By Anne W. Semmes
When it comes to great classical music, Mary Radcliffe is a town champion. As president of the Greenwich Symphony Orchestra (GSO) for the last 37 years – she presided over a rare canceling in April of the season ending concert of the great music of Paul Hindemith, Victor Herbert, and Hector Berlioz. “The Greenwich High School had a problem with hosting 82 musicians,” Mary shares from her Riverside home. “They could not do it with the COVID-19 virus.”
Mary is hoping the GSO’s 62nd season will kick off this September, offering a program of the great music of William Walton, Richard Wagner, Maurice Ravel, and Vaughan Williams.
“Everything is so shaky – you can’t plan anything,” says Mary, stalwart at 92 years. She has regularly hosted a meeting of her board members at her home, but they are choosing a more protective zoom meeting. How then can she give them brochures of the upcoming season to “hand out to their friends?” She has, she says “plenty of room for everyone to be 6-feet apart, with two adjoining rooms and an adjoining porch.” But Mary is “a law-abiding citizen,” she notes. “Whatever the Governor tells me to do I do.”
Mary has been a “can do” person from her first arrival to our shores, on yes, May 8, 1946, as Mary de Csepel, age 17, after being placed on a Portuguese cargo ship by her mother in Lisbon where her family escaped to from Budapest, Hungary, post WWII. Steeped in music in her growing up years, Mary found her way to Oberlin Conservatory of Music at Oberlin College in Ohio. With her knowledge of music history, music theory, and piano playing, she was welcomed as sophomore, received her degree in piano, obtained her masters at Manhattan School of Music, then taught piano for 30 years.
“Music has a lot of dimensions. It’s also fascinating – full of all kind of surprises. We’ve had 400 years of great music.1685 brought Johann Sebastian Bach, Handel and Scarlatti. Beethoven was born in 1770. We’re still celebrating his 250th this year. There is no one like Bach. I love music of different eras.”
Did Mary know of pianist, teacher, author David Dubal, whose weekly program on piano greats, “Reflections from the Keyboard,” I find captivating on classical WQXR radio? Yes, she knows of him. She listens to music from her CD collection. She once told me her best music listening time was playing CDs in her car. I recall visiting her years ago and hearing a stream of classical music she said came from Hungarian radio 24/7, that is still a steady part of her life.
David Dubal recently featured a memorable two-part series on “The Colorful life and Music of Gabriel Fauré.” Dubal has the gift of bringing alive the life and music of the great piano composers, and leaves you with great quotes such as Fauré’s, “For me, art, and especially music, exist to elevate us as far as possible above everyday existence.”
But jazz piano is another great escape! Thank you, Bennie Wallace of BackCountry Jazz for sending me a video of great jazz piano player Ahmad Jamal, playing “Poinciana.” Wallace, an esteemed saxophone player, has entertained Greenwich jazz lovers for years with his concerts featuring stellar jazz artists at St. Bede’s Chapel in Greenwich.
Fans were looking forward to his annual June BackCountry Jazz fundraiser set to be held at Indian Harbor Yacht Club, but realities of COVID-19 has brought a cancellation. All while Bennie’s inspiring BackCountry Jazz tuition-free “After-School Program” in Bridgeport has been, since March, “engaging, enriching and elevating,” in Bennie’s words, “the lives of under-served students with one-on-one virtual lessons and group workshops throughout the week.”
That fundraiser was to bring support to that After-School Program’s group of some 20 dedicated jazz masters, music professionals, and university professors giving their time, says Bennie, “when they have also lost their performing incomes of tours and concerts.” Add to that, Bennie’s to-be 10th “Summer Music Camp” held at the University of Bridgeport now likely to be held online. “Now more than ever,” notes Bennie, “our programs are strengthening the importance of teamwork, creativity, self-expression, commitment, and courage.”
But let’s return to that Ahmad Jamal “Poinciana” video that Bennie shared. You’ll find it at https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cytUz9KkK9M. It has a Bennie connection. “This performance features my friend, and BackCountry Jazz favorite, Herlin Riley on drums,” tells Bennie. “We’ve been fortunate to have him on nearly all our BackCountry concerts for the last 10 years.”
Jamal’s Poinciana arrangement has inspired pianists for over half a century,” according to Bennie, who heard it played by a local trio in his hometown of Chattanooga when he was in high school. And likewise, as a Memphis high schooler, I was introduced to Ahmad Jamal, by my jazz-loving family, along with those other great jazz pianists, Errol Garner, Oscar Peterson and Dave Brubeck.
Listening to that Jamal arrangement one has to start dancing and remembering those happy days of sharing a dance floor in the dim light with others caught up in that rhythm.
Those wishing to donate to BackCountry Jazz can email jeanette@backcountryjazz.org.
