How doth the busy bee improve each shining hour

One of the really fun things about being in the arts is working alongside great people who do so much to make a difference in other people’s lives. What I find particularly striking about this is that many of them even use their vacation time to stretch their artistry while continuing to spread the joy of the creative experience. How many accountants do you know who take their vacation time to provide personal financial counseling, or electricians who use their time off to rewire homes, or auto mechanics that enjoy spending downtime doing tune-ups? The majority of us run as far away from work as possible during our time off, but a surprising number of musicians use that time to give back.

I am going to give the majority of my column today to someone who does just that- Linda Allen, the Registrar and Assistant Director of the Department of Music at The Music Settlement. When she finally takes a break each summer, she doesn’t really rest. If anything, she becomes even more involved in the arts and their impact. I think you’ll find her story enlightening and inspiring, and maybe a little daunting too! I invite other members of The Music Settlement staff and faculty to send me info on creative adventures they undertook during their summer break, and I’ll try to include them in future messages. Here’s Linda’s story:

“When Linda Allen, Registrar and Assistant Director of Music at The Music Settlement, is asked what she did on her summer vacation, the answer is always the same. For over 25 years, she has performed in the keyboard/percussion section of the Lakeside Summer Symphony, a professional orchestra whose 80 members come from all over the country to enjoy a month-long working vacation. The orchestra rehearses daily and performs eight concerts over the four weeks (a total of over 40 different musical works). The orchestra is in its 46th season, and for the past 38 years has been conducted by Robert Cronquist, former director of the Harvard East Branch and affiliate of the Broadway School of Music. The majority of the orchestra musicians and their families have been returning to Lakeside for many years and enjoy the opportunity to catch up with the lives of their colleagues.

“This season, in addition to the usual overtures, symphonies, tone poems and concerti, the orchestra collaborated with Point of Departure, a Northeast Ohio ballet troupe, and also mounted a fully staged opera, Donizetti’s Don Pasquale, with Opera Circle. Linda did double duty in the opera, playing percussion in the pit in Acts I and II, then donning a servant’s costume and singing on stage with the opera chorus in Act III. Her other musical activities included a keyboard gig with Black Wire, a group consisting of orchestra string players, rock drummer and lounge singer, doing unique arrangements of well known rock and pop hits ( think “Billie Jean”, “Hanky Panky,” etc.) and playing in a piano trio for the Lakeside orchestra fund raiser - the annual Candlelight Tour of Homes.

“Lakeside, known as the Chautauqua on Lake Erie, is located just north of Sandusky Bay on the Marblehead peninsula. It is a wonderful destination for a family vacation and a perfect spot for a musician’s holiday.
When not rehearsing or performing, Linda admits to eating a lot of Caveman Chocolate ice cream, catching up on some good books, sitting on the dock and taking afternoon naps. Ah, summer!”

Ah, summer indeed! It’s amazing how dedicated our people here at The Music Settlement are, and what a difference we make because of it.

“Will you, won’t you, will you, won’t you, will you join the dance?” Lewis Carroll

Please excuse the gap in messages last week. I was away on vacation and so my column was on vacation as well! But I am back and rested and ready for the beginning of another great school year at The Music Settlement!

If you have been away during this period as well, you will notice a change or two upon your return. In an effort to continually improve the customer/visitor experience at The Music Settlement, we’re making some upgrades on our Magnolia Drive campus. We are currently reconfiguring our Enrollment and Customer Service Department (ECSD), located in the atrium between Burke Mansion and Kulas House, to provide a more effective walk-up customer space and faculty information center.

• If you are a customer of The Music Settlement, we are working to provide you with more helpful signage and information sharing systems to keep you up to date when you visit us in University Circle.
• If you are a Department of Music (DOM) customer/student, we are relocating the office of the Assistant Director, Linda Allen, to a more accessible office in the main Customer Service area, where she has more direct access to the resources of the ECSD.
• If you are DOM instructor or an administrative staff member, you’ll find mailboxes and communication areas reorganized to better serve you. You will also soon have access to several computer stations within the new office’s layout that will allow you improved access to internal communications and systems.

Beyond these improvements, The Music Settlement is committed to creating more informative, helpful and, yes, inspiring common areas by introducing video monitors that feature pertinent information and “wayfinding” assistance to help you get from Point A to Point B with a minimum of delay. It is our hope through these efforts that everyone who visits our Magnolia Drive campus will feel welcome and aware of the values under which we operate every day!

