arts&life

CLOCKWISE FROM TOP: Montrose Trio; Enid and Rick
Grauer ; Leon Fleisher.

music

MUSIC TRIUMPHS

7 5 Years

Chamber Music

Society comes full
circle with opening
performance.

SUZANNE CHESSLER
CONTRIBUTING WRITER

Details

The opening 75th
anniversary concert of the
Chamber Music Society of
Detroit begins at 8 p.m.
Saturday, Sept. 15, at the
Seligman Performing Arts
Center in Beverly Hills.
Single tickets range from
$12.50-$70. (313) 335-
3300. CMSDetroit.org.

44

September 13 • 2018

E

nid and Richard Grauer have attended
some 400 concerts of the Chamber
Music Society of Detroit (CMSD), and
the upcoming season will add to that number
as the society celebrates its 75th anniversary.
The opening night concert, Sept. 15 at
the Seligman Performing Arts Center in
Beverly Hills, will present the Montrose
Trio performing Tchaikovsky’s Piano Trio in
A minor, the same piece performed at the
CMSD’s very first concert.
Besides the performance link, there also is
a performer link.
As the CMSD debuted, it featured a piano
trio whose violinist was Josef Gingold, a
Jewish musician and concertmaster of the
Detroit Symphony Orchestra and became a
respected teacher. One of Gingold’s students,
Martin Beaver, is the violinist in the Montrose
Trio, which also includes pianist Jon Kimura
Parker and cellist Clive Greensmith.
Another Tchaikovsky piece, Serenade for
Strings, will close the season as conducted
by Leon Fleisher, also an acclaimed pianist
and teacher who appeared with the Detroit
Symphony Orchestra (DSO) in the 1940s,
when the CMSD was launching. Fleisher’s
history with the CMSD reaches back to 2002,
when he was joined by David Jolley on French

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horn and Michael Tree on violin.
Grauer, who sang with choral groups while
attending the University of Michigan and
was a member of the Rackham Choir when
the choir appeared with the DSO, explains
his appreciation for chamber music and the
choices for the upcoming series to be featured
at different Metro Detroit venues.
“My wife and I enjoy the connection to
musicians whenever we attend chamber
music concerts,” says Grauer, a CMSD board
member also affiliated with the Birmingham
Temple in Farmington Hills.
“As far as being on the board, the pleasure
comes from giving back in a small way. We’re
trying to assure the perpetuation of the
organization and this fine music. From the
beginning, the CMSD has attracted the very
best of international musicians. Performers
very often do outreach programs in the public
schools and relate to young people.”
This year’s lineup includes the Pacifica
Quartet, the Academy of St. Martins in the
Field, the Mack Sisters, Meneses & Galbraith,
Olga Kern, Four Nations Ensemble, Opera
MODO, Aeolus Quartet and Franklin Cohen,
Miro Quartet, Stewart Goodyear, Richard
Goode & Sarah Shafer, and Juilliard & Argus
string quartets.

CHRIS HARLOVE

Celebrating

“We’re looking forward to the upcoming
season, and I believe Leon Fleisher will be
the highlight. I’ve watched him on YouTube,
and he has a wonderful, heartwarming story
about the way he was able to return to full
performance,” Grauer said.
In the 1960s, Fleisher coped with a
neurological disorder that
impeded the movement
of his right hand. Until full
movement was restored, which
required years of therapy, he
turned to repertoire for the left
hand, conducting and teaching
to fulfill his dedication to
music.
“When I finished a period
of melancholy and whining
(after first encountering the
problems with my hand), I
realized my connection was to
music, not exclusively to being
a two-handed player,” Fleisher
told the Detroit Jewish News
in 2008. “Once I came to that
realization, I was able to find other
ways to relate to music.”
Fleisher, who has performed in
Jerusalem among many cities around
the world, has described a strong
feeling of being Jewish.
When Fleisher closes the CMSD
season, he will be back at Orchestra
Hall working with four young string
quartets besides appearing as solo
pianist, abilities most recently
shown locally as Leonard Slatkin
conducted. Joining him on stage will
be the Attacca, Catalyst, Dover and
Harlem quartets.
“I’m absolutely delighted
and honored to be part of this
celebration,” says Fleisher, a Kennedy
Center honoree in 2008. “Being able to
communicate through music is a very
powerful force in the world. It gives rise
to the best aspects of human nature and,
therefore, becomes a kind of example for
behavior.
“Chamber music itself is a marvelous
metaphor for how to lead one’s life, and
I think one can learn enormously about
life and how to deal with people through
chamber music.
“There are moments when one is in
the fore and has the important material.
There are moments when one has purely
supportive material, not the most important
in terms of what appears on the surface but
absolutely vital nonetheless; without it, the
[performance] would be quite incomplete.”
Fleisher passes along his approach to
music through teaching at the Peabody
Conservatory in Baltimore. Now part of
Johns Hopkins University, it is the oldest
conservatory in the country.
On opening night of the 75th season,
concertgoers also will hear Mendelssohn’s
Piano Trio No. 2 in C minor. An exhibit of
memorabilia from the organization’s 75-year
history will be on display in the lobby. •

