The Toledo Symphony Orchestra will wrap up its 69^th season May 17-18 with performances of Tchaikovsky’s Symphony No. 5 in E minor.

Principal Conductor Stefan Sanderling called this work by the beloved Russian composer one of the 20 most popular symphonic works ever written and said the Toledo Symphony Orchestra chose it in order to conclude its season with a musical work that is “grandiose,” “hopeful” and “positive.”

Sanderling, in his 11^th season with the Toledo symphony, said he has conducted Tchaikovsky’s Fifth many times, while the orchestra has also performed it in the past. But Sanderling and the Toledo symphony have never combined in a performance of the work – until now.

“We know each other very well,” Sanderling said of his relationship with the close to 80 musicians who will play under his baton at the Toledo’s Museum of Art’s Peristyle Theater for the season finale.

“The orchestra knows what gesture to expect,” he added, referring to his conducting style. “I know what [guidance] the orchestra needs.”

Sanderling said when he leads an orchestra in performance he tries to achieve what the composer had in mind, in effect sharing with the audience “something of the beauty, richness or desire,” which the composer had in mind when writing the work.

The inherent tour de force that is a successful live performance by an orchestra depends on many things. It may also depend on “everybody’s moods and circumstances,” Sanderling said.

“We depend a little bit on the inspiration of the moment,” he said, adding that it is the nature of performing live that “the moment you give it out, it becomes music.”

The musicians strive to deliver a performance where “the audience never feels how difficult it is,” Sanderling said. Instead the audience has to feel that the music performed is natural. “We have to achieve that. That is why we are professionals,” he said.

First impression

Sanderling recalled first coming to Toledo as a guest conductor during a time when the symphony was seeking a new principal conductor. It was an era that boasted a busy Toledo Express Airport, he said. Disembarking from his Delta flight, Sanderling said the first thing he saw was a Toledo symphony poster welcoming travelers to the city.

Sanderling, the German-born son of the late Kurt Sanderling, a famous conductor, recalled thinking at the time, “This is where I want to be” — a city where even at the airport the symphony is present. Sanderling’s contract with the Toledo Symphony Orchestra requires about eight conducting weeks per year, he said. But the principal conductor, who maintains a home here with his wife Isabelle, a cellist, estimates he spends a minimum of 10 conducting weeks in the Glass City, citing his involvement in additional community concerts and educational performances. Over the years the Sanderlings have also developed friendships in the area, he said.

So far during his tenure, the Toledo maestro has also held one and sometimes two other simultaneous conductor positions, something Sanderling said is quite common for orchestra conductors. Sanderling recently stepped down as music director of the Florida Symphony after a decade with that institution. So after 11 years with the Toledo symphony orchestra, is Sanderling mulling a switch to conductor emeritus in the Glass City, too?

Not for another 25 years, said Sanderling, who turns 49 this summer. Sanderling views Toledo’s symphony as “one of the best regional orchestras in the country.”

“We played in Carnegie Hall,” Sanderling said with pride, referring to the orchestra’s selection in 2011 to play at the legendary New York City venue.  “And we played well.”

But he also notes the Toledo symphony is poised for more accomplishments. The orchestra has “huge potential,” he said.

Going forward, Sanderling said he believes the symphony should make professional recordings to help spread the word that Toledo is a fantastic orchestra. Recording also provides musicians with the opportunity to listen to their performance, which sometimes can be “very revealing,” he said.

Sanderling said the symphony is discussing possibilities, but cautioned that the recording process is an expensive undertaking.

“We have to be very careful how we spend our money,” Sanderling said.

The symphony has a $16 million endowment to help cover operating expenses, said Kathleen Carroll, symphony president and CEO.

While the Toledo symphony’s concerts are not broadcast live, those performances are recorded for later broadcast on WGTE-FM public radio. More than 30 such broadcasts were aired during the current season, according to a brochure published by the symphony.

While CDs would serve to publicize the quality of the orchestra, CD sales would not be expected to create a revenue stream.

“Having an orchestra is never a revenue stream,” Sanderling said, but added, “I still believe we should make [a record].”

Emphasizing the orchestra’s role in education more than entertainment, Sanderling also stressed the importance of the youth orchestras, which he said “play an incredible role in assuring we also have an audience in next 20 years.”

The conductor explained that “to play in the youth orchestra doesn’t necessarily mean you become a soloist.” But it does mean “you spend time making music,” said Sanderling, who opined that future generations will have an orchestra only if the people love music. And “to love something you must get to know it first,” he said.

Growing up in East Germany was “gray,” said Sanderling. Of course, as the son of a renowned conductor he also grew up around music. He said he doesn’t remember at what age he decided to become a professional musician but learned piano first, next clarinet and viola. Sanderling dispelled the myth that a conductor must be able to play all the instruments in the orchestra. However, the conductor needs to know enough about every instrument to understand what it can deliver and what the conductor can demand from the player, he said.

Sanderling is scheduled to return to Europe for the summer, coming back to Ohio in time for the fall season.

“Home is where you’re happy,” Sanderling said. “That’s why Toledo is also my home.”

The May 17 and 18 concerts are billed on the Toledo Symphony Orchestra website as “the thrilling conclusion to the 2012-2013 season” and feature Cornelia Herrmann on piano. In addition to the Tchaikovsky, the program includes Haydn’s Overture to L’isola dishabitata and the Piano Concerto in C Minor, K. 491, by Mozart.

For more information, visit toledosymphony.com.

Tags: Stefan Sanderling, Toledo Symphony Orchestra

This entry was posted on Wednesday, May 15th, 2013 at 3:54 pm and is filed under Arts and Life, In Concert, Music.
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As a 3-year-old child being carried from his home on Hudson Street, Frank Kowalski clung to his father’s neck as his family made the five-block trip to the Ohio Theatre on Lagrange Street.

That was 1926. Now, 87 years later, Frank said he clearly remembers those Saturday morning trips to a building jam-packed with other children excited to see a motion picture featuring Flash Gordon or Western shoot-’em-ups with Buck Jones and Tom Mix.

On May 5, Frank was just as excited, according to Delphine Kowalski, his wife of 61 years, as the couple made the trip from their home in the Polish Village to the newly renovated Ohio Theatre and Events Center (OTEC) for the 1 p.m. performance of chamber music by 14 members of the Toledo Symphony Orchestra.

“He could hardly wait to come today,” Delphine said. “He usually sleeps late, but he didn’t sleep late today.”

Although he admitted his disappointment that the orchestra’s brass and woodwind quintets and string quartet only drew 25 patrons, Frank said he was overjoyed to learn that the Toledo School for the Arts (TSA) dance performance on May 2 drew more than 450 people.

“Oh boy, that’s good news. That’s really good news,” Frank said. “These people are bursting with talent. I hope this takes hold. That’s what this neighborhood needs.”

Ohio Theatre and Events Center

Delphine said she is happy that the Polish Village she has called home for more than six decades has come to more closely resemble the close-knit community in which she and Frank raised their two sons.

