Local Artist Feature March 27, 2026

Violinist Anna Presler may have studied at Yale, but she's spent the last two decades teaching and working right here in our area. Her efforts and accolades could fill a book - they include long time membership in both the Grammy nominated New Century Chamber Orchestra and the Left Coast Chamber Ensemble, as well as holding a professorship at Sac State's School of Music since the 1990's. In this feature we discuss the joys of chamber music and enjoy performances by Left Coast. 

Kerstin Allvin has been in music her whole life, having gravitated to the harp as a child. She's gone on to play for the Detroit Symphony for 40 years, found her own record label-High Heel Records, and also start a school for harp right here in Sacramento where she now resides. In this feature we discuss how she's turned the harp into a multi-genre performance avenue for herself and also enjoy her performances ranging from classical to jazz. 

Choral conductor Julie Adams has quite the legacy here in our community: she worked with the Sacramento Children's Chorus and American River College, and was also the founder of groups like the award winning CSUS Vocal Jazz Ensemble and RSVP-Reconciliation Singers Voices of Peace. In this feature we enjoy Julie directing performances in both her areas of expertise: classical AND jazz. We also hear her wonderful thoughts on just how powerful a force for reconciliation music can be.

 

Oboist Dr. Cindy Behmer has traveled the world and is also an incredibly familiar face all around Sacramento- you've likely seen her on campus at Sac State and UC Davis, or with ensembles such as the Sacramento Philharmonic and Opera, Broadway at Music Circus, and the Sacramento Choral Society and Orchestra. In this feature we explore her career and enjoy performances of Hindemith and Benjamin Britten, but we also get to know other parts of her life - such as her work with 4H and her endeavors to grow cane for reed making!

You probably know him as the current Executive Director of the Sacramento Philharmonic and Opera. But did you know that Giuliano Kornberg is no typical administrator and also has a degree in classical percussion from Stanford? In this feature we explore his musical side and also enjoy some of his performances on solo marimba!

 

Midday Classical host Jennifer Reason’s Local Artist Feature shines a spotlight on the region’s best performers and composers, and has become a staple of KXPR’s weekly programming. February marks its two year anniversary and the show will also reach the milestone of the 100th artist featured on air in April! You can check it out every Friday afternoon at 12pm noon and again at 6pm on 88.9 FM. Here’s a selection of highlights from the past year.

Multi-instrumentalist Brennen Milton has had a diverse and fascinating career- he’s twice been invited to Carnegie Hall, once as the winner of the Golden Classical Musical Awards; as a student, he’s studied at California State University Sacramento, in VIterbo Italy, and in Norfolk, VA at the Naval School of Music for the Armed Forces, as a member of the US Marine Corps field band. In this feature he explores the clarinet music of Yayoï Kitazume and Paul Reade.

 Lingyu Dong, violin

Violinist Lingyu Dong was born and raised in China and had already made his first concerto performance with Shandong Symphony Orchestra at the age of 7! He also took first place in the Hong Kong International Violin Competition and the East Asia International Violin Competition in Tokyo. He eventually made his way right here to Sacramento as part of an exchange program with the Sacramento Youth Symphony, where he met lifelong friend and collaborator pianist Roger Xia. They still frequently perform together here in town all these years later. In this feature Lingyu joins Roger for several wonderful works for violin and piano. 

Dr. Robert Halseth, conductor

 Dr. Robert Halseth has been conducting right here in our area for many decades! Since 1993, he has been Director of Bands and Professor of Music at California State University, Sacramento; he also conducts the Sierra Winds, who performs in this feature. As he is not just a conductor but also a professional trombonist of 40 years he particularly understands directing winds. In this feature he discusses creating during covid and presents some stunning American folk tunes. 

 Shuying Li, composer

Composer Shuying Li was born in China and went to Shanghai Conservatory before moving here to the states. Her music has been performed all over the country with venues/ensembles like Carnegie Hall, San Francisco Symphony, President's Own United States Marine Band, and West Edge Opera, and around the world in countries like Finland, Romania, Netherlands, Canada, Italy. Students at Sac State are now lucky enough to call her their professor of Composition. In this feature we explore selections from her new album Hive Mind.  

