Arts & Entertainment Celebrating Diversity The Great Lakes Chamber Music Festival, sponsored by local churches and a synagogue, brings together musicians and audiences of all stripes. SUZANNE CHESSLER Special to the Jewish News A n Israeli-born violinist is among the instrumentalists debuting this year with the Great Lakes Chamber Music Festival. Shmuel Ashkenasi, first violinist with the Vermeer Quartet and artist-in-resi- dence at Northern Illinois University, will be part of four out of 20 concerts scheduled for the festival's ninth year. The performance event, which runs June 15-30 at several venues, is a secu- lar program sponsored by a coalition of Jewish, Catholic and Protestant congregations — Temple Beth El, St. Hugo of the Hills and Kirk in the Hills. Detroit Chamber Winds & Strings is the host ensemble. "We're combining classics with modern pieces and old-guard perform- ers with young ensembles at each con- cert, and I think that makes for very powerful artistic statements," says Maury Okun, executive director of the Great Lakes Festival. "I think that great diversity adds to the interest." Musical Academy of Tel Aviv, came to the United States to study at the Curtis Institute. He spent six years at the American school, liked the coun- try and developed professional and social connections. "When I started dreaming in English, I knew the United States would be my home," says the violinist, who will appear in one concert that also features eighth blackbird, a sextet that had a strong professional push in the early years of the Great Lakes Festival. The ensemble, which prefers the lower-case spelling, originally appeared as part of the festival's Shouse Institute training program, which hosts cham- ber groups for two weeks of perform- ing and coaching in a time they are moving into professional status. This year's participants include the Biava String Quartet, Jupiter String Quartet, Lee-Zhu Duo and Zoroastran Trio. Michigan Native Lisa Kaplan, who lived in Michigan through her 4th birthday, plays piano for eighth blackbird. "Our appearance at the Great Lakes Festival in 1997 was in the first sum- mer we were a group," says Kaplan, 27, who also will be performing this season at festivals in Cincinnati, Norfolk and Woodstock, in addition to recording two CDs celebrating the modern chamber repertoire. "We made connections with James Tocco and Henry Meyer and got addi- tional work through them." Kaplan and the other members of eighth blackbird met while they were students at Oberlin Conservatory. A professor suggested they perform together, and the instrumentalists liked the results. They took their name from the eighth stanza of the Wallace Stevens poem "Thirteen Ways of Looking at a Blackbird." "The pieces we're performing in Michigan are intimate and great chamber music," says Kaplan, whose group will be playing Albert's Thirteen Ways Suite and Rzewski's Pocket Symphony on June 18, 19 and 21 and Etezady's Damaged Goods on June 22. Kaplan also will be performing Harbison's Variations for Violin, Clarinet and Piano with Ida Kavafian and Michael Maccaferri on June 22. Kaplan, the daughter of Lorraine (Tannenbaum) and Ken Kaplan now living in Connecticut, has studied the violin as well as the piano and knew very early that she wanted to perform. Although she enjoyed the Jewish tradi- Far left: Israeli-born violinist Shmuel Ashkenasi: "When I started dreaming in English, I knew the United States would be my home." Left: Pianist and former Michigander Lisa Kaplan, bottom row center, of eighth blackbird: "The pieces we're perfiming in Michigan are intimate and great chamber music." Israeli-Born Performer Ashkenasi, who has appeared at Orchestra Hall and many other presti- gious venues around the state, will be applying his talents to the diversity by playing both contemporary and classical works: Harbison's November 19, 1828 and Schumann's Quartetfor Piano and Strings on June 19, 20 and 21, as well as Brahms's Sextet No. 1 and Dvorak's Four Romantic Pieces on June 23. "I am happy with all the pieces, and I'm happy to be appearing with people I've performed with in the past," says Ashkenasi, 61, who also will be traveling to summer festivals in Illinois, Maine, Germany, the Netherlands and Austria. "Ruth Laredo was a schoolmate of mine, and I've performed with her as well as Ani and Ida Kayak-Ian and James Tocco (pianist and artistic direc- tor of the festival). When I'm working with them, I know what to expect. I'm familiar with their idiosyncrasies and rehearsal habits." Ashkenasi, who attended the 6/7 2002 74 Festival Schedule A variety of programs will be featured at this year's Great Lakes Chamber Music Festival, and the composers represented are listed below. Complete information, including performers and individual and subscription ticket prices, is available at www.greadakeschambermusic.com or at (248) 559-2097 (except where noted). SUBSCRIPTION CONCERTS June 15 Seligman Performing Arts Center — 8 p.m. (Beethoven,Mendelssohn/ Mirapaul, Rachmaninoff/Mirapaul, Glazounov, Zorn, Taylor, Dvorak) June 18, 19 St. Hugo of the Hills — 8 p.m. (Albert, Ravel, Mozart, Rzewski) June 20, 21 Kirk in the Hills — 8 p.m. (Dvorak, Harbison, Barber, Schumann) June 22 Seligman Performing Arts Center — 8 p.m. (Etezady, Ravel, Harbison, Brahms) June 25, 26 Temple Beth El — 8 p.m. (Beethoven, Poulenc, Dvorak) June 27 St. Hugo of the Hills — 8 p.m. (Schubert, Grieg, Brahms) June 28 St. Hugo of the Hills — 8 p.m. (Boccherini, Beethoven, Mendelssohn) June 29 Seligman Performing Arts Center — 8 p.m. (Bach, Beethoven, Wiren, Mozart)