“It’s nice to have a place again for entertainment and culture that we can come to so close in the neighborhood,” she said. “We don’t have to go too far away.”

The couple said much of their lives have revolved around events held at the former Ohio Theatre. Frank said he spent his childhood at Saturday matinees watching chapter plays.

As a couple, they attended hundreds of events, including their son’s musical shows, Echoes of Poland dance performances, English and Polish language films, magic shows and organ recitals. They even credit the Ohio Theatre with filling the family’s kitchen cabinets with dinnerware since patrons received plates when they attended Monday shows.

And as grandparents, they watched their granddaughter perform there in an acting troupe. On May 5, they enjoyed the second performance of what they hope will be many more shows in the renovated and renamed Ohio Theatre and Events Center, 3114 Lagrange St.

Saving the neighborhood

The Kowalskis said they credit the late Rev. George Rinkowski, a Roman Catholic priest and pastor of St. Hedwig Church from 1968-84, with the foresight to save the Ohio Theatre for the neighborhood.

According to the Rev. Paul Kwiatkowski, who replaced Rinkowski as the parish’s pastor after he retired in 1984, Rinkowski bought the Ohio Theatre in 1976 for $59,500 “to prevent a syndicate out of Detroit from purchasing it and turning it into an adult movie theater.

“In fact, Bishop Donovan didn’t want him to do it. He did not give him a loan but said, ‘If you can get a loan, I’ll let you get it.’ He went to a bank in Defiance, Ohio, and got the loan.”

The eight-year loan was for about $25,000, as Rinkowski had raised about $34,000 himself from concerned Toledoans sympathetic to his cause.

“I really do think it helped stabilize the area,” Kwiatkowski said. “The neighborhood could have gone down if the Ohio Theatre had gone triple-X. There was a theater on the East Side — the Eastwood — and the neighborhood did suffer for a while. It was showing X-rated movies, and he didn’t want that to happen in the North End. They called it the St. Hedwig Culture Center. They wanted it to be indeed that — a cultural center.”

“We had this wonderful theater, and after the painting was done on the inside of the church, Father Rinkowski had the painters go over to the theater and paint the interior there.

“And then he had that thrust stage built, which was nice, because that stage — because of the alley and the angle of the building — is very narrow at one end and then it opens up a little bit on the other end. It was not a very deep stage at all, so Father built this big thrust stage.”

‘We own it. Now let’s use it.’

Kwiatkowski said that when he became pastor of St. Hedwig in 1984, he said, “We own it. Now let’s use it.”

“We got a number of things going. Bob James, the first theater manager, brought in theater acts. At the grand reopening we had Myron Floren, the accordionist with Lawrence Welk. He gave a nice concert and brought some people with him, and we honored Father Rinkowski.”

Kwiatkowski said he had the Toledo Symphony Orchestra perform in the theater a couple of times.

“Mr. [Yuval] Zaliouk (director from 1980-89) thought of doing some recording there with the symphony because the acoustics were good,” Kwiatkowski said.

“We even had a symphony once with Ole Schmitz from Denmark. He had written the score for the orchestra for the black-and-white silent movie ‘The Passion of Joan of Arc.’ It was just lovely. But darn if the film didn’t break during the performance, but they got it back on again.”

In addition, Kwiatkowski said during his tenure, the Ohio Theatre hosted art auctions, children’s theater workshops, movie nights, political candidate forums, St. Hedwig Grade School Christmas plays, The Echoes of Poland dance troupe, the Shopper-Herald newspaper and The Toledo Area Theatre Organ Society.

“We would get things and the neighborhood wouldn’t show up,” Kwiatkowski said. “We never made any profit on any of the things we had in there, which was a shame.

“People would say, ‘Oh you have a 500-seat house.’ Well, yeah, but all those seats didn’t get filled up.”

Age takes its toll

By 1987, the 66-year-old building was showing its age, Kwiatkowski said.

“The roof leaked so bad and the worst leak was over the organ chamber,” he said. “They would have pots and visqueen (plastic sheeting) because, in a way, water is worse than fire for an organ like that with all the wooden parts.”

When he replaced the roof on the theater in 1987, the Rev. Albin Radecki, then-pastor at St. Adalbert Church, donated $1000 to the renovation.

“He saw the value of it as a neighborhood thing even though St. Hedwig was operating it,” Kwiatkowski said. “We had Ohio Building Restoration repair the decking that was rotted out over the organ chamber, and then they put a Duro-Last membrane over the whole roof, and also over the marquee because it was leaking too.

“It was a struggle. We tried to have it stand on its own. After I left, Father [Joe] Przybysz (St. Hedwig’s pastor from 1994 to 2005) was able to sell it to [Ohio Theatre, Inc., a nonprofit management board, in 2004].

Catalyst for private investment

Terry Glazer, United North’s chief executive officer, bought the theater from Ohio Theatre, Inc. five years later for $60,446.

“Its renovation is part of an overall comprehensive effort in a four- or five-block area, and I think the theater will be the catalyst to bring more private investment back to Lagrange Street,” Glazer said.

Glazer

Glazer said the North Toledo community development corporation envisions OTEC serving as both a theater and a community center.

“It’s going to be very versatile,” Glazer said. “It will provide an opportunity to introduce youth to the arts.

“Some youth are interested in sports, but we need to have other activities for youth, and the arts have proven to help youth with their academics. And because of funding issues, the Toledo Public Schools cannot afford to do as much with the arts as they have in the past.

“Secondly, I think what happened after the [May 2] show is a good example of economic development. People left the OTEC and went right across the street to the restaurant that recently opened, J’Mae’s Home Cooking. There was a line of people that waited to get into that business.

“We believe that the people coming in for events at the theater will help existing businesses and encourage new businesses to come in, which in turn will provide goods and services for neighborhood residents and also provide jobs.

“The other interesting thing about the theater is that this was not done in isolation. If you look across East Central Avenue, there is a Fifth Third [Bank], built just two years ago.”

Glazer said United North’s next project will be the adaptive reuse of St. Hedwig’s School, which closed in 2005.

“We’re proposing to convert that into 41 units of senior housing. And we’ve renovated four commercial buildings called Shoppes on Lagrinka.”

That redevelopment project in the 2800 block of Lagrange Street created a 8,204-square-foot shopping plaza that opened in January 2008.

“Within those shops, we have a financial opportunity center which enables people to have long-term coaching to increase their financial wealth.

“There’s a senior center — not new — but a senior center is located there and a new restaurant that opened directly across the street from the OTEC. And then there’s a Dollar General store that’s going in on the corner of Park and Lagrange.”

Multipurpose space

Glazer said United North never lost sight of its economic development mission during the theater’s renovation.

“We started with the question, ‘Should the theater be a one-purpose kind of theater or should it be something that could be used for multiple purposes?’”

Everything from bathroom to stage design decisions were made to ensure the building’s renovations facilitated the creation of a multiple-purpose theater, Glazer said, since United North was convinced that North Toledo’s redevelopment would best be served with that type of building.

