by Jarrett Hoffman
Planning a recital means choosing music, of course, but also choosing people, and at this Wednesday’s faculty concert at the Kent Blossom Music Festival, Mary Kay Fink knew she wanted to play with Jessica Sindell.
The two have worked together in The Cleveland Orchestra for a season now — Fink, principal piccolo, has been in the flute section since 1990, while Sindell joined as assistant principal flute last fall. But their history runs deeper: Sindell studied with Fink in high school, having grown up in Pepper Pike. Later on, when she was preparing for professional auditions, she would sometimes play for Fink.
“I encouraged her to go the piccolo route,” Fink said during a recent interview, “and then she got the job in Rochester [solo piccolo in the Rochester Philharmonic].” Fink noted that she didn’t coach Sindell before the audition in Cleveland, but said that it’s been a great fit this past season. “She had subbed with us, and [principal flute] Josh [Smith] really enjoyed her. And her first teacher was Saeran St. Christopher, who plays second flute. It’s been a pretty easy transition — it’s been really wonderful.”
The Faculty Concert Series at Kent Blossom Music Festival continues next week with the latest chapter in a long partnership: the Miami String Quartet and pianist Spencer Myer.
Cellist Mark Kosower and pianist Jee-Won Oh will find themselves in a familiar place on Wednesday, July 3 at 7:30 pm: in Ludwig Recital Hall at Kent State University, where they’ll once again open the faculty concert series at this year’s Kent Blossom Music Festival. There’s a reason for that — whether at Kent or elsewhere, they always come up with a program that’s worth talking about.
Wind players take every opportunity to play Mozart, and when they are musicians at the highest level, it’s easy to come away smiling. That was the case on the Kent Blossom faculty concert on Wednesday, July 25 in Kent State’s Ludwig Recital Hall, where an array of Mozart’s works for winds made for a splendid evening.
Beginning with a silly plot of romance, then traversing the dramas of capital-R Romance, and ending with a look back at a spouse’s death — the first faculty concert at this year’s Kent Blossom Music Festival will be “quite a journey, for sure,” cellist Mark Kosower said during a phone call.
This Saturday evening’s concert by the Kent New Music Ensemble on April 28 at 7:30 pm in Ludwig Recital Hall will mark the end of an era at the University. Composer Frank Wiley, who founded the group in 1980 and now co-directs it with saxophonist Noa Even, is retiring from the KSU faculty at the end of the current academic year after nearly four decades — but not to a life of shuffleboard and crossword puzzles. When I asked him in a recent telephone conversation what he’d do first thing the morning after he retires, he didn’t have to think. “I’ll probably be composing,” he said.
Recitals and chamber music concerts by faculty members at Northeast Ohio conservatories, colleges and universities add to the rich menu of classical music in the region. Usually free, these events begin coming onto the calendar in September. Here’s a quick look at the first performances of the fall.