|
For a playlist of professional chamber music
concerts in Yellow Springs since 1980, as an Excel worksheet file, contact info@cmys.org
The little chamber music series with the big
reputation celebrates 25 years
By Susan Gartner
[Published and copyright by the Yellow Springs News]
In the world of chamber music, Chamber Music Yellow
Springs can play with the big boys.
“When I go to the Chamber Music America Conference
[the national association of chamber music presenters and performers] which
is held in New York every year,” said CMYS vice president Mary White,
“people know about us because we’re a very solid chamber music
series. We get very good groups one wouldn’t necessarily expect in a
tiny town.”
How is it possible that a town of 3,600 can share the
stage with cities like Cleveland, Chicago, and Toronto and offer an
internationally recognized selection of hot new talent that is appreciated
by audiences and performers alike?
Yellow Springs might be small in size but it’s
mighty in several noteworthy areas—one of them being the concert
venue.
“The Presbyterian church is the sort of space that
most chamber music historically was written for,” said Bruce
Bradtmiller, CMYS past president (1990-1992). “It’s a terrific
opportunity to hear the music exactly as it was supposed to be heard. The
performers confirm that.” According to Bradtmiller, many times the
performers are locked into a concert series where they play a large
auditorium not intended for chamber music. “Chamber musicians are
playing chamber music because they like the intimacy.”
Another significant draw for performers and listeners is
the type of music that CMYS showcases.
“Different chamber music series have a different
focus,” explained Jeff Huntington, CMYS president (1997-1999,
2006-present). “In Cincinnati, for instance, their series is very
strong on German and Austrian music—Beethoven and Mozart and all
those guys—and that’s all they play. But in YS we like to see
the interaction between different cultures. [We may feature] a string
quartet and the music is written by a Chinese composer or it’s a
brass quintet and it’s about music in Haiti. Practically every
concert has music from our own time—a piece by a living composer. We
do a lot of cross-cultural pieces but we don’t want to slack off on
famous works that everybody expects. So we do both.”
Huntington explains there are certain audiences that are
resistant to this—”they only want one kind of music.”
Which points to another reason why performers are drawn to Yellow Springs.
“[The artists] like the response they get from our
audience,” said Mary Fahrenbruck, a member of the CMYS booking
committee since 1990. “I hear that over and over again. It’s a
very knowledgeable, appreciative audience.”
Then there’s the small-town hospitality.
“What we offer that’s different is Yellow
Springs,” said White. “It’s small, [the artists] can walk
everywhere, people say ‘hi’ to them on the street, they can get
a little bit of a break. It’s not like being stuck in a huge hotel in
a big urban environment where getting around is a chore. This is a little
like going on a country vacation with a concert thrown in.”
“Our groups have toured all over the world,”
said Ruth Bent, a founding member and CMYS past president (1993-1997).
“They tell us stories of how they’re treated by other
presenters.” A typical story is that the performers didn’t get
picked up at the airport or taken to their hotel, they had to find their
own way to the concert hall, and after the concert was over, they received
their check and that was that. “Whereas we house them for the weekend
and give them a lovely dinner and drive them back and forth to the
airport.”
Fellow founding member and CMYS past president
(1983-1990) Jane Baker initially started the tradition of housing the
musicians in her home.
“I did it for the first several years because it
was clear that since our fees were modest that was one way we could help
out the musicians,” said Baker, who has attended many four-star
rehearsals in her livingroom. “It was a wonderful way to get
acquainted with some very interesting people. I was sort of disappointed
when other people caught on to the fact that this was not a chore but was
actually fun!”
There’s also the CMYS outreach program. Each year,
selected performers extend their stay in order to give an additional
concert at a local school. Travel costs are a significant portion of the
artists’ fee but if the artist is already here, an additional concert
is easily negotiable. “In November, the Carmina String Quartet will
do a workshop at Mills Lawn for the elementary students and in March, the
Albers String Trio will do two separate workshops for high school and
middle school students,” said Huntington. “The students get to
see real, live, star-caliber professional musicians up close.”
In addition to all of this, each artist receives a
professionally-recorded CD of their performance from SoundSpace, Inc. which
is then rebroadcast over WDPR-FM (88.1) and WDPG-FM (89.9). Performances
are videotaped by Millard Mier and broadcast on Channel 5, the public
access cable channel.
This bonanza performance package has been available to
CMYS musicians and fans since the beginning—25 years ago.
