By Cheryl Jahn

Knox Performance Centre has set grand opening

Jan 25, 2023 | 3:33 PM

PRINCE GEORGE – The inside of the former Knox United church looks like anything but a church. For several years, that building has been re-created in something of a concert hall, that will comfortably hold 285 people, 350 in a pinch. The idea was to create an accessible facility, both physically and creatively.

“So all the professional gear you would need to kind of do a really great show that, you know, it’s not like anywhere else,” says Reverend Dr. Bob Fillier. ‘So professional stage lighting, professional audio, all that kind of everything you need just to do a bang up show, even though you know you’re not going to charge 50 bucks a ticket kind of thing, but that you can access that kind of level of venue, even if it’s an emerging artist to kind of encourage the performing arts here in Prince George.”

And the Community Arts Council has been one of the many partners in this venture and its Executive Director says, for hundreds of years, churches have played a role in the arts.

“I’ve long loved the idea of former places of worship becoming performing arts centers and recital Hall’s concert halls where you travel through Europe. So many of the cathedrals and churches also serve as amazing concert halls as well,” says Eli Klasner, Executive Director for the Community Arts Council. And the Knox Performance Centre now has an official opening date – March 9th – and has secured quite the coup in its first performer. Internationally-renowned pianist Angela Hewett.

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“She’s right now in Europe doing a tour through Germany, Italy, Czech Republic. And then she’ll come to North America, to New York City, Montreal, Toronto. And then she’s doing western the United States and she’s going to come up to Prince George. So and she’s so excited to be up here, too.” It has been something of an odyssey to get here, working through COVID and it involved work of the hands of many in the arts community, making this project something of the threat that pulled many in the arts together.

“I mean, at least it’s been a rallying point where we could have that kind of conversation around how two different types of performing artists support one another,” says Reverend Fillier. “And what’s the role for a group like ours, like Trinity, to kind of support that as well and create spaces and venues where that can happen and people can really come together and hone their craft and share their craft and be really confident about what they’re doing.”

Tickets are on sale now via studio2880.com or trinitypg.ca