 Darita Seth, conductor/composer/countertenor

Darita Seth is a Cambodian-American conductor, composer, choral artist and professional counter-tenor. With roots right here in our area, he now works up and down this entire state- making a career with, among many others, the LA Master Chorale, UOP’s choral department, his own ensemble Choral Audacity (a chamber choir advocating for QBIPOC voices)…and you may have caught him during his tenure with the famed ensemble Chanticleer. In this feature we enjoy two sides of his talents- an arrangement of his own featuring Choral Audacity, and a vocal solo performed with the Sacramento based ensemble RSVP.

Anna Crumley, soprano

Soprano Anna Crumley is a Sacramento native who got her start in singing as a young girl enrolled in the Sacramento Children’s Chorus. Had you asked her then, she surely would not have imagined that she’d later have two vocal degrees and an international performance career that includes working on two Grammy nominated albums, arrangement credits, and collaborations with the singularly renowned ensemble Voces 8. In this feature we hear from Anna and her own 6 voice treble ensemble Lyyra.

Ramya Shankar, Indian classical vocalist and sound healer 

Ramya Shankar resides in the Bay and is a bridge between many worlds. Not only does she combine the seemingly disparate worlds of classical Indian music and jazz, she’s also a sound healer, a vocalist trained in the Carnatic traditions, a composer and a producer. And she’s recently contributed to her first ever Grammy nominated album! In this feature we explore her settings of meditative traditional Indian ragas.

On November 14th and 15th, the Modesto Symphony premiered a long lost symphony from Ukraine. It’s music born of exile and massacre, and a bit of history repeating itself.

Ukrainian-born composer Dmitri Klebanov wrote his Symphony No.1 to honor the mass murders of 30,000 Jews in Kiev during WWII, uniformly killed in the ravine of Babi Yar. This tribute promptly got him in terrible trouble with the ruling Soviet government, who immediately banned the symphony and exiled the composer.

This music was all but lost to history, as it was never heard outside of Ukraine and its premiere there in the 1940’s.

Until now!

Nicholas Hersh, Music Director of the Modesto Symphony Orchestra, has gotten his hands on the original manuscript and has brought it back to life for the first ever performance of the work outside of Ukrainian borders. 

“I wish I could say I have a secret, you know, conductor telephone tree or something like that, but no, I stumbled onto it on Wikipedia, both the composer and the symphony, and it's a very short little blurb!  I found someone who had access to a copy of the manuscript [and] he was able to send that to me, and so I immediately started to put together a new set of orchestral sheet music to the symphony so it could be played again.”

He also managed to find a living family member of the composer, his granddaughter Nina.

“That's right, Nina, who recently fled Ukraine because of the war. We had a great conversation about her grandfather, what he was like, what the world was like at this time. And the thing that really made it stick for me was the fact that yes, he dedicated the symphony to all the victims of this atrocity on paper, but really it was dedicated to one person, and that was his brother who died as a member of the Soviet army fighting the Nazis.”

It’s not lost on Hersh the historical significance and timing of this project, given the current tensions and fighting in Ukraine. 

“And another sort of timeless thing about this right now with the Russian invasion of Ukraine: Klebanov's hometown is Kharkiv, which is on the eastern front and has suffered a lot of damage and continues to be sort of in the midst of things. The conservatory where he worked has been bombed. So there's a sort of possible repeat of history about to happen that could be another re-silencing of this composer who was unjustly silenced in the first place. It's really exciting to revive this piece of lost culture and history at a time when the culture in question is facing more difficulties than ever.”

As a voting member of the Recording Academy, a classical radio host, and a professional performer myself, I hear A LOT of music. In fact, music is my all day every day. And I hate to say it, but it’s getting more and more rare for me to be truly moved by something I’m hearing. 

That changed on Friday April 4th at the Mondavi Center, when Peter Dugan and Joshua Bell took the stage. I knew within the first three phrases of the opening Beethoven selection that something different was happening. 

It was the violin itself that caught me first.

