Thursday, May 05, 2005
FUNDRAISING IN THE TOLEDO DIOCESE
or when did our churches become concert halls?
From the Toledo Blade
St. Richard Catholic Church in Swanton is looking to buy a new organ. The Toledo Symphony is looking for new audiences. Both institutions figure to improve their situations Saturday night when the orchestra performs music of Rossini, John Williams, and others at the church.
The program concludes the 20th season of Toledo Symphony's highly successful Neighborhood Concert Series. It will be the fourth year that the orchestra has performed at St. Richard.
The church has found that hiring the orchestra builds not only community but also revenues. Last year's concert, for example, helped grow the church's school endowment. This time around profits will go towards purchasing a badly needed organ, said James Riedy, the church's music director.
Toledo Symphony's current run of neighborhood concerts began with a 1985 program at St. Patrick's Historic Church in downtown Toledo. The idea was not new to 1985, however. Conductor Serge Fournier, who served as Toledo Symphony's music director from 1964 to 1979, pioneered the idea some years earlier when he took the orchestra into area community centers and churches.
Do you suppose that Mozart's Masonic Opera is on the program?
Code of Canon Law
Can. 1214 By the term church is understood a sacred building designated for divine worship to which the faithful have the right of entry for the exercise, especially the public exercise, of divine worship.
Perhaps they have a concert hall at St. Richard. Or is it that they've been taking Cathedral of St. John the Divine lessons?
