CMC at the Southern Theatre

CMC at the Southern Theatre, a photo by andiwolfe on Flickr.

Preconcert music by Chamber Music Connection students. For the Chamber Music Columbus concert series at the Southern Theatre, CMC students do a half hour concert prior to the main concert. These are very talented musicians, who usually start into the program at Grade 4 and stay until they graduate high school. The senior students do master classes with world-famous chamber quartets and groups, compete in major competitions, and delight chamber music enthusiasts at every concert.

Chamber Musician

Chamber Musician, originally uploaded by andiwolfe.

Quartet Toujours opened for the Fry Street Quartet at the Southern Theater last night. This is Ruthie, the celloist for this CMC competition group. Quartet Toujours has been winning accolades all year long, winning the grand prizes at several competitions over the past couple of months, plus being featured on NPR's "From the Top."

Chamber Music Connection - you should know about this program!

Yesterday was the Winter 2010 Finale concerts for the Chamber Music Connection. This is such an amazing program that I want to let the world know about what's going on here. Chamber Music Connection is a program for K-12 students to learn and perform chamber music. The first session was in 1998, although the roots for this program go back to 1992. The artistic director and founder is Deborah Barrett Price. The program has recruited and produced some amazing chamber musicians, including groups that have been medal winners in the Fischoff and St. Paul competitions.

Every year, hundreds of young musicians are coached by professional musicians from the Columbus Symphony Orchestra, Pro Musica, music faculty from universities in Ohio, and professional Chamber Musicians from visiting quartets and other chamber groups performing in the Chamber Music Columbus series at the Southern Theater. Autumn and Winter sessions include a series of concerts, including jazz, chamber orchestras and chamber ensembles. Master classes for all the ensembles are featured in every session. The spring and summer sessions include some intensive all-day workshops and master classes as well as finale concerts. These concerts are truly amazing and it's wonderful to watch the progression of our youngest musicians into accomplished chamber players over the course of just a few years.

Several of our young musicians have been featured in the "From the Top" series of radio and television shows. This YouTube video (Mendelssohn Quartet, Op. 13 I. Adagio. Allegro vivace, featuring Kaho Sugawara, Rebekah Lee, Rachel Kufchak and Kyle Price) that I filmed at yesterday's performance will give you an idea of how talented our program students are:



The programs is so successful that CMC has outgrown their available space for teaching students chamber music. I'm sure Deborah Price would be very interested in hearing from potential sponsors on coming up with a permanent solution to the space issues the Chamber Music Connection is facing.

This program is truly a hidden gem in central Ohio. If you enjoy chamber music and want to help promote the future of this genre, please consider supporting the program.

How I spent last weekend

Friday evening and all day Saturday were spent at the Chamber Music Connection Spring Festival. Meghan played double bass in a trio with her friends Dina and Katie. They did a Haydn piece. Steve and I played in a quartet - two flutes, clarinet, and my hammer dulcimer (I played the cello part). We did a movement from a C major quartet by J. C. Bach. The Cavani quartet from Cleveland was the big draw - Friday night concert was totally amazing. They also did master classes all day long on Saturday. My quartet had two master classes - one with Steven Huang in the morning, and the second with the violist from Cavani quartet. It was really fun to work up this piece with the odd assortment of instruments - it presented a challenge for our coaches. We did pretty well, especially given such short notice to rehearse the piece.

Here are a few pics:


The encore by Cavani was a pop tune sung by Merry, the cellist. What a lot of fun! The concert was totally amazing. They started with a piece featuring piano and viola. Annalisa Boerner played the viola part of the quartet while the Cavani violist did an amazing piece of work on the solo parts. They also did an interesting piece by Bartok.








Steve took a picture of me tuning my dulcimer right before the Saturday concert. I needed to let the instrument stabilize in the auditorium before tuning, and then it stayed on stage during the entire concert.












Here are the quartet members (L to R): Steve Wolfe, Andi Wolfe, Chris and Bob.