It felt timeless, it felt like it KNEW. The instrument was speaking like it had been there. I immediately felt swept back into the actual lifetime of Beethoven, to an 18th century theater with an 18th century patronage, all hearing this music for the first time. Even the velvet curtains on the stage seemed to transform to an old dusty Viennese concert hall, horses waiting outside. I got chills. 

As it turns out, that violin HAD been there. 

I had no idea until later, but Bell plays a 1713 Gibson ex-Huberman Stradivarius. In other words, the instrument pre-dated Beethoven by 57 years. (The fact that Beethoven himself lived 57 years as well might be an aside that gives one a second round of chills.)

From then on I was spellbound. The mastery unfolding onstage wasn’t just world class, it was music set free from nerves, from pretense, from forced interpretations or arrogance… it was a window opening up into how we are meant to experience art as humans. Perhaps that sounds a bit hyperbolic, but as I looked around the (packed) auditorium and saw the faces full of serenity and awe, I knew everyone else was being uplifted the same way I was. 

When the Grieg began, something else special happened. I’ve heard this composer a thousand times, but this time Dugan in particular achieved such impossibly quiet tranquility in his cascading upper register, I saw the Norwegian countryside through the eyes of native Grieg for the first time. It wasn’t Davis CA anymore, it was a little trickling stream glinting in the sunlight, bright green grass all around, in some mountain village of Norway. 

This one captured the children in the audience as well. Where there may have been rustling and energetic little bodies before, suddenly even they were calm and still. The word enraptured springs to mind.

The standing ovations started about halfway through the program, before we even got to the herculean delivery of the Faure, or the incredibly charming and intimate little pieces from Bell’s childhood that comprised the multiple encores.

I’m grateful to Mondavi and CapRadio both for this concert. Everyone in attendance was given a singular gift and I was lucky to be there.

During much of her early career working with orchestras around the world, Jessica Bejarano didn’t always feel welcome. She’s guest conducted from St. Petersburg, Russia, to Urbino, Italy, to Falcon, Venezuela, but in that time never felt quite accepted for who she is.  

As a queer woman of color, Bejarano has faced what would seem to some as insurmountable adversity in her chosen field. Bejerano, however, turned that adversity into opportunity. Her experiences led her to create the San Francisco Philharmonic, an orchestra based on diversity and inclusivity. Founded in 2019, their mission statement is to “bring music off the pedestal and into the heart of the community.” 

While serving as the conductor and music director of the San Francisco Philharmonic, Bejarano has also landed spots as cover conductor for the San Francisco Symphony, curator and scholar in residence with the San Francisco Opera and board member of the Association of California Symphony Orchestras. In 2019, Bejarano also became the first woman in history to guest conduct the American Youth Symphony in Los Angeles. 

Bejarano is also breaking down barriers of genre. In 2022, her orchestra partnered with the media group Remezcla and beer company Tecate to put on a performance fusing classical music with Latin hip-hop and rap. In that same year, the San Francisco Philharmonic was invited to perform with the legendary rock band Journey at the Chase Center Plaza in San Francisco for the Winter Wonderland Spectacular.

CapRadio Classical Host Jennifer Reason sat down with Bejarano to discuss the journey of creating her own orchestra and learning how to take a negative situation and turn it into positive energy.

This interview has been edited for length and clarity.

Interview highlights

On her experience in the field

The treatment wasn’t always so accepting or welcoming. Being a queer woman of color, tatted and pierced, that probably played into the mix. It always felt like I was swimming against the tide. I was tired of the experience that I was having and wanted to create an orchestra where everyone was welcome. From the board of directors to the musicians on stage, the conductor on the podium to the audience members that walk into the space, I wanted every single pocket and corner of the organization to be truly diverse and truly welcoming. That was a big driving motivator for me to build the San Francisco Philharmonic. 

On combining genres

We had this collaborative concert with Tecate, the beer company, called Tecate Alta Sinfonica. It was a new beer and they were sourcing ingredients from Mexico and California. It was the coming together of two different regions to create a very unique beer. They wanted to mirror that in music, taking two different art forms and combining them to create a unique experience. We had Latin hip hop artists and rappers combining with the symphonic orchestra sound and the combination of these people coming into the concert hall was awesome. 