“The original plan didn’t call for the extension of the stage,” Glazer said. “But when we looked at it, we thought the extension of the stage would allow the theater to be used for multiple purposes.

“For example, with that large stage, you could do a banquet. You could also have an intimate concert by just putting chairs around a platform. You could have what we had [May 2] — 85 kids on the stage at one time.

“The expanded stage allows the building to be more multipurpose. In some ways, that was the most critical — not the most expensive, but one of the most critical — improvements that we made. Because in the final analysis, it’s great to renovate a building, but you want to make sure that building is going to be used in the long run.”

Under new management

United North turned to Northwest Ohio’s arts community to find a qualified individual with the education, skills and enthusiasm to manage the theater, Glazer said.

That’s where United North’s search committee found Jamie Leigh Sampson, 28, a Bowling Green State University graduate with master’s degrees in musical composition and bassoon performance and internship experiences with a symphony and an opera company.

Sampson’s salary as OTEC’s part-time theater manager is paid through a grant from the Toledo Community Foundation, Glazer said.

“In the 10 weeks I’ve worked here, the theater has gone from looking rather beat up to looking like a modern-day gentleman,” Sampson said.

“The biggest difference is when we put up these black [sidewall] curtains to cover up material that was pretty beat up. The change is much like someone walking into an interview in a T-shirt and jeans versus someone walking in wearing a business suit. In the last week before we opened, the theater has shown its capability to clean itself up and be ready for anything, like going from grubby clothes to a suit and tie.”

Sampson acknowledges the scaffolding in front of the theater gives the building a temporary beat-up look.

“There are so many people who are just discovering that it’s reopening, that have memories of coming here as a kid to see Santa Claus on stage or who saw their first movie or had their first kiss here.

Sampson

“There’s a lot of sentimentality surrounding with this opening. And so I heard a lot of positive reactions.

“I’ve had a couple people say, ‘I’ve had no idea it was opening because the scaffolding is out front.’

“When the symphony came and toured, one of them said, ‘When you’re looking at it from the outside, you say, ‘“It’s OK. It’s a theater.’”

“Then you get into the lobby, and you feel a little bit more at home. And then you get into the theater proper itself. And you say, “Wow. It’s a theater.’””

“That’s the reaction we want,” Sampson said. “We don’t want it to get worse as they walk in. We want it to get better and better until they see the brand-new stage that’s been expanded and they say, ‘This is something no one else can offer us.’”

Neighborhood life

Sampson is in the process of moving from Bowling Green to the Polish Village.

“I found a beautiful place. I can see the river from my front yard. I grew up near the St. Lawrence River. I am very sentimental about the Maumee River. That was part of it.

“But also, I thought, ‘What would it say if I’m working for an organization whose entire goal is to revitalize this neighborhood and I live Uptown or in the Warehouse District? I have friends in those neighborhoods, and they’re beautiful and wonderful. They’ve done so much to restore them.

“I want the same thing to happen here. I want to be one of the people who says, ‘The reputation this neighborhood has is fed by fears.’ And I don’t believe that’s all that this neighborhood could be. That’s why I work for this theater. That’s why they bought the theater, and if I can be closer to it to make sure that if anything does go wrong, I’m here.

“One of the big markers for that in any community development book that you read is that people in their 20s are moving back to the urban areas, and we want that to happen.”

Quality acoustics

The Toledo Symphony Orchestra musicians who performed chamber music at OTEC’s second show praised the acoustics in the theater as some of the very best in Northwest Ohio.

“This is some of the best acoustics we’ve ever played in,” said Lauraine Carpenter, principal trumpet. “I would absolutely love to come back here.”

Merwin Siu, principal second violinist, said he was equally excited with the quality of sound in the OTEC.

“The acoustics are very bright and very present,” Siu said. “I think that one of the things that is great about this particular venue is when you’re there, the sound is not metallic, but it’s very warm and it’s very present. You don’t feel far away from the sound. The sound seems next to you, around you.”

‘A rectangular shoebox’

Garth Simmons, principal trombonist, said the OTEC owes its great acoustics to the architect who designed the building back in 1921.

“Part of it is the shape,” Simmons said. “If you look around here, essentially it’s a rectangular shoebox.

“It’s the really high ceilings. Everybody’s in the same room. We’re not behind the proscenium, which acoustically puts us in a separate space. It’s not a smaller space trying to drive a larger one, like it is on a proscenium stage, which tends to make the acoustics weird.

“We’re in the same room as the audience is. If you look around, the dimensions of the space we’re in is basically a shoebox. That’s a great  proportion. That creates great acoustics.”

‘Unique space’

Marty Porter, director, at TSA, was just as enthusiastic as Toledo Symphony Orchestra musicians in his evaluation of the OTEC as a “unique space in Toledo that will be especially effective for dance and music performances.

“It was a great experience with the acoustics and lighting at a very reasonable price. They did a nice job expanding the stage, and the large rig they built for the lighting will serve them very, very well. Because there is no curtain, the theater allows for creative presentations. I’m delighted to see they’re bringing that theater back to life.”

Under the direction of Letha Ferguson, 135 sixth-, seventh- and eighth-grade students from TSA opened the newly-renovated OTEC on May 2 with a 90-minute dance production. Porter said he plans to continue to use the OTEC, along with all the other venues around Toledo.

“We work in lots of different venues around the city,” he said, “because we want our students to experience as many different professional venues as possible.

“We are committed to work in our community. TSA is a believer of supporting the community. Whenever there is a new venue, we are happy to utilize and support it.”

Tags: Albin Radecki, Bob James, Delphine Kowalski, Dollar General, Frank Kowalski, George Rinkowski, J’Mae’s Home Cooking, Lagrange Street, Lawrence Welk, Myron Floren, Ohio Theatre, Ohio Theatre and Events Center, Ole Schmitz, Paul Kwiatkowski, Polish Village, Toledo School for the Arts, Toledo Symphony Orchestra, United North

This entry was posted on Thursday, May 9th, 2013 at 4:49 pm and is filed under Arts and Life, Featured, Theater.
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When he was in junior high, Craig Whitaker tried to tune his parents’ piano.

“We had a piano that needed to be tuned, so I said, ‘Hey, I can do that,’” Whitaker said. “I did such a bad job, my parents had to call out a piano tuner to fix it. A few months later, I had an opportunity to tune a relative’s piano and did an equally poor job. My parents had to call out the same piano tuner to correct that tuning.”

From those humble, fumbling beginnings, the West Toledo native went on to become a registered piano technician and estimates he’s successfully tuned more than 40,000 pianos to date.

Whitaker opened Craig’s Pianos & Keyboards in 1971. The business, at 2902 Sylvania Ave., is the only full-service piano shop in the Toledo area. It offers new and used pianos, keyboards and organs as well as sheet music, lessons and tuning, restoration and repair services.

