by Stephanie Manning
In the two years since the Cleveland Institute of Music’s centennial, Margaret Brouwer’s Blue Streak Ensemble has been patiently waiting for the opportunity to celebrate — and they weren’t about to let another chance pass by. After three pandemic-related delays, the concert finally presented on May 22 at CIM’s Mixon Hall was a testament to both the institution and the resilience of the ensemble itself.
Sunday’s program, the first in a pair of performances from the ensemble, featured four contemporary works with instrumentations ranging from one to six players. It also paid homage to the lineage of CIM composition faculty with a work by Donald Erb — the second performance, on Tuesday the 24th, highlighted Marcel Dick and Keith Fitch. (Brouwer herself was the head of the composition department from 1996 to 2008.)
Any graph tracking cases of coronavirus is a looping one: up, down, up, down. So if the timing is just unlucky enough, the same program could potentially be postponed once, twice, thrice…
Enjoying the natural beauty of Lake Erie has always been part of composer Margaret Brouwer’s life — she grew up spending summers at her family’s lake cottage in Huron. But when dangerous levels of algae blooms in the Lake’s western basin caused a water crisis in Toledo in 2014, the ensuing national conversation about environmental pollution and the state of the country’s drinking water became the source of inspiration for Brouwer’s latest composition, 
It’s been interesting to watch the evolution of composer Margaret Brouwer’s Blue Streak Ensemble over the past few years. Unlike many composers who form groups for the sole purpose of bringing their own compositions and arrangements to the public, Brouwer has been guided from the beginning by the mission to present her music alongside that of other living composers, as well as those from the past. On Sunday afternoon, March 15 at Fairmount Presbyterian Church, Brouwer realized her mission in a beautifully programmed concert featuring three of her own works, one arrangement, and pieces by two giants of the classical music canon. The concert was splendid from start to finish. 
On her latest recording, Shattered, released on the Naxos Label, composer Margaret Brouwer has compiled four beautifully constructed and emotionally captivating compositions. Each work reflects her personal and continuing musical journey to come to terms with the first decade of the turbulent twenty-first century. However what makes Shattered so appealing is that you do not need to know of Brouwer’s inner conflicts in order to immerse yourself in her alluring music. She has a talent for taking the simplest melody and through her expansive array of compositional techniques, develop it into a polished musical gem. And even when employing a twelve-tone row, Brouwer never ventures into the realm of compositional gimmickry. Every note she writes has musical purpose.