On deciding to be a conductor

I was at the University of Wyoming as a music education major, and you had to take a year of conducting. After I took the course I had this epiphany of “Oh my god, I’m going to be a conductor.” I’m glad I didn’t do any research or look at the statistics or history, or lack thereof, of women in the field. If I had done that and seen that they are less than 3% of the population, it probably would have been daunting enough that I would have turned around, walked the other direction and said “No way, not doing this.” But no, I just jumped head in and said “I’m going to become a conductor.” Off I went on this path, not knowing how difficult it was going to be and how difficult it still is, but it’s a labor and passion of love. 

On navigating the difficulties

When I was in graduate school for conducting, I had weekly score sessions with my professor and he was not a nice person at all. We were studying Beethoven’s Symphony No. 9 and he just stopped, crossed his arms and asked me, “Are you serious?” He pointed at the top of my head down to my feet and back up and said, “Are you serious about becoming a conductor?” I said, “Yes, absolutely, I’m dedicated and I’m willing to do the work.” Then he said, “Well, then go back to your country because it’s not going to happen in mine, get the ‘F’ out of my office.” 

I didn’t finish my classes that day. I went home and I remember staring at the wall thinking, “Oh my god, if this is the way academia is treating me, what’s the real world going to treat me like?” I thought it would be too hard and too abusive but a second later I thought, “No, this is my life, my passion and my dream and I’m not going to let him or anyone else take it away from me.“ In that moment I learned how to take a no and turn it into a yes. I’ve always loved music and it’s just so ingrained in me, so it’s important for me to stand tall and proud and continue to do what I do.

On advice for other women in the field

Whatever you do in life, make sure you’re passionate about it. If you’re passionate about what you’re pursuing, you will have the drive, the energy and the eagerness to follow suit. If I wasn’t passionate about music after experiencing all of this, I would have run the other way. It’s like, “Why am I enduring this?” It’s because I’m passionate about it and that’s what fuels me and keeps me swimming against the tide and existing in these spaces.

When Starr Parodi began her career in music it wasn’t necessarily a smooth road for women in the industry. Playing in bands and scoring for film 30 years ago was not nearly as common as it is today. Parodi discovered the key to leading the path forward was stepping out of her comfort zone and being open to any and every opportunity.

Today, Parodi is an award winning composer, producer and performer who is a past president of the Alliance for Women Film Composers and who last year won a Grammy for her work on an album called “An Adoption Story.” 

As a performer, Parodi has played everything from solo classical piano to synthesizers in soul bands. She was a member of the house band the “Arsenio Hall Show” and played Carnegie Hall opening for Whitney Houston. Arguably her most prolific output has been as a film composer, scoring music for feature films and trailers for iconic films like “Harry Potter,” “Star Wars: Rogue One,” and “Mission Impossible 2.” 

CapRadio's Jennifer Reason sat down with Parodi to discuss some of her most recent achievements and the idea of simply believing in yourself. 

This interview has been edited for length and clarity.

Interview highlights

On Winning her latest Grammy Award

I’ve been kind of leading a dual life, I guess because I’ve always considered myself an artist and a pianist, but I also love cinematic music and writing to picture. I was so fortunate to be introduced to Kitt Wakeley, who’s an artist as well. He lives in Oklahoma. He called my partner Jeff and I and wanted to do a classical album and asked us to produce it and me to play piano on it. 

It turned out that his story was so remarkable because he was adopted. There were a lot of late night calls, and as he opened up to me about his story of being abandoned on the side of the road when he was five — going through six foster homes and countless other stories that are maybe a little bit too personal to share — I was just so honored to be able to work and tell his story through music. 

On working with the Alliance for Women Film Composers

There’s just not enough words to say good about this organization. It was founded officially around 2016. There were not many of us and we were all pretty isolated. There was just — I don't wanna say crumbs — but if there was a job for a woman we were all in competition with each other and we didn’t really know each other. 

There’s this famous quote that I really love and it’s, “you can never really have something that you don’t want someone else to have.” 

