Cymerman and friends to perform Wednesday night at Gobin

Monday, June 18, 2018

Claude Cymerman, world-renowned pianist and professor emeritus of music at DePauw University, returns to the Greencastle Summer Music Festival Wednesday evening in a program of music by Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart and the Romantic French composer, Guilliaume Lekeu.

Cymerman will be joined by the string faculty from the DePauw School of Music, violinist Tarn Travers, violist Nicole Brockmann and cellist Eric Edberg.

DePauw University musicans (from left) Claude Cymerman, Tarn Travers, Eric Edberg and Nicole Brockmann at a rehearsal in Gobin.

The free concert begins at 7:30 p.m. in the sanctuary of Gobin Memorial United Methodist Church. The festival's concerts are funded through an endowment at the Putnam County Community Foundation and donations from individuals and local businesses, including the Inn at DePauw.

"This is the first time the four of us have performed together," explained Edberg, who founded the festival in 2005 and is volunteering his services as artistic director this summer.

"Tarn, Nicole and I have a special musical chemistry," he added, "and it's been a joy to introduce Tarn and Claude, who've never played with each other until now. Now we have a four-way chemistry. The great joy in playing chamber music is not only experiencing great music, but also the sense of connection and interplay with each other. When it works, there's definitely a synergy where the whole is greater than the sum of the parts. There's no question that this is the case as we are preparing for Wednesday's concert."

Of special interest to the musicians is the "Quartet for Piano and Strings" by Lekeu, who died in 1894, the day after his 24th birthday. Edberg says he hadn't heard of the composer, who published few works, until Cymerman suggested the piece.

"It's some of the most engaging Romantic music I've ever played," he says. "It's a dramatic and lyrical work, with sudden and intense mood swings. He must have been quite a temperamental young man. It's technically and emotionally challenging for us to prepare, but we are deeply enjoying the process. And of course the Mozart is, well, Mozart. An absolute delight."

A native of France, pianist Cymerman graduated from the Conservatoire National Supérieur de Musique in Paris with highest honor. After winning national and international competitions, including the grand prize at the Marguerite Long-Jacques Thibaud contest, he studied at Indiana University with Gyorgy Sebök.

The late French President Georges Pompidou, in a special ceremony, recognized him as "Outstanding Pianist." Cymerman performs extensively as a recitalist and chamber musician and has appeared as a soloist with the Radio France Orchestra, Orchestre des Pays de la Loire, Orchestre National d'Ile de France, Orchestre Symphonique de Limoges, the Luxembourg and San Francisco chamber orchestras, as well as the Indianapolis Symphony Orchestra.

He is regularly invited to perform and give master classes at major festivals in France, Germany, Italy, Sweden, Japan and Israel and is a frequent guest on French National Radio and the BBC.

Violinist Travers performs regularly around the world as a soloist, chamber musician and an orchestral player. In 2001, he was a prize winner at the Heifetz Guarneri auditions, which led to a performance on the historic "ex-David" Guarneri, the favored violin of Jascha Heifetz.

Travers spent three years as a violinist in the New World Symphony, where he often led the orchestra as concertmaster, and also appeared as soloist three times, once in every season spent with that orchestra, in the music of Béla Bart--k, Ramiro Cortés and Chen Yi. A member of the Chicago-based contemporary group Ensemble Dal Niente, recent performance highlights include a concerto appearance at the Konzerthaus in Vienna, a chamber music appearance at the Library of Congress in Washington, D.C., and a residency at Harvard University.

His most recent recordings include an appearance on Johann Johannsson's recent album "Orphée," released in September as well as an upcoming release of works by George Lewis with Ensemble Dal Niente.

Travers serves as concertmaster of Indianapolis Chamber Orchestra and on faculty at DePauw University.

Violist Brockmann enjoys a multifaceted career of performance, teaching and scholarship. She received her bachelor of fine arts degree from Carnegie Mellon University and her master of music, artist diploma and doctor of musical arts degrees from Yale University.

A four-time winner of the Yale Chamber Music Competition, Brockmann has studied chamber music with members of the Tokyo, Vermeer and Orion string quartets. She has been a member of professional chamber ensembles, including the Brooklyn Chamber Players, the Lumina String Quartet and the West Virginia Piano Quartet, and has performed at venues across the country and abroad, including Merkin Concert Hall and Carnegie Hall in NYC, SUNY Stony Brook, Brooklyn College, Ohio University, Emory & Henry College, Montana State University and the Penn Alps (MD) Summer Festival.

Her orchestral experience includes three years as principal viola of the Greater Bridgeport Symphony Orchestra (CT) under Gustav Meier, as well as extensive work in the New York City metropolitan orchestral and studio recording scene. Brockmann, who is immediate past president of the Dalcroze Society of America, is the author of "From Sight to Sound: Improvisational Games for Classical Musicians," published in 2009.

Classical and improvising cellist Edberg, a concert organizer, workshop leader and drum circle facilitator committed to enlivening and connecting people through music, is founder and artistic director of the Greencastle Summer Music Festival, which has "brought the community together with friends making music for friends" since 2005.

He has performed internationally as a soloist and chamber musician with artists including the Grammy-winning pianist/composer Fernando Otero; the pianists Claude Cymerman, Taka Kigawa and May Phang, cellist David Darling and flutist Paul Horn. Dedicated to music as a healing force and to bringing classical music "everywhere," Edberg has played in nursing homes, schools, hospitals, prisons and even the New York City subways.

Edberg attended high school at the North Carolina School of the Arts, and also studied at Juilliard, Peabody, SUNY Stony Brook and Florida State University.

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