Creative Destruction

Throw a stone in a lake and watch the rings dance. They last a long time. Ray Sommerfield threw a stone over fifty years ago. Back in 1960 he loaded up nine of his students from Elizabethtown, Pennsylvania and drove them off to hear a concert by the Philadelphia Orchestra. There wasn't a school bus available, so he borrowed a hearse. Yes, a hearse. Not the most elegant way to go to a concert, but it would do. It seems that Mr. Sommerfield was a man of strong convictions. He thought his students, even though they lived in a small … [Read more...]

This afternoon I watched as a great master passed on everything he could leave to the next generation of musicians. Robert Mann, at 91 years old, was teaching a master class in Miller Recital Hall at the Manhattan School of Music. The founder and first violinist of the Juilliard String Quartet for over fifty years, Mann has been a driving force in the world of music for more than seven decades. He is on the faculty at Manhattan School of Music and has been president of the Walter W. Naumburg Foundation since 1971. He received the Lifetime … [Read more...]

I met Julia Kurtyka in winter. She had worked to invite me to guest conduct an orchestra that she was involved with, the Birmingham Bloomfield Symphony Orchestra, just outside of Detroit, in a special concert that would feature her protégé, violinist Caroline Goulding, in a performance of Mozart's Violin Concerto No. 5. Julia had been the concertmaster of the Adrian Symphony Orchestra long before I became its music director. Since then she had moved on to other projects, but we shared mutual friends and that led to the invitation to … [Read more...]

When I was little, my father used to tell a story of a little boy from long ago. He was walking among many people engaged in a flurry of activity. "What are you doing?" he asked one man with a chisel and hammer in his hand. "I'm cutting this stone down to a particular size," he answered. The little boy walked over to another man and asked the same question, but he received a completely different response: "I'm building a cathedral." Sometimes I don't think we have any idea what we're actually doing. We only see the stone in our … [Read more...]

On a narrow street in the Colonial City area of Santo Domingo, capital of the Dominican Republic, there is a building called Museo Memorial de la Resistencia Dominicana, the Memorial Museum of the Dominican Resistance. A converted home, with a central patio surrounded by two stories of walkways and rooms, its walls are covered with quotes from the heroes and survivors from those who resisted against many oppressive governments during the Twentieth Century, including the government of Trujillo, the dictator who ruled the Dominican Republic from … [Read more...]

Not too long ago, I was in line at a summer arts festival. People around me were laughing and talking as they waited in the ticket line. A few minutes later, as I stood at the front gate, waiting for a friend to join me, I noticed the same thing - this time it was the ushers that were enjoying themselves while they awaited the next wave of audience members to serve. There was a sense of ease all around; a joyful quality brought about by the beauty of the scene, the expectations of the concert that would soon begin, and the familiarity of … [Read more...]

I really WANT to spend time on this blog about music and about building arts communities. You can't build a community around the arts, though, if you don't have any left. So, I find myself making a detour for a moment because the issues of the day demand comment. There are two governmental issues confronting non-profit organizations and the arts. Both threaten this part of our civic life in ways that dramatically alter the landscape for all of us. The first issue is regarding a proposal to consider reducing the tax deduction for charitable … [Read more...]

Recently, I have been reading Lewis Hyde's absolutely brilliant book, The Gift: How the Creative Spirit Transforms the World, and today ran across two quotes that seem to speak to the events of this week.As we all know, this has been a period in which the Detroit Symphony Orchestra canceled the remainder of its season due to the impasse between musicians and management, and in which the House of Representatives gutted the National Endowment for the Arts as part of its version of the continuing resolution legislation necessary to avoid a … [Read more...]

To: Tim Walberg, Congressman, 7th District, Michigan Dear Congressman Walberg, As you are aware, we know each other. You are my congressman; we live in the same county, eat in the same restaurants, shop in the same stores and know the same friends. I have enjoyed having you among the members of the audience in the orchestra where I serve as Music Director. You've attended symphony fund raising events. I know your wife, and I like her. I know and admire people who supported you in your effort to get re-elected. One family, whom I dearly love, … [Read more...]