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GSMF returns Wednesday with Cymerman, Kuo, Lancaster, Snyder
The Greencastle Summer Music Festival begins its 18th season of bringing the community together with “friends making music for friends” at 7:30 p.m. Wednesday in Gobin Church.
Admission is free. The 12 weekly concerts, which embrace a variety of musical genres, are funded by generous individual donors, an endowment at the Putnam County Community Foundation, a grant from the Putnam County Convention and Visitors Bureau and the Inn at DePauw.
The opening concert features percussionist Ming-Hui Kuo playing “With Force” from Emmanuel Séjourné’s Concerto for Marimba and Strings, Claude Cymerman playing the world premiere of his exciting and virtuosic solo piano transcription of music from Leonard Bernstein’s “West Side Story,” Bobbie Lancaster singing an original song called “What I’m thinkin’ about on the 5th of July” and Steve Snyder performing jazz.
Eric Edberg, the DePauw emeritus music professor who started the festival in 2005, said “I’m thrilled about the variety of music in this week’s program and coming up over the course of the summer. It’s great to open with this mix of music. All the performers are top professional artists with national or international careers who live here in Greencastle, so this is a true celebration of our community.”
“Looking forward to making music with and for my favorite people,” said singer/songwriter Lancaster.
Ming-Hui Kuo said the marimba piece she’s performing “is one of those pieces I can listen to repeatedly and never get tired of,” and explained it is a popular competition piece “because of its beautiful melodic line with romantic and jazz influences.”
Cymerman has been working on enhancing a previous solo piano transcription of music from “West Side Story” for nearly a year, and Snyder is looking forward to sharing his version of “Killing Me Softly with His Song.”
Next week’s concert will feature DePauw alum Joel Elliott, sharing an intimate solo concert full of poetry, stories and music which he guides with guitar, piano, trombone and his versatile, improvisational voice. Get ready to travel without moving between the mountains, rivers and villages of southern Africa, the Caribbean and North America.
The full schedule of the festival’s weekly Wednesday concerts, which continue through Aug. 17, can be found at greencastlemusic.org or facebook.com/greencastlesummermusic.