January 2023

Dear Friends,

Music once again is present on campus, after a winter hiatus. It is early in the semester for student performances, but the professional performances of ECMSA and the Candler Concerts series have already been impressive. I highlight two upcoming performances in this newsletter.

The first is a Save-the-Date for the February 18 ECMSA concert. Will Ransom, Artistic Director of ECMSA, is a great supporter of Friends of Music, and he is using the February 18 concert as a fundraiser for Friends of Music! There is some information about that concert below and more will be provided in the next newsletter, but in the meantime, please put the date on your calendar and encourage your friends and neighbors to come. The concert, like all other ECMSA concerts, will be free, but there will be an opportunity to support FOM.

The Music Department has extremely talented faculty and artist affiliates, but frequently their performances don’t receive the publicity they should. The other performance being highlighted in this issue is the recital by artist affiliate Maria Clark, originally scheduled for February 4, but now moved to February 24. Below you can read about this recital and why it is being rescheduled. I hope you will put this on your calendar as well. It promises to be a wonderful event and is another one to tell your friends about.

We very much appreciate the donations from our members. They are absolutely vital for our operations. You can see our list of contributors below. If you have not yet made a contribution for this academic year, it would be great if you could make one in the next month or two. Later this spring we will decide on grants for students and faculty in the Music Department for next year, and the amount we can offer depends on our account balance. 

With best wishes,

Gray

Please Note that Maria Clark's recital originally scheduled for Saturday, February 4 in Emerson Hall has been changed to Friday, February 24 in the Performing Arts Studio.

The reason for the change is itself interesting and sheds some light on the difficulties one sometimes comes across in the creative process. I think the program on February 24 will be very similar to the program originally scheduled for February 4. Most of the composers whose works Maria will be performing are still living. Maria decided that she wanted to intersperse videos of the composers speaking about the creation of their pieces with her performance of those pieces. That is clearly a fascinating addition and adds a lot of interest to the program. The problem is that Emerson Hall does not have the projection system necessary for such videos, whereas PAS does. Because PAS was not available on February 4, it was necessary to find another suitable date, thus the date and location change.

Below is some information about this program. More details will be in the February newsletter:

Songs of love and justice dedicated to the memory of Martin Luther King Jr.

with Trey Clegg, piano/organ.

This is a recital that we have, quite literally, been waiting almost three years for! Maria Clark was ready to perform on March 21 of 2020 when everything was shut down just a few days before due to COVID. This program is not the same as previously planned, but will include many of the pieces planned three years ago.

Clark is an Artist Affiliate in the Emory Music Department and in 2019 she joined the faculty of Spelman College as director of vocal studies. With a voice judges described as “dazzling” and “richly expressive,” she performed on the stage of Carnegie Hall as First Prize Winner of the 2008 Barry Alexander International Vocal Competition. “One seldom finds a voice capable of such beauty across a variety of idioms,” said Cosmo Buono, executive director. “A voice this much at home in opera, lieder, and spirituals is very rare. She is truly, both artistically and vocally, a triumph.” Among recent activities, last spring Clark collaborated with composer and pianist Maria Thompson Corley, to release a CD of contemporary African American spirituals, titled Soul Sanctuary.

Her program (for February 4) may be seen by clicking here. The recital is free, with no tickets required.

Will Ransom is the Mary L. Emerson Professor of Piano and the founder and Artistic Director of the Emory Chamber Music Society of Atlanta. He is also a great supporter of the Emory Friends of Music and just as he did last year, he is using the ECMSA Concert of February 18 as a fundraiser for the Friends of Music!

Just like all other ECMSA concerts, this program will be free with no tickets required. There will be an opportunity for audience members to donate, so please bring your friends and neighbors. That shouldn't be a difficult ask, as James Dunham, viola, and Norman Fisher, cello, team up with the Vega Quartet and pianist William Ransom for Sonatas of Beethoven and Brahms, and Dvorak’s thrilling Sextet for Strings.

The February newsletter will have more information about this concert, but be sure to put it on your calendar now.

A big Thank You to those who contributed in the 2021-2022 year, and especially to those of you who have even increased your level of support or are new supporters! There is no way to thank you enough. It was the strong level of giving last year than enabled us to substantially increase our grants to music students and faculty for this year.

Much of our support for students and faculty is through grants to provide scholarships for students to help pay for required music fees, to help fund undergraduate research projects, and to provide enhancements for classes. You can see the grants we have awarded for this school year by clicking here.

A special thanks to those of you who are sustaining members, either through payroll deduction, or a continuing contribution on your credit card. After two years of asking, our donations page is finally updated to make it easy to choose to give a one-time gift or a monthly gift.

You can see the list of our donors by clicking the following link. Those whose names are listed with a @ or ### have made contributions during this academic year, beginning last summer. If you have not yet contributed in this academic year, we would greatly appreciate your support, particularly in the next month or two, as the amount we are able to fund for grants to students and faculty for the next academic year are determined by our fundraising through early spring of this year.

The list of members can be seen by clicking here.

