One of the most exciting aspects of putting together a festival program year after year is the challenge of awakening in our listeners a sense of discovery. In my opinion the offerings of this, the 18th Great Lakes Chamber Music Festival season, represent the most ambitious and compelling program in our history. As theme of the festival I chose “Music of the Spheres – Songs of the Earth and Sky”, because I wanted a concept that would challenge the imagination and expand our horizons.
It has become fashionable in our day for public servants enthusiastic about cost-cutting to view the arts, and especially music, as a non-essential luxury. Nothing could be further from the truth. Music has been an intrinsic part of every civilization. The idea that harmonic principles govern the movements of the heavenly bodies in the universe has been found in writings as early as Chaldean and Babylonian times. If we were some day to encounter a sentient alien species capable of auditory communication, no doubt we would also discover music among them. Music has been compared to language, but it is actually much more than that. It has the unique property of transcending language. Scientific geniuses like Leonardo Da Vinci, Isaac Newton and Einstein were capable of abstract thought, whereby complicated mathematical formulas and rules of physics were seemingly intuited without verbal explanation. So it is with the truly great composers. They discover universal truths and set them down in their scores. Stravinsky famously stated that he was simply the vessel through which his monumental Rite of Spring flowed.
The theme “Music of the Spheres” invites many different references, all reflected in our programming. The most obvious allusion is to the heavenly bodies – sun, moon, planets and stars. But we also have constructions such as the biosphere (animals, woods, rivers, seas), the stratosphere (music from on high), literary spheres (the New England transcendentalists), spheres of influence (master-apprentice relationships), even the blogosphere. Perhaps most essential to this year’s festival is the meeting of eastern and western hemispheres in the choice of our two distinguished composers-in-residence, Chen Yi and Zhou Long, both from mainland China. Their music, written primarily within the mainstream western musical system but also incorporating traditional Chinese instruments and folksong, is a fascinating fusion of two worlds. I hope discovering this music will be just as thrilling for our audiences as it was for me personally. A very special event, made possible by our Stone Composer-in-Residence program, will be the world premiere of a work written by their young protégé, composer Nicholas Omiccioli, and prepared under their guidance.
As usual, we have a first-rate roster of artists. Friends who are returning include violinists Emanuelle Boisvert and Soovin Kim; violists Yehonatan Berick and Kim Kashkashian; cellists Andrés Díaz, Paul Katz and Yehuda Hanani; pianists Jeremy Denk and Pei-Shan Lee; singers Lauren Skuce and Daniel Gross; and the incomparable new-music ensemble, eighth blackbird. New to the festival this year is the distinguished pianist Anton Nel. Paul Katz has chosen four young world-class ensembles as part of our Shouse Chamber Music Institute. All are joined by members of the Detroit Chamber Winds and Strings and their music director, H. Robert Reynolds, for a season of splendid music-making. Come and be a part of our sphere during this, our 18th season.
