arts & entertainment

Music Of
The Spheres

The 18th annual
Great Lakes Chamber Music Festival
will feature music
both earthly and heavenly.

Suzanne Chessler
Contributing Writer

T

he worlds of sacred and secular
music have been expanding for
Daniel Gross and his wife, Lauren
Skuce, since their move to Michigan in
2009.
As Gross carries out his cantorial
responsibilities at Adat Shalom Synagogue,
Skuce is getting ready to serve as substi-
tute cantor at Temple Beth El.
The two, with strong backgrounds sing-
ing in opera and classical concerts, are
preparing for their second year of appear-
ances at the Great Lakes Chamber Music
Festival.
"This is my first stint as a full-time can-
tor, and I think its important to maintain
my other singing self,' says Gross, 34, a
baritone whose varied appearances reach
from Pittsburgh Opera to the Chamber
Music Society of Lincoln Center.
"When I sing in a synagogue, it's not
about performance or presenting some-
thing to people; it's about presenting
something to God. When I'm performing
secular music, it's about conveying some-
thing to an audience and stretching my
voice through challenging pieces."
The Great Lakes Chamber Music
Festival, which runs June 11-26 at vari-
ous hosting venues in and around Detroit,
has an unusual hallmark of being secular
and yet sponsored by religious organiza-

tions — Temple Beth El and Kirk in the
Hills, both in Bloomfield Township, and
St. Hugo of the Hills in Bloomfield Hills
— along with Detroit Chamber Winds &
Strings.
The concert series, in its 18th year,
moves into the theme "Music of the
Spheres: Songs of the Earth and Sky" and
includes Beethoven's Moonlight Sonata
and Mozart's Jupiter Symphony, as well as
many contemporary pieces.
Celestially inspired works will be the
focus of the 2011 Stone Composers-in-
Residence, Chen Yi and Zhou Long, who
mix the sounds of East and West and
are on the faculty of the University of
Missouri-Kansas City Conservatory of
Music and Dance.
Chen Yi has received the Charles Ives
Living Award from the American Academy
of Arts and Letters, and Zhou Long is this
year's winner of a Pulitzer Prize in Music
for his opera Madame White Snake.
Skuce, 37, will be performing Zhou
Long's Green Song for voice and pipa
Friday evening, June 24, at the Kerrytown
Concert House in Ann Arbor. The evening
is among the nonsubscription concerts.
"I'm honored to be doing a piece with
the pipa, a string instrument," says Skuce,
a soprano who has appeared with the
Orpheus Chamber Orchestra, Madison
Opera and Florida Grand Opera, among
many performing arts organizations.
"The instrument is like a guitar but has so
many more colorful sounds."

Husband and wife Daniel Gross and Lauren Skuce will perform both separately and

together at this year's GLCMF.

Gross and Skuce, unlike last year, have
been invited to sing together for one
concert. They will be performing Brahms
duets Thursday evening, June 23, at Kirk
in the Hills.
"It's great appearing with Lauren:' Gross
says. "We treat each concert with profes-
sional awareness, but when we need to
relate to each other on a dramatic level, we
don't have to act."
In other programs, Gross will present
Barber's Dover Beach, Op. 3, June 21-22
at Temple Beth El; and Skuce will sing
Respighi's Il Tramonto (Sunset) June 14-15
at St. Hugo of the Hills and June 17 at the
Art Gallery of Windsor, and a chamber
transcription of Mahler's Des Lied von der
Erde June 25 at the Seligman Performing
Arts Center.
The couple, who met while working at
the Wolf Trap Opera Company in Virginia,
auditioned for the Great Lakes festival at
the suggestion of instrumentalists Ida and
Ani Kavafian. The two sisters, who grew
up in Michigan and performed previously
at Great Lakes, know Gross and Skuce
through the careers the couple established
before moving to this area.
"I've participated in some of the nation's
best chamber music festivals, and I've
found that the level of music making is
incredibly high at Great Lakes!' says Skuce,
heard at Chamber Music Northwest,
Juneau Jazz and Classics Festival and
Skaneateles Chamber Music Festival.
The global sounds performed through-

out the annual event feature the talents of
other Jewish performers, cellists Paul Katz
and Yehuda Hanani, violinist and violist
Yehonatan Berick and pianist Lisa Kaplan,
who is part of the sextet eighth blackbird.
Katz, director of the Shouse Institute
at the festival, can be heard June 17 at
Kerrytown Concert House, June 18 at the
Seligman Performing Arts Center and
June 20 at Temple Beth El. Long known
for his work with the Grammy-winning
Cleveland Quartet, he has served as presi-
dent of Chamber Music America.
The Shouse Institute welcomes emerg-
ing talent, and its alumni have gone on to
receive Grammy nominations. This sea-
son's Shouse artists are the Jasper String
Quartet, Attacca Quartet, Sima Trio and
Trio Terzetto.
Also in the spotlight will be Nicholas
Omiccioli, the Stone Composer fellow
commissioned to write a new work.
Omiccioli is a winner of the ASCAP
Foundation's 2010 Morton Gould Young
Composer Awards.
To raise awareness of the Great Lakes
Festival, Gross and Skuce have been doing
small concerts in private homes.
"Music is all about connecting, and I'd
like to put a bridge between the sacred
and secular worlds:' Gross says. "I hope
people who hear me at the synagogue will
take the opportunity to hear me sing at
the festival, and I hope people who go to
the festival concerts will want to hear me
in a prayer service." I

The Great Lakes Chamber Music
Festival runs June 11-26 in venues
across the Metro Detroit area. A
complete schedule is available at www.
greatlakeschambermusic.org . Subscription
concert tickets cost $90 for three
performances, $115 for five performances
and $145 for seven performances. Tickets
for single performances are $10-$50.
(248) 559-2097.

* Tickets for non-subscription concerts
must be purchased through the venue.

Left to right: Returning GLCMF performers include Paul Katz, Yehonatan Berick, Yehuda Hanani and Lisa Kaplan.

June 2

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