Smith Center Celebrates Groundbreaking 5/26 With Ceremonial Bell Casting

The Smith Center for the Performing Arts will celebrate its groundbreaking with a ceremonial carillon bell casting and ringing Tuesday, May 26, 2009. A 4.75 acre complex housing the Nevada Ballet Theatre and the Las Vegas Philharmonic, The Smith Center will become the cultural hub of Las Vegas when it opens in the Union Park 61-acre development in downtown Las Vegas in early 2012.

"The Smith Center for the Performing Arts is the most important building to be built in Nevada in our lifetime," said Donald Snyder, chairman of The Smith Center. "No other project will touch our community more broadly and deeply than ours."

To celebrate the beginning of construction, The Smith Center is working with The Verdin Company and Mobile Bell Foundry to cast a commemorative bell on-site beginning Sunday, May 24, 2009. The brass bell will be poured and polished at the construction site during a series of celebrations set for Memorial Day weekend. The events will culminate with the first ringing of the bell during the official groundbreaking ceremony on Tuesday.

"The construction of The Smith Center will make Las Vegas a better place to live," said MyRon Martin, president of The Smith Center. "Not only are we providing the cultural heart for our great city, but The Smith Center will provide our children with a lifetime of educational opportunities."

The Verdin Bell Casting Team will be on hand throughout the weekend as the Mobile Bell Foundry creates it 100th bell, the first made in Nevada, specifically for The Smith Center.

Schedule of events:

Ingot Ceremony, Sunday, May 24, 2009 at 11:30 a.m.

The public is invited to watch as children from all over the valley assist in passing the bronze ingots into the furnace where they will be heated to 2200 degrees.

Bell Pouring, Sunday, May 24, 2009 at 6:30 p.m.

Watch as the molten metal is poured into a custom inscripted mold made especially for this historic event.

Bell Breakout, Monday, May 25, 2009 at 10 a.m.

After the bronze has cooled and is ready to go, watch The Smith Center shatter the mold and produce a brilliant brass bell.

The First Ring & Official Groundbreaking, Tuesday, May 26, 2009

Once the bell has been polished, it will ring in a new era in Downtown Las Vegas as the ceremonial first peals announce the official groundbreaking for The Smith Center for the Performing Arts.

The public is invited to the Ingot Ceremony, Bell Pouring and Breakout. Due to the nature of construction, the Official Groundbreaking is by invitation only.

The Smith Center for the Performing Arts is a public/private partnership that will serve as the living room for the community; a place that will educate, entertain and excite the citizens of our great community. Designed to address the needs of community residents, The Smith Center will offer a blend of performances by local arts groups as well as first-run touring attractions. It will feature music, theater, and dance companies who celebrate cultures from all over the world. For more information about The Smith Center for the Performing Arts, please visit www.thesmithcenter.com.

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