Join us for ARCA’s 20th Anniversary – Gala Birthday Concert!
It’s an afternoon of beautiful music, art, and community as ARCA turns 20 and we’re throwing a party like no other with a gala concert, exhibit, and reception.
ARCA’s 20th Birthday Concert on Sunday, October 12 at 2 PM in Lincoln Hall is a Pops Concert performed by mezzo-soprano Kathy Soroka – who sang ARCA’s first concert in Lincoln Hall in 2006, Shall We Gather by the River – with virtuoso pianist Nathan Carterette, internationally traveled violinist Maureen Conlon Gutiérrez and award winning tenor Robert Frankenberry.
The program will include a mix of musical genres that audiences have enjoyed for 20 years: Virtuosic classical piano, violin tangos, and vocal music from spirituals and art song to opera and musical theatre.
Celebrated for their individual performances on concert and operatic stages internationally and nationally, Kathy, Nathan and Robert will share their joy making music together in ensembles throughout the region as they return to Lincoln Hall. This is Maureen Conlon-Gutiérrez’s solo debut in Lincoln Hall, having performed in Lincoln Hall with Tom Roberts in The Allegheny City Ragtime Orchestra in 2019.
This concert commemorates the visionaries who founded ARCA and the contributions of audience members, donors and volunteers whose enthusiasm, generosity and support have made this rural arts initiative a success.
Twenty years later, ARCA is the premiere fine arts center in northwestern Pennsylvania, having touched the lives of thousands of audience members from a 7-county region with more than 400 concerts and 90 visiting artist exhibits at the Red Brick Gallery – and reached thousands of students in the A-C Valley Schools through educational residencies.
Enjoy a champagne toast at the intermission following a tribute to ARCA’s founders, funders and friends – and meet the artists at the wine and cheese reception at the Red Brick Gallery for the opening of the exhibit of Rafi and Klee – INTERWOVEN: The Art of Growth and Connection – Art, Jewelry and Sculpture – at 17 Main Street, Foxburg, PA 16036, following the concert.
Award winning artists Rafi Perez and Klee Angelie weave together the strength of metal, the vibrancy of paint, and the presence of sculpture in a celebration of resilience, creativity, and the ties that bind us as human beings.
Perez’s bold paintings and sculptures reflect the humor, chaos, and beauty of the human condition, embracing imperfection as part of the story. Angelie’s hammer-forged jewelry transforms raw metal and natural stones into flowing, organic forms that embody both strength and delicacy. Together, their works create a space where art becomes more than an object—it becomes a reflection of growth, healing, and connection.
ARCA is grateful to Robert Jennings and ARCA Secretary-Treasurer Barbara Bott for their very generous gift sponsoring the Pops concert celebrating the 20th Anniversary of ARCA’s first concert in 2006.
Tickets are Adults $25 |Students $5 – ARCA Member discount $20.
BUY online here.
RESERVE at 724-659-3153 to pay by cash or check at the door.
WALK-INS WELCOME.
The Program
This concert has it all –– from Liszt, Bach, Tchaikovsky and Piazzolla tangos to Puccini, Bernstein and Sondheim
- Piano solos including Liszt’s Rhapsodie Espanole and Bach-Busoni Fugue in D major, BWV 532
- Violin solos including Tchaikovsky’s Melodie Op 42, No 3; Piazzolla tangos, Oblivion and Libertango; Bernstein, I Feel Pretty.
- Vocal duets with violin including Dvorak “Songs My Mother Taught Me” and Gounod/Bach’s “Ave Maria”.
- Vocal solos by Medtner, Mahler, Ravel, Poulenc, Mata, Donaudy, and Quilter; spirituals “I Went Down to the River to Pray” and “Don’t You Weep When I am Gone” and the Puccini aria, “Nessun dorms”.
- Vocal duets including a Leonard Bernstein and Stephen Sondheim musical theatre mashup.
About the Artists
Nathan Carterette
ARCA welcomes back virtuoso and artistically poetic pianist Nathan Carterette who has been hailed as “very compelling in his power and presence” (International Composer), “wonderfully poetic,” (Westfalen Post) and “exuberant yet sensitive,” (Pittsburgh Post-Gazette).
As the “Modern Classical Pianist”, Nathan has distinguished himself in the concert world by performing a huge range of works from Elizabethan keyboard music to Bach’s Goldenberg Variations to tour de force Romantic block busters and music of living composers with whom he has collaborated.
His innovative, approachable ‘Poets of the Piano’ has inspired audiences to engage unfamiliar music with open ears, and familiar music with new appreciation. His program commentary opens the composer’s intent to his audiences, with wit, humor and eloquence.
