By Denise Richardson
Staff Writer
This spring the Catskill Conservatory will highlight 35 years of music making.
The Conservatory will celebrate its 35th anniversary season, which will conclude at the end of this summer, a media release issued Monday said.
The Spring Music Festival will feature 35 concerts, each denoting a year of the award-winning group's history, presenters said. The free concerts, in-school programs and outdoor events will be presented locally and in other communities across the state and will be scheduled about every week, organizers said.
The first concert will be a week from tonight with a program on the Hewitt Pantaleoni Memorial Concert Series. The Jazz Composers & Improvisors Project will be in the Sanford Auditorium of the Instructional Resources Center at SUNY Oneonta at 7:30 p.m. Tuesday, March 23.
The first day of spring is Saturday.
The Catskill Conservatory has presented more than 3,500 concerts since its start.
Carleton Clay, president and music director, said the conservatory was his idea, and he and Charles Schneider founded the organization in 1974.
The Conservatory began as a teaching and performance organization, but soon turned to the production of chamber music programs spotlighting the work of living American composers as its main activity, the release said.
Clay said 27 individuals and their families were invited to move to the area and participate in the Conservatory during its history and 16 remain. The mission was to present high-quality music programs, he said, and the organization's programs have been presented throughout the state and, during the early years, on tours of the eastern part of the nation.
Clay said Schneider became involved in the founding and development of the Glimmerglass Opera a few months after the formation of the Conservatory and still has a role.
Clay, a retired music professor from SUNY Oneonta, said with about 25 events planned, the total festival programming may surpass the goal of 35. The festival idea started developing last year, gained steam in the past three weeks and was spurred into reality by $5,000 from donors who wish to remain unidentified, he said.
The gift likely would cover about a third of the festival's budget, he said, and venues, activities and other funding sources are being identified.
``It's all coming together,'' Clay said.
Spring Music Festival programs will be free, continuing a tradition of admission-free events, Clay said. Since the beginning, 90 percent of the Conservatory's appearances were admission-free, he said, but in 2000, the organization announced that all its concerts would be free.
``The only way to make the arts truly democratic is to ultimately eliminate the admission factor,'' Clay said Monday. Access to Conservatory programs has been made possible because of federal and state funding, and through support from corporations and individual donors and volunteers, Clay said.
More than half of the festival events will be in the Conservatory's home area, which is centered in Otsego, Delaware, Chenango, Schoharie and Herkimer counties, organizers said. Additional funding will come from the New York State Council on the Arts and corporate, foundation and individual donors, they said, and a schedule of events will be published in the near future.
``I'm proud of what we've achieved,'' Clay said Monday. ``I'm looking forward to going on from here.''
The concert at the State University College at Oneonta next week will feature jazz musicians and composers, including program coordinator and bassist John Davey, tenor saxophonist Jonathan Lorentz, guitarist Dan Muniz and drummer Sadiq Abdushahid. This concert is free and open to the public with funding from the Public Events Committee, CUAC, The SUCO Music Department and the Catskill Conservatory, with assistance from the New York State Council on the Arts.
For more information, call 436-3419.
