Dear Editor:
Last Sunday’s Great Lakes Chamber Orchestra concert, Beethoven’s Friend, was an extraordinary experience for those of us who happened to attend this nearly sold out performance. Concert Master, Paul Sonner, dazzled the audience with his violin virtuosity (and stamina) as he played the newly re-discovered Violin Concerto in D Major, by Franz Clement…himself an extraordinary violinist who composed this particular piece in 1805.
Because Beethoven was so impressed with Clement’s musicianship, the two became fast friends. While Clement himself was an outstanding violinist, he spent more of his time playing Beethoven’s concerti than his own. So his Concerto in D Major was stowed away and nearly forgotten. How fortunate that this piece has been rediscovered and published so that once again his work can be heard. We who sat in the sanctuary of the First Presbyterian Church of Harbor Springs last Sunday were among the first to enjoy it, live, in our century.
My wife and I have enjoyed the Detroit Symphony Orchestra for over three decades. When we moved to Northern Michigan in 2009, we wondered how we would fill the musical void in our lives. We were delighted to discover the GLCO!
Congratulations to the entire orchestra! This should be an outstanding season.
David Kendall
Last Sunday’s Great Lakes Chamber Orchestra concert, Beethoven’s Friend, was an extraordinary experience for those of us who happened to attend this nearly sold out performance. Concert Master, Paul Sonner, dazzled the audience with his violin virtuosity (and stamina) as he played the newly re-discovered Violin Concerto in D Major, by Franz Clement…himself an extraordinary violinist who composed this particular piece in 1805.
Because Beethoven was so impressed with Clement’s musicianship, the two became fast friends. While Clement himself was an outstanding violinist, he spent more of his time playing Beethoven’s concerti than his own. So his Concerto in D Major was stowed away and nearly forgotten. How fortunate that this piece has been rediscovered and published so that once again his work can be heard. We who sat in the sanctuary of the First Presbyterian Church of Harbor Springs last Sunday were among the first to enjoy it, live, in our century.
My wife and I have enjoyed the Detroit Symphony Orchestra for over three decades. When we moved to Northern Michigan in 2009, we wondered how we would fill the musical void in our lives. We were delighted to discover the GLCO!
Congratulations to the entire orchestra! This should be an outstanding season.
David Kendall
27/09: Tuesday, September 27, 2011
Good arguments are made by community minded patrons, especially in times like these, during relatively long periods of economic uncertainty, that local philanthropic organizations and community-minded donors need to concentrate their collective funding capacity in support of social programs that satisfy the basic needs of our community like health care, good nutrition, and sound educational programs focused on the fundamentals --the latter phrase a code for “education without frills like art and music.”
Last month that argument was set aside for two hours as several hundred of us attended A Premiere Evening of Ballet, a performance produced and performed by the Great Lakes Chamber Orchestra under the direction of Maestro Matthew Hazelwood, and in partnership with Heather Raue and her pre-professional ballet dancers who train at the Crooked Tree Arts Center in Petoskey. The concert/dance event took place on the stage of John Hall Auditorium in Bay View before literally hundreds of stunned audience members. The orchestra members and young, extraordinarily well trained dancers took the stage with a level of grace, power, and charm that rivals anything one would expect to see and hear in one of America’s most sophisticated metropolitan centers.
Four of the dancers who performed for us are now in fact in residence in some of America’s most sophisticated metropolitan centers: Esmea Gold is at Gelsey Kirkland Academy of Classical Ballet (NYC), Claire Millard is at School of American Ballet (NYC), Ellie Conners is at Pittsburgh Ballet Theatre (Pittsburgh) and Hannah Bianchi has a contract with Deeply Rooted Dance Theatre (Chicago). For good reasons, Heather Raue was named Ballet Teacher of the Year by Dance Magazine in October of 2010.
Our own Artistic Director and Conductor, Maestro Matthew Hazelwood has developed an international reputation providing directorial leadership for the Batuta program in the country of Colombia, South America. Batuta is the second largest music program for young people in the world. We have great leadership in the arts here.
Over the past ten years, with the dedicated support of local philanthropic organizations and individual donors and members, the Great Lakes Chamber Orchestra has commissioned two new “classical” music compositions and now three completely new ballets. At a time when orchestras all over the country are struggling at the brink of collapse, or have already experienced collapse, our own local Great Lakes Chamber Orchestra is thriving. We are fortunate to live right here at this particular time.
The orchestra’s success is inspirational. Its impact on our population cannot be measured in empirical terms; It can be properly measured only by looking at the long-term affective impact it will have on our collective character. One left John Hall Auditorium last August 27, knowing that people, especially the young, are beautiful creatures deserving of our love, admiration, respect, and dedicated efforts toward making the quality of life we enjoy in northern Michigan the norm for them and eventually for their own children.
We must once again add the arts to the list of social programs that satisfy our collective, basic needs. Experiences in the arts make the life made possible, worth living.
-Dale Hull, Board Trustee
Last month that argument was set aside for two hours as several hundred of us attended A Premiere Evening of Ballet, a performance produced and performed by the Great Lakes Chamber Orchestra under the direction of Maestro Matthew Hazelwood, and in partnership with Heather Raue and her pre-professional ballet dancers who train at the Crooked Tree Arts Center in Petoskey. The concert/dance event took place on the stage of John Hall Auditorium in Bay View before literally hundreds of stunned audience members. The orchestra members and young, extraordinarily well trained dancers took the stage with a level of grace, power, and charm that rivals anything one would expect to see and hear in one of America’s most sophisticated metropolitan centers.
Four of the dancers who performed for us are now in fact in residence in some of America’s most sophisticated metropolitan centers: Esmea Gold is at Gelsey Kirkland Academy of Classical Ballet (NYC), Claire Millard is at School of American Ballet (NYC), Ellie Conners is at Pittsburgh Ballet Theatre (Pittsburgh) and Hannah Bianchi has a contract with Deeply Rooted Dance Theatre (Chicago). For good reasons, Heather Raue was named Ballet Teacher of the Year by Dance Magazine in October of 2010.
Our own Artistic Director and Conductor, Maestro Matthew Hazelwood has developed an international reputation providing directorial leadership for the Batuta program in the country of Colombia, South America. Batuta is the second largest music program for young people in the world. We have great leadership in the arts here.
Over the past ten years, with the dedicated support of local philanthropic organizations and individual donors and members, the Great Lakes Chamber Orchestra has commissioned two new “classical” music compositions and now three completely new ballets. At a time when orchestras all over the country are struggling at the brink of collapse, or have already experienced collapse, our own local Great Lakes Chamber Orchestra is thriving. We are fortunate to live right here at this particular time.
The orchestra’s success is inspirational. Its impact on our population cannot be measured in empirical terms; It can be properly measured only by looking at the long-term affective impact it will have on our collective character. One left John Hall Auditorium last August 27, knowing that people, especially the young, are beautiful creatures deserving of our love, admiration, respect, and dedicated efforts toward making the quality of life we enjoy in northern Michigan the norm for them and eventually for their own children.
We must once again add the arts to the list of social programs that satisfy our collective, basic needs. Experiences in the arts make the life made possible, worth living.
-Dale Hull, Board Trustee
