“Remembering the Name of Slaves” Darlene R. Taylor

Heirlooms are defined in dictionaries as “valuable objects that belonged to a family for generations.” The word “valuable” in that description is highly subjective. Such objects likely have value to family members or descendants. But they may or may not have monetary as opposed to sentimental value. “Darlene R. Taylor: Heirlooms,” at the Academy Art Museum, is an oddly resonant reflection of 18th- to early 19th-century free black families of the Hill neighborhood of Easton – all of them women – depicted with their backs to the viewer, ensuring their anonymity, which defined the lives of most African-American women, free or enslaved, in pre-Civil War America.

Taylor, a black woman born in 1960, has created a series of mixed-media collages, some of which are near life-size, incorporating vintage cotton, linens, laces and even buttons handed down mother to daughter mostly, but also cousin to cousin or friend to friend. Artifacts from excavations commissioned by the museum of the long-ago home of Henny and James Freeman, who headed one of the earliest free land-owning black families in Talbot County from 1787 to 1828 are part of Taylor’s motifs that almost invite touching, which of course is not allowed. The fabric-on-paper derivations are so homey they seem drawn directly from unfinished work from a sewing basket. For me, the most tempting piece to reach out and feel its domestic textile hand-me-downs is “The Children of Slaves Remember,” 2023.

Taylor says her archival works reflect untold stories of “the love, labor and thriving of black life and family.” The Freeman home and adjoining properties on Talbot Lane just behind the museum are being repurposed for much-needed administrative space.

Full disclosure regarding a possible personal connection: I grew up on a farm next to what is now Chesapeake Easton Club East on Dutchmans Lane, where I now live in retirement. From age 5 in 1952 to when I attended and graduated from the University of Maryland College Park, that farm remained my home-away-from-college. My mother taught a young man named James Freeman to read. He worked on our farm until my parents sold it in the mid-’70s. Freeman was a common name for children or grandchildren of former slaves. But I wonder now if the gentle farmworker I knew as James Freeman back in the 1950s to ’70s was a descendant of the free land-owning black family next door to what is now the Academy Art Museum.

Sometimes, it seems like an awfully small world when you move back to your childhood hometown.

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“Fall of Man,” Albrecht Durer

An important collection on loan from the Reading Public Museum in Pennsylvania of works by Albrecht Durer, the Renaissance artist who revolutionized European printmaking in the late 15th and early 16th centuries, fills the two small first-floor AAM galleries.

You’ll see a copy of a color print of young Durer with an introductory wall label summarizing his career that made him one of the most notable artists of his time. Hanging next to the portrait are magnifying glasses that you should use in the next room. There, on the far wall, you’ll see 16 remarkable prints from Durer’s “Engraved Passion” series depicting the final days in the life of Christ. All the New Testament scenes described in the gospels of Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John are there – among them the kiss of death by Judas, Pontius Pilate washing his hands as Jesus is found guilty, the crown of thorns affixed on Jesus’ head on his way to the cross, his Crucifixion and of Christ resurrected with a halo of illumination above his head. The magnifying glass makes a great difference in viewing these engravings not much larger, if at all, than baseball cards. The magnification brings their incredibly detailed imagery into stark focus. The technique reveals the delicate intricacies that distinguish Durer’s engravings from the earlier woodcuts that are also masterpieces – including his “Fall of Man: Adam and Eve Expelled from Paradise.”

Returning to the first gallery, don’t miss the posthumous portrait of Durer by Erhard Schon, dated 1538. Durer died in 1528 at age 56.

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“The Voyage of Memory,” Philip Koch

Philip Koch, like many American artists born in the mid-20th century (1948), was very much influenced by abstract painters who were all the rage at the time. But then he met realist artist Edward Hopper, born in the previous century (1884), who died in 1967 at age 84. There was still time, however, for Koch to be taken under Hopper’s wing and, posthumously, earned him an unprecedented series of residencies – 17 of them – at the elder’s Cape Cod studio and access to the Edward Hopper Art Center in his Nyack, N.Y. birthplace. That changed the arc of Koch’s career from abstract to stark realism in landscapes and architectural detail. You’ll notice his fondness for Mansard rooflines in the current Koch exhibit at AAM. Switching in style from his previous landscapes, represented in this show with a few paintings from the early ’80s, Koch began producing colorful picture-postcard scenes as opposed to flora abstractions of his imagination.

