Chamber Music America Announces Recipients of CMAcclaim Awards
Chamber Music America Announces Recipients of CMAcclaim Awards Providence and Juneau Organizations Cited for Extraordinary Cultural Impact in Their Communities New York, NY —Chamber Music America (CMA) has announced the recipients of its CMAcclaim Awards for 2009. The honor recognizes individuals or organizations whose achievements in the ensemble music field have had a significant and lasting impact on their community or region. Two music organizations—Community MusicWorks (Sebastian Ruth, founder and executive-artistic director) in Providence, RI, and Juneau Jazz & Classics (Linda Rosenthal, founder and artistic director) in Juneau, AK—will receive the honor this year. Community MusicWorks was founded in 1997 by Sebastian Ruth, a young violinist/violist motivated by the conviction that the arts—and musicians in particular— can play a major role in transforming communities and individual lives. With startup funding from the Swearer Center for Public Service at Brown University, Ruth and the Providence String Quartet (CMW’s resident professional ensemble, which he founded) set up shop in a storefront in a Providence neighborhood populated largely by Southeast Asian and Caribbean immigrant families. The quartet’s intent was to become fully integrated into the community—by teaching, performing and living there. Through the Providence Quartet, Community MusicWorks provides free instruments and weekly lessons to 100 neighborhood children, coaches them in ensemble music, and addresses leadership development with teens. In addition, the Community MusicWorks storefront rehearsal studio provides street-level access to the quartet’s rehearsals, with Beethoven, Brahms, and Bartók being piped out to the sidewalk so that passersby may listen. In addition to its own concerts, the quartet regularly holds performance parties—community events that combine potluck dinners with music performed by the ensemble and students. Concerts and student workshops, with such prominent visiting artists as the Borromeo String Quartet, violinist Diane Monroe, and pianist Jonathan Biss, have become annual events. Now in its twelfth year, Community MusicWorks has implemented a two-year training program mentoring young professional musicians who wish to set up similar residencies in other urban neighborhoods across the country. Margaret M. Lioi, CMA’s chief executive officer, will present the CMAcclaim award to Community MusicWorks on Friday, May 15, in Providence. Juneau Jazz & Classics is an annual, 10-day music festival of classical, blues, and jazz in Alaska’s state capital. Performances are presented in traditional concert venues, as well as alternative sites throughout the city, including hotels, malls, restaurants, art galleries, the State Office Building atrium, and a 90-foot catamaran that hosts a jazz-and-blues cruise. Violinist Linda Rosenthal originally moved to Alaska in 1969; she and her husband, Paul—also a violinist—liked the state so much that they never left. In 1986, Linda decided to organize a music festival in Juneau, a capital city without a major performing arts center. Regarding all of the city and its environs as its venue, the festival offered concerts in schools and workplaces and often took advantage of the area’s many spectacular natural settings; one performance, for example, was staged atop Mount Roberts, another at the base of the magnificent Mendenhall Glacier, where the musicians made their entrance from Mendenhall Lake in a traditional Indian war canoe. The founder also envisioned a festival that would offer much more to the community than a single genre of music and much more than a formal concert series. Classical, jazz and blues are scheduled each spring; and recent visiting artists have included the Anat Cohen Quartet, violinist Harumi Rhodes, composer Bruce Adolphe, the Apollo Trio, Manhattan Brass, the Larry Coryell Trio, the Holmes Brothers, the Daedalus String Quartet and the gypsy jazz band Pearl Django. Some concerts are free of charge, and the festival offers an array of artistic and educational programs for youth and adults. These have included multi-day workshops that introduce jazz to elementary-school students, concert/workshops for youth in the regional correctional facility, and jazz band clinics and workshops, led by visiting artists, for a high school ensemble in Hoonah, a remote fishing village. Juneau Jazz & Classics’ award presentation will take place during its 2009 festival on Friday, May 22, in Juneau. _____________ Chamber Music America, the national service organization for the ensemble music profession, was founded in 1977 to promote artistic excellence and the economic stability of the field, and to ensure that chamber music, in its broadest sense, is a vital part of American life. With a membership of over 8,000—including musicians, ensembles, presenters, artists’ managers, educators, music businesses, and advocates of ensemble music—CMA welcomes and represents a wide range of musical styles and traditions. In addition to its funding programs, CMA provides its members with consulting services, access to health and instrument insurance, conferences, seminars and several publications, including the bimonthly magazine, Chamber Music, and a website, www.chamber-music.org.
