Michael Ludwig | littlebarefeetblog

Way up in the northwest corner of Pennsylvania, there is actually a state park called Presque Isle. A 13 mile peninsula, this vacation destination draws tens of thousands, each summer, to its eleven public beaches, lagoons, campgrounds, and trails. The city which hosts this gem is called Erie, after the Great Lake which bears the same name. It is here where small, but emphatic, dreams are realized. This is the story of one of them.

The Erie Chamber Orchestra was founded over 35 years ago by the late Bruce Morton Wright. An African American raised by God-fearing parents, his vision took him well beyond the stereotype of his generation. Though he’d spent his early years as a jazz saxophonist, Bruce’s dream – a sudden epiphany, coming to him while seated in the audience of an orchestral concert – was to create a symphonic ensemble of professionals that would present the music of the masters to any audience interested in attending, regardless of socio-economic status. To say that he realized this vision would be an understatement.

An Erie native, Wright qualified by earning a music degree from Mercyhurst College and then studying conducting, both in Vienna, Austria and Colombia, South America. Upon return from his training abroad, he formed the Erie Bayfront Orchestra. The unique feature of this orchestra was its “no ticket required” stature; admission, to every concert, was: FREE.

This ensemble caught the attention of one Charles Beyers, a local philanthropist, who offered a sizable trust through which the orchestra was able to sustain itself for many years. Via this support, the orchestra’s professional musicians were able to receive AF of M Union scale compensation for each “service” (every rehearsal and performance), and Maestro Wright a modest salary.

Though the name was eventually changed to the Erie Chamber Orchestra, its conditions for performance were not; musicians were still paid, at professional Union scale, and the audience’s admission was still free.

Over the decades which followed, the ECO could be seen and heard at such venues as the Villa outdoor promenade, aptly named “Music in the Air”, the Bayfront open amphitheater during the Erie Summer Festival of the Arts, and even served to originate what would become the Lake Erie Ballet Orchestra, with its annual production of Tschaikovsky’s “Nutcracker.” The regular season’s offerings were always heard at either Gannon’s Mary Seat of Wisdom Chapel, or the beloved St. Patrick’s Catholic Church.

Bruce, always a man of the people, was warm, accessible, and fiercely loyal both to his musicians and audience alike. He did the work of three people – planning the program, presenting it, and completing it, down to the stacking and hauling away of the last chair and music stand.

Sometime in the mid-90’s, CNN caught wind of this anomaly and sent its filming crew, to document the story and to interview Bruce Wright. The feature appeared nationally, quite a thrill for both the musicians and the entire community of loyal audience members. All were especially proud of Bruce, for being recognized in such grand style.

Several years prior to the illness which took his life, Bruce sold the orchestra’s rights to Gannon University. Gannon committed to the continuing support of the ECO’s mission, maintaining its seasonal offerings while upholding its promise to provide music free of charge to the public. Gannon pays the salaries of both the conductor and the business manager, and provides a marketing budget for the seasonal calendar and any outreach efforts.

The Erie Chamber Orchestra is not, nor has it ever been, affiliated with the Erie Philharmonic Orchestra. Each is a distinct entity, with both a distinct financial structure and season calendar. The only similarity, which many may note, is that both orchestras share some personnel – primarily across the string sections.

Like the Erie Philharmonic, professional personnel which populate the Erie Chamber Orchestra hail from both the city of Erie, its surrounding townships, greater Erie County, Meadville, and Pittsburgh, as well as university centers in Western New York and Eastern Ohio.

Maestro Matthew Kraemer, originally associated with the Buffalo Philharmonic, succeeded Bruce Wright following the maestro’s death in 2011. Though he is leaving in 2017, his efforts have expanded the orchestra’s repertoire and personnel considerably. Regional professionals in attendance have remarked at the quality, both of the ensemble and its musical execution, of the new “ECO”. Notable soloists, just in the past two seasons, have included numerous Eastman School of Music faculty, as well as Concertmaster David Kim of the Philadelphia Orchestra, cellist Roman Mekinulov, violinists Rachel Barton Pine and Michael Ludwig, and even actor Harry J. Lennix as narrator for Stravinsky’s “L’Histoire du Soldat”.

We are a proud and durable lot at the ECO. We welcome both your support as audience attendees, and your generous donations toward our financial sustainability. If you have never paid a visit to an ECO performance, go to the Erie Chamber Orchestra at Gannon University and email our GM, Camille Pierce. Request that you be placed on the mailing list. She will send you a season brochure! All you’ll need, beyond that, are the wheels to take you to either Luther Memorial or First Presbyterian Church of the Covenant, where we perform in season 2016-17. There really isn’t an affordable venue in Erie County big enough or acoustically suited to the needs of our orchestra, so these churches have opened their sanctuaries for our use, an act of generosity for which we are very, very grateful.

The 2016-17 concert schedule has brought the ECO into yet another season of candidates vying for the baton. Two down, three to go!

Hope to see you, soon! Bruce would be so happy. And, in his memory, we would be, too.

Thanks!