Whether or not you see this as an improvement in his artistry may depend on your taste in paintings. Hopper’s influence on Koch’s later works is unmistakable, though it strikes me as somewhat more imitative than creative. But then, there’s nothing wrong with pretty pictures.

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With four shows going on at once, not counting Marty Two Bulls Jr.’s “Dominion” installation that went up in AAM’s entry hallway months ago – there’s a lot to take in. But don’t skip the charming little exhibit upstairs, “Remnants of Childhood,” curated by teen interns who selected art from the museum’s permanent collection. My runaway favorite is Austrian artist Ossi B. Czinner’s “Man, Moon, Umbrella” interpretation of Jack jumping over the candlestick. Or, for local flavor, you might want to check out Claudia DeMonte’s “Shrine to Maryland” mixed-media diorama adorned with blue crabs that turn red when you boil them, reminding us that it pays to be head of the food chain.

Four New Exhibits at AAM

“Darlene R. Taylor: Heirlooms,” “Albrecht Durer: Master Prints” and “Light: Paintings by Philip Koch,” all through July 14. Also, “Teen-Curated Exhibition: Remnants of Childhood” through June 9, all at Academy Art Museum, 106 South St., Easton. academyartmuseum.org

Steve Parks is a retired New York arts critic and editor now living in Easton.

The Amara Trio

A trio who got together barely nine months ago – late in the summer of 2023 – came away with the top prize of $10,000 in the 11th biennial Chesapeake International Chamber Music Competition Saturday at Easton’s exquisite Ebenezer Theater.

The Amara Trio, who met at Manhattan’s prestigious and hugely competitive Juilliard School, performed a challenging and musically diverse program of chamber compositions by Rebecca Clarke, better known as a viola virtuoso who cracked the British orchestral barrier to female musicians, and two wildly haunting movements from Shostakovich’s Piano Concerto No. 2, which was somehow topped by their rendering of Mendelssohn’s sumptuous, if repetitive, first piano concerto.

The next biggest winner of the competition was the all-saxophone quartet Pulse from Michigan State University, three of whom are graduating – leaving their junior member to fend for himself. Pulse captured both the audience-choice prize of $5,000, and a judges’ tie vote for the runner-up prize with the Hesper String Quartet, representing the “usual suspects” among chamber music competitors.

That said, it doesn’t mean in any way that Hesper did not rise to the occasion. They were the only chamber group that concentrated their skilled efforts on just two compositions, playing them more or less to completion under the 45-minute performance time limit. The Schubert String Quartet No.  14, subtitled “Death of the Maiden,” opens solemnly as you might expect from the title, turning urgent and then melodic to a climactic finish.  The discordant Bartok Quartet No. 3 showed off the range of these Stony Brook University musicians based in Long Island and New York. The moderato refrains built toward crisis tension with quivering violin strings and assertive cello strokes and thumps leading to a reflective surprise finish.

To my eyes and ears, what seemed to win for the Amara Trio was their connection to each other – especially in the complexities of the Shostakovich No. 2 from which they dropped the first movement because of time constraints. (Folks who heard them in the Sunday matinee performance at Holy Trinity in Easton got the full treatment of that piece.)

In the Saturday competition, it was impossible for the audience, and perhaps the fellow musicians, not to notice the emotional expression of their pianist to whatever phrase presented a potential coda response that turned out to be a mere tease. If their idea was not to have too much drama, it worked. There were several such moments, and I was fooled each time. Best to wait for the great climax. These guys – a guy and two girls, actually – were terrific that way,

The same might be said of Pulse, the winner of the audience-favorite award, who also tied for the runners-up judges’ prize with the Hesper four. Pulse blew me away with no less than six pieces in a 45-minute tour de force on brass: A suite by Grieg, Marquez’s Cuban romanticism to O’Halloran’s “Night Music” jazz romp and a melodically soothing Puccini, followed by Itoh’s “Doublethink,” a deeply wrinkled take on Orwellian political mythology, anchored by the improvisational “Converging Spectrum” by young African-American jazz pianist Kevin Day – all of it displaying Pulse’s incredible range. I was particularly impressed with their wind-blown technique that produced the sound of ocean waves without vibrant brass notes.

The Amara Trio winners, I suspect, earned their prize with an on-stage presence that may have separated them from the evident skill of each of their competitors. It was impossible not to notice their connection – remarkable in that they just got together – to my well-aged mind – basically the day before yesterday. May the Amara Trio achieve the success they deserve. They’re really good.

That said, all the other chamber groups who came away without a specific prize deserve the standing ovations they received on Saturday. Each finalist also earned a $1,000 cash prize.