I kind of live my life by that because this is such a competitive business, but there’s really not a lot of room for jealousy. I think what the alliance has done is bring together a community of women who really support each other and lift each other up. Our website has a directory of women composers and I think we have over 800 members now worldwide. 

On the challenges of the industry 

I really feel like a lot of women, including myself, sometimes doubt what we deserve. And yet, we’ve been putting in the time and the expertise is huge and massive. Believing that sometimes is the challenge. 

On her advice to other women in the field

Everything is so nonlinear. I feel like with college and social media and everything, it seems like there’s a path and I don’t know that there’s a straight line or a path. 

I’ve said this many times but I feel like there’s no “there” to get to. Every time you get to “there,” it moves and you go “oh, well I did that, ok now what.” 

Life is just such a journey and music is a huge part of it, but it’s not everything. A career has many phases. You can go up and you can be on top of the world and then you can go down a little bit and then you go up or you take a turn. You say, “I’m going to say yes to this,” and even though you don’t necessarily feel like an expert at it, you’re going to say “yes, I’m going to become an expert because I’m going to learn.” 

Being a lifelong learner and realizing that there’s not a point to get to, but a long beautiful road; that would be my advice.

Every Wednesday afternoon around lunch time, nearly 300 people descend on Westminster Presbyterian Church in downtown Sacramento. They’re headed to “Music At Noon” a weekly concert series that takes place across the street from the Capitol building. 

The series is an institution in the musical culture of Sacramento and has been for over 20 years. The waitlist for artists to get their turn to perform often has exceeded three years long.

This concert series is unique for several reasons: For one, it occurs every week and it’s in the middle of the day, hence the title. But it’s also completely free and attendees can eat their lunch inside the sanctuary while they enjoy the show.

In May, the series — which was founded in 2002 by the church Organist Brad Slocum — will celebrate its 1,000th performance. 

Slocum, who started the series after moving to Sacramento from the Bay Area, told CapRadio’s Midday Classical Host Jennifer Reason that he wasn’t sure if a concert series like this would be successful in Sacramento — but he was willing to give it a shot, regardless.

"We've been doing concerts for about 22 years now," Slocum said, "and it's really been a privilege to serve the community."

This interview has been edited for length and clarity.

Interview highlights

On how the series got started

It started modestly with me. I was hired as the organist at Westminster Presbyterian church across from Capitol Park in downtown Sacramento, and that was in 2002. At the end of the interview they asked if I would consider doing a concert series, and I said yes, if we could do it well. I wasn't sure if we could do it well because I didn't know anybody here in Sacramento and I came from the Bay Area.

I played organ and piano for that first concert in November of 2002, and brought a few performers from the Bay Area for the first few concerts.

It was a period of a few years until I got to know the artists here, but then I was amazed at the quantity of high quality musicians here in Sacramento. The scholarship here in Sacramento is fantastic so I never have a problem finding quality concerts.

On the idea behind a noontime series

I wanted to do a daytime series partly for my own rhythm — I'm a morning person.

But also, I wanted a niche that was unlike others, which meant we could attract retirees, or people who worked at night. We could attract people who might only be able to drive during the daytime. We also have senior residences with vans who arrive almost every week with 10 or more residents and they become very attached to the series because it's so easy for them. It works. We actually have parking for them and it's a convenient and free concert. 

The venue is so suitable for “happy sound” that it attracts the artists in the area who need a venue, and deserve a good one. It pleases me that the church can share their facility, which is not used much between Sundays.

On the venue

The unique quality sound that this venue can produce is because it was modeled after the Hagia Sophia Mosque in Istanbul, although you could probably fit 20 Westminsters inside Hagia Sophia. The high ceiling and the arches and the complex curves give a very gentle, pleasing sound.

It’s also a place that performers don't have to pay for where they already have an audience every week, so it’s a gift to both parties.

On why local concert series matter

Well, our world is certainly much more diverse and complicated now, isn't it, with the technical options that we have. We can do the internet of course, we can do livestream — which we do. 

