Cello Seminar Workshop Concert Sunday, May 31 – 4 pm at Hubbard Hall

After two years away, the Cello Seminar returns home to Salem this summer. In addition to a wonderful array of modern and post-modern repertoire for solo cello and cello with piano,
the June 2nd concert will feature two newly-commissioned cello octets inspired by Washington County and written by innovative composers Jennifer Bewerse and Kirin McElwain, both returning seminar alums.

Program notes from Jennifer Bewerse, composer of the commissioned piece premiering on June  2nd, and inspired by the Washington County community. Jennifer is a long time cello alum now living in California:

“Inside Silence is inspired by the New Skete monastic community and their dedication to developing a rich inner self and spirituality through monastic life. As a musician, I’ve always been fascinated by different kinds of musical silence and the way they are both expressively powerful and easily overlooked in favor of melodies and harmonies — the doing not the resting. Silences are fragile and beautiful: a pregnant pause, a moment of silence, the silence after a snowfall. They are terrifying and dangerous: a silent scream, silent treatment, the Blue Code of Silence. All it takes is one interruption to overpower a silence.
In my life, I crave silence and isolation, but usually struggle to find it and must fiercely protect it when I do. I admire the way the New Skete monastic community tends to their inner worlds by prioritizing silence and contemplation. In writing this piece, I wanted to meditate on the tension between outer and inner worlds and the
silences within them.
The melody in this piece is a quote of Let All Mortal Flesh Keep Silent, a Hymn sung on Holy Saturday in the Eastern Orthodox Church.”

Coached by Music from Salem musicians Judith Gordon, David Russell, Scott Kluksdahl, and Rhonda Rider, the cellists will spend one week focusing on their adaptivity and creativity.

To learn more about the Cello Seminar click here