Cymerman, Salman, Edberg open festival Wednesday

Monday, May 22, 2017
Claude Cymerman

The 13th season of the Greencastle Summer Music Festival opens Wednesday, May 24 with the Kissinger Family Concert, featuring pianist Claude Cymerman, clarinetist Randy Salman and the festival’s founding artistic director, cellist Eric Edberg.

The program includes music by Mozart, Beethoven, Astor Piazzolla, Nino Rota (most famous for his score for “The Godfather”) and the jazz/classical clarinetist Paquito D’Rivera.

The festival’s concerts are held every Wednesday at 7:30 p.m. in Greencastle’s Gobin Memorial United Methodist Church.

All concerts are free and open to the public thanks to the support of individuals and businesses, including the Inn at DePauw, as well as an endowment at the Putnam County Community Foundation.

“In our 13th season we are presenting 13 concerts of ‘friends making music for friends,’” says Edberg. “I’m delighted to be playing with Claude and Randy, colleagues with whom I’ve been working since I joined the DePauw faculty in 1988. They are legends in Greencastle and far beyond.

“This is our most varied season yet, with the extraordinary genre-combining work of members of the Silk Road Ensemble, local and touring singer/songwriters, superb classical and jazz musicians, and Greencastle’s own Tad Robinson.”

Wednesday’s program will include Beethoven’s exciting trio for piano, clarinet and cello, one of the first composed for this combination of instruments, and Edberg and Cymerman’s arrangement of a Mozart violin sonata. Salman and Cymerman will play arrangements of tangos by Piazzolla, and all three musicians will join in the energetically lyrical and playful trio by Nino Rota, a prolific composer of concert music in addition to hundreds of film scores.

Paquito D’Rivera’s “Invitation to Dance,” written for a Yo-Yo Ma album, is a fun and dazzling piece of Latin-infused jazz. “I think it’s great that we are playing a piece written for Yo-Yo by one of his friends, since Yo-Yo and his Silk Road colleagues have become such an important musical friends to DePauw and Greencastle,” Edberg said.

The festival plans on implementing community engagement initiatives within the Greencastle community this summer, most notably working with the Summer Enrichment Program to provide interactive music workshops.

“I believe music isn’t just for entertainment, but rather a tool for transforming lives and bringing positive change to the community in which we live,” explained Chris Flegal, the festival’s executive director.

The Greencastle Summer Music Festival offers free concerts every Wednesday at 7:30 p.m. in Gobin Memorial Church. The season runs from May 24 through Aug. 16.

The schedule:

-- May 24: Pianist Claude Cymerman, clarinetist Randy Salman and cellist Eric Edberg.

-- May 31: Faculty of the Silk Road Global Musician Workshop (at Gobin, with other concerts by workshop faculty and participants starting June 1 in DePauw’s Kresge Auditorium).

-- June 7: Jazz pianist Steve Snyder and friends.

-- June 14: Greencastle Songwriters in the Round with Chris Wurster, Ron Dye and Gus Moon.

-- June 21: Violinist Allison Edberg Nyquist, clarinetist Gareth Guest and friends perform music by Mozart, Prokofiev and Duke Ellington.

-- June 28: Pianist Taka Kigawa performing music of John Luther Adams.

-- July 5: Saxophonist George Wolfe and friends.

-- July 12: Chicago’s innovative Fifth House Ensemble.

-- July 19: Percussionist Ming-Hui Kuo and friends.

-- July 26: Singer/songwriter Ariel Pocock.

-- Aug. 2: Pianist Claude Cymerman and cellist Eric Edberg.

-- Aug. 9: Singer/songwriter Joy Ike.

-- Aug.16: Blues legend Tad Robinson and his band.

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