“A group of us got together at the urging of
musicians from the Cincinnati Symphony who had come to play at a series of
concerts at Antioch,” said Baker, recalling the group’s humble
beginnings. “When the professor who had organized those concerts
left, the musicians said to us, ‘This is the best audience
we’ve ever played for. Please find another [YS venue] for us to
play.’ They offered to play for free because they liked our audience
so much.”
Through it all, the group’s mission has remained
the same: to attract and support the younger, up-and-coming groups who are
making a name for themselves rather than the big name, established groups
who have been at it for twenty-plus years.
“That’s partly a matter of finances,”
said Bent, “but mostly a matter of emphasis. We like to think that
we’re a place that helps to get the artists on their way.”
As members of the booking committee, Bradtmiller,
Huntington, Fahrenbruck, Bent, and Baker weed through the stacks of
marketing packets, photos, and CDs sent by the various performers or their
agents and then plan who is going to be featured in the next year’s
chamber music series. It’s a process of winnowing, debating,
selecting and negotiating with schedules, fees, and travel expenses in
order to maintain a high caliber of performer yet stay within budget.
“That’s always a matter of give and
take,” said Bent. “We certainly don’t want to offer a
price that is too low for the artists to make a living. On the other hand,
we’re not rich enough to pay what other series can pay with absolute
top headliners.”
Each year the series culminates in the Annual
Competition for Emerging Professional Ensembles. Two outstanding ensembles
are chosen by first-round judges and compete for $5,000 in prize money.
Winners often go on to achieve national and international success. The
point of the competition is to help launch these young groups so that the
winner will have a slight edge over their peers in getting necessary
recognition and more performance opportunities.
“We’re a recognized concert series that is
doing something important by way of our competition and have been doing it
for a very long time,” said White. “It blows me away that we do
what we do in this town. It’s put us on the map internationally for
chamber music.”
The longevity of the competition has created an unusual
problem for CMYS first-round judges and competition staff.
“In my ten years of being associated with the
competition,” said White, “the quality of these groups has dramatically
increased. Now it is getting harder to choose our finalists as so many
groups are playing at extraordinarily high levels. The quality of the
competition is at least as exciting as our regular concerts.”
In CMYS, everyone’s a winner—from the
audience to the performers. For the sixty-nine volunteers (there is no paid
staff), their reward comes from the performers who ask, “When can we
come back?”
The first concert of the
2008-2009 series is the Daedalus Quartet with African American pianist
Awadagin Pratt which will be held at the First Presbyterian Church on
October 5, 7:30 p.m. For more information, visit the website at
www.cmys.org.
Group celebrates 20 years of chamber music in town
By Diane Chiddister
[First published and copyright 2002 by the Yellow Springs News]
In the spring of 1983,
several Yellow Springs music lovers got together in Ruth Bent's kitchen and
imagined what seemed to them an unreachable dream — to make Yellow
Springs the home of world-class concerts of chamber music.
"We spent about five minutes saying,
"We're too small, we can't do that,' " said Bent. "Then we
said, "Well, the least we can do is try.' "
Try they did, and they succeeded. A combination of
hard work and a supportive community has turned Yellow Springs into a
little town with a big heart for chamber music, the home of a
world-renowned concert series and competition.
This Sunday, Nov. 3, Chamber Music Yellow Springs
will celebrate its 20th season with a concert by the Artis String Quartet.
The performance will take place at the First Presbyterian Church, beginning
at 7:30 p.m. Everyone is invited to come early to celebrate the group's
20th season with desserts and appetizers at 6 p.m. at the church.
From the get-go, what seemed a foolish dream turned
out to be remarkably doable, said a group of past and current CMYS
volunteers in a recent interview.
"Two hundred people showed up at the
first concert," Bent said. "It was obviously something people
wanted. We never looked back."
These days, chamber music groups come to Yellow
Springs from all over the world, and at least one — the Vienna Piano
Trio — performed here a day after playing Carnegie Hall in New York.
And while CMYS can't offer the fees these groups usually command, the group
lures top-notch musicians by offering something rare — a large,
passionate, knowledgeable audience.
"The musicians invariably say, "This
is a great audience,' " said CMYS organizer Jane Baker, who links the
CMYS audience's passion to the large number of local musicians. "Our
audience acts like it's having a good time," said Bent. "They
communicate their enthusiasm."
