Arts

Tonight, the curtain rises on an elaborate production of the Disney musical “Beauty and the Beast Junior” at DeKalb High School. The sets are in place, the costumes are ready, and the 70 actors have been practicing their lines and moves all summer. But this isn’t your typical high school production. This is The Penguin Project. 

Twenty years have passed since Polish composer Henryk Górecki became one of the most talked about figures in classical music. In 1992, his painfully beautiful Third Symphony, the "Symphony of Sorrowful Songs," shot up the charts and was played on the radio everywhere. A recording conducted by David Zinman and featuring soprano Dawn Upshaw sold more than a million copies — huge for a classical album.