We’re back! All of a sudden, we have two weeks until Labor Day and three Midsummer’s Music programs on the board. We opened the first program, The Poetry of David Perry, Sunday (Aug. 23), which features David in the spectacular Poeme by Ernest Chausson. There are still three more performances of that coming up plus a program featuring Tchaikovsky’s Souvenirs of Florence, and our final program that includes our Labor Day Gala, which showcases Schoenfeld’s much requested Café Music and the Brahms Piano Quartet in G Minor with its stunning finale that gives the whole work the nickname “The Hungarian.” We have laid out a feast before you!
Pouring over this flood of music coming our way, all culminating in our very festive and joyous Labor Day Gala, got me to thinking about how this two-week appendix to our regular season got started. There was an interesting development that provided the catalyst for us to consider performing more concerts at the end of the summer season.
It was sometime in the early months of 2002. Walter Preucil was our cellist at Midsummer’s Music and had been since the very first year. He was also a colleague of mine at Lyric Opera of Chicago where I would chat with him almost every day. We were both part of a group in the orchestra that had taken up juggling balls, although Walter and another colleague were experimenting with pins as well. Walter and I also were into running and did a number of races together including the Chicago Marathon (Walter was definitely faster than I was). At any rate, in the midst of all this really serious stuff, Walter, quite casually, let it drop that he and our long-standing pianist, Bill Koehler, were going to do a Carnegie Hall recital. My jaw dropped and my ears perked up. That’s a big deal! I was impressed with his courage and dedication to do that. He told me that their plan was to do it in that coming October.
At this point in late Spring, our Midsummer’s Music programming was all planned. This being our eleventh year, we had slowly grown our season from one week that first year to two and a half weeks for the coming season. We planned to start, as usual, in early June and run past the Summer Solstice. Even though everything was arranged, Walter’s recital plan kept running through my head. I was so intrigued and found myself thinking how I might approach such a project if I were doing it. I was trying to imagine I was in his shoes. One thing I was sure of was that I would want to create a number of preliminary recitals in town as trial runs. I thought I would want to have as many opportunities to play it ahead of time so that I would feel as confident as I could when I went on stage in New York.
At some point, I talked with Walter about this and asked him what he had in mind. He said that he and Bill were going to play it at his church in late September and maybe some other place as well. As I thought this over, an idea started forming in my head. I was sure our Door County audience would be fascinated by the idea of Walter and Bill’s adventure, and I wondered if they would like yet another opportunity to fine-tune their program. It dawned on me that maybe they could come to Door County and play it on Labor Day weekend. I broached the subject with Walter. He liked the idea and said he would talk it over with Bill.
Meanwhile, I was thinking about how to present this. This would be a major departure for Midsummer’s Music since our audience was used to hearing us in early summer. However, I also was quite sure our audience would be intrigued in the same way I was. Everyone who knew Walter and Bill knew that they were very quiet, polite, rather unassuming guys who loved Door County and liked to have fun. The idea of their going to New York to play at Carnegie Hall seemed positively audacious for these two! I also felt it would be imperative to get the importance of this across to our audience from an advertising or announcement standpoint. We couldn’t just say, “Hey everyone, Walter and Bill are going to play some music on Labor Day.” That’s when it occurred to me: We would call it “A Carnegie Hall Recital.” That would get everyone’s attention, and the thought that they could hear some of their favorite musicians bring a bit of Carnegie Hall right here to the Unitarian-Universalist Fellowship in Ephraim (although it was in Sister Bay at that time) was just the ticket (so to speak).
Well, it was a big success with large crowds to hear them at the UUF as well as at the Door Community Auditorium where the audience was seated with them on stage. It was so successful that we decided to put on some more concerts at the same time the following year. We now knew that we could draw an audience, and although we couldn’t come up with a Carnegie Hall Recital every year, we were confident we could put on something “Carnegie Hall Worthy.” The next year, 2003, proved to involve a terrible calamity that almost scuttled the Labor Day concerts, but a miraculous solution saved us and the series continued in the following years eventually becoming the two-week series at the end of summer that we are enjoying now.
I plan to write more about that difficult time in 2003 in a few weeks because it’s an impressive story for those of you who don’t know about it or don’t remember. In the meantime, this end-of-the-season series has come to include a very special concert on Labor Day itself. Many years ago, we put on the Labor Day concert at Bjorklunden and devoted it especially to those who have just kissed their last house guest goodbye and are ready to kick back and enjoy some quality time with great music, a wonderful post-concert dinner, and some good old fashioned Door County comradery. It has also become a splendid opportunity for Midsummer’s Music to raise some much-needed funds to finish off the season and provide for the planning of the season to come. And the welcoming venue at Bjorklunden provides the perfect surroundings for a splendid and joyous, fun-filled afternoon.
Jim Berkenstock,
Artistic Director, Midsummer’s Music