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June 11, 2009 - Image 55

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Publication:
The Detroit Jewish News, 2009-06-11

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Arts & Entertainment

Mendelssohn And More

Detroit-born Lisa Kaplan is one of many classical artists
in this year's Great Lakes Chamber Music Festival.

Diana Lieberman

Special to the Jewish News

E

very year, Beverly Baker schedules
her summer around the Great
Lakes Chamber Music Festival.
In addition to attending most of the per-
formances, artistic encounters and other
events, Baker sponsors one of the concerts.
And, for many years, she has hosted a
performer or ensemble at her Bloomfield
Township home.
"In the past, I used to go on music cruis-
es for this kind of experience," Baker said.
"You have to pack, bring your passport, take
a plane, get on a boat — and then, when
you come back, you have jet lag.
"But here, for two weeks, we have a music
festival right in our own back yard."
Now in its 16th year, the Great Lakes
Chamber Music Festival, which runs
through June 21, brings highly esteemed
performers, up-and-coming ensembles and
intriguing guest composers to Southeast
Michigan. The festival's mission has been
to explore both the great composers of the
past as well as the cutting-edge music being
written today.
In the words of pianist James Tocco,
GLCMF artistic director, the 2009 festival
has two pillars. The first, described by the
festival subtitle," Mendelssohn and the
Dawn of Romanticism," continues the inter-
national celebration of Felix Mendelssohn's
200th birthday. The second introduces
Detroit-area audiences to three contempo-
rary American composers: Kati Agocs, Ken
Ueno and Stephen Hartke.
The opening concert of the festival
on Sunday, June 6, included a duo piano
arrangement of Mendelssohn's lively
"Overture" to A Midsummer Night's Dream,
a perfect introduction to the theme of
Romanticism in music, said ToCco. Written
when the composer was only 17 years old,
the piece is in the loosely structured form
now known as a tone poem. In the early
19th century, this was a startling innova-
tion, a real break with tradition.
Other GLCMF concerts include music by
Mendelssohn and composers who either

Lisa Kaplan and fellow performers in the sextet eighth blackbird

influenced him or were influenced by him.
And, in addition to the printed program,
each of the subscription concerts will be
introduced by one of Mendelssohn's "Songs
Without Words," Tocco said.
"These short piano pieces also are per-
fect analogies to the spirit of Romanticism,"
he said, "the idea of music as narration,
poetry, storytelling:'
The 2009 Great Lakes Festival also gives
a snapshot view of the works of three com-
posers who continue the tradition of inno-
vation in chamber music: Kati Agocs, Ken
Ueno and, in more depth, Stephen Hartke.
"They all have in common that they
have been chosen by various festival artists
who have worked with them in the past
or who will be collaborating with them in
new works to be introduced at the festival,"
Tocco said.

The 2009 Great Lakes Chamber Music Festival, which runs through June 21, began
16 years ago as a joint project of three religious institutions, all in either Bloomfield
Hills or Bloomfield Township: Temple Beth El, St. Hugo of the Hills and Kirk in the
Hills. This year, Detroit Country Day School's Seligman Performing Arts Center in
Beverly Hills, Grosse Pointe Memorial Church, the Detroit Institute of Arts and Ann
Arbor's Kerrytown Concert House join the founding institutions in hosting concerts.

Music of Hartke, the festival's senior
composer, will be performed throughout the
festival, including one concert, Monday, June
15, at Temple Beth El, devoted entirely to his
works. All three composers have been sched-
uled to introduce and discuss their music.
"The idea of a senior and one or more
junior composers interacting with and com-
plementing one another is the brainchild of
one of our board members, Gwen Weiner,
who, together with her sisters, has endowed
the festival with the Stone Composers'
Forum, named after their parents, Eunice
and Joshua (Jim) Stone," Tocco said.
"This is shaping up to be one of the
most exciting developments in the festi-
val's history."
This year, the festival invites back the six-
member ensemble eighth blackbird, which
performs in concerts taking place June

16-17 and 19-21. Described by the New
Yorker as "friendly, unpretentious, idealistic
and highly skilled," the group first charmed
GLCMF patrons in 2005 with a multime-
dia performance of Arnold Schoenberg's
20th-century masterpiece Pierrot Lunaire
— complete with puppets.
"We definitely have a tendency toward
the dramatic and theatrical," said pianist
Lisa Kaplan, who has been with the group
since its inception in 1996.
Among the works they'll perform this
year is Hartke's Meanwhile, incidental music
to imaginary puppet plays. The musicians
perform the piece from memory, moving
around the stage to visually highlight what
is happening aurally in the music. Written
specifically for eighth blackbird in November
2007, Meanwhile was a finalist for that year's
Pulitzer Prize in music.
The ensemble also will introduce com-
poser Kati Agocs to festival audiences,
including the premiere of the Boston-based
composer's Pygmalion, another work writ-
ten for eighth blackbird.
Kaplan, who spent the first four years of
her life in Detroit, grew up in Connecticut,
graduating from Oberlin College with both
a bachelor of music in piano performance
and a bachelor of arts in art history. She
went on to earn a master's degree in music
from Northwestern University, where she
studied with Ursula Oppens. The ensemble
also received artist diplomas in chamber
music from the Conservatory of Music in
Cincinnati.
This summer, Kaplan also appears with
Detroit favorite Jeremy Denk on Thursday,
June 18, in the Mozart Sonata for Piano,
Four Hands, along with her numerous per-
formances as pianist for eighth blackbird.
"I love Mozart, so I'm really excited,"
Kaplan said. "I think that sometimes ini-
tially there can be different skill sets needed
when learning a piece of contemporary
music, as opposed to a piece from the tradi-
tional canon.
"That being said, I think I generally end
up using everything from my background
to play any piece of music. In the end,
music is music."

The festival includes daytime artistic encounters and concert preludes. Preludes
generally begin 45 minutes before the main performance and are free to ticket hold-
ers. See the festival Web site for details. Individual tickets range in price from $32-
$35, $10 for those ages 25 and younger. Tickets purchased at the door cost an
extra $5. For more information and to purchase tickets, call (248) 559-2097 or
go to greatlakeschambermusic.org .

June 11 • 2009

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