Craig Whitaker, owner of Craig’s Pianos & Keyboards.

To celebrate more than 40 years in business, Craig’s will host a four-day sale Nov. 15-18, featuring up to 40 percent off all pianos. Sale hours are 9 a.m. to 6 p.m. Nov. 15-17 and 1-5 p.m. Nov. 18.

Whitaker said one of the reasons he’s lasted in business is because he surrounds himself with skilled staff.

“I’m smart enough to know I don’t know the stuff I don’t know,” Whitaker said. “So I find people who do those things better than I do.”

Whitaker majored in clarinet performance at the University of Toledo and then apprenticed under Rossford piano rebuilder Paul Stewart. He said he enjoys restoring and repairing pianos because it involves creativity and critical thinking skills.

“There’s a series of approximately 40 steps that happen in order to make a piano key sound correctly,” Whitaker said. “When that gets out of adjustment, there’s some figuring to do on what to do first and how that affects the second thing, which then adversely affects the third thing. So you have to think it through.

“Some of what I do, there aren’t any books to show you how. We’ve had pianos come in here that have been in three feet of water where the bottom half of the piano is unglued. It’s simply a matter of looking at the problem and analyzing it and trying to be creative in an approach. If you think about something long enough you usually come up with the solution.”

No two pianos are exactly alike, Whitaker said.

“That’s kind of the beauty of pianos, is that each piano is individual,” he said. “A manufacturer can produce two pianos of the same size, model, type, quality and color, sitting side by side, and they can both be completely different sounding.”

Steinway is his favorite brand for tone quality, Yamaha for quality of construction and European manufacturers for cabinetry, Whitaker said — but an elusive mix of aesthetic features will draw him to a certain piano.

“If I just want to sit down and play a piano, the piano has to speak to me,” Whitaker said.

Although he is intimately familiar with their innards, Whitaker plays piano only casually.

“You could equate me with a race car mechanic that drives casually in his home car, but knows how to soup up race cars,” Whitaker said. “I’m not a race car driver. I’m not a concert pianist. I play enough in order to get a sense of what the instrument sounds like and how it feels, but I am not proficient. I’m not a performer.”

Whitaker has been Toledo Symphony Orchestra’s (TSO) exclusive piano tuner and technician for more than 30 years.

“Nobody touches Toledo Symphony Orchestra pianos unless Craig assigns them,” said TSO General Manager Keith McWatters. “He’s always delivered. He’s a good guy to have on the team.”

Whitaker is on hand before each performance to adjust TSO’s pianos to the artist’s specifications. A collection of autographs from the professional musicians he’s tuned for fills two large binders at the shop.

“They are playing technical, difficult music and need an instrument that’s going to react,” McWatters said. “That’s what we call the action, how the piano responds to the fingers of the person trying to play. In a 9-foot grand that mechanism has to be absolutely flawless. If there’s any delay and you’ve got 10 fingers going 100 miles an hour and it doesn’t react, it’s like a bicycle race where one guy crashes and they all crash. There are so many variables in the inner workings of a piano.”

Whitaker also tunes all of Toledo School for the Arts’ (TSA) pianos and has demonstrated his work to TSA students who came to his shop for a field trip, said chorus and piano instructor Jamie Dauel.

“They really are one of the only true piano shops left in this area and they provide quality service and quality work,” Dauel said. “They are very good friends to the school and genuinely support education and participate in the education process. I can’t say enough good about them.”

Toledo Opera artistic administrator and chorus master Kevin Bylsma agreed.

“His work and service have been top-notch,” Bylsma said. “We’re always satisfied.”

For more information, visit the web site craigskeyboards.com.

Tags: Craig Whitaker, Craig’s Pianos & Keyboards, Toledo Symphony Orchestra

This entry was posted on Thursday, November 8th, 2012 at 4:45 pm and is filed under Entrepreneurs, Toledo Business Link.
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As state funding for the arts has decreased in Lucas County, federal funding has increased.

The Ohio Arts Council recently released its 2010-11 biennial report, which details how much funding was given to each county, artist and cultural arts organization in Ohio, from the state and federal governments.

“Our organization has been more aggressively going after federal funding,” said Marc Folk, executive director for Toledo’s Arts Commission.

Lucas County saw its state funding decrease by $25,974 from 2006-07 to 2008-09, from $981,012 to $955,038.  In the same time frame, the overall amount granted by the state of Ohio fell by more than $1 million.

From 2008-09 to 2010-11, the county’s state-provided art funds again decreased dramatically, reflecting further decreases in statewide funds as well. In 2010-11, Lucas County received $592,522 of the state’s $13,188,580, a $362,516 decrease, or a 60 percent drop in a four-year span.

“(Funding) has been going down over time as the economy has plunged nationally and within the state,” said Kathleen Carroll, president and CEO of the Toledo Symphony Orchestra.

For the previous three biennial periods, about 20 percent of the state’s arts funding has gone to administration while the other roughly 80 percent has gone to general subsidy.

Big setback

Folk said the Arts Commission, along with artists and other cultural arts organizations, used to get general operating support from the City of Toledo. The city would provide $600,000-$900,000 to the local arts community and the Arts Commission would receive about $100,000, of which they used $40,000-$60,000 to match with private money to be granted to other organizations, Folk said.

Carroll said this changed after 2000-01.

“When the city went through hard times, they eliminated cultural funding,” Folk said. “That was a pretty big setback.”

Folk said Toledo is the only metropolis in Ohio that doesn’t have a dedicated funding stream for arts and culture. As an example, he said cigarette taxes in Cuyahoga County help fund the local arts community.

Since 2006-07, federal funding provided by the National Endowment for the Arts (NEA) has risen. In 2006-07, Lucas County received $2,937 of the federal government’s $1,598,600 arts funding for Ohio. In 2008-09, Lucas County’s share of the NEA’s $1,788,500 for Ohio rose to $9,404.

2010-11 saw the most drastic increase, as Lucas County received $57,712 of the state’s $2.51 million dollars.

“We’ve been working with a group of the region’s arts and cultural leaders, called the Toledo Area Cultural Leaders (TACL), once a month. We report on federal opportunities with the National Endowment for the Arts,” Folk said. “The chair of the NEA has reached out to different departments … to create a deeper understanding of how artistic places inspire businesses, draw more talented youth, increase the economy. They work with other agencies to have art programs added to grants.”

“Organizations must apply to receive grants from the Ohio Arts Council (OAC) either every year or every two years depending on the grant program,” Amy McKay said in an email. McKay is the Public Information Office Director at the Ohio Arts Council.

“Each OAC grant program has a set of evaluation criteria used to assess applicants. Each application is held up against the evaluation criteria and the applications that are recommended for funding are scored,” McKay said. “The scores are averaged and then presented to the OAC’s board members, the only body empowered to approve grant awards on behalf of the OAC.”

Benefits of the arts

McKay said programs are evaluated to make sure they are serving their intended purpose.

Carroll said she commends the OAC for their push to make the state government aware of the benefits of the arts.