Ruth Ann Scanzillo
principal cello,
Erie Chamber Orchestra.

littlebarefeetblog.com

[final draft].

Everybody secretly yearns to be the next “original.” Nobody wants to remind anyone of somebody else they know. In spite of the billions upon billions of us and, though likely manifest more strongly in some than in others, we each carry within us the desire to break the mold.

Among the vast and nearly endless array of musical masterworks created for orchestra from across virtually every country in Europe (and, more recently, the rest of the world), many have enjoyed a wide audience for decades, crossing the generations. From Beethoven’s symphonies through the Russian masters to Americans like Copland and Gershwin, these comprise a virtual museum for the listening ear – the “classics.” And, each is a singular original.

Others are lesser known.
In the hands of mere mortals, just such unfamiliar pieces are nonetheless a real challenge to pull off; in short, they’ve garnered less air time because they represent, in the hands of all but the best, a greater risk to the reputation of the musicians.

A certain serenade fits that bill.

Miklos Rozsa, best known as composer of film scores for such epics as “Ben Hur” and “The Thief of Baghdad”, wasn’t only servant to the cinematic medium; he also composed legitimate, stand alone orchestral pieces. One of his most sensuous he called “Hungarian Serenade” because, well, he was Hungarian.

Like most Hungarians and probably few Serenades, the piece is both passionate and flamboyantly effusive, yet irresistibly persuasive; it bespeaks at once the soul of a man who yearns, whose feelings are deep, and of a nation’s people wearing their hearts on its sleeve.

Now, this Hungarian composer loved the cello. He loved it so much that he featured the instrument prominently in the music he wrote. His Serenade has five movements, but the second is devoted almost exclusively to the cello’s voice.

And, no shrinking violet, Rozsa gives the cello one royal entrance: an octave shift, right out of the gate.

From the day of my own emergence, and many years before I knew what a cello was, I was destined – if my father had anything to say about it – to be one of a kind. He would raise me on the sound of his bari-tenor, crooning the hymns and gaslight love songs of his generation. A singular talent, himself, he would continually remind me that I was a “born artist.” Eventually, I became one – first, through visual media, and then, via the musical profession. And, I did so boldly, from the deep conviction of my father’s endowment.

But, my mother was raised on fear. Her father was an English street preacher. He regularly beat his eldest daughter. And, he took his family, every Sunday morning, to the small, exclusive, sectarian Fundamentalist meeting hall of the Plymouth Brethren, where they could be reminded – all day long, and again on Tuesday and Friday night – of their inheritance: total, and original, sin.

It would take the whole of life thus far for me to realize how un-reconcilable such branding would be; conceived to be a creative, to express the ineffable, yet saturated by a sense of sinfulness. Instead of finding an otherwise inevitable place among the “free spirits”, self-loathing became my middle name.

This past Saturday, as section leader among the cellists of the Erie Chamber Orchestra, and the ” Hungarian Serenade” having been an included feature, I was called upon to present Rozsa’s cello solo in all its magnificence. I meditated; I set my inner narrative on the positive affirmations of my musical lineage; I prepared, diligently, the entire body of that singular voice; I took my beta blocker. I was, by all accounts, ready to meet the task.

But, this time, the devil would be in one, pesky mathematical detail: statistical probability.

Delicately balancing delusional grandeur and innate fatalism, I had faced that formidable octave each time with the measured mix of physical distribution of weight, point of arrival, and trajectory. Between practice at home, and the three opportunities our orchestral budget would allow with my colleagues, I had managed to nail that shift at every rehearsal. And, I mean, down to the precisely required vibrational frequency.

Come the concert, and its moment of truth, however, one inner battle with cognitive dissonance could not be surmounted by either mental conditioning or earnest commitment to the music; statistically, my odds for missing that octave had steadily increased!

Like all good Hungarians, I heaved a melodramatic sigh, smiled at my section mates, gave my conductor a sure nod, and went for it.

There was much to celebrate at the close of that performance. Our featured violinist, Michael Ludwig, stepping in at the last minute to cover the most difficult concerto in the repertoire, was an absolutely flawless and mesmerizing sensation. Our ensemble had never been tighter. Each family of the orchestra was more than worthy of thunderous acknowledgement. And, I would immerse myself in the joyful relief of having expressed my creative soul more fully than ever before.

Yet, if I truly bore the aforementioned stain, the devil would have his jollies. He would indulge them in that microtone living just beneath the point of arrival of the octave B, and it would not matter one iota if anybody else admitted to the hearing.

Original sin is so engraved in the psyche that, even when one proves to oneself a capacity for the truly amazing, one can spend a lifetime yearning to give oneself its permission. In the meantime, opting to be carried by the exultant triumph of the human spirit, seeking the rewards of the total spectrum of artistic experience, can rival even the exacting order of the universe. We may all be self-generating expressions of the same, original DNA, after all. Original sin, be damned.

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Stories, in my head, since childhood….time to tell them.

Tag Archives: Michael Ludwig

The ERIE CHAMBER ORCHESTRA: He Built it, and They Came.

Original Sin.