Minding Your Business - Arts Empowering Life

Take a turn down a dirt road just before the Orleans town line on Route 6A, drive by a bit of woods and a couple of homes, and then you see this amazing structure, the Arts Empowering Life’s Performing Arts Center. The majestic building is striking and spellbinding. To see and hear a musical concert here must be an experience you’ll remember forever. 

Arts Empowering Life is a non-profit foundation “dedicated to the pursuit of beauty, truth, and faith in the arts; sharing inspiration and education with people across many nationalities, cultures, and traditions,” according to its website. But Kirsti Pfeiffer, the center’s marketing director, says it more simply: “This is the best venue for a full immersion into music and how music is made.” 

The Center, designed by Architectural Design, Inc. of Orleans, opened in August 2023 and is home to Gloriæ Dei Cantores (Latin for "Singers to the Glory of God"), a 40-voice choir, along with “Arts Speak,” an educational lecture series, the Outer Cape Winds community wind ensembles, music concerts, artist retreats and soon a recording studio.

This weekend, Jan 24 and 25, Gloriæ Dei Cantores and Creare Symphonia, under conductor Richard K. Pugsley, will feature Vivaldi’s “Four Seasons” and Bach’s “Sleepers Awake!” said Pfeiffer. And that’s just the first concert this winter. The Gabriel V Brass Ensemble Winter Concert is on Feb. 14 and 15, the Woodwind Ensemble Concert “The Season of Beauty” on March 14 and 15, then Gloriæ Dei Cantores and Creare Symphonia will perform again on March 21 and 22. Lucia Lin and Sergey Schepkin are in concert on Feb. 2 and world-renowned violinist Yevgeny Kutik on March 1.

“The Arts Speak Lecture Series continues with free admission for all on Feb. 15 with a livestream of ‘Inside the Composing Process’ with Erik Esenvalds and an in-person lecture, ‘A Life in Art: Reflections’ presented by Nancy Burkert on March 15,” she said. “All are open to the public.” 

In other words, the entertainment never stops here. The venue seats nearly 500 with the spaciousness of a gymnasium but with excellent acoustics, multiple grand pianos, several rehearsal spaces filled with keyboards and more, an impressive lobby, a beautiful staircase to upper floors with a balcony, a conference room, solarium, and more. I literally spun around trying to take it all in.

Pfeiffer animatedly spoke of the summer plans, including retreats and the opening of the recording studio that will be used “by Decca and Universal.” 

“People have loved it here!” said Pfeiffer.