February 5 Taize Prayer and Concert to feature Cellist Ravenna Helson

MILWAUKEE - Jan. 16, 2014 - PRLog -- St. Joseph Chapel, 1501 S. Layton Blvd., Milwaukee, will host Taize prayer and a concert on February 5, 2014, at 6:00 p.m.

The School Sisters of St. Francis invite everyone to the historic St. Joseph Chapel on Wednesday, February 5, 2014, for “The Beatitudes: Living Christ’s Call in the Maze of Daily Life.” The event is free and open to the public.

Using the ecumenical prayer style of the brothers of Taize, France, there will be readings, songs, silent reflection and prayers of intercession beginning at 6 p.m.  At 6:45, a concert by cellist Ravenna Helson and accompanist Sister Mary Jane Wagner will extend the prayer, leading listeners more deeply into the joy, simplicity, mercy and hope of Christian life.

Ms. Helson is a graduate of the Juilliard School of Music and Yale University, where she received the Ellen Battell Stoeckel Award for Excellence in Chamber Music. She has played with the Milwaukee Symphony, Skylight Opera Orchestra, Ensemble Musical Offering, Bel Canto Chorus and Orchestra, the Wisconsin Philharmonic, and she is currently principal cellist of the Milwaukee Ballet Orchestra. She has also performed with the Detroit Symphony, Michigan Opera Theater, New Jersey Symphony, Santa Fe Pro Musica, Chicago Baroque Ensemble, and Her Majesty’s Clerks, among others. As a faculty member of Alverno College, the Wisconsin Conservatory of Music, and Carroll University, she has taught cello and chamber music and performed many concerts and educational workshops.

The focus of the February prayer and concert will be “Blessed are you when they insult you and persecute you and utter every kind of slander against you because of me. Be glad and rejoice, for your reward is great in heaven.”

St. Joseph Chapel is located at 27th and Greenfield (1501 S. Layton Blvd.) in Milwaukee. Free parking is available in the lot behind St. Joseph Center, accessible on 29th and Orchard (Alexia Circle entrance). For more information contact Sister Mary Jane Wagner at 414-385-5246, or mjwagner@sssf.org.