ChARTing New Paths highlights the many voices of violinist Amy Lee as she transitions from the position of Associate Concertmaster of The Cleveland Orchestra to a full-time teaching role at the Oberlin Conservatory of Music. She’ll perform a work for solo violin, Blue Dialogues by Oberlin graduate Dolores White, and will be joined by her new colleagues in the Oberlin Trio for the Mendelssohn Trio No 1 in D minor, and former Cleveland Orchestra colleagues for the world premiere of Anthony Dilorenzo’s Cecil the Turkey.
Introducing the Oberlin Trio:
Amy Lee, violin
Dmitry Kouzov, cello
Haewon Song, piano
Cecil the Turkey by Anthony DiLorenzo
The concert finishes with a piece called Cecil the Turkey (perfect for November!) by Anthony DiLorenzo. Feza Zweifel, ART’s Artistic Director, shares the origin story:
“I went to school with Anthony DiLorenzo at the Curtis Institute of Music. He’s an incredible trumpet player and a fantastic composer for movie trailers, films, and orchestra pops programs – just very accessible music. In school we called him ‘Baby John Williams.’
Tony is also a cancer survivor. About 25 years ago, when he beat cancer, he wanted to celebrate with some friends. He called Craig Knox, now the tubist in the Pittsburgh Symphony (they also played together in a group called the Center City Brass), violinist Pam Frank, who was also at Curtis, and others. Pam hosted seven people for Thanksgiving, and Tony wrote a piece for the gathering with an interesting instrumentation that reflected the group: two violins, two violas, tuba, trumpet, and piano (percussion was added later). It was supposed to be a two-minute piece. It ended up being twelve minutes, with narration!
Here’s another fun connection: Amy Lee went to Curtis and studied with Pam Frank! And Cecil the Turkey has never been played live, only that one time 25 years ago at Pam’s house. So we thought it would be kind of cool to dust it off and have everybody on this November concert join in. The instrumentation is flexible and will be adapted to whoever is performing. We also asked WCLV host Bill O’Connell to narrate (and even play a bit of percussion!)”
Enjoy this special treat as Arts Renaissance Tremont gets the holidays off to a fun start!