Among them are the Trio Menil, who performed a challenging program of Haydn, Ives and an emotional rendition of Mendelssohn’s Trio No. 2. Plus the opening act, the Kodak Quartet’s ambitious five-piece medley starting with the Ligeti nocturne memorialized by the Holocaust, known as “Metamorphoses.”

To pick winners or losers among these five competitors was to me, all but impossible. But that’s what a competition is about. Congratulations to all these young up-and-comers.

Remember these names for future classical music reference:

Amara Trio: Pianist Kevin Jansson, cellist Nagyeom, Jang, violinist Christina Nam.

Pulse: Zachary Costello, soprano saxophone; Michael Ethier, baritone sax;

Owen Robinson, tenor sax; Spencer Cox, alto sax.

Hesper Quartet: Violinists SeJeong Kim and Ye Jin Yoon, violist SoHui Yun, and cellist Connor Kim.

Kodak Quartet:  Violinists Edgar Donati and Martin Noh, violist Daniel Spink, and cellist Blake Kitayama.

Trio Manil:  Pianist Jonathan Muk, cellist David Dietz, and violinist Jeongwon An (also known as Claire).

Congratulations to all five finalists. You’re all winners.

Chesapeake International Chamber Music Competition
Saturday, April 13, Ebenezer Theater, Easton; chesapeakemusic.org

Steve Parks is a retired New York arts critic now living in his hometown of Easton.

The Mid-Atlantic Symphony Orchestra’s Elizabeth Loker Concerto Competition rose to virtuosic playoff levels of excellence fitting for a “March Madness” Sunday matinee concert.

Concerto competition winner Rebekah Hou

Don’t dismiss the athletic comparison: The touch and dexterity in performing arts skills of this trio of finalists were as evident onstage at Chesapeake College’s Todd Performing Arts Center as a winning slam dunk on an NCAA championship basketball court. If not more so. All three competitors nailed it. But the deciding factor may well have been “degree of difficulty,” as is often the case in Olympic competitions, coming up again this summer in Paris.

The concerto that harpist Rebekah Hou of Cleveland performed may have won favor by the panel of three that judged her the top prize-winner of $5,000 in part because there are so few other solo concertos for that instrument in all of the repertoire of famous classical composers.

Written by the late Alberto Ginastera of Argentina in 1956, the piece – known for decades simply as the Harp Concerto – gained somewhat wider attention on the 2016 centennial of his birth. Other modern composers of harp solo concertos have emerged since. But they remain a rarity in the vast canon of classical music, making it a challenge to study or learn from other recordings.

Hou’s performance was impeccably precise though perhaps unfamiliar in timbre to even sophisticated classical music listeners who have rarely if ever heard the harp played as the leading concerto solo instrument.

The judges’ runner-up prize of $2,500 went to Alejandro Gomez Pareja of Madrid, Spain, who also won the audience popular vote prize for his emotive and explosive rendition of Shostakovich’s Cello Concerto No. 1 in E-flat Major, which led off Sunday’s concert program. Sophia Geng of Andover, Massachusetts, was awarded the $1,000 prize for third place by the judges for her mastery of one of the most challenging for any string instrument – Tchaikovsky’s Violin Concerto in D Major – which wrapped up this daunting program.

Going in order of appearance, Gomez Pereja dived into the complicated first movement that borrows on themes from Josef Stalin’s favorite folk tunes said to be distorted by Shostakovich as a jab at Soviet iron-fist fury. Attacking at first with the bow as a lance, Gomez Pereja’s weapon gave way to reflections on loss and remorse. A stirring third movement solo carried the melody all on its own before orchestral exchanges based on the opening theme – amplified by woodwind and horn clarion calls – signaled a climactic cello finish to a rousing ovation.

Hou’s concerto was announced silently before her on-stage appearance by the front and right-of-center positioning of her handsomely crafted harp. From the first notes, you know this is not your grandmother’s harp, nor Harpo Marx’s. While the usual angelic glissandos flourish from time to time in the concerto, many more sharply plucked notes are both singularly melodic in tone and percussive on impact, especially as she slapped wood panels of the harp architecture. The highest notes on the shortest upper harp strings could be mistaken for tinkling piano keys as other, more sonorous notes may strike you as that of a xylophone. Still others are as tender as lightly stroked acoustic-guitar notes. Who knew a harp could be so versatile? Rebekah Hou did.

