Actor George Takei will join the Arkansas Symphony Orchestra for its “Ode to Joy” concert on February 25 and 26 as narrator for Schoenberg’s 1947 A Survivor from Warsaw, a seven-minute piece for narrator, men’s chorus, and orchestra that tells the story of a concentration-camp survivor in World War II. The Japanese-American actor, best known for his role as Mr. Sulu in Star Trek, was confined in the Rohwer, Arkansas internment camp during his childhood. On the same program, Music Director Philip Mann will also lead the ASO musicians plus more than 400 singers in a performance of Beethoven’s Ninth Symphony, incorporating ten choirs from the state, including Arkansas State University, Ouachita Baptist University, and the members of the River City Men’s Chorus. The ASO performs more than 20 concerts a year at Robinson Center Music Hall in Little Rock, Arkansas.

Posted February 23, 2012