Bringing to Lincoln Hall his “Poets of the Piano” series that he took on a 25-city American tour, Nathan received standing ovations from ARCA audiences for three solo piano concerts as well a collaborative performance with the Renaissance City Winds in ARCA’s 10th Anniversary concert. His was the first concert in 2020 after the COVID lockdown and his 2022 performance – poetic as well as virtuosic – was appreciated by ARCA’s late President, Arthur Steffee, who loved classical music and particularly pianists. Nathan also performed for ARCA donors at dinner in RiverStone mansion.
Educated at Yale University, where he studied with Boris Berman, and University of Missouri-Kansas City, where he studied with Robert Weirich, Nathan began his piano studies at the age of eleven with Cleveland’s legendary Birute and Anthony Smetona. A chance encounter in 2004 with Welsh composer-pianist Dafydd Llywelyn led to an invitation for intensive private study in Munich, where Nathan studied and performed for three years. Nathan, together with organist Edward Alan Moore, form The Arsenal Duo.
Nathan is the recent recipient of the Doctor of Musical Arts degree from the University of Iowa where he gathered the complete piano works of Korean pianist – composer Quentin Kim to prepare them for publication
Kathy Soroka
Known to audiences as an ARCA Board member at the back of the hall, Kathy Soroka has had a double career both onstage and backstage in the performing arts in some of the country’s major performing arts organizations. including the New York Philharmonic, Grand Teton Music Festival and Manhattan School of Music. In 2006, she sang the first concert for Allegheny RiverStone Center for the Arts, a classical cabaret Shall We Gather by the River.
Hailed for her “masterful” and “heartfelt vocalism” (Pittsburgh Post Gazette), she is known for her moving and vivid performances as a singer-actress that are brimming with life, pathos and humor, “finding both lush lines and dramatic intensity… commanding the stage”. (TribLive)
A winner of the Pittsburgh Concert Society Auditions, Kathy has appeared nationally and regionally with orchestras and also performed in recital, opera, musical theatre and cabaret and with contemporary music ensembles.
Orchestra performances include Samuel Barber with the Knoxville Symphony Orchestra and with the Edgewood Symphony Orchestra Mahler’s Lieder eines fahrenden Gesellen, Bernstein’s Jeremiah Symphony and David Stock’s Three Yiddish Songs.
Recent operatic roles included Ulrica in Un ballo in maschera and Klytaemnestra in Elektra with Chatham Concert Opera; Dinah inTrouble in Tahiti with Aria412; and Baba in The Mediumat Mercyhurst University. Performing cabaret acts in NYC and with Aria412 in Pittsburgh, she has performed lead roles in Pal Joey and in Sondheim’s Company and Into the Woods.
A proponent of the music of living composers, Kathy performed Betty Oliviero’s Juego de Siempre in New York City with Joel Sachs and the music ensemble, Continuum, the world premieres of David Stock’s Solomon Songs with the Pittsburgh New Music Ensemble and Rumi Sings of Love at Duquesne University.
Kathy has performed frequently over the years with pianist Nathan Carterette on series at Chatham University, Tuesday Musical Club and First Fridays in Pittsburgh and in Walker Recital Hall at Mercyhurst University. This is their first collaboration for ARCA in Lincoln Hall.
Rob and Kathy have appeared together frequently in Pittsburgh with Aria 412 and in Chatham University Opera’s concert performances – as well as in ARCA’s anniversary concert in 2022, delayed by COVID.
Robert Frankenberry
Robert Frankenberry, a polymathic Renaissance music man, enjoys a multi-faceted relationship with music as a singer, pianist, conductor, orchestrator, producer, director, and composer.
On stage, he has performed a wide range of roles including Mozart (Amadeus), John Adams (1776), Bacchus (Ariadne auf Naxos), King Kaspar (Amahl and the Night Visitors) the title roles in Don Carlo, The Tales of Hoffmann, Faust, and Willy Wonka.
As a composer, his opera The Blue Fairy with libretto by Kip Soteres, received its premiere in June of 2025 by Aria412.
A charter member of the New Mercury Collective, Rob originated the role of Robbie in Daron Hagen’s intimate musical, I Hear America Singing, (also serving as music director and pianist for the premiere production at Milwaukee’s renowned Skylight Music Theatre).
In the composer Daron Hagen’s continuing exploration of opera film, Rob appears as composer Robbie Doerfler singing and playing the piano in the filmed version of I Hear America Singing and has won the BEST ACTOR laurel at the Pageant Film Festival in Gangtok, India.” The film has won 15 awards at film festivals, including the Los Angeles Motion Picture Festival, Paris Film Festival, Los Angeles Film Awards, and more. Its streaming premiere is scheduled for autumn 2025.