“I’d say that citizens of Ohio should be proud of the work done by the Ohio Arts Council. They have been a force and exemplary [model] for arts councils across the country. In Columbus, the council held its own,” she said.

Folk said the next biennial budget will rise almost $4 million above the

$13 million the state provided in 2010-11.

Even with this state increase, Folk said the Arts Commission is looking at ways to increase its funding and expand the arts in Northwest Ohio.

“Our board has made it a priority to find a way to create a funding stream to create grants to support the community and strengthen the arts in Northwest Ohio, whether it be through the endowment or other mechanisms,” Folk said.

The Toledo Symphony Orchestra relies on the government for .01 percent of its operating costs.

“[Government funding] is not something we count on. Our biggest source is revenue from ticket sales and community generosity,” Carroll said.

“It’s not easy, everybody has taken an enormous hit (from the economy),” she said. “We put a plan in place and our musicians took a 6-12 percent cut at the start of recession. Our service has not diminished to any degree.”

Carroll said she believes it is the arts culture of Toledo that makes it a unique city.

“Any community can have roads and streets and infrastructure. But when people come to Toledo they remark about the art museum, the quality of the orchestra, the opera, the zoo, the metroparks, the ballet,” Carroll said. “All of those make us unique, livable, desirable.”

The biennial report is available online at oac.ohio.gov.

Tags: Arts Commission, Cuyahoga County, Kathleen Carroll, Marc Folk, National Endowment for the Arts, Ohio Arts Council, Toledo Area Cultural Leaders, Toledo Symphony Orchestra

This entry was posted on Thursday, June 7th, 2012 at 1:46 pm and is filed under Arts Commission of Greater Toledo, Arts and Life.
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The Toledo Symphony Orchestra’s (TSO) May 19 season finale featured Dvorak’s “Symphony No. 9 in E Minor,” music that brought Maestro Stefan Sanderling full circle.

The Dvorak piece was the first Sanderling conducted with TSO in his 2002 debut, and it closed the 2012 season on his 10th anniversary with the orchestra.

Sanderling said he has felt welcomed in Toledo since his arrival.

“When I arrived at the Toledo Express Airport, I walked off the airplane into the arrival hall, and there was a picture saying something like, ‘Toledo Symphony Orchestra welcomes you to Toledo.’ I thought, ‘This is a great place. This is the place I want to be,’” Sanderling said.

Sanderling

Kathy Carroll, TSO president and CEO, said Sanderling has brought a unique insight to the orchestra, allowing musicians to achieve their personal best and display that.

“It isn’t enough to just have people who are really good at what they do, but real leadership comes from making the best of that when you pull it all together. It takes a lot of balancing, insight and knowledge,” Carroll said.

Sanderling said the musicians he has conducted have progressed tremendously, with a great desire to improve.

“The orchestra wants to be better, and wants to achieve more. That is why we have such a wonderful relationship,” he said. “It is not just one side that pushes with the other side having resistance; both conductor and orchestra want the same thing, and that is to have a world-class orchestra in Toledo.”

Renewing the vows

Sanderling conducted Dvorak’s “Symphony No. 9,” better known as the “New World Symphony” in 2002.

“I looked at the program and I thought, ‘Isn’t it time for me, after 10 years, to repeat the Dvorak symphony?’ I love the symphony very much so its’ like renewing the vows. I think this was a good idea, and it worked out very nicely,” Sanderling said.

A standing ovation echoed through the Toledo Museum of Art’s Peristyle Theater following the performance, which also featured Tianwa Yang on violin.

“All of those people in the theater are experiencing something together and there is a power that happens when great music is performed at a high level. It is hugely impactful to bring a whole crowd of people to the same conclusion,” Carroll said.

Music at an early age

Sanderling, a native of the former East Germany, was born to Kurt and Barbara Sanderling in 1964. With parents whose occupations were conductor and musician respectively, Stefan was exposed to music at an early age.

After obtaining a degree from the University of Southern California, Sanderling returned to Germany, gaining accreditation as one of Germany’s youngest chief conductors.

He then returned to the United States to serve as the music director of the Florida Orchestra and later accepted his current position as principal conductor of the TSO.

Sanderling celebrates his 10th anniversary one year after the orchestra’s debut at Carnegie Hall in New York. An estimated 1,400 people traveled from the Toledo area to New York City to hear the TSO make its debut.

“The Carnegie Hall appearance was much more a consequence of our direction, our way, our path than it was a moment. We worked very hard the nine years before that and as a result we were are able to compete and sustain our high level of quality in Carnegie Hall,” Sanderling said.

Sanderling said the question is not in finding the relevancy of classical music, but rather how to show that, in fact, it is relevant.

“Classical music simply is relevant, and I am very grateful to Toledo, and the patrons of the TSO that they actually see this. Toledo is on the threshold of becoming an arts hub, and that is something wonderful. I am very excited to be part of it,” Sanderling said.

The Carnegie trip could be considered Sanderling’s highlight with TSO, but he said there have been several memorable experiences and every concert he conducts is a highlight.

“The beauty of being music director is that I only conduct what I really love, and really believe in. I have the right and the duty to look forward to every single program I conduct,” Sanderling said.

The TSO’s 69th season will commence this September and will feature several new scores and a trip to China. Sanderling said he plans to collaborate with local arts organizations to emphasize the symphony’s strengths.

A full schedule of the upcoming season can be found at www.toledosymphony.com.

Tags: Dvorak, Stefan Sanderling, Tianwa Yang, Toledo Symphony Orchestra

This entry was posted on Thursday, May 24th, 2012 at 4:15 pm and is filed under Arts and Life, Toledo Symphony.
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Amateur musicians will play side by side with the Toledo Symphony Orchestra (TSO) on April 20 at the inaugural ProAm Concert.

The idea came from TSO Conductor Stefan Sanderling, who performed similar professional-amateur concerts in Chautauqua, N.Y. The concert gives amateurs of all skill levels a chance to play under the conductor and alongside professional musicians.

“We discussed maybe we should get easier arrangements, but Stefan insisted we use actual repertoire,” said Ashley Mirakian, director of marketing and public relations for the symphony. Selections are “Finlandia,” “Pictures at an Exhibition,” “The Great Gate of Kiev,” “Nimrod from Enigma Variations” and “Sound of Music.”

The amateurs are set to have their first rehearsal with Sanderling on April 18 before being joined by their professional counterparts April 19.

Sanderling

Mirakian said the response for the concert has been “tremendous.” The brass section alone will have 29 participants, up from its usual 10, while the flute section is up to about 15 from the regular four or so musicians, she said.

“[The musicians] are all coming from different places. It’s kind of great; everybody has a different day job,” Mirakian said, adding that there are plenty of cookie breaks at rehearsal so musicians can mingle.

Participant Janice Schemenauer is a retired schoolteacher who played the French horn in high school and college. She picked up the instrument again about five years ago and studies under Sandra Clark, TSO’s principal hornist.

