Westminster will join the greater Princeton community on Saturday, October 14, to celebrate the opening of the eagerly awaited Princeton High School Performing Arts Center.

From noon until 4 p.m. students from the College and Westminster Conservatory will join 30 other community groups for an outdoor festival on Walnut Lane. They will distribute balloons and invite visitors to join in playing such games as “guess the weight of the handbell” and “name the composer.”

Indoors, the Westminster Symphonic Choir and members of Westminster Music Theater will perform in a showcase in the new auditorium. The Choir, conducted by Joe Miller, will perform works from its October 20 concert at Saint Paul’s Roman Catholic Church. The music theater students will perform excerpts from The Baker’s Wife, which it is presenting at Stuart Country Day School October 13 through 15. Westminster Conservatory students will perform solo works and chamber music in the new black box theater.

Visitors will also be offered tours of the new facilities at the high school and at John Witherspoon Middle School.

Rider contributed approximately $250,000, funded by private gifts, to underwrite the cost of enhancements to the new auditorium. The improvements include:

• a partial orchestra pit seating 32 instrumentalists
• extensions that will enlarge the stage to hold up to 108 singers and allow for larger-scale performances with orchestra and choir
• a handicap lift.

The contribution will guarantee Westminster rent-free access to the auditorium for 20 years including 25 days of use annually with an option of increasing this number to 40 days subject to scheduling needs.

Westminster’s first full concert at the Princeton High School Performing Arts Center will be Saturday, October 28 at 7:30 p.m. Westminster Chapel Choir and Westminster Schola Cantorum, conducted by James Jordan, Sun Min Lee and Andrew Megill, will perform varied choral works in a program entitled “A Choral Tapestry.” December 2 and 3, Westminster Opera Theater will present Puccini’s Gianni Schicchi and Holst’s Savitri.

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