The THSO Presents their annual holiday concert, Joyful Holidays on December 5!
ANNOUNCING: Terre Haute Symphony presents their annual holiday concert during their 95th season, Explore GREAT Music!
Joyful Holidays featuring Cathy Berns Rund, soprano
December 5, 2020 at 4:30pm at Maryland Community Church (4700 S. Highway 46)
Cathy Berns Rund, soprano
It’s that time of year again! There’s a chill in the air and the streets of downtown Terre Haute are donned with holiday cheer. The Terre Haute Symphony is gearing up to present their annual holiday concert at Maryland Community Church in a socially distanced and masked setting. The THSO welcomes Terre Haute favorite, soprano Cathy Berns Rund, to join 21 THSO musicians on stage for an evening of holiday favorites such as Silver Bells, Schubert’s Ave Maria, Chanukah Chanukah, The Christmas Song, and O Holy Night.
Renowned pianist and scholar Charles Webb hails Rund for her “…impeccable pitch and total control of her voice, spinning exquisite sounds even from the highest registers.”
In addition, the THSO will feature Principal Clarinet, Samantha Johnson-Helms, on Shugar’s Hanukkah Overture, celebrating Klezmer style music not often heard with a symphony orchestra.
COVID-19 Statement
The Terre Haute Symphony is watching the COVID-19 situation in Vigo County very closely and will make any announcements regarding changes to concert information via our website, social media pages, and email notifications.
Tickets & Seating
Season Ticket Holders
2020-2021 Season Ticket Holders will receive colored admission tickets in the mail which will grant them access to seating beginning at 3:30pm.
Single Tickets
A limited number of single tickets may be purchased online at www.thso.org by scrolling down to Events and clicking the Buy Tickets button next to the Joyful Holidays event. Patrons will have the option to print their ticket at home, pick them up at the THSO office, pick them up at a Will Call table at the venue, or receive their tickets by mail. Tickets will be available for online purchase through Saturday December 5.
Single tickets may also be purchased with a card over the phone by calling the THSO office at (812) 242-8476 until Friday December 4 at 5pm.
Single ticket holders will be granted access to the venue beginning at 4pm on December 5.
Tickets will not be available for purchase at the venue due to COVID-19 restrictions.
Seating
Every other row of seats in the sanctuary will be roped off to help ensure social distancing. Ushers will direct patrons to open rows and appropriately space parties 2-3 seats apart. Platinum tickets will be seated in the center of the sanctuary, gold tickets will be on either side of the platinum section, and silver tickets will be seated on the outer wings. Seats are standard auditorium-style seats and are cushioned.
Masks REQUIRED
Masks are REQUIRED at all times. Patrons will not be granted entry into the facility without a mask. Our staff, musicians, and volunteers will be wearing masks for the safety of our patrons. A limited quantity of masks will be available free to patrons who are not able to bring their own.
Parking
Parking is available in the front of the venue. Please proceed to the large center doors on the front side of the building to enter the venue.
Sponsors
This concert is proudly sponsored by Geraldine Penman Mitchell and First Financial Bank. The THSO is also very grateful to the Maryland Community Church for allowing us to perform in their sanctuary.
About the Guest Artist – Cathy Berns Rund
Cathy Berns Rund hails originally from a grain and cattle farm in central Illinois. Her passion for music grew through childhood piano lessons along with singing and playing organ at her tiny parish church.
She earned her undergraduate degree in vocal performance from Eastern Illinois University, where she won top musical and academic honors, including the prestigious Livingston C. Lord Scholarship. She was later honored as a “Distinguished Young Alumnus” of EIU.
Cathy then followed her eventual husband, Rex, to Haiti, where she taught piano and directed a well-known boys’ choir, Les Petits Chanteurs, in Port-au-Prince. This taste of the expatriate life whetted her appetite for more, and she won a Rotary International scholarship to study opera at the famed Mozarteum in Salzburg, Austria. She worked with the legendary Mozart soprano Wilma Lipp on her way to winning the conservatory’s top prize for opera performance, the Lilli Lehmann Medallion. She was also a finalist in the European-wide Deutsche Rundfunk opera auditions. Upon graduation from the Mozarteum, she was engaged as a soloist for four years at the Vienna Staatsoper, one of the world’s elite opera houses, where she became Vienna’s favorite Papagena in Mozart’s The Magic Flute. She also appeared as an opera soloist in Monte Carlo and Oslo.
Since returning to America, Cathy has used her musical talent mostly in God’s service as music director, cantor, and organist at St. Joseph Catholic Church in Lebanon. She has appeared as cantor for the principal Mass at the national convention of the National Association of Pastoral Musicians, leading over 3000 church musicians from around the world in worship and song. She has also appeared as a soloist in choir tours to Lourdes, León, Burgos, Santiago de Compostela, Fatima, Salzburg, Florence, Pisa, Siena, Assisi, and Rome, singing at Mass at St. Peter’s Basilica with Pope Benedict XVI. For the past decade, Cathy has enjoyed numerous collaborations with David Bowden and the Columbus, Carmel and Terre Haute Symphony Orchestras, and has become an Indiana audience favorite.
Cathy and her husband take great pride and delight in their three children. They enjoy country life at their home near Lebanon, where they are avid gardeners, and Cathy, still a farm girl at heart, raises chickens for fresh eggs.