Week of food, music kicks off Thursday.

The sixth year of the Vicksburg International Chamber Festival will be more …. festive.

&#8220The overall concept was to make it more appealing to a broader audience,” said Frances Koury, organizer. &#8220And the talent is exceptional in each field.”

A toast to Broadway gala on Thursday will kick off five days of concerts and will include music from &#8220Porgy and Bess,” &#8220Cabaret,” &#8220Naughty Marietta,” &#8220Ziegfield Follies,” &#8220Annie Get Your Gun,” &#8220Oklahoma” and &#8220Cats.”

Where previous musical menus have been more reserved, the 2006 lineup is lighter – ending with a jazz brunch.

Thursday, singers Maryann Kyle, Heather Allen, James Martin and pianist Joseph Britain will perform tunes by Broadway greats at the Southern Cultural Heritage Complex. The food will fit the theme with Italian treats for &#8220Mama Mia!,” French cuisine for &#8220Phantom of the Opera,” Southern delicacies for &#8220Showboat” and Asian delights for &#8220South Pacific.”

Bess Averett, director of the Southern Cultural Heritage Foundation and co-chair of the gala, said the change in venue will allow more people to participate and a less formal atmosphere. In the past, the gala has been at the B’nai B’rith Literary Club on Clay Street.

&#8220It will be more relaxed,” she said. &#8220Broadway is a fun theme.”

The chamber festival committee will name Pat Cashman, editor and publisher of The Vicksburg Post, honorary chairman of the gala.

&#8220We are thrilled to have him,” Koury said. &#8220He was one of the original members of the committee that did the first chamber festival, and he has been very active and supportive.”

To further the salute to Broadway, the committee will also honor Vicksburg native Lucia Hawkins, a classically trained soprano who has performed at Carnegie Hall and on Broadway.

&#8220We are honoring her as Vicksburg’s diva,” Koury said. &#8220She lived in those glory days.”

The first festival performance will be &#8220Spiritual Dreams of Flight” by The Southern Chorale Saturday. Musical selections will include works from the choir’s recent concert at Carnegie Hall.

Gregory Fuller, the director of choral activities at the University of Southern Mississippi, will direct The Southern Chorale, which is a premier vocal ensemble of junior and senior vocal majors and graduate students in voice and conducting.

&#8220They are simply awesome with their a cappella singing of the classics to doo wop,” Koury said.

The festival will continue Sunday with Trio Brussilovsky, comprised of violinist Alexandre Brussilovsky, cellist Alexander Russakovsky and pianist Theresa Sanchez, who has performed in the festival each year. The concert will showcase trios of Sergei Rachmaninoff and Ernest Chausson from the late 19th century and will conclude with American Paul Schoenfield’s &#8220Cafe Music,” which pays tribute to ragtime, swing, blues and Dixieland.

The March 28 performance will be Music ‘Round the World by The Capital Brass.

The professional ensemble features Robert Cheesman on trumpet, Mimi Draut Linehan on horn, Tex Chapman on tuba, Wayne Linehan on trumpet, Ken Lyon on trombone and Sherwood Berthold on percussion. Capital Brass began in Jackson in 1982. The concert will take concert-goers around the world to places such as England, Spain, Appalachia and France.

The chamber festival will continue March 30 with mezzo-soprano Virginia Dupuy performing Emily Dickinson in Song, a musical tribute to the American poet. She will be accompanied by pianist Dale Dietert and composer and narrator William Jordan. Dupuy has performed with major orchestras and opera companies throughout the nation.

The final performance will be by Bach Porch, comprised of Robert Bonfiglio on harmonica, Joe Deninzon on violin and Chris Milletari on guitar. The group will present &#8220Harmonica America.” The concert, set for April 1 at All Saints’ Episcopal School, will celebrate the music and composers of the United States. Bonfiglio, who has been called &#8220America’s leading harmonica virtuoso” by The New York Post, will present songs by Stephen Foster, Elvis Presley, George Gershwin, Stephen Sondheim and Muddy Waters.

Koury hopes the harmonica concert, as well as the others, will draw a younger crowd.

To encourage teenagers to attend, admission is free for anyone younger than 18. Koury said she hopes the festival will be an educational opportunity for students.

&#8220We’re excited to have something of this caliber – to expose them to culture,” she said. &#8220The diversity of all the programs should be appealing to a cross-section of the student body.”

After Harmonica America, there will be a reception at the rectory, the home of All Saints’ headmaster the Rev. Bill Martin and his wife, Carol Martin.

The series will conclude April 2 with Jazz Brunch at the Mansion, featuring jazz guitarist and vocalist Chris Cortez, a recording artist and former jazz guitar studies instructor at USM.

The Vicksburg International Chamber Music Festival is a member of the Chamber Music America Organization. The festival is funded by local sponsors, city administration and friends of the arts. It is one of four seasonal offerings from the umbrella organization Four Seasons of the Arts. The organization also presents the Mississippi Symphony Orchestra in the winter, the chamber festival in the spring, a July Fourth Celebration in the summer and an autumn event, which has ranged from performances at Fall Pilgrimage to last year’s Beethoven by Candlelight.