“The history of an art is the history of masterwork, not of failures, or mediocrity.” Ezra Pound

The Music Settlement is in full celebration mode this month as we find ourselves surrounded by reminders of the impact we have made throughout our history on the people of our community. It’s an interesting alignment of the stars, because this time of year is traditionally when our students are presenting recitals and performances that exhibit their growth as musicians, and many of our faculty members are out performing as well.

There are many things for us to be really excited about as we move through the month. On Wednesday the 21st, a representation of instructors, staff, board members, and friends will join us in Columbus as we gather to support our beloved Director of Early Childhood Education, Sylvia Easley, when she will be awarded the Governor’s Award for the Arts in Arts Education. I wrote in detail about the OAC committee’s selection of Sylvia for this prestigious honor in a previous blog, but I want to spend a few more minutes on it because she has meant so much to so many people throughout her 44 years of service at The Music Settlement. It doesn’t matter where I go or who I talk to across the area, there will be someone in the crowd with a connection to Sylvia, and they always say the most wonderful things! She has been a key player in the early development of so many people, either through our programs or through her own advocacy, that she truly can be called one of the most influential people in Northeast Ohio over the past half century. That’s something to celebrate!

We also should raise a big cheer for our jazz faculty and students, who continue to reap accolades for their mastery of this unique American art form. Last week, piano faculty member Jackie Warren (who was chosen as “Best Keyboardist” by the readers of Cleveland Scene magazine this year), was a featured performer in the Women in Jazz concert at Mount Zion Church. Our Settlement Jazz Orchestra (SJO), Jazz @ The Music Settlement (J@MS) ensemble, and the Jazz Impact ensemble were featured prominently at the Tri-C JazzFest where they enjoyed master classes and blew the roof off in performance.

At The Cleveland Museum of Art (CMA) earlier this month, four members of our cello faculty were featured in the Viva & Gala series performance by renowned Finnish cellist Anssi Karttunen. Nick Diodore, Ida Mercer, Julie Meyers King, and Robert Nicholson made up four of the seven members of I Cellisti, the resident ensemble of the Cleveland Cello Society, which joined Mr. Karttunen in a truly magical evening of performance that ranged from J. S. Bach to Kaija Saariaho. It is our hope that we will continue to partner with CMA and the roster of international performing artists they bring in for their concert series as we launch our World Music curriculum this summer.

April and May are months in which many of our students perform in the culmination of a year of dedicated music study. Hardly an evening or weekend will go by without the sound of accomplishment ringing through the campus; it’s a sound I never get enough of! I guess it’s particularly fitting that April is the month that The Music Settlement was founded so long ago.

By the end of April, we will have begun our 98th year of providing meaningful personal experiences to our community through the joy of music. When Almeda Adams, an accomplished vocalist and educator who happened to be blind since the age of 6 months, founded The Cleveland Music School Settlement in 1912, she must have had future Aprils in mind - rooms and hallways full of music made by folks of all ages, on all manners of instruments and in all kinds of styles. Won’t you join in the fun?

Have a great week!