New concert series kicks off Sunday
6/20/2013The first concert in the new collaborative series, Simple Gifts, is to begin at 2 p.m. Sunday at the 577 Foundation, the garden and arts center on the 12-acre former Stranahan estate at 577 East Front St., Perrysburg.
Created out of a joint venture between the Toledo Symphony and the Black Swamp Conservancy with funding from local sources and the National Endowment for the Arts, the series seeks to present live music in living settings starting Sunday and continuing well into 2014.
Sunday’s event will feature the Toledo Symphony String Quartet: violinists Merwin Siu and Cheryl Trace, violist Reed Anderson, and cellist Robert Clemens. Their program will comprise music by Copland, Dvorak, Ives, Higdon, and others, works selected to reflect the composers’ inspiration by the natural world.
The concert is free to the public but tickets are required for each of the 200 seats. The Toledo Symphony, which was distributing tickets, says all have been claimed. Anyone who has requested and received a ticket and cannot use it is urged to call the TSO ticket office, 419-246-8000, to release it so someone else may attend.
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Tickets are still available for the Great Lakes Chamber Music Festival Residency at Kerrytown Concert House, 415 North Fourth Ave., Ann Arbor, which is slated for two performances this weekend.
The first program, at 8 p.m. Friday, will feature festival director and pianist James Tocco with violinist Kimberly Kaloyanides Kennedy, cellist Kee-Hyun Kim, soprano Lauren Skuce, pianist William Bolcom, and the Axiom Brass.
Two composers of works to be performed will be in the house: Bolcom, emeritus professor from the University of Michigan and Brett Dean.
On the program will be Dean’s Skizzen Fur Siegbert and Bolcom’s selected songs. Also to be performed will be Beethoven’s String Trio in C minor, Op. 9, No. 3, and Victor Ewald’s Quintet No. 3 in Db major, Op. 11.
Concert number two in the residency will take place at 7 p.m. Sunday in the hall, near Zingerman’s Deli in Ann Arbor’s north end.
Returning to perform will be Tocco, joined by violinist Ani Kavafian, pianist Andrea Lam, the city of tomorrow woodwind quintet, and the Delphi Trio.
This program will focus on music by Mozart . Dvorak, and Elliott Carter. Specifics include Mozart’s Violin Sonata in Eb, Carter’s Woodwind Quintet and the 2009 work titled Nine by Five, plus Dvorak’s Piano Trio No. 3 in F minor.
Tickets for either concert at this compact historic venue range from $15 for general admission to $30 for assigned seats in the two front rows. For reservations call 734-769-2999 or visit www.kerrytownconcerthouse.com.
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The Toledo Ballet won’t be resting on its laurels this summer. In fact, the return of a successful benefit from 2012 is set for June 27 -- the Second Annual Toest Beer & Wine Event -- at Olander Park, Sylvania Avenue in Sylvania. From 6:30-9 p.m. guests will be able to listen to music, nibble on fine appetizers from Ciao! Ristorante, and support Toledo’s most venerable dance company.
Tickets are $30 in advance and $35 at the door. All proceeds support the ballet and its scholarship program.
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School choirs and orchestras may be on hiatus when school ends but the most ambitious young musicians never stop studying and practicing, to the delight of local groups which support them.
The Toledo Chapter, American Guild of Organists encourages young keyboard whizzes to plan on trying for one of its scholarships in a performance audition to be announced next fall. Students in grades 7 through 12 are eligible to try out for money to further their studies. For more information, visit Pam Davis at Community of Christ Lutheran Church, 419-877-0507.
The Toledo Symphony League also is gearing up for next season’s round of competitions for senior high school instrumentalists. Last year some $9800 in scholarships from its Remembrance Fund were awarded to 27 area musicians, members of the Toledo Youth Orchestra, who were winners in local performance competitions the league sponsors. This fund was established by Sophie Lustig in 1952 and is now administered by Janet Keener.
Moreover, the League’s Young Artists’ Competition each year selects students to perform with the Toledo Symphony in the Peristyle during one of the youth orchestra‘s annual performances, the Side by Side Concert when TSO pros join students.
Next year’s event is set for March 16. Current winners who will perform in that 2014 concert are Carter Adams, percussionist; violinist Emma Sandberg, and pianist Isabella Hu. Each also will receive a cash award.
Auditions for both awards will be held in March and April, 2014, with exact dates and requirements to be announced this fall.
The league also encourages TSO members to continue their education through its Summer Study Grants Program.
This summer, principal harpist Nancy Lendrim and flutist Amy Heritage will further their professional training through League grants. Both players will study the Suzuki instructional methods to prepare to teach in the symphony’s music school next year.
More information on league activities is available at both the www.toledosymphony.com and
www.toledosymphonyleague.com.
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Congrats to the Pride of Toledo Chorus, one of the busy groups of barbershop music makers in the area, for being selected to represent the Toledo area in an international competition to take place in November in Honolulu.
Send items for News of Music to svallongo@theblade.com two weeks ahead of the event.