VERO BEACH — The Vero Beach Chamber Orchestra continues its fifth season Sunday, April 21, with a benefit concert for Indian River Habitat for Humanity. The Orchestra’s first performance of the season was also a Habitat benefit event.
The 7 p.m. concert will take place at the Vero Beach High School Performing Arts Center and will include The Impresario Overture by Mozart; Haydn’s Cello Concerto No. 2 in D; and Beethoven’s Symphony No. 8.
The Haydn work will feature guest soloist Joe Loehnis, a cellist who performed with the Vero Beach Chamber Orchestra as principal cellist in 2010-2011.
Loehnis grew up in Appleton, WI, and began playing the cello at 8. He studied with Janet Anthony at Lawrence University in Appleton, where he earned a degree in Music.
He played with the Green Bay Symphony Orchestra from 2001-2006 and, in 2002, won the green Bay Civic Symphony concerto competition, playing the challenging Saints-Saens cello concerto, considered by many composers, including Shostakovich and Rachmaninoff, to be the greatest of all cello concertos.
Loehnis has been giving cello lessons since 2010.
A serious meditation practitioner, he participated in a 60-day silent meditation retreat at the Hse Man Gon Forest Monastery in Myanmar (Burma) earlier this year.
The April 21 concert is free. Donations are always greatly appreciated and, for this concert, will help support Habitat’s mission.
For more information about the orchestra, please visit the website www.VeroBeachChamberOrchestra.com.
During its 22 years in existence, Indian River Habitat for Humanity has served a total of 372 families within the county through the construction of 287 new homes, the rehabbing of 39 existing homes, and the repair of 46 homes belonging to the elderly, the infirm, and veterans.
Learn more about Indian River Habitat at the website www.IRCHabitat.org.
