The Greencastle Summer Music Festival’s free programs continue as world-renowned pianist and local treasure Claude Cymerman will be joined at Gobin Church by longtime friend Eric Edberg this Wednesday, July 16 at 7:30 p.m. for a unique performance of classical music.
The duo will tackle two compositions that Claude painstakingly arranged to include the cello. These will involve the last part of Robert Schumann’s wonderful “Fantasie in C,” as well as the slow movement of Sergei Rachmaninoff’s “Piano Concerto No. 2,” which Eric gave as an example of “gorgeous” for an audible dictionary.
“Claude loves playing with other people, so he loves making arrangements,” Eric related.
They will also play an iteration of César Franck’s famous “Sonata in A Major for Violin and Piano,” a piece that’s adaptable to other instruments but is especially sought by cellists. A story relates to Franck creating the piece as a wedding gift for the great violinist Eugène Ysaÿe, in which the latter supposedly saw sketches by Franck for a cello sonata and asked him to turn it for the violin.
“I love the way Claude plays the piano part better than any of the famous people,” Eric said, noting that he and Claude last played the sonata together in 2008. “It’s just so well suited for him because he has this incredible tone and nuance. He just is that music.”
The GSMF’s programs are a gift to the community from individual donors, Doc and The Dandelion: Your Local Bed and Breakfasts and an endowment at the Putnam County Community Foundation. As its major sponsor, The Inn at DePauw hosts the festival’s out-of-town guest artists. Audience members are invited after the performances to The Fluttering Duck, which is located at the Inn and serves until 10 p.m.
For those unable to attend in person, the performances are livestreamed on the GSMF’s YouTube page at gsmfvideo.com.
About the performers:
Claude Cymerman graduated with highest honors from the Conservatoire National Supérieur de Musique in France, his native land. After winning national and international contests, he then studied at Indiana University’s Jacobs School of Music under the renowned pianist György Sebők. Retired as a professor at DePauw University, he has performed extensively as a recitalist and chamber musician and has also appeared as a soloist with the Radio France symphony orchestra, the orchestras of Pays de la Loire, Île-de-France and the opera of Limoges, the Luxembourg Philharmonic Orchestra and the Indianapolis Symphony Orchestra. He has been regularly invited to perform and give master classes at major festivals in France, Germany, Italy, Sweden, Japan and Israel and has frequently appeared as a guest on Radio France and the BBC.
Eric Edberg is a classical and improvising cellist, organizer, teacher, coach and consultant dedicated to bringing people together through the power of music. He has played concertos, recitals and chamber music concerts across the United States and in Europe and China. One of the most active freelance cellists in the region, he is the principal cellist of the Lafayette and Anderson symphony orchestras in Indiana. Retired from DePauw as the emeritus Cassel Grubb University Professor of Music, he has a large class of private cello students. He is the founder and artistic director of the Greencastle Summer Music Festival.
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