Continuing his association with Hagen and New Mercury in the realm of operafilm, he portrayed Orson Welles in the international award-winning Orson Rehearsed (2021) and Cory in 9/10: Love Before the Fall (2023).
Robert was significantly involved with Pittsburgh Festival Opera from 2000 – 2021 in various capacities, including Artistic Administrator, Music Director, and Director of the Hans and Leslie Fleischner Young Artist Program. He has conducted operas and adapted, arranged, and orchestrated two of Mr. Rogers’ one-act operas for live performance.
Robert can be heard singing and playing on the Naxos, Albany, New World Records, Roven Records, New Dynamic Records, and Innova labels, as well as various streaming platforms. In May, 2025 his recording of Eric Moe’s exploration of David del Tredici’s music in Monsters and Songs with Robert on voice and piano – and Eric Moe on piano was released.
He has performed for ARCA audiences in Lincoln Hall with Resonance Works, with Aria412 at the RiverStone mansion Donor Dinner, and in concert with Kathy Soroka in ARCA’s 15th Anniversary concert (delayed by COVID).
Maureen Conlon-Gutiérrez
Maureen Conlon Gutiérrez is making her ARCA solo debut, long admired for her solo and chamber artistry and as a concertmaster of the Johnstown Symphony. In 2019, Maureen appeared with Tom Roberts and The Allegheny City Ragtime Orchestra in Lincoln Hall for ARCA.
A native of Mexico, Miss Conlon has performed to acclaim across the globe as soloist, chamber musician, and orchestral player – participating on recordings as a classical artist, cross genre violinist, light rock improv and tango violinist.
Miss Conlon has appeared on television and radio internationally and is prize winner of many national and international competitions in both the United States and in Mexico.
An ardent chamber musician, Maureen co-founded the Trio Nova Mundi with whom she performed across the Americas showcasing the music and composers of the New World, in part by performing new or lesser known works alongside classics
In addition, she is member of the Argentine tango group AquiTango, and co-founder of string quartet Hot Metal Strings.
As an orchestral player she is concertmaster of the Johnstown Symphony Orchestra and is member of the Pittsburgh Opera Orchestra, the Pittsburgh Ballet Theatre Orchestra, the Chamber Orchestra of Pittsburgh, Resonance Orchestra, and the Wheeling Symphony. Miss Conlon has served as concertmaster of the Erie Chamber Orchestra from 2013-2018, as first violin and acting concertmaster of the Erie Philharmonic since 2008 and played with many orchestras such as the Pittsburgh Symphony, National Philharmonic, Sphinx Virtuosi, Akron Symphony, Virginia Symphony, and Sphinx Symphony.
The Founding of ARCA
For hundreds of years the scenic allure of the Allegheny-Clarion River Valley has attracted settlers whose foresight established the business and social structure of the towns of Foxburg and Emlenton. Since the mid-19th century, arts and entertainment were brought to the valley to enrich the community – whether touring variety shows and musicians, silent movies or Emlenton Civic Club presentations.
When Dr. Arthur Steffee and his late wife Patricia began refurbishing the Fox estate and establishing Foxburg businesses in the late nineties and early millennium, they envisioned the arts as a hub of community and cultural life – drawing people to appreciate the refreshment of the arts in this stunningly picturesque valley. Hailing from Cleveland, they had fond memories of going to Blossom Music Center, the Cleveland Orchestra’s summer home, where the commingling of nature’s splendor and music’s soaring inspiration were an idyllic combination. They believed that the Allegheny River Valley deserved to have the same thing.
Inspired by their vision, seventeen years ago a stalwart group of local visionaries and culture lovers, educators and artists came together and began devoting their time, energy and resources to make their dream of creating a thriving arts center on the banks of the beautiful Allegheny River in Foxburg a reality.
The founding Board of Directors in 2005 established the non-profit organization, Allegheny RiverStone Center for the Arts, and began creating a center for arts and education and, since then, tens of thousands of people have enjoyed concerts, festivals, events and art gallery openings. ARCA has become the cultural jewel of the region.
Early ARCA Board members included Jae Ann Brown and Andor Paposi-Jobb, Lou and Rose Kalinowsky, Arch and Roberta Newton, Sue and Gerald Peairs, Tom and Margo Rudd, Arthur and Patricia Steffee, Bob and Karen Watson, Bud Irwin, Randy Silvis and Adam and Ann Weiss (Adam also serving as ARCA’s first Executive Director). They were joined soon thereafter by Mike and Sally Vereb, Tom and Nancy Hovis and Ron and Connie Hambrick Rennard.
