Greetings from the ninth floor of the Professional Arts Building in downtown Scranton. It’s here---in the three small rooms that serve as my composing studio for the months of the year when I’m not on Lake George---where I’ve been sheltering-in-place since mid-March.

The pervasive mood of these coronavirus days brought to mind the photo on the right, one of my favorite images from The Sembrich Collection, dating from July, 1914. Pictured are Marcella Sembrich and her husband Guillaume Stengel preparing to take leave of their summer home in the south of France on the eve of World War I. Not to compare our current crisis with the calamity of the Great War, but the emotion and pensive mood conveyed by this image seems to capture the uncertainty of our own pandemic times.

Photo from The Sembrich Collection

Under normal circumstances, this springtime web-letter would have served as an opportunity for me to share some of the adventures and activities of the winter months.

I might have begun by recounting my mid-January trip to Birmingham, Alabama to attend a surprise party for violinist Daniel Szasz on his 50th birthday (or as he later coined the gathering, his “birthday ambush”), a grand event skillfully and stealthily arranged by his wife Alina Voicu and attended by nearly a hundred of Daniel’s friends and colleagues from the Alabama Symphony, where Daniel serves as concertmaster. (Pictured here are Daniel and Alina, both of whom have performed at The Sembrich in the past, flanked by their kids Alex and Angela.)

Or I could have described that balmy early February day when I paid a visit to the Percy Grainger House in White Plains, New York, to meet Mark Grant who serves as Vice President of the International Percy Grainger Society (pictured, here, in front of the historic museum). Mark, who had been scheduled to present our opening member-day lecture on Grainger, provided a fascinating private tour of the house and shared generously of his knowledge and enthusiasm for this truly eccentric musical figure.

I might have detailed the experience of serving as a guest judge for the February 8th Tchaikovsky Vocal Competition, a part of the Russian Winter Festival held in Albany each year. Pictured below is a line-up of the talented contestants who ranged in age from 14 to 70 and impressively rose to the challenge of the Russian language and repertoire. (Also in the photo, fourth from the left, is pianist Michael Clement, an invaluable fixture of our summer concert series.)

Or I might have shared news of my recent nomination for membership in the Bohemian Musicians Club of New York where I attended two concerts this winter. Founded in 1907, The Bohemians have a long and storied history. Among the honorees of the club through the years: Rachmaninoff, Rubinstein, Toscanini---and Marcella Sembrich, pictured along with other dignitaries in the back row at a dinner tendered to her at Delmonico’s on April 11, 1915.

*Sembrich stands center along the right wall. Photo from The Sembrich Collection*

The final program I heard before the pandemic took hold was a March 2nd recital by pianist Arielle Levioff whom we hope to invite to join us during a future Sembrich season. Arielle recently forwarded---and consented to allow me to share---this link to her luminous performance of Rachmaninoff’s Prelude in G# minor, Op. 32, No. 12, recorded recently at her home:

My original plan would have been to conclude this web-letter with a preview of our upcoming summer series, 20/20: Musical Visionaries. Except, as I’m sure you are aware by now, our summer festival, by necessity, has been cancelled.

Yet to my mind, it’s all the more important during this challenging time that we re-envision and keep the spirit of the visionaries alive through the year ahead.

Beethoven (pictured here in a print from The Sembrich Collection), has been the focal point of countless planned concerts around the world, including our own gala. Yet what better place than The Sembrich lakeside path to contemplate the relationship of music and nature? “How happy I am to be able to wander among bushes and herbs, under trees and over rocks” wrote Beethoven, who went on to describe “woods, trees and rocks” as “the echoes that man desires.”

What better time than in the midst of a pandemic for us to re-examine the delicate balance of man and nature through the pulsating score composed by Philip Glass, one of our other visionaries, for the experimental film “Koyaanisqatsi,” the Hopi wording meaning “life out of balance?”

Though we won’t attempt to replicate our summer festival, we will provide occasional online glimpses of various innovative visionaries, items which we’ll post, intermittently, across our social media platforms.

But for now, we extend warm thoughts to all of our friends and members---and we anticipate with joy that time when we’ll all be able to come together once again as a community and share in the exhilarating experience of a live performance in the intimate setting of The Sembrich Studio.

Until we meet again, take care---and stay healthy!

Notes From the 9th Floor - May 2020

Notes From the 9th Floor - January 2021