There is something special about the energy that happens when performer and audience come together. Sometimes we call it synergy; and the individual energies add up to be even more when they interact with each other. There's a special connection and even though we have other ways of listening we do need to be connected as humans also.

Sacramento has such a diverse community, and it has diverse artistry as well. We've had jazz,  classical, Indian music, choirs, and swing bands. We've pretty much had most everything and we have hundreds of artists we can draw from. That's the richness of Sacramento. 

The Sacramento Philharmonic and Opera will welcome their new Principal Conductor and Artistic Advisor Ari Pelto to the stage for the first time in his new role this weekend. 

The position of Principal Conductor — which is generally responsible for the musical direction of an orchestra — has stood vacant since 2015. Instead, the organization has opted to have a rotation of guest conductors come to Sacramento to lead the group on a per performance basis. 

That’s how Pelto became acquainted with the Sacramento Philharmonic and Opera. He made his first appearance in front of the group in 2018 conducting Tchaikovsky’s iconic seasonal ballet “The Nutcracker.” 

Pelto studied at Oberlin Conservatory, Indiana University and the Sibelius Academy in Helsinki. He has held positions with the Sarasota Symphony, Opera Colorado, The Boston Lyric Opera and raised the baton as a guest at countless others. 

Pelto takes to the podium this Saturday night with a performance of the “Symphony No. 4” by Johannes Brahms as well as works by Felix Mendelssohn and Edward Elgar.

CapRadio’s Jennifer Reason sat down with Pelto in advance of his principal debut to discuss the special first concert, his goals for Sacramento, and his own musical origins. 

This interview has been edited for clarity and length.

Interview Highlights

On his musical origins

My mother had played violin when she was young and she was determined to have a musician in the family. My brother showed no interest in music at all, so I think my mother decided that I was going to be the target of her aspirations. 

I was six years old when I told her I was very interested in playing soccer and wanted to be on a soccer team. She said, “That's fine. You can play soccer, but you have to start violin too.” I think I was six, turning seven and long before I was any good at the violin I declared myself and considered myself to be a musician and a violinist. 

As a violinist, a problem was developing in my left hand. Halfway through my time at Oberlin Conservatory it was unclear whether I was going to be able to continue as a violinist, so I decided to begin conducting studies. That coincided with a summer that I was playing at the Spoleto Festival in Italy. I sort of recklessly approached the music director, a wonderful conductor named Spyros Aggregates, and asked if I could become an assistant conductor. He said yes, so the following season — or a couple of seasons later — I took on the role of assistant conductor at Spoleto Festival. That was my first professional work as a conductor. 

On his first time in Sacramento

My first time here was actually with “The Nutcracker.” I've been with the Atlanta Ballet for many years doing that piece and it happened that about five or six years ago there was an opportunity for me to come here to do The Nutcracker. I have to say I fell in love with the orchestra and I so enjoyed my time here doing that piece which, for those of us who are in the profession, is not an automatic thing. We all adore The Nutcracker, but doing it many, many times can be a little tiring. Nonetheless, while I was here I enjoyed it. I was very pleased to be asked back to do the Brahms Second Symphony and Beethoven concert and once again found our collaboration very special. There are unique vibrations between orchestras and conductors and I felt a very positive and exciting relationship developing. I then came back yet a third time to do Mozart last year.

On why he chose Brahms for his first concert as principal conductor

I chose to do another Brahms Symphony this fall because for me, Brahms never fails to be inspiring and interesting. There's not a boring bar in all of Brahms as far as I'm concerned, but it also has specific challenges that I find particularly suitable for getting to know an orchestra or a group of players. 

Chamber music works the same way. When I was a violinist playing a Brahms quartet or other chamber piece I found it exposes one's musical feelings so clearly and is a perfect vehicle for getting to know somebody else's playing. In this case — the way an orchestra moves — an orchestra is like a car. You want it to move gloriously, smoothly, and yet with tremendous power, gently when you need it, and to go over bumps where you don't feel a thing. Brahms is so well suited to that. We're going to do the Fourth Symphony, which is an extraordinary piece of music. One thing about it, and all of Brahms in a way, is that it lives on the edge of tenderness and danger, turmoil and tranquility at all moments. In the most tranquil phrases you feel danger coming and in the most dangerous phrases, you feel tremendous tenderness. I think the Fourth Symphony is absolutely filled with these moments.