ARCA’s current Board of Directors includes Marybeth Hinds Steffee, Nancy and Tom Hovis, Kurt and Joanne Crosbie, Kathy Soroka, Barbara Bott, Jack and Millie Armant, Pat and Bob Beran, Dennis Keyes, Doug Bell, Shannon Daniel, Jim and Lydia Crooks and Melissa Gottschalk. John Soroka is Executive Director.
From the beginning, the generosity and hard work of these Board members and volunteers joining their ranks, established the cornerstone of ARCA; they not only developed the cultural offerings but also refurbished the concert venue itself. The Fox family had built Lincoln Hall as a concert and community venue which opened in 1909 on the second floor of The Foxburg Free Library; however, it had long since been used as a medical center – broken up with small cubicles and a dropped ceiling.
According to founding Board member, Jae Brown, when Arthur Steffee first threw open the doors to show the Board the space, they were shocked and “gobsmacked… it was a debris-logged and entirely impassable ‘warren’ of partially deconstructed office space that precluded any passage past the foyer at the front door. It seemed impossible, looking back, but in a reasonable amount of time what had seemed an irretrievable space was redeemed by the vision and hard physical labor of many.”
During the reconstruction, an original hand painted oil painting of the river, originally used as a curtain, was found rolled up under the stage. Carefully conserved by Andor Jobb, who lightly cleansed the surface and reinforced the backing using rabbit glue, the painting now serves as Lincoln Hall’s stage backdrop. A gift of Dr. Arthur and Patricia Steffee, a beautiful seven-foot Steinway grand piano graces its stage. Noted for its intimacy and crystalline acoustics, the hall is a favorite of instrumentalists, such as the Alexander String Quartet and Members of the Pittsburgh Symphony Orchestra.
As Lincoln Hall was being renovated, considerable efforts ensued to move and install the 1929 Wurlitzer Theater Organ, which the Steffees had purchased from Paul McKissick. Over eleven years McKissick had lovingly restored this treasure, which originally had been installed in Cleveland’s Uptown Theater and played to accompany silent movies. Dubbed the Mighty McKissick Wurlitzer, the theatre organ is one of only 24 created in its style and size.
Beginning in September 2005, Paul McKissick began putting the pipes in specially built boxes to prepare for their move to Foxburg. Over the next months, Dr. Steffee moved the boxes of pipes using a horse trailer at times with the assistance of Board member Thomas Hovis, to ease loading and unloading. For the next year Paul personally, painstakingly installed the organ in its new home.
It was determined that ARCA would inaugurate its first performance season in the elegantly refurbished Lincoln Hall on October 5 and 6, 2006 with concerts on the Mighty McKissick Wurlitzer performed by Scott Foppiano.
The first non-organ concert, a classical cabaret entitled “Shall We Gather By the River”, was performed by Katherine Soroka and Friends on November 4, 2006 with Raymond Blackwell, piano, and PSO musicians, Jennifer Orchard, violin, and Mikhail Istomin, cello.
ARCA celebrates its twentieth anniversary performance season on October 12 with this “Birthday party” concert and pays tribute with a champagne/bubbly toast at intermission honoring its founding audiences, Board members and volunteers, whose vision and prodigious contributions over the years have created an arts organization that has become a cultural destination in its own right.
Twenty years later, ARCA is the premiere fine arts center in northwestern Pennsylvania, having touched the lives of thousands of audience members from a 7-county region with more than 400 concerts and 90 visiting artist exhibits at the Red Brick Gallery – and reached thousands of students in the A-C Valley Schools through educational residencies.
ARIVE EARLY & EXPERIENCE FOXBURG!
Enjoy a Golden Autumn Day on the beautiful Allegheny!
After the concert, continue ARCA’s Anniversary Celebration – and attend a champagne/wine and appetizer reception at the Red Brick Gallery and opening of the exhibit of Rafi & Klee – and enjoy shopping in the first floor Gift Shop, featuring the art of talented Cooperative Artists from the region – pottery, wearable art and purses, fine silver jewelry, wooden gifts and furniture, woven rugs, paintings, photographs and more!
As the river valley is in FULL AUTUMN COLOR – enjoy a walk along the Allegheny River trail or rent bicycles or enjoy a pontoon boat ride with Foxburg Tours in the morning or early afternoon!
Have lunch at the Allegheny Grille with seating overlooking the Allegheny River either on the deck or in their dining room, or for more casual fare, at Foxburg Pizza with soup, salads, sandwiches and pizza.
Save time to enjoy a wine tasting or bottle of wine on the renovated patio at Foxburg Wine Cellars
Or spend the night in Foxburg where every room has a river view in the lovely Foxburg Inn