Please Note: It is surprisingly difficult to generate a list of members who are current in their giving. We measure our giving year from the start of our annual campaign, which is usually in July of each year. Some members give through payroll deduction or give more than one gift per year (thank you to both!) and we want to make sure we correctly acknowledge the level of giving. We don't have a set format for how names are listed and depend on member's preference. Sometimes we make mistakes. Please let us know if you find any errors in the list of members above. You can just reply to this newsletter and we will be glad to correct any mistakes. The date that the list was updated is given at the bottom. Among other problems, we are finding that it can take several weeks for us to get news of gifts.

You can make a contribution online by clicking here.

There is literally nothing like attending live music performances! Many of us are so grateful that we can once again hear so many outstanding performances at Emory and around Atlanta. One of the unanticipated consequences of the COVID-19 pandemic is that when it was not safe to gather in concert halls to hear music, music organizations spent much time and resources to make music performances available online. Those resources are continuing to be used in many cases to make livestream and recorded performances available to those who are not able to attend the performances in person.

Who are those who can benefit from livestream/recorded performances? I would say most, if not all of us can benefit. There are certainly instances in which we have wanted to attend a concert but were unable to because of various conflicts. As we age, it can become more difficult to attend concerts at night, or drive long distances. The livestream/recorded option also gives us the option of hearing music performed in distant venues.

This last point is particularly important in the Emory context. Our Emory music students come not only from all over the United States, but from many other countries as well. Their parents, friends, and relatives would certainly love to be able to hear these students perform in person, but for most of them, it is not possible to be able to come to Atlanta to hear these performances. For them, the livestream/recorded option is the only way to hear the students' performances.

It is important to understand that even with enhanced recording equipment in place, there is a significant cost in providing livestream/recordings of performances due to the resources of staff, etc., involved. Because of the excellence of the Emory performances and the benefit to the friends and supporters of Emory music, the Friends of Music is doing all we can to encourage livestream/recorded options for Emory events.



How best to view Livestream/Recorded Music

One note about these performances: One generally accesses the programs via a computer. It is likely that many of us have been watching more movies at home during the pandemic, and it is generally preferable to watch those movies on our TVs rather than on some type of mobile device. Similarly, it is much preferable to watch music programs on a large screen with good sound. The most reliable way to connect your device to a TV is via an HDMI cable (perhaps with an adapter) if both your device and the TV supports such a connection. Another method is to mirror your device screen onto your TV. There are many ways to do that. Clicking on this link will take you to an article that describes various ways to do that screen mirroring.

The Schwartz Center is the hub of most musical performances at Emory. Emerson Hall in particular has greatly enhanced capabilities for livestreaming and recording. However, the decision on what performances will be livestreamed or recorded is made individually for each performance.

Schwartz Center Virtual Stage

The Schwartz Center Virtual Stage is then entry point for livestream/recorded performances at the Schwartz Center. The WATCH AGAIN link on the page leads to a listing of recorded events that were not ticketed. At this point, it is not clear how many events during the coming year will be on this page.

Another link on the Virtual Stage link leads to a login for paid ticketed events. This includes the concerts for the Atlanta Master Chorale (see below); it is not clear what others will be included in this option.

Many student performances take place in the Performing Arts Studio and last year there was a masterful job in making many of those performances available via livestream/recording. We hope that it will be possible to do the same this year. The PAS Virtual Stage is the place where these recordings are posted and some from last year are still available (and worth viewing again!).

PAS Virtual Stage

One useful hint is that program booklets for both Schwartz and PAS performances are available at the same site.  Click here to access the program booklets.

The following organizations all have strong Emory affiliations. Their programs will generally not be listed in this newsletter, but most of them, with the exception of the Atlanta Symphony Orchestra, are listed in the Music at EmoryCalendar.

I assume that all of our readers are familiar with ECMSA, whose Artistic Director is Professor William Ransom. ECMSA is celebrating its 30th season this year and all of their concerts are free. I am listing them separately because ECMSA has a variety of music series, only some of which are at the Schwartz Center. The full array of their concerts can be seen on the ECMSA website.

Notes about two of the series:

Most of the Bach's Lunch Series are part of the Concerts@First series held in the sanctuary of First Presbyterian Church of Atlanta. These concerts are livestreamed and are usually available for listening later.

The Masterclass Series, is back this year and is an incredible gift for our students. These masterclasses feature outstanding musicians who will teach Emory students in these classes. Moreover, our members are invited to attend these masterclasses. There are twelve masterclasses planned for this year, with an impressive array of artists involved.

The Artistic Director of the Atlanta Master Chorale is Professor of Music Eric Nelson, and the chorale is one of the finest in the country. All of their local performances are in the Schwartz Center, and there is a livestream option for concert tickets.  All purchased tickets include a link to the livestream recording for one week after the concert.  I usually view the recording at least once after attending the concert, surely a form of having one's cake and eating it too! 

Not only is the Atlanta Symphony Orchestra a great orchestra, but our students benefit greatly from the ASO, as many of the Music Department Artist Affiliates are ASO musicians.

The ASO responded to the pandemic in a very creative way, beginning a series of "Behind the Curtain" performances featuring musicians playing without an audience. The "Behind the Curtain" series has continued, featuring a selection of recorded performances from previous weeks.  

The entire ASO concert series is detailed on the ASO website. There is a lot of excitement this year as the ASO welcomes its new Music Director Nathalie Stutzmann.  Information about virtual memberships for the "Behind the Curtain" series will also soon be on the website.