Jazz Orchestra to Sweeten Valentine’s Day at the Woodward Opera House

MOUNT VERNON, Ohio – The Woodward Opera House is offering a sweet treat and

perfect date night for Valentine’s Day this year: a performance by the Knox

Community Jazz Orchestra, featuring big-band classics with an emphasis, of course,

on love.

The concert, titled “In the Mood (for Love),” begins at 7:30 p.m. on Saturday,

February 14. Tickets, available at the door or through the Woodward’s website, cost

$15.

To further sweeten the evening, cookies will be provided by Birds of a

Feather Bake Shop and Boutique, which is co-sponsoring the concert. Coffee and tea

will be available as well.

“We can promise wonderful music that’s great for both listening and dancing,

and the Woodward’s dance floor will be open for anyone so moved,” said Ted

Buehrer, the band’s leader and a professor of music at Kenyon College. “We’ll also be

featuring a gifted young vocalist, Benjamin Priestland, who has sung with us before.”

“We’re delighted to once again present the jazz orchestra,” said Dena Hess, managing director of the Woodward Opera House. “The Woodward is a great venue for this talented

local group. We make an effort to keep our theater available to local talent and the KCJO fits into our mission perfectly.”

The program will include perennial favorites like Irving Berlin’s “I’ve Got My

Love to Keep Me Warm,” Richard Rodgers’s “My Funny Valentine,” Jerome Kerns’s

“Smoke Gets in Your Eyes,” and Isham Jones’s “It Had to Be You.”

Priestland, a junior at Kenyon College, will sing “Fly Me to the Moon,” in the

version made famous by Frank Sinatra and the Count Basie Orchestra in 1964, as

well as the George and Ira Gershwin classic, “Our Love Is Here to Stay.” Priestland

last performed with the jazz orchestra in its November 2025 concert benefiting

Food for the Hungry Knox county.

Buehrer, who also plays trumpet with the group, founded the Knox

Community Jazz Orchestra in 2017. Since then, the 20-member ensemble – which

includes a number of local music educators – has won a devoted following with its

ever-expanding repertoire of big band numbers, from Swing Era classics to pieces from

the jazz scene in later years. The big band regularly plays at Ariel-Foundation Park, the

Woodward Opera House, and other local venues.

For more information about the Valentine’s Day concert, and to buy tickets

online, see the Woodward Opera House website at thewoodward.org.