Lancaster city will get a taste of the Big Apple tonight compliments of the Mennonite community.

"Music From New York," a benefit concert for Menno House, a hostel in New York City, will be held at 8 p.m. at Community Mennonite Church of Lancaster, 328 W. Orange St.

The concert features three musicians who share a classical background and an enthusiasm for promoting Menno House, a Manhattan hostel.

Amy Kauffman, violin, Francesco Lecce-Chong, piano, and Rachel Smith, soprano, live and perform in New York City but grew up in Indiana, Colorado and Florida, respectively.

Smith, who moved to the city to further her musical studies, has been a Menno House resident for the past 10 months.

"Cost was definitely a huge factor," Smith said of her decision. "(Music) lessons are very expensive. To knock a couple hundred dollars off my rent, that's huge."

Although she will be leaving the hostel in a week to go on a scholarship-based, "open-ended trip" to Germany, Smith said she loved her time at Menno House for "thousands of reasons."

"Everyone should know that Menno House is probably the best place on earth," she said. "It's heaven in Manhattan."

Smith, who has starred in operas such as "Madama Butterfly" and "Paris and Helen," will perform some solo works as well as two pieces from Vaughn Williams' "Along the Field, 8 Housman Songs" with Kauffman.

"It's a very unique sound," Smith said of the combination of voice and violin.

Kauffman first appeared in New York in 2002 to play with the Metropolitan Opera Orchestra, after earning her Masters degree from the Juilliard School in 1999.

The youngest member of the trio, 21-year-old Lecce-Chong, composed his first piece as a teenager in 1999 and earned numerous awards before he began his studies at the Mannes College of Music.

The concert will serve as the premiere of Lecce-Chong's latest work, "A Straw to Thatch the Marshes." He will perform selections from the sacred song cycle, written in memory of Tom Fox.

Fox was one of four hostages taken in Iraq in March 2006 from the Christian Peacemaker Team. The other three hostages were released, but Fox was killed.

The musicians "are really fantastic," Menno House manager Lowell Brown said. "I've heard them once in rehearsal; they're very bold. It's an exciting, new contemporary work by an up-and-coming composer and pianist."

Brown met the talented musicians as a member of Manhattan Mennonite Fellowship. After the church was founded by Menno House residents, the small congregation bought the hostel from Eastern Mennonite Missions in 1998.

"Music has been really important to the congregation," Brown said. "I felt like this was a magical moment of having all three (musicians) in the same room playing a concert. It just seemed like too good of an opportunity to let slip by."

The concert will serve as the first, and possibly last, collaboration of the musicians, with Smith's move to Germany and Kauffman's busy schedule.

Proceeds from the concert will go directly to Menno House, Brown said, to help the congregation pay off the mortgage before the hostel's 50th anniversary in September.

"We can almost smell it," Brown said. "We're tired of throwing money into interest that can be used for other things."

Menno House was bought in 1958 by a group of Mennonites from Salunga to house conscientious objectors as they completed their alternative government service.

EMM, the mission agency of the Lancaster Conference of the Mennonite Church, ran the house for 40 years until MMF bought it, which Brown said explains the location of the concert.

"We feel like we have a connection with Lancaster County," he said.

Since 1976, Menno House has served as a residence for students, social workers and volunteers in the heart of New York City.

"It provides affordable housing for people who need to live in Manhattan and couldn't otherwise do it," Brown said. "We're probably the cheapest, private hotel room or hostel room in the city."

Although its name may suggest otherwise, Brown said the residents come from a "considerable wider range" than just the Mennonite church.

"Almost everyone has a connection to Mennonites at some point; often, for our guests, it's pretty far removed," Brown said. "We're open to everyone - our staff makes no stipulations about religious beliefs."

Tickets for the benefit concert are $25 and can be purchased at the door or ordered at www.mennohouse.org or by calling (212) 677-1612.

Those interested in booking a room at Menno House should call (212) 677-1611. Space is limited, with no openings until after June 30.

E-mail: stephweaver@lnpnews.com