A nomadic concert venue on wheels will visit Joplin this month, a bit of a revisit of the days when performances presented by Connect2Culture were held in local venues wherever they could be arranged.
The Concert Truck, a mobile performance venue featuring two classical musicians, will present concerts from Wednesday, May 15, through Sunday, May 19, at seven locations, all free of admission.
The truck is a 16-foot box truck that is a fully functioning mobile concert hall complete with lights, a sound system and a piano.
The mobile venue presents concerts anywhere it can be parked — in city streets and neighborhoods, at parks and schools, and at music and art festivals across the country. It has collaborated with the Kennedy Center’s Washington National Opera in Washington, D.C.; Aspen (Colorado) Music Festival and School; Seattle Chamber Music Society; Piano Cleveland; and the Dallas Symphony Orchestra, among others.
Connect2Culture heard of The Concert Truck through Opus 3, the agent it works with regularly to present such performances as Time for Three, Jessca Vosk, Voctave and others, said Emily Frankoski, director of C2C.
The concert performances are being presented in Joplin as the conclusion of C2C’s 2023-2024 performance season and to harken back to the days when the performances presented by C2C were a bit nomadic, said Frankoski said.
C2C is both a community arts advocate and a performance presenter. In its earlier days, it operated out of an office in the Joseph Newman Innovation Center, but it had no permanent performance venue, presenting its concerts in venues throughout the city. In 2022, it settled into the Harry M. Cornell Arts & Entertainment Complex, which includes a performance hall. C2C was the mover and shaker behind development and construction of the complex, which it now manages.
Frankoski said the Concert Truck has been scheduled at locations where there will be a concentration of people, such as downtown’s Third Thursday street festival, or where there are guaranteed audiences, such as Thomas Jefferson Independent Day School and Wildwood Senior Living.
It’s kicking off its series of concerts at Freeman Health System in appreciation of the medical system’s support of C2C, its programming, and the Cornell Complex, Frankoski noted.
The schedule:
• 10 a.m. Wednesday, May 15, Freeman Health System.
• 1 p.m., Wednesday, May 15, Thomas Jefferson Independent Day School.
• 6:30 p.m. Thursday, May 16, Downtown Joplin Alliance Third Thursday.
• 10 a.m. Friday, May 17, Mercy Park.
• 11 a.m. Saturday, May 18, Empire Market.
• 10 a.m. Sunday, May 19, Wildwood Senior Living.
• 2 p.m. Sunday, May 19, Joplin Public Library.
The performers featured in the concerts will be teaching artists Susan Zhang and Gabrielle Chou, playing violin and piano duets and together on the piano.
Zhang made her orchestral debut at the age of 12 with the Augusta (Georgia) Symphony. She has since been featured as a soloist with the South Carolina Philharmonic, the Aiken Civic Orchestra, the University of South Carolina Symphony and the Atlanta Symphony Youth Orchestra. She has performed across North America, Europe and Asia, and has won numerous national and international piano competitions. She is a graduate of the Eastman School of Music, Rochester, New York, Peabody Conservatory of Johns Hopkins University, Baltimore, Maryland, and the University of South Carolina, Columbia.
Chou is a pianist and violinist who has performed as a soloist and with orchestras throughout the U.S., Europe and Asia. She has premiered new works at The Juilliard School in New York City; the Yale School of Music in New Haven, Connecticut; and the Brooklyn (New York) Botanic Garden. She has been a resident musician at the Sarasota (Florida) Music Festival’ pianoSonoma in Sonoma County, California; and Mostly Modern in the Netherlands. She is assistant professor of music at Baruch College, New York City; chamber music coach at the New York Youth Symphony; and staff pianist at The Juilliard School. She received music degrees from Colburn Music Academy in Los Angeles, The Juilliard School and City University of New York’s Graduate Center.
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