[images below are clickable for larger versions]
24th
Chanticleer Music Festival: Indiana, 29 July 13 August, 2000
"It's Monday the 14th
of August, on Chanticleer Farm in Richmond, Indiana. I put the last things in my suitcase, hoping that we'll have time to read the slow movement of the Brahms and suspecting that we won't. "I run
downstairs. We have only about half an hour before Caroline, Salvo, and I must leave for Dayton Airport. Salvo says, "Anarι, I don't think we'll have time. I have to settle that stuff at the airport and I
don't want to lose my plane. Next time, no?" I make a sad look and Salvo says, "Let's play a little, just us. What's that Bach you and Caroline were playing the first day the Arioso?
"On that first day of the 24th
Chanticleer Summer Music Festival, two weeks and two days ago, Caroline came to me. I was getting reacquainted with the 7-foot Steinway, in that big sunny living room where there is space, cosily, for a string quartet. "Let's bless the beginning of the festival with some Bach, just you and me," she said, and handed me the Arioso. So in that lightfilled room which looks out on the pasture where this year there are about 16 head of black Angus grazing, we play, just the two of us, making a blessing of Bach. Simple and majestic, the music fills the air, and our souls, with something larger than ourselves."
Frequent visits to the Dairy Queen are an essential part of the ensemble's training regimen
L to R: Cervantes, 'cellist Elizabeth Mendoza, violinist and Festival organizer Caroline
Klemperer, violinist Salvatore Greco (all the way from Sicily!), and Ruben Mendoza, the other half of the Mendoza menage (which will be augmented in December 2000 by a Baby
Mendoza!). Absent is violist Jennifer Smith, who took the snapshot.
The Festival's last concert is always held on Chanticleer Farm, on the lake. As one devoted local listener said of the Festival, "I've hardly missed a one in all the years they've had them it's such a wonderful, idyllic location sitting by the lake with lawn chairs and blankets. Beautiful music, beautifully played."
A salute to Festival organizer Caroline Klemperer precedes the final encore, Manuel M. Ponce's Estrellita (Little Star). L
to R: Violinists Greco and Klemperer, 'cellist Mendoza, violist Jennifer Smith, and Cervantes.
The piano generously donated by Hood Music Company of Richmond, IN moves out in the tuner's truck
accompanied by Cervantes.
A final group photo on the lawn fronting the lake, after the crowds have left and the music still lingers in the air
Clockwise from L to R:
Caroline Klemperer, Ana Cervantes, Salvatore Greco, Jennifer Smith, Elizabeth Mendoza.
Design & HTML by Dream Weaver Productions - R. Arthur Lloyd, 2001-2008