Yo-Yo Ma, Renee Fleming perform at Chicago HS

By Patty Wetli

 

CHICAGO — When’s the last time you heard an auditorium full of high school students go nuts for a cellist? That was the scene at Lake View High School, 4015 N. Ashland Ave., Monday morning as Yo-Yo Ma, opera great Renee Fleming and Damian Woetzel, former principal dancer with the New York City Ballet, joined the Lake View community in a celebration of arts in education.

“We were in some of your classrooms…and it was inspiring,” said Woetzel, who serves on the President’s Committee on the Arts and Humanities.

Ma and Fleming appeared at Lake View courtesy of a collaboration between the Lyric Opera and the Chicago Symphony Orchestra, with whom Lake View enjoys “great relationships,” according to Cate Mascari, Lake View choir director. “They love the way our students work.”