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Musicians Playing By Ear In Improvised Sarasota Music Festival Concerts

Cellist Mike Block has warm memories of the two summers he spent studying and performing as a fellow at the Sarasota Music Festival in 2003 and 2004.

"It was the combination of the music, the people and the weather. The Sarasota Music Festival was the only festival I ever returned to when I was student age," Block said.

He's returning for the first time this summer as a faculty member who plans to shake things up and hopefully change how the participants – and audiences – think about and perform music.

Block began exploring improvisation and non-Western music during his undergraduate years at Cleveland Institute of Music and while earning his graduate degree at Juilliard, and since then, "my professional direction has taken me very explicitly away from Western classical music. The things I'm most passionate about mostly involve some sort of cross-cultural collaboration, improvisation and composition. I actually rarely perform notated music."

This summer, Festival Music Director Jeffrey Kahane is highlighting improvisation in the programming and training. Former Music Director Robert Levin will demonstrate classical improvisation in his annual Levin Lecture on June 19, and the second weekend of concerts will feature a variety of improvisational styles with Kahane, Block and violinist Tessa Lark, among others. (Lark was a soloist for the Sarasota Orchestra's opening Masterworks concert last fall.)

"It could be a game changer," Kahane said. "It could raise the profile of the festival. It's not something you see at other chamber festivals, not to this extent. But it could also change the perception of what kind of festival it is."

Block said he asked Kahane "Are you sure?" more than once after he was invited to be part of the faculty. "I feel a lot of what I do nowadays is different from what I remember as being the core experience at this festival. It's a testament to Jeffrey Kahane for explicitly wanting to broaden the musical experiences both for the audience and the fellows."

Cellist Mike Block is part of the faculty of the 2024 Sarasota Music Festival and will be demonstrating improvisational skills in music during performances and classes.

No practicing required

At the American Soundscapes concert on June 15 in the Sarasota Opera House, for example, Block will lead a group of fellows "in a performance where nothing is written down and I will teach the fellows by ear, a piece or two from another style or culture and collaboratively work on it. We will create something during the week together, so there's nothing they can practice ahead of time."

How the piece works depends on which musicians volunteer to participate.

He also will be teaching his own "Iniche Cosebe (which means "thank you very much" in the Mandinka language), to the full orchestra. "I put together an arrangement of different layers and parts and sections, all by ear. That was inspired by time I spent with West African musicians.

Kahane will conduct the concert, which also features clarinetist Charles Neidich. Kahane, Lark and Block will perform improvisations on a variety of favorite American folk songs, and traditional fiddle tunes. Charles Neidich will perform Aaron Copland's Clarinet Concerto. Block also has created an arrangement for Charles Dieupart's 1620 "Sarabande," a traditional Baroque piece. "I developed this arrangement that turns it into a jazz chart, where Tessa, Jeffrey and I play the melody and improvise around the form of the music."

Improvisation also will be part of the June 13 Artist Showcase "Something Old, Something New" program, during which Lark, Block and Kahane will perform an improv on the Largo movement of Dvořák's New World Symphony, as well as his Piano Trio No. 4.

Violinist Tessa Lark, who integrates a variety of musical styles in her performances, is part of the faculty of the 2024 Sarasota Music Festival.

Learning new ways of connecting through music

While in grad school, Block said he was invited to join Yo-Yo Ma's Silk Road Ensemble for a tour to Japan, and after school, he was asked to be part of Mark O'Connor's Appalachia Waltz trio.

"What those two professional touring groups gave me was obviously a reason to keep developing in non-classical styles and also this affirmation that if I was trying to do something unique and personal for myself, there might actually be more professional opportunities out there than I thought."

His goal in a performance is "to find something that's never happened before and that personally inspiring mindset to perform in contrast to what often feels like a more perfection-minded execution focus. Sometimes classical musicians find themselves focusing on when all the notes are already planned in advance. I enjoy approaching the performance more as an exploratory experience rather than an execute-perfection focused experience."

Anybody can learn to improvise music, he said. "Music is like a language and given the right environment, anybody can learn to speak any language. It's difficult for musicians taught only Western classical music because their relationship is through eye-hand coordination because they're reading through notation. Improvising in other styles, you have to rely on ear-hand coordination, working on it in your own brain. Playing by ear uses a different part of the brain than playing by site."

During his week on the festival's music faculty, his "goal is to create a boot camp to create an experience where these musicians who are already highly skilled can learn to access other parts of their brain to play improvisationally and play by ear."

Here's a look at the programs for the second week of the Sarasota Music Festival. For tickets: 941-953-3434; sarasotaorchestra.Org

'Rising Stars'

The first of the Sarasota Music Festival programs that puts a focus on the fellows who are studying with master musicians will include music by Brahms, Mozart, Tchaikovsky and more. 2:30 p.M. June 9, Holley Hall, 709 N. Tamiami Trail, Sarasota. $15-$25.

'Something Old, Something New'

For this Artist Showcase, faculty members Tessa Lark and Mike Block offer different takes on a theme from Antonin Dvořák's "New World" symphony. The concert also includes Dvořák's Piano Trio No. 4 and works by Maurice Duruflé and Beethoven. 4:30 p.M. June 13, Holley Hall, 709 N. Tamiami Trail, Sarasota. $30-$42.

'Tales and Tributes'

This program includes Jeff Scott's "Trail of Tears," which tells the story of his great-great-grandfather, who was among 60,000 Native Americans ejected from their homes in the 19th century. The program also includes Dvořák's String Quintet in G Major, Op. 77, which was written in 1876 and dedicated "For My Nation." Richard Strauss' Serenade and Ralph Vaughan Williams' "The Lark Ascending" round out the program. 7:30 p.M. June 14, Sarasota Opera House, 61 N. Pineapple Ave., Sarasota. $29-$50.

'American Soundscapes'

This Festival Saturday concert highlights improvisation and new interpretations. It includes Aaron Copland's Clarinet Concerto, which was written for Benny Goodman. Tessa Lark and Mike Block duet with traditional fiddle tunes. Block's "Iniche Cosebe," a partially improvised work will be performed by ear by festival fellows. Bill Monroe's "Blue Moon of Kentucky" is also on the program. 7:30 p.M. June 15, Sarasota Opera House, 61 N. Pineapple Ave., Sarasota. $30-$70.

'Rising Stars'

This Sarasota Music Festival concert highlights the fellows with a program of chamber works by Beethoven, Dvořák, Schubert and more. 2:30 p.M. June 16, Holley Hall, 709 N. Tamiami Trail, Sarasota. $15-$25.

Follow Jay Handelman on Facebook ,Instagram and Twitter. Contact him at jay.Handelman@heraldtribune.Com. And please support local journalism by subscribing to the Herald-Tribune.

This article originally appeared on Sarasota Herald-Tribune: Sarasota Music Festival fellows play it by ear in concerts

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