The middle of August is really the one time during the year that things are quiet here at The Music Settlement, but they’ll be starting up again very soon. Despite the scorching heat currently turning our brains into mush, there are many cool things happening in the arts across our area for you and your family to enjoy. In our neighborhood, the run of the musical Pippin at Cain Park continues through the end of the month, and the Cleveland Orchestra’s season “down south” at Blossom Music Center still has a weekend left with the Joffrey Ballet as their very special guests. If you’re my age or older and you want to introduce the younger generation to an experience largely missing today, check out Playhouse Square’s Cinema at the Square series. The series features movies presented the old-fashioned way, on a large screen in the beautiful Palace Theatre, and they even have pipe organ concerts before the films begin! The series features classics and family favorites and runs through the 23^rd. Relive those days when going to the movies was a real event, not just another trip to the Cineplex. August is also the month for another kind of culture - county fairs! If you have a chance, read Garrison Keillor’s article in the most recent National Geographic Magazine on the experience of a great Midwest state fair; it will remind you of why small animal husbandry, tilt-a-whirls, and deep fried Coca-Cola is such an important part of being an American!

Find your August experience before it’s too late - September’s right around the corner!

Have a great week!

Art is the symbol of the two noblest human efforts: to construct and to refrain from destruction. - Simone Weil

I received an unusual item in my mail today. It was a DVD sent by a former associate of The Music Settlement, Dr. Seymour Slavin, who was also a group services consultant for the Welfare Federation of Cleveland in the 1960’s. The DVD showed an old black and white film that told the story of the 1967 Cleveland Summer Arts Festival, a unique event that he created with the direct support of Howard Whittaker, who was the visionary leader of The Cleveland Music School Settlement at the time, and Dr. Lester Glick, who served on the Board of Directors for both the Welfare Federation and The Settlement. Many of you know, in fact, that our recital hall is named for Dr. Glick.

Organizing such a festival was a very bold move for these men, for it had been less than a year since parts of the city were engulfed in rioting, and the rift between racial groups was still very wide and the level of trust in civic planning and leadership was very low. These men sought the support of many University Circle and greater Cleveland institutions, such as Karamu House, the Cleveland Play House, The Cleveland Orchestra, and many of the settlement houses, including ours, to bring their ambitious plan to fruition.

Ultimately, the festival ran 68 days, with 103 performances, workshops and events attended by more than 150,000 people! More than 2,640 young people enrolled in free art, drama, dance and music classes at 14 neighborhood centers. Performers featured at the festival included Duke Ellington, Lionel Hampton, Carmen McRae, Loretta Washington, Woody Herman, and members of The Cleveland Orchestra and the Cleveland Play House repertory company. Everything was free to the public, despite the estimated cost of the summer-long project, which exceeded $350,000. Many sources provided financial support for the undertaking, including the U.S. Office of Economic Opportunity, the City of Cleveland, the Cleveland Board of Education, and many local charitable organizations and individuals.

At its heart, this extraordinary project embodied the ideals that created The Music Settlement and still guide it today - the power of the arts to affect an individual and a community for the better. Reports from the time indicated that the children of the community in particular had benefited from the workshops and classes, as many parents described positive behavioral changes and academic improvement in their children. Neighborhood arts associations came forward to help organize and support the many events; Clevelanders of all ages and ethnic backgrounds interacted in comfort and mutual appreciation of the arts. Many of these outcomes were galvanized to aid in the improvement of Cleveland neighborhoods for years afterwards.

What a heartening story: a city in turmoil is raised up by the efforts of a visionary few through the creative cauldron of the arts, and from it comes a new alloy blended from the very best qualities of each of the city’s inhabitants. I find myself wondering what it must have been like to be there that summer, now more than forty years in the past, and how with each year it passes further from our collective memories. Do we have the courage to take such leaps today, when we find ourselves and our community in a similar place? I know the arguments - there are no more federal dollars for such flights of fancy, the organizations that stepped up to the challenge at the time are currently struggling to just keep the wolf from their door, and the logistics to make such magic happen are daunting. But maybe a solution rests within smaller scale efforts - community gatherings, street fairs and block parties, spontaneous concerts or dances… you get the idea.

I challenge you to embrace the spirit of the 1967 Cleveland Summer Arts Festival. It can start right in your own house, or street, or neighborhood. But it first needs to start in your heart. The arts redeem us and speak to our soul, and they nourish us in times of deprivation.

Open yourself to the opportunity!