On the future of the Sacramento Philharmonic and Opera

We’d all love to see the Philharmonic play more concerts on the stage, have more outreach and more opportunities for the orchestra to play, perhaps, in other venues. All of that will take some time to develop, but I do believe that the organization and the orchestra is right on the cusp of being able to grow into much more than it already is. I'm an artist, I'm a musician and I believe wholeheartedly in the role that art plays in our world. Needless to say, our world is very complicated and I truly believe that anybody who has a chance to be close to art music lives a richer life as a result of it.

CapRadio’s Midday Classical Host and Pianist Jennifer Reason is touring the Dalmation Coast as part of the “Music & More SummerFest.’ She writes to us from Trebinje, Bosnia and Herzegovina about the city’s rich cultural heritage.

It’s a Tuesday morning in Trebinje — the southernmost city in Bosnia-Herzegovina — and I am sitting in a large open-air café at 10 a.m. The children on the cobblestone are absentmindedly dancing to the music in the square while playing with chalk and toys. The daily farmers market is bustling nearby, and violinists stroll around playing opera tunes.

The day was already starting to heat up and the only thing I really wanted was an iced coffee, but that isn't something you'll find here. Instead I had to settle for a carefully crafted cappuccino. Satisfied with my delicious but hot beverage, I sat down at a table to begin studying my score ahead of my next rehearsal and the next thing you know, the locals at the table next to me — the seemingly gruff older Bosnian men already smoking and drinking at this hour — burst into song (I nearly dropped my perfect cappuccino)! They know the music from the opera the street violins are playing. It’s from George Bizet’s “Carmen,” and they heartily make sure no chorus sing-along part is missed.

 

 

It’s obvious to an outsider like me that music and the arts are an essential part of this community. The music school down the street is several stories tall with perfectly maintained, polished pianos in every single room and storied hallways flaunt proud photos of hundreds of students learning all sorts of instruments.

The concert hall — in Trebinje it’s called a “cultural center” — around the other corner just spent 200,000 euros on a brand new nine-foot Steinway piano to ensure an “adequate instrument” was available for our shows. The mayor and other political officials and dignitaries attend every concert, as do all the local news outlets. It matters that music, classical music, is here enriching the city at large. It is, in fact, a priority.

So, it makes perfect sense that this area would be home to an international music festival: Music and More Summerfest (as it translates to roughly in English) has welcomed artists from 21 countries and four continents to bring several weeks of the best classical music has to offer to the countries along the Dalmatian Coast.

One of my primary performance responsibilities on this tour is Franz Schubert’s “Trout Quintet” —  a joyful, sparkling, notoriously demanding piece I have always wanted to play. The scoring is for piano, cello, violin, viola and double bass. Mind you, I am not traveling as a part of this ready-made ensemble. I came to Trebinje alone.

Waiting for me when I arrived were artists I had never met from four other countries: Germany, Serbia, Canada and Austria. We had two days rehearsing together to overcome language barriers and unfamiliarity before it was time to take to the stage and tell the story of Schubert’s “Trout.”

Since music is truly the universal language, and because these artists — from the New York Philharmonic, Vienna Chamber Orchestra, Paris Conservatory and the Chamber Orchestra of Europe — are world-class, the results were magical. We stepped off the stage, unable to contain our beaming smiles every single time, and the audiences rewarded our shared experience with curtain call after curtain call.

Classical music isn’t just something for the cultural elite or those “in the know” out here. It’s a pastime, a way of life. From the musicians strolling around the farmer’s market to the gruff local denizens occupying what one assumes is their regular café table in the city square, music is a driving force, the mere particles of which reside firmly in one’s DNA. Appreciation like that makes this artist want to perform here every day.

I think there is something to be learned from this way of life. And while I can’t seem to find a barista who will put ice in my coffee, perhaps it’s better that way. Trebinje locals like their arts like they like their coffee — rich, full, carefully crafted, and not in the slightest bit watered down.