Chicago’s Grant Park Orchestra is holding a benefit concert for a violinist with cancer. The press announcement states:

Chicago’s Grant Park Orchestra to Give Benefit for Cancer-Stricken
Violinist Without Health Insurance

By Vivien Schweitzer
04 Nov 2006

Conductor Carlos Kalmar and members of Chicago’s Grant Park
Orchestra will perform a benefit concert on November 17 to raise funds for a
26-year-old Romanian violinist with cancer.

Christina Purje, a violinist and the orchestra’s library intern during the
2005 and 2006 summer seasons, was diagnosed last summer with adrenal cancer.
She does not have health insurance or qualify for public assistance.

In April, Purje began experiencing severe pain in her right arm. A biopsy
showed that she had adrenal cancer which had metastasized to her arm; she
had surgery to remove the affected area of her arm and lost the ability to play the violin. The cancer has also metastasized to her liver.

The program will include the overture to Smetana’s The Bartered
Bride; Vivaldi’s Concerto for Four Violins in B minor; Dvorak’s Slavonic Dances
Nos. 1-4; Faure’s Pavane and Brahms’s Hungarian Dances Nos. 5 and 6. The concert will take place in the Chicago Cultural Center at 7:30 pm onNovember 17. Admission is free, but donations (checks, not cash) are strongly encouraged. All funds raised will help pay for Purje’s treatment.
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I have written about seeing a Grant Park Orchestra concert and playing at Millennium Park’s Frank Gehry-designed Pritzker Pavillion.

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