“When [the concert] came up, it just seemed very exciting to have the opportunity to play under the direction of Stefan in the Peristyle and with the members of the Toledo Symphony Orchestra,” she said.

Like many participants, Schemenauer is active in community bands like the Maumee Community Band and the Sylvania Community Orchestra. “Everyone was like, ‘Did you get your music, did you get your music?’” she said of her band members, adding that everyone has been practicing.

Eighty-year-old John Nicholson, also a member of many community bands, plays with Schemenauer in Maumee and in the French horn section.

“[Participating] is very important because it’s a once in a lifetime experience,” he said. Nicholson played the E flat alto horn in marching band in his youth and picked up the French horn 10 years ago.

After his wife died in the late ’90s, “I was looking for things to fill my life,” the music lover said. “I enjoy the ensemble much more than sitting in the audience.”

The amateurs aren’t the only ones who are excited. “I have been looking forward to the chance to play alongside them for months, while creating memories around some of the greatest melodies in the orchestra world,” said Merwin Siu, the symphony’s principal second violinist.

Mirakian said the concert is a move toward TSO providing more adult education.

“We’re pretty good about doing youth education but part of our goal is to extend our education in the adult community,” she said.

Schemenauer said that working with Clark has been “extremely beneficial. I gain something from every lesson. She looks at her students in a sense of where you are, this is where you can go and this is what you need to do to get there.”

Tickets are free and can be ordered in advance by calling (419) 246-8000. The concert is 7:30 p.m. April 20. The Peristyle Concert Hall is at the Toledo Museum of Art, 2445 Monroe St. Visit toledosymphony.com to learn more.

Tags: ProAm Concert, Stefan Sanderling, Toledo Symphony Orchestra

This entry was posted on Tuesday, April 17th, 2012 at 10:27 am and is filed under Music, Star, Toledo Symphony.
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Grand Rapids, Mich., has built a downtown with many of the same puzzle pieces we have in Downtown Toledo. It is on a river and close to one of the Great Lakes; it has an arena for concerts and hockey and a convention center; it has a world-class museum and a thriving arts scene; it has a children’s museum and a library; it has offices for a daily newspaper and city government; it has restaurants, an Irish pub and an Ottawa Tavern that calls itself the “OT.”

But while Toledo continues to leave many of its puzzle pieces in the box, Grand Rapids has taken advantage of geography and cooperation to build a true destination city and has pioneered an art event that in 2011 drew 325,000 people who spent $10 million in 19 days. There are lessons to be learned from Grand Rapids, but be warned: Some of those lessons contain hard truths that reveal a limit to the Glass City’s aspirations.

Apples to apples

Grand Rapids, 185 miles northwest of Toledo, is Michigan’s second-largest city — 192,000 people live within its borders; 600,000 live in its Kent County area. The Experience Grand Rapids website describes the city as “a remarkable combination of urban sophistication and small town warmth, known for its philanthropic and sustainable driven community.”

Sound familiar?

I have lived and worked in Toledo for 40 of my 45 years. I visited Grand Rapids from March 15-18, for about 45 hours. I recognize that the emotional thrill of infatuation with a new city and the adventure of travel demands the balance of intellectual perspective. I have no doubt that Grand Rapids has its problems and challenges, and that more time there would reveal some of those issues. But I noticed two themes that merit discussion and study for people invested in Toledo. Discussing these topics does not mean Grand Rapids is better than Toledo or that Toledo should aspire to be Grand Rapids (any more than it should aspire to be Columbus, Ann Arbor or Chicago), but when such a clear model for improvement presents itself, it is better to look it in the eye and face it than to bury one’s head in the sand and ignore the potential.

Proximity

The first advantage I observed in Grand Rapids can never be duplicated in Toledo. So why discuss it? Because understanding parameters and limitations is an important part of character and comprehension of reality. I opened this discussion by listing many of the things Grand Rapids and Toledo share in their downtown areas. The key difference is proximity. Every Grand Rapids attraction listed at the beginning of this commentary — the arena, convention center, museum(s), children’s museum, library, scores of restaurants, even that Irish pub — are within a one-mile radius, along with a major hospital and college. Even the John Ball Zoo is less than two miles from downtown Grand Rapids. For reference, it’s just under two miles from Imagination Station to the Toledo Museum of Art. It is four miles from Imagination Station to the Toledo Zoo. It is five miles from Imagination Station to the University of Toledo.

The Grand Rapids airport (Gerald R. Ford International, which is Michigan’s second-busiest airport) is 14 miles from downtown. Toledo Express is 16 miles from Imagination Station, unless you flew in to Detroit, in which case you must travel 50 miles to see Downtown Toledo.

Even the Frederik Meijer Gardens and Sculpture Park, which cannot be adequately described in this limited space, is only five miles from downtown. Elmore’s Schedel Arboretum and Gardens is 18 miles from Downtown, not exactly a long drive, but in Toledo-think, that’s “a hike.”

Toledo’s highlights can compete with any city’s, but they are scattered in a sprawling manner that prevents any sense of true destination and community, in terms of tourism and marketable identity. That lack of proximity is an immutable fact; Lloyd Jacobs is not going to move University Hall to the Berdan Building and Randy Oostra is not going to relocate a ProMedica hospital to the old Owens Corning building. But proximity is not Grand Rapids’ only advantage.

Attitudes and extras

My wife and I stayed at the Amway Grand Plaza Hotel, 24 floors above the Grand River. The service and aesthetic quality of the Amway are a reminder of one of developer Bruce Rumpf’s themes: Downtown Toledo lacks a hotel that can stand with the nation’s finest. The Amway valet captain asked if it was our first visit to Grand Rapids. We affirmed that it was, and he said, unabashedly, “Welcome to Grand Rapids. Make our downtown your playground.” That might look corny on the printed page, but he said the words with pride and warmth.

I wonder if any of the staff at Toledo’s hotels are welcoming guests with such a mixture of chamber-of-commerce gushing and true hometown pride.

Photo courtesy Experience Grand Rapids

That welcome set the tone for the weekend (a celebration of our 10th wedding anniversary), at restaurants, shops and with people we met on our travels. The Experience Grand Rapids Convention and Visitors Bureau arranged our hotel stay and one interview with ArtPrize organizers, but at no point in the weekend did I reveal my media identity and we paid for our own admissions and excursions; the “secret shopper” approach is the only honest way to evaluate an experience and avoid invoking Heisenberg’s Uncertainty Principle.

In addition to a walking-distance experience, Grand Rapids offers a nicety I observed in Washington, D.C., and Chicago: parks and greenspace. Our Metropark system is a marvel, but the Lorax would die if his life depended on living in the few trees our downtown harbors. Grand Rapids also makes the most of its riverfront with parks, boardwalks and building entrances up and down the downtown watersides.

Toledo is investing in Promenade Park; if it can generate a fraction of the waterfront activity Grand Rapids enjoys, it will be a worthy investment.

