by Daniel Hathaway
“What a year!” Kent Blossom Music Festival director Ricardo Sepúlveda said in a recent telephone conversation. “But we’ve been fortunate. The challenges of the pandemic provided us with opportunities to learn, to explore, to be creative and innovative, and how to adapt to rapid change.”
The more you collaborate with others, the less control you have over your own operations. In the case of Kent Blossom, the summer education program that was established in the same year that The Cleveland Orchestra moved into its summer home in Cuyahoga Falls, the program that provides chamber music coaching for young players by members of the Orchestra takes its cues not only from the Orchestra, but also from Kent State University. And since the novel coronavirus made its appearance, the program has also been subject to the health protocols of the State of Ohio.