Violinist Sophia Geng followed these two virtuoso performances with, by any measure, an exhausting performance of Tchaikovsky’s notoriously difficult – even in terms of mere stamina – of the Russian master’s Violin Concerto in D Major. If she felt intimidated, Geng didn’t show it. She was studiously serious in her approach to the challenges of the piece. Never faltering, she answered the opening orchestral crescendo with a solemn solo response that melts into a melody reinvented as a dance theme later on. In a lovely opening to a long final movement, Geng’s violin “gently weeps,” as the late George Harrison might have said – its introspective passages just that relatable.

Never mind the results: There were no losers among this grand finale trio. Judging in such a high-quality competition, as any of the judges would admit, is highly subjective. No matter who finished first or third or in between, they’re all winners as accomplished young musicians.

The trio of judges deciding the top prizes were Edward Polochick, music director of Lincoln’s Symphony Orchestra in Nebraska; James Kelly, executive director of the National Philharmonic Orchestra, based in suburban Maryland of Washington, D.C., and Sachi Marasugi, concertmaster of the Salisbury Symphony Orchestra and member of the violin faculty of Salisbury University.

The Elizabeth Loker Concerto Competition is named for the former Washington Post executive who helped bring that national newspaper into the digital age. In retirement, she moved to Royal Oak and became an MSO board member and supporter before her death of cancer in 2015 at age 67. This is just the third Loker competition as it was not held for two years of the COVID pandemic.

ELIZABETH LOKER CONCERTO COMPETITION

Three solo finalists accompanied by the Mid-Atlantic Symphony Orchestra, conducted by Michael Repper at Chesapeake College’s Todd Performing Arts Center, Wye Mills, on Sunday, March 24.

Steve Parks is a retired performing arts critic now living in Easton.

Downtown Easton’s arts district just got bigger – and broader in terms of diversity in what qualifies as art and by whom.

Easton’s trio of galleries along Harrison Street within walking distance of the Academy Art Museum and curling up a half-block on Goldsborough has increased twofold. While the Zebra and Spiralis Galleries (note the plural) occupy one address site – 5 N. Harrison St., more or less half-way between the Troika and Trippe galleries and directly opposite the Tidewater Inn and across Dover Street from the Avalon Theatre – they are separate galleries whose independent owners say they plan to collaborate on certain parallel exhibitions while diverting here and there on their own. 

“They Call Me Mr. T,” diamondback terrapin fabric art by Susan Fay Schauer

The current joint show, “At the Buzzer!” running through March 31, reflects on a compelling story of a basketball resurrection following the death of a young man on a court then in disrepair. According to Shelton Hawkins, the artist who has since painted resurfaced basketball courts across the country, starting with the one at Easton’s Idlewild Park, the death was not due to an injury. Hawkins’ cousin, James Thompson, 22, died of an enlarged heart rather than the impact of falling on a basketball court. The fatal incident, however, led to the resurfacing and repainting in bright geometric colors with the financial help of mentor Richard Marks and Easton Councilwoman Megan Cook, now the mayor. 

Since then, Hawkins has created 40 more basketball canvases in concrete in three countries – several on display in colorful patterns on framed images lining one wall as you enter this dual gallery space. Other images include black-and-white photos of, among others, superstar Lebron James, who recently became the first player to surpass 4,000 points in his NBA career. 

But you don’t have to appreciate the difference between dribble and scribble to get what else is happening in these cohabiting galleries. Gail Patterson, owner of the Spiralis Gallery, says their exhibits of shared space with the Zebra Gallery, owned by Susan Fay Schauer, is “complementary,” adding, “We each do our own thing, and sometimes we’ll do a joint show.” Like now, with “At the Buzzer!”

Bulsby Duncan’s “Buy or Sell”

Schauer calls the works in her gallery “evolutionary art,” mostly of flora or fauna in various media, both in abstract and realistic depictions. The current works on display are eclectic, to say the least, with mostly Afro-Caribbean art curated by Spiralis and a mix of narrative works and nature by Zebra artists. 

Among the pieces that most caught my eye are “Buy or Sell,” an acrylic takeoff on the game of Monopoly by Bulsby Duncan, which is among the Spiralis pieces in one of the galleries, plus two Zebra fiber works, “Steppin’ Out,” a Cindy Winnick sculpture of a girl kicking up her dancin’ shoes, and – particularly appealing to me as a University of Maryland alum – “They Call Me Mr. T,” a Diamondback terrapin by Schauer. Hard to miss is a piece that should never be overlooked in any case: “I’m Late I’m Late,” a sculpture in stained glass and mosaic tile by Richard Fritz, obviously inspired by “Alice in Wonderland.” It stands as if on guard in an alcove between galleries. 

