Our Company | Penn Square Music Festival

About Us

Take a look behind the curtain and delve into the enchanting world of Penn Square Opera. Scroll down to explore what we do, why we do it, and the extraordinary experiences awaiting you.

WHAT IS PENN SQUARE OPERA?

Opera is the culmination of the performing arts: singing, sets, costumes, stories, orchestra, everything combined to make for exciting musical experiences. Young, talented, professional artists have a challenging road in this career.

Penn Square Opera was created with two goals in mind:

To provide professional performance and training opportunity for talented artists at the beginning of their career in a nurturing and supportive atmosphere.

To bring professional performances of opera and musical theatre to Lancaster audiences and the region.

WHY DO WE DO IT?

The answer is Excellence in Singing. Singing opera is a very demanding profession. Singers must always be at the top of their game: auditioning and studying not only their instrument, but languages, repertoire, acting, dance; and constantly marketing themselves to future employers.

Singers need to have a supportive atmosphere to grow professionally and vocally, to make connections, and to receive the encouragement needed to continue in this demanding career.

QUICK POINTS

To provide professional performance and training opportunity for talented artists at the beginning of their career in a nurturing and supportive atmosphere.

In a nurturing environment, our Artists are given the opportunity to raise their artistry to the highest possible level, to develop and polish essential stagecraft and performance skills aided by an experienced artistic staff.

A professional company, where all artists and creative staff are paid. Penn Square Music Festival is not a “pay to sing” program. Rather, we are committed to providing a professional experience for the Artists, one that is not otherwise available within an approximately 200-mile radius.

Penn Square Music Festival fills a void by bringing professional Opera and classic Musical Theatre to the Lancaster community and wider region, accompanied by full orchestra as the composers intended.

Lancaster is “the new Brooklyn” (New York Post, September 2016) Our thriving arts community, from visual to dramatic to musical, is one that also inspired the blog post moneyunder30.com to rank Lancaster as one of the 5 best cities in the country. Professional Opera and Classic Musical Theatre in the heart of this vibrant scene will only add to the attraction.

SERVING THE COMMUNITY?

Lancaster and the surrounding region deserve a strong professional opera presence to enhance the vibrant and burgeoning arts scene. As artists, our hope is to entertain and to enrich the lives, minds and hearts of our community and the individuals in them by giving them access to those great composers and writers who, over the decades and centuries, have proven to be among humanity’s most significant thinkers.

On another level, Penn Square Music Festival will employ talented local musicians, local production personnel and renting local facilities. We intend on hiring around 65% of our employees, primarily the orchestra and production personnel, locally. In other words – spending money in Lancaster.

WHY LANCASTER?

Already a tourist magnet with much to offer, Lancaster is the perfect place for Penn Square Music Festival. The Lancaster Newspaper states: “Consistent annual visitation (is) hovering between 8 million and 10 million people. (That’s a staggering number when you consider that the county’s current total resident population is a mere 5 percent of the estimated annual visitation. That means there are 20 visitors for each resident.)”

The city’s downtown has been revitalized, the visual arts are thriving, theater is alive and well; and with the construction of Clipper Stadium, a new group of people began to visit Lancaster, proving the “if you build it, they will come” theory. There is already an audience base present, people who value and support the arts.