 1960s and early '70s, had dwindled to fewer than 300 from 1,100, the seating capacity of the hall.