Jacksonville will host its 11th annual IBLA Grand Prize Concert at 7 p.m. Friday at First United Methodist Church, 220 W. Main St. The concert is free and open to the public.
The concert will feature winners of the IBLA Grand Prize Music and Voice competition held each summer in Ragusa, Sicily, the sister city of Little Rock. Winners will perform throughout Arkansas May 2-8 and then at Carnegie Hall.
“Please come and see and hear these world-class musicians perform here and fill up the church. Our church can hold 600 people, and we want to have it full. Please tell your friends and bring them. These musicians come from all over the world to perform here, and we need to show them an enthusiastic Jacksonville and Arkansas welcome,” according to an announcement.
Performers come from around the world, including Italy, Poland, China, Korea, Georgia and the United States.
The concert will also be performed at 7 p.m. Saturday at the Argenta Community Theater, 405 Main St. in North Little Rock.
Concert organizers are Joan Zumwalt, Little Rock IBLA chairwoman; Sherman Banks, Little Rock IBLA vice chairman; Dr. Alan Storeygard, Little Rock vice chairman and 2002 IBLA winner, and Dr. Salvatore Moltisanti, creator and artistic director of the IBLA Grand Prize Competition.
The Alan Storeygard Trio – with Dave Rogers on drums, Brian Wolverton on bass and Danny Fletcher on guitar – and friends will also perform.
Also set to perform are the pianists Pietro Beltrani and Alessandro Marino, both of Italy; Jakub Crerski and Marcin Parys, both of Poland; Jiaxi Jessica Sun and Xiani Lv, both of China; Soo Hyun Park of Korea; Tamara Licheli of Georgia, and Quinlan Facey of the United States.
The Polish accordionists Lukasz Brezina, Szymon Jablonski, Iwo Jedynecki and Batosz Kolsut; the violinists, Celina Kotz and Karolina Mikolajczyk, both of Poland, and Joung-Yun Son, a soprano from Korea, are also scheduled to perform.
