“The McKnight Center for the Performing Arts at Oklahoma State University is opening Oct. 11-13 with a week of concerts featuring Oklahoma native Kelli O’Hara and the New York Philharmonic,” writes Brandy McDonnell in Sunday’s (10/6) Oklahoman. The 65,000-square-foot center in Stillwater “features a 1,098-seat performance space, an intimate 217-seat recital hall and an outdoor plaza with a 32-foot LED wall screen…. The center’s inaugural performing arts season includes touring productions of the musicals ‘An American in Paris’ and ‘The Buddy Holly Story’;… the 1925 silent film ‘Phantom of the Opera’ with live organ accompaniment; and concerts by the Preservation Hall Jazz Band…. OSU’s music school will use the venue for classes and performances…. The economic and educational impact of the center should be … ‘about $11 million for the city of Stillwater,’ ” said Jessica Novak, the McKnight Center’s director of marketing. “The New York Philharmonic is spending the better part of a week in … Stillwater [with] multiple master classes [and] the center’s first Young People’s Concert.” Other artists will include Joshua Bell and the Academy of St. Martin in the Fields, pianist André Watts, and “pianist Jonathan Biss, whose seven-concert series showcasing all of Beethoven’s piano sonatas is already sold out.”
Posted October 10, 2019
In photo: Exterior of the McKnight Center for the Performing Arts at Oklahoma State University in Stillwater, Oklahoma
