Music for Miles: Audience Adventures in 2017
As we enter our sixth year of M4M concerts, we’re feeling called to expand the horizons, and travel further into the many-splendored world of “classical” music – without losing sight of the favorites that brought us here in the first place.
So for April (Sunday April 12), some of the M4M audience (me, at least) will be taking part in their very first drum circle (unless I count the long-ago evening I spent with Miles and two friends in Montreal, banging on coffee cans with Leonard Cohen). Under the aegis of the Cleveland Federation of Musicians-Local 4 and the Percussion Marketing Council, Karl Dustman will bring the Local Four Drum Circle to Waterloo Arts, along with instruments from his vast collection that you will really want to play. Think metal, wood, shakers, jingles - rain sticks, ocean drums, a marching machine . . . If you don’t want to join in, it’s fine to sit and watch – but the forecast is that no one will be able to resist.
Our May concert, on Mothers’ Day (Sunday May 14), will be more traditional; we’ve invited Mary Beth Ions and her Amethyst quartet. Mary Beth has played at Waterloo Arts, both alone and with the Amethysts, and she has always garnered loud applause, because she plays beautifully and her enthusiasm casts a spell.
After the summer recess, M4M returns for three months in September. First, on Sunday September 10, Bill Meyer’s Silver Keys Clarinet Quartet will play an elaborate program of dance music – plus dancers. It is possible this will involve a jitterbug lesson for those so inclined. Stay tuned.
On October 8, we’ll cross the world for a concert from another school of classical music altogether – the ancient Karnataka mode practiced in South India since at least the thirteenth century.
And on November 12, a still to be determined program of selections by traditional composers who drew inspiration from folk and country songs of their own countries, with emphasis on those nationalities that settled in Collinwood.
As always, M4M concerts are held on the second Sunday of the month, at 4 pm, in the Waterloo Arts building at the corner of Waterloo and E156. The concerts are free, thanks to a partnership with the Local Four Performance Fund and the generosity of M4M supporters, but freewill offerings are always welcome. The ambiance is relaxed, children are welcome, a glass of wine or other refreshment can be found at the Callaloo Cafe, also in the WA building.
Nan Kennedy
Founding member of Arts Collinwood; chair of Waterloo Arts' Friends of Music for Miles; writer of Neighborhood Notes e-letter; grandmother of Emma, Jane, Attila, Connor and Ian.