Performers also appreciate the lovely acoustics at
the concert's location at the Presbyterian Church, organizers said. And the
church sanctuary enhances the intimacy between audience members and
musicians, CMYS members said.
"The musicians enter through the
audience, and the first thing they see is the packed house," said
Bent. "That gets them excited."
Just as unusual for the performers as the concert
itself is what happens afterwards, organizers said. Unlike most concert
organizers, who may offer musicians wine and cheese following the
performance, or just take them back to their hotel, the CMYS group honors
performers with a gourmet dinner in a private home, after which they stay
with a family.
"In Yellow Springs, the musicians eat
with us, they talk with us and they lodge with us," said Jeff
Huntington.
The CMYS approach clearly works. While the group
still needs to convince performers who have never been to Yellow Springs to
give it a try, they don't have to convince past performers to return. In
fact, Sunday's performers, the Artis Quartet, have played in Yellow Springs
twice. The group first performed here in 1985, winning the first CMYS
competition.
"If they've been here more than once,
they know it's fun," said Huntington.
The enthusiasm musicians have for Yellow Springs
audiences is what first spurred CMYS organizers into pursuing their dream.
That first informal meeting in Ruth Bent's kitchen took place after the
final concert in a chamber music series organized by former villager Bob
Turoff and sponsored by Antioch College. The musicians, from the Cincinnati
Symphony, lamented not coming back to Yellow Springs, saying they enjoyed
the audience so much they'd play for free.
Serious music lovers, such as Baker, Bent,
Huntington, Barbara and David Case, George Rike, and Louise and Frank
Betcher, took note. They considered possible venues for a concert series
before settling on the Presbyterian Church, which Jane Baker suggested.
Char Schiff sent out fundraising letters, and applied for a $500 grant from
the Yellow Springs Community Foundation. The Foundation didn't come through
with the requested amount, however — instead, it offered $2,000, if
CMYS could match the amount. The group did, with its first fundraising
letter.
Still, said organizers, at first they seemed to be
flying by the seats of their pants.
"We floundered around," said Bent.
"Jane [Baker] did everything."
After the concerts' initial success, CMYS relied on
local and regional musicians, especially those from Cincinnati. But after
two years, organizers sought more variety. To seek out new and promising
performers, the group decided to pursue an idea offered by George Rike: to
sponsor a competition for new young chamber music groups.
"The response was astonishing," said
Huntington, who chaired the group's first competition, in 1985. "We
had applications from Texas, from California and New York. We didn't
realize how few competitions there were at this level. There was a
niche."
While the group still sponsors the yearly Chamber
Music Yellow Springs competition for young (under 30) musicians each spring
and still eagerly showcases young groups, it also attracts to its four
regular-season concerts musicians of a higher caliber than the series
attracted when it began, said organizers.
"We're moving up on the scale," said
former CMYS president Bruce Brandtmiller. "We like to get the groups
that are going to become really famous but before they become famous."
While groups at the highest levels of the chamber
music eschelon — such as the Julliard Quartet — remain out of
reach, CMYS does book groups not far below, and over the years has included
in its schedule well-known ensembles such as the Colorado Quartet and the
Vienna Piano Trio, and often features the winners of prestigious
competitions. Performances by the Swiss-based Carmina Quartet, with
homegrown musician Wendy Champney, are always well attended.
To pay for musicians, equipment and advertising, the
group now has a yearly budget of $30,000, say organizers. While grants
contribute to the total, by far the largest segment of the budget comes
from individual contributors. And unlike most chamber music series, Chamber
Music Yellow Springs relies on many small contributors rather than a few
well-heeled benefactors.
"It's one of our strengths," said
Baker. "Many people are giving modest amounts. That means more people
feel ownership of the concerts."
That sense of community ownership of Chamber Music
Yellow Springs shows itself in various ways, say organizers, especially the
many volunteers who offer their talents, ranging from cooking for the soup
suppers preceding the concerts to building the stage to selling tickets.
It's a spirit of community involvement that's exactly what the CMYS
organizers had in mind.
In fact, after 20 years of sponsoring chamber music
concerts, Chamber Music Yellow Springs organizers don't really want to change
anything. They would be happy to keep doing "more of the same,"
said Ruth Bent, which is, of course, attracting some of the world's best
musicians to play for the enthusiastic audience in a tiny town in Ohio.
Visit the Yellow
Springs News website
|
