Tempo of local music events picks up as summer fades

The wonderful weather early this week reminded us that it's a new season for live, locally created music, when summer dormancy ends and activities spike.

At Bowling Green State University, the Philharmonia conducted by Emily Freeman Brown and the Wind Symphony led by Bruce Moss will present a richly colored program at 8 p.m. Sept. 20 in Kobacker Hall of the Moore Musical Arts Center.

"We put it together rather rapidly," said Freeman Brown, noting that school has been in session only for one month. On the program will be Dvorak's Symphony No. 8 and Charles Griffes' tone poem, "White Peacock." Graduate conducting student John James Perse will lead the piece by Griffes, a turn of the 20th century composer and one of the few American Impressionist musicians, writing scores at the same time painters such as Mary Cassatt and Childe Hassam were capturing the world in dabs of color.

The Wind Symphony will perform David Maslanka's "A Child's Garden of Dreams," a 35-minute work inspired by a book written by Swiss psychotherapist Carl Jung. The next performances by these groups will be during the BGSU New Music Festival, Oct. 17-20.

Tickets and information for the concert are available at 419-372-8171. That same night at 7 p.m. at the Toledo School for the Arts, a free faculty cabaret is planned in the downtown school's Flying Pig Cafe.

The University of Toledo Symphony Orchestra is set to perform its first concert of the new quarter at 7 p.m. Sept. 21 in Doermann Theater. Robert Mirakian will conduct a program comprising Handel's Water Music Suite and the Lieutenant Kije Suite by Prokofiev. Admission is free.

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The Liszt School of Music Chamber Choir from Weimar, Germany, will perform at Our Lady, Queen of the Most Holy Rosary Cathedral at 3 p.m. Sept. 23, in a free concert dedicated to the memory of Joseph Lawton by his family. Subsequent appearances in Toledo will be at 7 p.m. Sept. 27 and 11 a.m. Sept. 30 in Phillips Temple CME, 566 Palmwood Ave.

Their program encompasses choral works by composers from Germany, Norway, Switzerland, and the United States: J.S. Bach, Johann Hummel, and Brahms; Frank Martin, Max Reger, Egil Hovland, and Eric Whitacre.

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The Blade's Season of the Arts, to be published in this Sunday's Arts Section, will carry a comprehensive list of music, dance, opera, theater, and art events in the region. One former venue which will be presenting only local acts this year is the lovely theater inside the Owens Community College Center for the Visual and Performing Arts.

After a handful of seasons of bringing in innovative acts from around the country, the season had to be discontinued, mainly for budgetary reasons. Not that the hall and the center won't be very busy during the school terms, notes Jeremy Meier, a theater faculty member and interim manager of events.

"Owens is continuing its commitment to provide enriching learning opportunities for our students as well as to the surrounding communities," Meier noted, adding that student and community events have priority.

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BGSU maintains a busy Faculty Artist Series for those who love recitals. On Wednesday at 8 p.m., voice instructor Christopher Scholl, tenor, and Ellen Scholl, mezzo, will perform in Bryan Recital Hall. Pianist Kevin Bylsma will accompany in this free event.

Last week, BGSU flutist Conor Nelson kicked off the series with recitals in Bryan and at the Toledo Museum of Art Great Gallery offering a varied and lively program, with Thomas Rosenkranz accompanying.

A sizeable and enthusiastic audience felt the heat and sizzle of a storm in the opener, "Run Before Lightning," a 2004 work by Jonathan Harvey that calls for special flute effects beyond overtones, flutter and other extreme tonguing, voice-flute duets, and percussiveness. The collaboration between Nelson and Rosenkranz was electric, too.

Nelson then tore into a solo performance of Sicilian composer Salvatore Sciarrino's 1993 adaptation of Bach's Toccata and Fugue in D minor for the flute, a tour de force that condenses the sounds of dozens of organ pipes into one slim, silver tube. Nelson's expertise with tricky overtones added organic resonance to rapid arpeggios and octaves, winding up with a simultaneous octave for the final note.

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Pianist Kimiko Ishizaka will perform Sunday at the Kerrytown Concert House in Ann Arbor.

At 4 p.m. Sunday, Kerrytown Concert House will present pianist Kimiko Ishizaka performing Volume 1 of Bach's Well-Tempered Clavier. Ishizaka is a former child prodigy who also has placed internationally in weight-lifting competitions. She is the winner of solo and ensemble awards in her German homeland and is a Bach specialist.

A Cabaret Evening, "Parisian Soiree," is planned for 8 p.m. Sept. 22 in the historic home-concert hall at 415 North Fourth Ave., Ann Arbor. Performers will include Jane Schoonmaker Rodgers, Liz Pearse, Deanna Relyea, and Monica Swartout-Bebow, sopranos; baritone Roger Chard, violinist Gabe Bokosky, and pianists Kevin Bylsma, Maurita Holland, and Kathryn Goodson.

For tickets and information call 734-769-2999 or www.kerrytownconcerthouse.com.

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The Choraliers, an Oregon-based choir, is seeking new members, serious singers, for a Christmas program in December and a Spring program in May. For information, call Vicky Cubberly at 419-693-7542.

Items for News of Music should be sent to svallongo@theblade.com at least two weeks in advance.