by Robert Rollin
A remarkable event took place last Friday evening at the Cleveland Botanical Gardens sponsored by the Credo Summer Chamber Music Festival — a night of Mendelssohn in Cleveland’s Botanical Gardens. The established three-week event for exceptional musicians ages 16-23 selects the top students from 35 states and several foreign countries, drawing gifted students from schools like Juilliard, Eastman, Oberlin and others. [Read more…]
by Daniel Hathaway
“Credo has always done some kind of celebratory public event which has often included playing at Severance Hall — Tchaikovsky’s fifth, or the Brandenburg concertos,” artistic director Peter Slowik said in a recent telephone conversation from Oberlin. “This year we’re going to be a bit more intimate with our large-scale public offering.”
On Friday evening, July 22, Credo Chamber Music will present a “Midsummer Night’s Dream” chamber music evening at the Cleveland Botanical Gardens in University Circle. Two levels of ticket prices ($75 and $30) will admit patrons to a light dinner, garden stroll, concert and dessert reception, or to a concert with dessert reception following. “The main piece will be the Mendelssohn Octet, a terrific piece for a summer evening,” Slowik said. “It’s youthful, energetic, and ebullient — and written by a composer who was younger than most of the performers who are going to play it. [Read more…]
by Daniel Hathaway
Since the first Fête De La Musique was launched by Jack Lange and the French Ministry of Culture in 1982, some 5 million people — 8% of the population of France — have played or sung in public on June 21, the summer solstice. During the last 34 years, the idea of sponsoring a free day of live music of every genre in every possible location has spread to 700 cities in 120 countries. There are no auditions and no application requirements: everyone is invited to perform or to host performances.
Make Music Day is now about to debut in Cleveland on June 21 under the sponsorship of Credo Music, in partnership with the Make Music Alliance, The Cleveland Orchestra, the Oberlin Conservatory of Music, the Cleveland Institute of Music, and The Music Settlement.
The idea is to bring communities together through music. As Peter Slowik, Credo’s executive director said, “In our day-to-day lives, we put barriers between ourselves and our neighbors, we live very much in our own worlds. [Read more…]
by Carlyn Kessler
On Sunday night, July 26, participants in Credo’s Brandenburg Project performed all six of J.S. Bach’s Brandenburg concerti at Severance Hall’s Reinberger Chamber Hall, following an intensive weeklong festival and July 24 performance at Symphony Center in Chicago, IL. The program seemed right at home in Reinberger. The ornate hall, with its candlesticks and gold plating resembling an 18th century salon, perfectly transported audience members back to Bach’s time, if only for an evening.
by Jeremy Reynolds
As summer music festivals go, Credo doesn’t quite mesh with most people’s idea of music camp. Founded in 1999 in Woodstock, Illinois by Peter Slowik and Karen Armbrust, Credo combines an intensive study of music and performance with the ideal of Christian love to promote a holistic learning experience for students ages thirteen to twenty-three. Fostering personal growth in addition to musicianship is the aim here, and this is perhaps best summarized in Credo’s mission statement, “Develop the Gift, Acknowledge the Source, Respond with Service.”
Now, sixteen years later, Credo hosts annual string and piano programs in Oberlin, Chicago, and, for the last two years, in Sydney, Australia. The Oberlin festival will run from Sunday, June 28 through Saturday, July 18, and it will feature regular student and faculty chamber music performances. (For details, see the Credo calendar). From July 20 to 25, the next stage of Credo’s summer programming will spotlight the first-ever Credo Flute symposium alongside the traditional Prelude Chicago for ages eleven to eighteen. [Read more…]
by Daniel Hathaway
The first faculty concert of Oberlin’s Winter Chamber Music Festival on January 9 brought a capacity-plus crowd to Kulas Recital Hall and gave students in the program the first of several opportunities to hear how things are done by the veteran chamber players who are coaching them this month. [Read more…]
by Daniel Hautzinger
Joy, wonderment, thanksgiving, love. These are the feelings Haydn sought to express toward the Divine in The Creation, but they apply equally well to the work itself. Haydn’s bliss and awe in the face of nature, his gratitude for the world, and the love between Adam and Eve are embodied so perfectly in music that an audience can’t help but be overwhelmed by them as well. It’s impossible to come away from a performance of The Creation without a happy heart.
This was certainly true on July 19th in Severance Hall, when John Nelson conducted the Credo Festival Orchestra and Chorus in a rousing performance of The Creation with soprano Lisette Oropesa, tenor John Tessier and bass Adam Lau. [Read more…]
By Mike Telin
Each summer talented young musicians make their way to the Oberlin College campus to participate in Credo, where for three weeks they study chamber music with leading artist-teachers from around the world. But what makes a Credo experience different from many summer music camps and festivals is Credo’s commitment to community service. Participants perform concerts in prisons, nursing homes, early childhood centers and hospice facilities as well as volunteering at local food banks, homeless shelters and parks. “Credo is about chamber music and chamber music is about relationships,” Credo’s Artistic Director and Professor of Viola at Oberlin, Peter Slowik told us during a recent telephone conversation. “Credo is about catalytic relationships and it gives people a sense of what they can do with their music apart from the concert hall.”
This summer marks Credo’s 15th anniversary and in honor of the occasion, Slowik and his creative team have put together several seminars designed to introduce audiences to the social, musical, and artistic elements which influenced Haydn’s masterpiece, The Creation. [Read more…]
by Daniel Hathaway
Peter Slowik’s Credo Chamber Music summer programs — a blend of musical training and performance and service opportunities with an evangelical Christian foundation — are in expansion mode. This summer’s sessions in Oberlin increased from three weeks to four and the grand finale concert at Severance Hall, which last year featured works for chamber ensembles plus a full orchestra performance of Tchaikovsky’s fifth symphony, morphed this time around into a challenging symphonic program including a Rossini overture, a string suite by Gustav Holst and a Dvořák symphony.
Most summer music camps culminate in a celebratory concert, but few have the luxury of holding that event in such an opulent venue as Severance Hall. The young musicians of Credo seemed positively giddy with the robust sounds they could produce there, and the small but enthusiastic crowd who turned out applauded their efforts ardently. [Read more…]