The Majestic Theater held its long-awaited Centennial Celebration yesterday, welcoming patrons to a red-carpet evening of music, history, and community pride that Executive Director Brett Messenger described as “a bold vision made into an artistic reality.”
Searchlights lighted the sky as guests entered the historic downtown Gettysburg theater on a Hollywood-style red carpet, where photographers captured their arrival before they stepped inside to explore the grand opening of the Majestic’s new Centennial Celebration exhibit in the Art Gallery. The display highlights the theater’s evolution from a 1925 vaudeville house into “the grandest small-town theater in America.”
The evening also included a shoutout to Founding Executive Director Jeffrey Gabel, who was in attendance and whose leadership and advocacy helped shape the Majestic into the cultural anchor it is today.
A One-Night-Only Musical Collaboration
The centerpiece of Friday’s festivities was a rare musical pairing between the acclaimed Orpheus Chamber Orchestra and Cape Breton fiddle virtuoso Natalie MacMaster, joined by her daughter, rising Canadian star Mary Frances Leahy. The performance featured a blend of classical, contemporary, and Celtic traditions that brought the Centennial crowd to its feet.
Orpheus opened the program with Dvořák’s American Sinfonietta (from the “American Quartet”), followed by Mark Summer’s Gettysburg, a haunting piece that moves between hushed reflection and dramatic intensity, designed to capture the emotional weight of the battle.
Next up was John Williams’s Air and Simple Gifts. The treatment of the classic Shaker Song “Simple Gifts” was luxurious as the familiar melody came and went in an overall sonorous mix. The Williams selection, Messenger noted, “is a symbolic prelude to the Majestic’s next and culminating centennial event in February 2026, when the Martha Graham Dance Company returns on Feb 3. to perform the iconic Appalachian Spring.
Orpheus closed the first half of the evening with Jessie Montgomery’s Strum, a vibrant, rhythm-driven work built on guitar-like strumming patterns and energetic folk-inspired motifs. The piece’s shifting textures and tightly interwoven lines showcased the remarkable cohesion of the directorless (democratic!) ensemble, whose players relied entirely on attentive communication and shared musical leadership to bring Montgomery’s score to life.
After intermission, MacMaster and Leahy electrified the hall with a set of fiddle-driven works backed by Orpheus, including “3 Jigs,” “Strathspey and Three Reels,” “The Chase,” and “If Ever You Were Mine.” They closed with a festive “Carnival Medley” that created a musical and emotional synchronicity between MacMaster and Orpheus as they traded music and energy so intuitively that the orchestra seemed to breathe with her.
MacMaster—one of Nova Scotia’s most celebrated cultural exports—has toured with Faith Hill, Carlos Santana, Alison Krauss, and the Chieftains, and has recorded with Yo-Yo Ma. Leahy, a prodigious multi-instrumentalist from Ontario, has already performed more than 600 live shows and is developing a signature sound that blends Celtic, jazz, and Latin influences.
MacMaster created a warm and personal connection with the audience as she recounted a bit of her personal history and said she was so proud to be in Gettysburg working with the Orpheus Orchestra. Leahy performed on piano and fiddle, and delivered an exuberant Celtic tap dance that it became its own percussion section, drawing cheers from the audience.
A Community Effort 100 Years in the Making
Messenger told attendees he is “grateful to the visionaries, both past and present, who have insisted that the Majestic serve as a vibrant cultural hub, connecting our community to new worlds through cinema, music, theatre, dance, and the visual arts.”
He emphasized that his short tenure—“just more than one percent of the Majestic’s history”—has made him appreciate the generations of supporters, volunteers, staff, and Gettysburg College partners who have sustained the theater. “Your belief in the power of the arts to enrich life, build community, and affect meaningful change,” he wrote, “is what makes this celebration possible.”
Throughout the evening, guests mingled at the upstairs and downstairs bars, where beer, wine, and canned cocktails were available for purchase, adding to the festive atmosphere.
Following the performance, some guests gathered for an elegant post-concert dinner in the Gettysburg Hotel, where the celebratory energy of the evening carried seamlessly into warm conversation, clinking glasses, and shared reflections on the Majestic’s milestone. The meal offered patrons a chance to unwind together, meet the artists, and continue honoring the theater’s 100-year legacy in a relaxed and festive setting.
As the theater embarks on its next century, Messenger said the Centennial Celebration is both a tribute to its storied past and a promise for the future: “Thank you for being part of the community that continues to make this bold vision an artistic reality.”
The Orpheus Chamber Orchestra returns to the Majestic on Feb. 6, 2026, joining forces with pianist Marc-André Hamelin.
Photos by Pete Vogel
