by Stephanie Manning
With their most recent concert program, Renovare is trying something new. “To my knowledge, this is our first time collaborating with a woodwind player,” violist Clara Prinston said in a recent interview. “It’s been really fun.”
Prinston is one-third of the close-knit string trio and its newest member, having joined violinist Lalia Curtis and cellist Rebecca Shasberger in 2024. The group, founded in 2018 with a mission of “bringing hope and healing through music,” teaches weekly lessons in local prisons and presents public concerts about four times a year.
For their program “Influence and Inspiration,” Renovare is joined by Mary Kay Fink, the longtime piccolo player of The Cleveland Orchestra. “She’s such a wonderful musician,” Prinston said. “Our rehearsals have been such a great learning experience for me.”
The group began their performances last week at the Mansfield Correctional Center and are continuing them this week at the Northeast Reintegration Center and Grafton Correctional Institution. The series will culminate in a public concert at The Hermit Club on Thursday, June 18 at 7:30 pm. Tickets are available online.
Prinston said that Fink attended Renovare’s gala last fall before coming to one of the concerts by the Unmuted Strings at Grafton, an ensemble of incarcerated men who are mentored by Renovare. “She reached out to us and shared how meaningful that was for her,” Prinston said.
“Those concerts are always really fun, because we invite people from the outside to come, and the musicians also invite their friends and their family. So it’s a really supportive audience of folks.”
A shared desire to collaborate eventually led to the “Influence and Inspiration” program. Fink will be playing flute, piccolo, and penny whistle, the last of which comes into play during South African composer Becky Steltzner’s Hambani Kakuhle Kwela.
Another whistle comes in the form of Heitor Villa-Lobos’ Jet Whistle, which only imitates its namesake. Fink and Shasberger are playing the third movement, which Prinston said really excited the men at the Mansfield Correctional Center. When Fink started to use circular breathing, “the guys went crazy seeing that happen,” she said.
“They were like, ‘How did you hold that note for so long? What is that?’ She ended up doing a demo on how to do circular breathing, which was really cool.”
Although that particular demo wasn’t planned, audience engagement and interaction are priorities for Renovare. “Chamber music so easily lends itself to being able to engage with the people around you,” Prinston said. Clapping and singing during certain selections is common. “We’re always trying to find the line between show-and-tell and having the concert audience participate in some way.”
The rest of the program involves all kinds of styles and time periods, including Scott Joplin’s Bethena: A Concert Waltz and selected movements from Max Reger’s Serenade in D Major, Vinicio Meza’s Suite Latinoamericano, and Mozart’s Flute Quartet in D Major.
The biggest piece is Eric Ewazen’s Bridgehampton Suite for Flute, Violin, Viola, and Cello, which the group will be playing in its entirety. Fink reached out to Ewazen — who grew up in Cleveland — to ask if she could swap flute for piccolo during the third movement, to which the composer agreed.
“She just felt like it would be a good addition. And she’s right,” Prinston said. “I like the color that adds to that last movement.”
All together, “it’s a pretty eclectic program,” the violist said. But the pieces are arranged deliberately to show how each is either inspired or influenced by the composer of the previous one. “We make those connections along the way as a way to tie it all together.”
Plus, Renovare sees that eclectic nature as a strength. With a small and uncommon instrumentation, “one could look at it as, ‘Oh, we’re so limited,’” Prinston said. But “it’s cool to be able to curate unique concert experiences that would be kind of hard to find elsewhere.
“I don’t know where else you’ll hear Reger, Mozart, Villa-Lobos, Joplin, and Ewazen all in one go. It’s kind of wild.”
Published on ClevelandClassical.com June 16, 2026
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