While one corner of the current dual exhibit struck me as pedestrian – an array of hand-painted basketballs amounted to junior-varsity graffiti – the breadth of the art throughout and their disparate sources makes Zebra and Spiralis significant additions to Easton’s gallery scene, taking nothing away from the regional focuses of the Troika and Trippe galleries, just south and north on Harrison. The new galleries can only help expand the palette of art on view along Gallery Row, previously broadened by Studio B’s Asian influence. 

As I’ve suspected, since I moved back here in 2017, Easton has become the art capital of the Eastern Shore. Now, if only we had an Equity theater company. But that discussion is for another time. For now, I’m happy to see how much we’ve grown already as an arts-friendly community.

Both the new galleries are open Thursdays-Sundays at 5 N. Harrison St., Easton.

ZEBRA AND SPIRALIS GALLERIES
At the Buzzer!” is a joint exhibit by Shelton Hawkins through March 31, along with other artworks from each gallery.

thezebragallery.com  and spiralisgallery.com

Sunday’s matinee Interlude concert, billed as “Chamber Music Reimagined,” featured two alumni players from Chesapeake Music’s annual International Chamber Competition for Young Professionals. Ensemble 132, a collective of 11 musicians, of whom five performed before a packed house at the Ebenezer Theatre in Easton, featured two members of Trio St. Bernard – cellist Zachary Mowitz and pianist Sahun Sam Hong – who won the competition in 2018. 

“We’ve been returning every year since,” Mowitz said, addressing the audience between the opening Piano Trio in A Major by Haydn and Hong’s arrangement for piano quartet of Robert Schumann’s “Carnaval,” plus the concert finale, Stravinsky’s challenging “Petrouchka” ballet.

Haydn was the most prolific composer of the 18th- to 19th-century classical period, with a prodigious 106 symphonies that won him the unofficial title of “Father of the Symphony.” But he also earned the nickname “Father of the String Quartet” and that of piano trios (he wrote 45 of the latter.) As a mentor to Mozart, Haydn composed fewer quartets and trios after his genius student surpassed him in that art form. His Trio in A Major, performed by Hong and Mowitz with violinist Stephanie Zyzak, opens with a cheerful allegro moderato that flows irresistibly in what seems so easy for this threesome. The middle movement andante is more subdued as the strings weep as if haunted by regrets. But the allegro finale recovers from this brief despair with chirping syncopations that lead to a happy ending.

Schumann’s “Carnaval,” subtitled “21 Little Scenes on Four Notes,” was composed in the 1830s for solo piano, which Hong deftly arranged instead for Ensemble 132’s piano quartet. I lost count of the 21 sections of the piece, as many are not marked by a discernible pause. An assertive opening inspired by variations on a Schubert theme yields to refrains from the strings – now including violist Luther Warren – responding to the pianist’s insistent calls to attention ranging from near whispers of notes to a playful romp before surrendering to a romantic finish with happy/sad solo diversions for each instrument.

After intermission, the program moves into the 20th century with African-American composer Coleridge-Taylor Perkinson’s String Quartet No. 1 (“Calvary”), now including violinist Abi Fayette in the first chair for the concert’s Act II. Named for Samuel Coleridge-Taylor, the black Romantic-era composer from Britain, Perkinson’s wide-ranging career is reflected in his interests in jazz, working as a pianist, as well as film scores and pop arrangements for Marvin Gaye and Harry Belafonte. His classical works are marked by a contemporary sound that anticipated modern trends with blues, spirituals, and jazz influences fused with Baroque inspirations.

His musically abstract sensibility and emotional complexity are most often led assertively in each change in mood by violinist Fayette on pianist Hong’s cue. The second movement adagio, opens with plucking notes to Warren’s brief viola solo just before violins and cello amplify melancholic passages to a pizzicato heartbeat. The third movement rondo, opens with bold dual violin statements joined in by lower strings, providing a train-like undercurrent culminating in a decisive unison conclusion.

While pianist Hong also arranged the solo piano piece (Schumann’s) for a quartet, scaling up from a full-orchestra ballet presents far more obstacles – no brass or woodwinds, not to mention dancers. It helps listeners of this rearrangement to know a little about the plot of “Petrouchka.”