ArtPrize

The other great lesson from Grand Rapids is dangling like a ripe piece of low-hanging fruit: cooperation, embodied by the city’s ArtPrize event.

Far from the city, as one travels the highways leading to Grand Rapids, there are billboards that read, “Cool City, Hot Art,” followed by billboards for specific galleries and exhibits. The city works on branding itself as an art destination well before its borders. It would be like seeing billboards for Toledo Museum of Art exhibits and Toledo Symphony Orchestra events while driving in from Fort Wayne or Chicago or Cleveland or Columbus.

While in Grand Rapids, I met with ArtPrize Executive Director and COO Catherine Creamer and Public Relations Director Brian Burch.

ArtPrize was founded in 2009 as an open art competition. According to an economic impact study, the 2011 event (in just its third year) hosted 1,582 artists at 164 venues, competing for nearly $500,000 in cash prizes, determined by public vote. In its 19-day span, more than 325,000 attended the event, spending $10 million during their stay. It’s like the Arts Commission’s Art Walk series on steroids, with a major cash prize at the end.

"American Horse" at the Frederik Meijer Gardens and Sculpture Park.

“We have a unique ecosystem of partners,” Burch said. “The arts organizations, which traditionally competed with each other for funding, saw a need to do what was best for Grand Rapids. City leaders cooperated and ArtPrize came together in an unprecedented collaboration.”

Best of all, ArtPrize’s $2 million operating budget comes from sponsors, donations, event fees and sales, not from taxpayers. And of that $2 million, $1.9 million is spent in Grand Rapids on local goods and services.

Creamer said the public-voting element is also key to ArtPrize’s success: “The public vote is a function of engagement that, during ArtPrize, makes art impossible to ignore.”

Toledo arts organizations spend a tremendous amount of energy fighting for funds and territory, which results in the greatest of those institutions being stuck in old-model relationships, refusing to open their futures to newer ways of doing business. It’s ironic, but while I always hear that Toledo artists do not like to compete with each other, that’s standard operating procedure for the big-time Toledo arts institutions.

ArtPrize is not a blueprint that could be lifted whole and dropped in Toledo, but the concept is adaptable and with planning and cooperation could be a model for an event that would represent a seismic shift in Toledo’s tourism efforts.

Call for action

It would be beneficial for a Toledo delegation to visit Grand Rapids for the September ArtPrize. Toledo Free Press will take responsibility for arranging a night’s stay and a visit with ArtPrize officials, then for hosting a follow-up meeting to discuss the potential of emulating the event here. There should be an official from city government, someone from the Arts Commission, probably representatives from the Toledo Museum of Art, Toledo Symphony Orchestra, Tahree Lane from The Blade and a wild card or two.

I would love to see such a trip happen, but I am not going to hold my breath waiting. Cooperation is a far more flexible concept than proximity, but for Toledo arts organizations, it seems it is also a concept with as little hope for change.

Michael S. Miller is editor in chief of Toledo Free Press and Toledo Free Press Star. Email him at mmiller@toledofreepress.com.

Tags: Amway Grand Plaza Hotel, ArtPrize, Brian Burch, Bruce Rumpf, Catherine Creamer, Experience Grand Rapids, Frederik Meijer Gardens and Sculpture Park, Grand Rapids, Grand River, Imagination Station, Lighting The Fuse, Lloyd Jacobs, Lorax, Metroparks, Michael S. Miller, ProMedica, Randy Oostra, Schedel Arboretum and Gardens, Tahree Lane, Toledo Museum of Art, Toledo Symphony Orchestra, Toledo Zoo, University of Toledo

This entry was posted on Thursday, March 22nd, 2012 at 4:58 pm and is filed under Featured, Lighting The Fuse, Opinion.
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Fans of best-selling author David Sedaris have two very good reasons to rejoice this holiday season. The Glacity Theatre Collective (GTC) will present not one, but two Sedaris classics this year as part of its annual “A Twisted Holiday Delight” event. The production is set to open at Valentine Theatre’s Studio A on Dec. 2.

“A Twisted Holiday Delight” features Glacity veteran Dave DeChristopher as Crumpet the Elf in “The Santaland Diaries.” The event also showcases the return of Pamela Tomassetti as Jocelyn Dunbar in “Season’s Greetings.” Tomassetti and DeChristopher appeared at Carnegie Hall last spring with the Toledo Symphony Orchestra. Both shows are being directed by GTC Artistic Director Cornel Gabara, with sets by James S. Hill, lighting by Donald Robert Fox and costumes by Holly Monsos.

Dave DeChristopher

“I first came upon David Sedaris via NPR, and then read a lot of his plays and books — this started as a large chunk of one of his books before being adapted to the stage — and was especially intrigued because my first roommate in New York ­ a wild girl ­ worked in Santaland in 1981, and told hilarious stories,” DeChristopher said. “I loved the piece, but never felt that I had the chops to do a one-person show. Then it looked for a while that, because of the crazy schedules of Glacity core members, we’d be forced to do more one-person things to fill a season, so I suggested it.”

Before coming home to his native Toledo in 2004, DeChristopher, who contributes crossword puzzles to Toledo Free Press, worked for 24 years in New York as an actor, director, playwright and teaching artist. Since returning to Toledo, he’s directed at The Village Players, The Toledo Rep and the University of Toledo.

Tomassetti toured with National Players, was a member of the original cast of “Into the Woods” with Stephen Sondheim, and appeared in the debut of “Poet’s Garden,” a musical about the life of Vincent Van Gogh.

“This year, we’re in a good place because there’s more confidence about the piece(s), which provides a firmer platform from which to try some new things. I’m anxious to do it.”

Tickets are $22 plus a $2 facility fee. Additional show dates are Dec. 3, 4, 9, 10 and 11. Friday and Saturday performances begin at 8 p.m., while Sunday matinées kick off at 2 p.m.

For more information, call (419) 242-2787 or visit the web site www.valentinetheatre.com or www.glacity.org.

Tags: Dave DeChristopher, Glacity Theatre Collective, Toledo Symphony Orchestra, Valentine Theatre

This entry was posted on Tuesday, November 29th, 2011 at 11:01 am and is filed under Holidays, Star, Theater.
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I hit a wall at the Nov. 13 Make-A-Wish Foundation holiday party for local families. I was at the event, which took place at Springfield High School, to arrange a photo session for this week’s special issue, which celebrates the “Holiday Wishes” CD.

Among the games and decorated tables, apart from the Santa Claus photo area and the DJ, was a wall that stretched the entire length of the gym. On that wall hung a list of all the local kids to whom Make-A-Wish has granted wishes to throughout the years.

There were too many kids’ names to count, too many columns of wishes to comprehend, too many young lives lost before their time.

I worked very hard to make the “Holiday Wishes” CD a success, to gather the talents of local musicians to raise money for the cause. The result of hundreds of hours of scores of people’s effort is a 25-track collection that retails for $9.99, every penny of which goes to the NW Ohio chapter of Make-A-Wish Foundation.

