Students, Faculty Stage Marathon Performance To Save NJ Music Program
By Vittoria Woodill
PHILADELPHIA (CBS) -- A budget shortfall could mean the end for the campus of a historic South Jersey music program.
Now, members of the music community are raising their voices for a marathon performance in hopes of saving the Westminster Choir College.
Westminster Choir College has been located in Princeton, NJ for the last 90 years.
However, now as a part of Rider University, it is facing the possibility of being sold for its land to alleviate some of rider's $13 million deficit.
A sale that has students, supporters, and alumni singing their hearts out in a 24-hour performance to save it.
"I want them to hear how good of a job that the faculty is doing to make us successful musicians," said first year student Gwen Cartwright, from Nebraska.
"I actually got a little teary-eyed when I was singing earlier, thinking about how wonderful Westminster is and hoping that it's going to stay here in Princeton," said Sharon Alexander, a Westminster alumnus.
As many take to the pews of the historic Nassau Presbyterian Church to listen in, all involved only hope the music speaks the words they cannot express.
"We are having this musical, pleasant, evening/night of music to make our statement: that keeping our campus, keeping us in Princeton making music together, is very important to us," said Mickey Lazenby Gast, a former member of the Rider Board of Trustees. "When people think of protest today, they think of placards and angry people and carrying signs and all that. That's not what this is about, this is about doing what Westminster people do, which is make music."
Rider University plans to move Westminster's Princeton campus to Rider's main campus in Lawrenceville, NJ, but Westminster is a residential conservatory, where musicians live and play together.
This potential move will dissolve the school's unique approach to learning, which was one of the main reasons why so many performed today.
