Kimmel Center Expands Campus Offerings with New Culinary, Visual and Performance Art, Spring 2014

This Spring, Kimmel Center for the Performing Arts brings culinary, visual and performance art to the main stage, opening its doors to Volver Restaurant created by Chef Jose Garces, showcasing a provocative new visual art series, and premiering nationally renowned artists-in-residence programs. The performing arts center, which first opened in 2001 as home to the world renowned Philadelphia Orchestra and a total of eight resident companies, diversifies its programming model with innovative partnerships that create "experiential" art on its campus.

Opening of Volver and Bar Volver from Chef Jose Garces Bringing Culinary Art to the Kimmel Center Campus, April 16

· Second SEI Art Installation Sparks Public Fascination with Provocative Sculpture Series, Featuring The Composers by Long-Bin Chen from The West Collection

· NEW Kimmel Center Theater Residency Results in Kimmel Center Producing World Premiere by OBIE Award Winner Deb Margolin's One Woman Show, '8 Stops,' April 24-27

· NEW Kimmel Center Jazz Residency Works- in-Progress Available for Preview Beginning April 29, with World Premieres Set to Take Place on June 21

Kimmel Center puts the spotlight on tangible "experiential" art with new culinary, visual and performance art activating its Plaza and new SEI Innovation Studio. These new cultural offerings further diversify its robust calendar of performing arts, serving more than one million visitors annually, and furthering the Center's profile as an international, progressive cultural tourist's destination.

Volver Restaurant Inspired by Chef Jose Garces Travels Abroad

Beginning April 16 - culinary art takes the stage with public opening of Volver Restaurant by Iron Chef Food Network Star Jose Garces. Volver offers two distinct experiences: Bar Volver features the largest selection of sparkling wine in Philadelphia with thoughtfully selected wines, hand-crafted cocktails, and a selection of caviar, cured meat, tartares, and skewered small bites. Volver features decadent multi-course chef's tasting with beverage pairings in an intimate dining room with open studio kitchen. The ever-evolving menu highlights seasonal ingredients prepared with modern techniques that capture and amplify their inherent flavors, all inspired by Chef Garces's travels around the world. This marquis restaurant in the Kimmel Center features Chef Jose Garces and Chef Natalie Moronski creating intimate culinary performance dinners.

"The Composers" Explores East and West Cultures Mourning the Pre-Digital Age

Visual arts aficionados come face to face with some of the world's greatest composers at the Kimmel Center's newest art installation. The sculptures are on loan until June 11 from the West Collection through a partnership with SEI (NASDAQ: SEIC). Internationally acclaimed Taiwanese artist Long-Bin Chen's unusually realistic sculptures, aptly named "The Composers," is the second of public art installation in the Kimmel Center Plaza. Created in 2013, Chen's over-life-sized suite of sculptures feature the heads of famous classical composers: Liszt, Schumann, Bach, Brahms, Beethoven, Chopin, Verdi, Tchaikovsky, Mozart, Wagner, Mendelssohn, and Strauss. When activated, each bust serenades the viewers with audio recording by The Philadelphia Orchestra Archives. Long- Bin Chen's work is an interpretation of human consumption and waste, and mourns the pre-digital era of bound books. Chen's talents explore different cultural meanings, and seek to combine ideas and concepts from the East with those of the West. The first exciting installation, Jonathan Schipper's "The Slow and Inevitable Death of American Muscle," simulated a head-on collision of two-muscle cars and was on display for 90 days from November 2013 to January 2014.

Theater and Jazz Residency World Premieres Take Center Stage this Spring

This Spring, Kimmel Center for the Performing Arts takes on the role of producer with its new SEI Innovation Studio housing the world premiere of Kimmel Center Theater Residency OBIE award winner Deb Margolin's '8 Stops' (April 24-27, $10 ticket). This comedic one-woman show is concerned with the grief of endless compassion. The protagonist has only eight stops on a subway to connect with a motherless boy, not from this country, to show him how safe and loving the world can be.

The Kimmel Center's Theater Residency is made possible by a grant from the John S. and James L. Knight Foundation. We would also like to thank the Hearst Foundation and Linda & David Glickstein for their generous contributions.

Audiences may also engage in the Kimmel Center Jazz Residency artists performing their FREE works-in-progress:

(Apr 29 | 8pm) Josh Lawrence and the Fresh Cut Orchestra with Jason Fraticelli (Composer and bass), Anwar Marshall (Composer and drums), and Tim Conley (Composer, Guitar, Laptop) extended work Yin & Yang of Life (working title) for the Fresh Cut Orchestra fusing traditional acoustic and modern electronic music

(May 9 | 8pm)Bobby Zankel (Alto Saxophone), Raphael Xavier (Hip-Hop/Breakdance Choreographer), and Francois Zayas (Percussion) collaborate on a new work that explores African American culture and its transcendental nature through the relationship between improvisational jazz and dance created in the moment.

(May 15 | 8pm) Pablo Batista and the Mambo Syndicate, and Dennis Guevara (Pianist & Music Arranger) performance fuses three genres of music: the ancient Bata rhythms of the Yoruba, Afro-Cuban rhythms, and jazz.

Jazz artists were selected by a panel of Jazz experts from across the country to create new work through the Kimmel Center Jazz Residency Program. Their world premieres explore the boundless spirit of jazz, visiting past legacies and contemporary global influences through collaboration. Performances will take place in SEI Innovation Studio on June 21, 2014, as part of the Solstice in the City biennial celebration.

The Kimmel Center's Jazz Residencies are made possible by a grant from the John S. and James L. Knight Foundation. We would also like to thank the Hearst Foundation and the Presser Foundation for their generous contributions.