If I had stood before that wall before I started the project, I would have worked 10 times as hard, and I would have delivered a 10-CD set to raise 10 times as much money.

In 2010, the national Make-A-Wish Foundation granted almost 14,000 wishes to kids in the United States. The organization grants a wish about every 40 minutes. Some of the more common wishes include visits to places such as a Disney theme park or the Super Bowl. Some kids want to be a firefighter for a day, or a police officer. Some wishes are heartbreakingly simple; there are calls for a puppy, a computer, a chance to go to prom. Many of the kids want to meet an actor, athlete or other celebrity.

Can you imagine receiving that call — a child with limited days left has one major wish, to meet you? How could you ever turn that down?

Stepping up

I witnessed the power of Make-A-Wish firsthand while working on the “Holiday Wishes” CD, which goes on sale Nov. 25 at all area Panera Bread stores. Nearly every person I contacted immediately answered the call for time or talent. Some people, like engineer Christopher Stoll of Zeta Recording Studio, producer Mighty Wyte and attorney Larry Meyer, donated many more hours than I ever imagined they would need to when I first contacted them. More than 100 musicians and artists donated performances for the CD, and that doesn’t count the full Toledo Symphony Orchestra, which recorded an all-time great version of “Sleigh Ride” during a mid-fall concert in Findlay.

Many of the musicians continue to display a generosity and kindness that is humbling beyond words. Some of them will perform Dec. 1 at a benefit concert at The Blarney Bullpen. A few will appear to sing a few songs at a Dec. 3 concert at a Panera Bread location to be announced soon. Kerry Patrick Clark, who wrote and recorded the original song “(Looks Like It’s Going To Be) A Great Day” for the CD, will sing the National Anthem at the Nov. 29 Toledo City Council meeting, before a proclamation honors the local musicians on the CD and the charity it benefits. Clark is a partner with the CD manufacturer that produced the CD. When he received a commission check for referring the “Holiday Wishes” project, he immediately signed it over to the Make-A-Wish Foundation.

I have also been amazed by the kindness of star Alyson Stoner and her mother, LuAnne Hodges, who donated recording studio time, autographed merchandise and even made time to go into a photography studio for the seasonal photos in this issue.

“Thank you” seems to pale in the face of such generosity. And that holds true for the organizations that stepped up to make sure that my unwieldy idea would not cost Make-A-Wish any money: Panera Bread is the distributor, Toledo Transmission and UAW Local 14 covered the manufacturing costs and Toledo Free Press and FOX Toledo donated promotions and commercials to the cause.

Now, it’s your turn.

If you appreciate local music, like holiday music and understand the spiritual and philanthropic role Make-A-Wish plays in our community, I hope that putting $10 on the Panera Bread counter for a 25-track CD that features contributions from Jamie Farr, Mannheim Steamroller, Crystal Bowersox and dozens more will seem like an easy choice and a great deal. You can also download the CD at www.cdbaby.com/cd/holidaywishes.

I remember standing before the Vietnam Veterans Memorial in Washington, D.C., for the first time, squinting at the rows of names and trying to keep in mind that every string of letters in that endless litany represented an individual person, with family and dreams and a path that was unfairly cut short and cut down.

Looking at the hundreds of local wishes granted to Make-A-Wish kids on that wall Nov. 13, I felt a similar sense of helplessness and a renewed sense of mission.

I took my sons Sean, 3, and Evan, 5, to one of the CD’s recording sessions. Sean, seeing the special treatment and attention the Make-A-Wish kids received, looked up at me and said, “Daddy, I want to be a Make-A-Wish kid.”

“No, son,” I said, momentarily paralyzed by the idea. “No, you don’t. But we’ll do everything we can to help the kids who are, OK?”

Michael S. Miller is editor in chief of Toledo Free Press and Toledo Free Press Star. Email him at mmiller@toledofreepress.com.

Tags: Alyson Stoner, Christopher Stoll, Crystal Bowersox, FOX Toledo, Holiday Wishes, Jamie Farr, Kerry Patrick Clark, Larry Meyer, Lighting The Fuse, Make-A-Wish, Mannheim Steamroller, Michael S. Miller, Mighty Wyte, Panera Bread, The Blarney Bullpen, Toledo Free Press, Toledo Symphony Orchestra

This entry was posted on Thursday, November 24th, 2011 at 12:00 am and is filed under Lighting The Fuse, Make-A-Wish, Opinion.
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In the midst of its 55th season, the Toledo Symphony Orchestra and its nearly 80 musicians will be featured on “Holiday Wishes” with its rendition of the holiday song “Sleigh Ride.”

“Come Christmas time, ‘Sleigh Ride’ is the hidden piece in every Christmas show,” said resident conductor Jeffrey Pollock. “It is going to show up; it is just a question of where. It is played at every Christmas show every year and there was no question what would be this orchestra’s contribution.”

Pollock said when he learned of the Make-A-Wish Foundation benefit CD project, he was excited to see the orchestra would be involved.

“I think it is incredibly important for the group to be a part of this project,” Pollock said. “We view ourselves as an integral part of the community. The orchestra had their ‘A’ game and we were fired up to do it.”

Pollock, a California native, has spent the past 15 years conducting for the North Carolina Symphony, Fort Worth Symphony and the past two seasons with the Toledo Symphony.

Nancy Lendrim

“We hope that this will sell a lot and get a lot of money for Make-A-Wish,” Pollock said. “I couldn’t imagine a nicer Christmas gift than to know our work helped raise a lot of money for that foundation. That makes a good Christmas story.”

Toledo Symphony Orchestra principal harpist Nancy Lendrim was among the many Toledo residents to donate a track to the “Holiday Wishes” CD to benefit the Make-A-Wish Foundation.

But the experience got more personal for Lendrim just a short time after volunteering her harp solo “Silver Bells.”

“One of my dearest friend’s daughter is going through an illness, which she is recovering from, happily,” Lendrim said. “She is a candidate for the Make-A-Wish Foundation.”

Lendrim assists the family, which travels from Raleigh, N.C., to Detroit to visit a specialist with the University of Michigan, by driving them to and from the doctor from their hotel.

“I had offered before that happened, but now it is taking an incredibly personal turn,” Lendrim said of contributing a track to the CD. “It’s taken on a new meaning for me to just know somebody who will benefit from the Make-A-Wish Foundation.”

Lendrim graduated from Oberlin College and got her master’s degree in harp performance at the Cleveland Institute of Music. She joined the Toledo Symphony Orchestra in 1981.

The track was recorded by Dave Mariasy at Audio Matrix Recording Studio.

“I was happy with how everything for ‘Silver Bells’ went together,” Lendrim said.

Tags: Holiday Wishes, Jeffrey Pollock, Make-A-Wish, Nancy Lendrim, Toledo Symphony Orchestra

This entry was posted on Wednesday, November 23rd, 2011 at 12:00 am and is filed under Community, Make-A-Wish.
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