The first of the four Tableaux of Stravinsky’s ballet set in Russia opens with the piano and first violin together preceding the other three string players who make their separate entrances into what we must leave to our imagination – the Shrovetide Fairgrounds of St. Petersburg. Jaunty dance numbers based on Russian folk tunes are introduced by a single piano note or two. The chamber quintet’s performance palette paints a celebratory picture that unfolds the story of three puppets brought to life by a magician. (We get the jaunty dance numbers played robustly by the ensemble). As for living, breathing puppets, my only experience is “Pinocchio.” But that’s another story.

The next two tableaux take place, first in the room of Petrouchka, who has fallen in love with the lovely former puppet, Ballerina. You can hear Petrouchka’s heart pounding to a pizzicato beat. But the music turns downbeat as the scene shifts to The Moor’s room, where Ballerina has fled Petrouchka’s entreaties in favor of his rival’s.

In the final tableau, nightfall descends on the Shrovetide Fair, where Petrouchka’s jealous rage leads – spoiler alert! – to his murder. The cacophony of his demise is captured in folk minuets that break up with mad atonal intensity into mind games of deranged humiliation that costs puppet Petrouchka his life mere hours after he first drew breath – about a half hour in concert time. (And to think: Pinocchio only sprouted a really long nose.)

Even without a plot outline to guide us, Ensemble 132’s performance of this impossibly complex reduction of full orchestra instrumentation to that of five feverishly skilled musicians is a remarkable achievement both for the players and their fellow pianist/arranger. Maybe they should try it in the future with a silent video backdrop of vintage scenes from the ballet. 

CHESAPEAKE MUSIC INTERLUDE CONCERT

Ensemble 132 performed at Ebenezer Theatre, Easton, on Sunday, March 10. The next Chesapeake Music event is its annual International Chamber Music Competition, April 13-14, at the Ebenezer. chesapeakemusic.org

Steve Parks is a retired New York arts critic now living in Easton.

Michael Repper, now in his second year as music director of the Mid-Atlantic Symphony Orchestra, Delmarva Peninsula’s only fully professional classical orchestra, is excited – and for good reason – about the third annual Elizabeth Loker International Concerto Competition, which brings to the concert stage for the first time three finalists competing for top prize with performances of concertos each has chosen with the full orchestra accompanying them as soloists.

While this is not unique among all classical music competitive events, for the most part, only those known worldwide, such as the Van Cliburn competition named for the American who famously won the 1958 Tchaikovsky International Competition in the USSR back then, conclude with a play-off finale among three finalists – though in the case of the Van Cliburn, they’re all pianists.

Previously, this third annual MSO competition had three finalists playing their concertos with piano accompaniment. Only the winner of that trio got to perform with the full orchestra as part of the prize.

One-hundred-fifty-five applicants from 22 states and 12 countries entered this year’s competition. Through judging by a team of MSO musicians of blind recordings by each of the young soloists, ages 12 to 25, the field was narrowed to 20 semifinalists, of which Repper himself selected the final three. A panel of regional judges will decide who among the finalists will receive cash prizes of $5,000, $2,500 and $1,000 for first-, second- and third place, respectively. There’s also a $500 audience-choice prize.

They will present a diverse program. Cellist Alejandro Gomez Pareha of Madrid, Spain, performs Shostakovich’s challenging Cello Concerto No. 1; violinist Sophia Geng of Andover, Massachusetts, plays Tchaikovsky’s popular Violin Concerto in D Major, and harpist Rebekah Hou of Cleveland performs a harp concerto, a rarity for that instrument, by Alberto Ginastera.

Aside from his considerable skills as a conductor, Repper brings a wealth of experience working with young musicians. Among the accolades he’s earned is that of the 2023 Grammy for Best Orchestral Performance shared with the New York Youth Orchestra, winning the prize over the Berlin Philharmoniker, plus renowned Oscar-winning composer John Williams and Gustavo Dudamel of the Los Angeles Philharmonic, soon to be music director of the New York Philharmonic. Repper’s  student-musicians chose the pieces on their recorded album – all by African-American women composers. (COVID prevented a live performance.)

The Elizabeth Loker competition is named for the former Washington Post executive who helped bring the newspaper into the digital age. In retirement, she moved to Royal Oak and became an MSO board member and supporter before her death of cancer at 67 in 2015.

The winner and runners-up will be announced on stage at the concert, March 24 at Chesapeake College’s Todd Performing Arts Center in Wye Mills.

This video is approximately seven minutes in length. For more infomraiton about the Mid-Atlantic Symphony Orchestra please go here.