The effects of the January 12 catastrophe in Haiti still reverberate. Berklee College of Music reaches out to the country with the Berklee Concert for Haiti on February 23. Special guest musicians from Open Access to Music for Children (OAMEC), a Haitian community program from Youth and Family Enrichment Services, is part of this fundraiser event that starts at 8:15 pm at the Berklee Performance Center, 136 Massachusetts Ave., Boston.

by Stephen Brophy

Last night the folks at the Handel and Haydn Society put together a sweet little package of Monteverdi and madrigals, spiced up with some Shakespearean wit, to help us celebrate Valentine’s Day. This show, Zest for Love, will be repeated tomorrow at Sanders Theatre in Cambridge, at 3 p.m.

The Society called back Laurence Cummings, who had previously conducted Monteverdi’s Orfeo for them, to put this confection together. He called on some of the core members of the H&H chorus, including Paul Guttry (whose bass voice stood out particularly for this listener), and 5 players of stringed instruments (including a theorbo) for a program that moved back and forth from the lachrymose to the playful, touching on most other love-inspired emotions along the way. This group was joined by a pair of actors, Nikkole Salter and Lee Aaron Rosen, who delivered the Shakespeare (sonnets, soliloquoys, and one duet from Taming of the Shrew).

Cummings challenged the audience soon after the start of the proceedings to forego their usual part of the ritual – applause – until the end of each half. This turns out to be more difficult than it sounds, because musical performances so often raise us to a state of emotional stimulation that can only be released by vigorously slapping our hands against each other. But we managed.

The period represented by the music chosen, mid-1500s to mid-1600s, falls outside of the Baroque/Classical realm on which the Society usually focuses its energy, The concert location, in Jordan Hall, contributed to the relative intimacy that the musical selections and the pared-down ensemble successfully established with its audience. And the informational notes in the program, composed by Teresa Neff, provided enough contextual information to make anyone who read them feel more completely a part of the whole event. All in all, an evening that any music lover would deem a success.

[Watch for an interview with H&H Musicologist Teresa Neff to be posted here in the next few days.]

Northeastern student dies in NY car crash
Huntington News/January 2, 2010

A Northeastern student died in an early-morning car crash in upstate New York this morning, according to New York TV station WIVB.

Scott Herr, an 18-year-old freshman engineering major, died in the 1:15 a.m. crash in Elma, N.Y., which police believe was caused by “a mixture of snow and speed,” according to WIVB.

Herr was ejected from the front seat during the crash. Three other teens were in the car at the time, including a 15-year-old girl who entered Erie County Medical Center’s Trauma Intensive Care Unit listed in critical condition, according to WIVB. The driver, 18-year-old Ashley Hill, and another girl were not seriously injured in the crash. Hill attends Northeasthern, according to Facebook, and was identified by WIVB as Herr’s girlfriend.

Huntington-news.com will have ongoing coverage of the tragic crash.

Iranian Filmmakers Keep Focus on the Turmoil
By MICHAEL SLACKMAN/NYT – January 3, 2010

[The Boston Festival of Film from Iran starts this Friday, Jan. 8, at the MFA, and runs for 9 days. -ed]
CAIRO — Iran’s government cannot silence the filmmakers.

It keeps trying. Films are censored. Directors are prohibited to leave the country and prohibited to return home, forced to cancel projects and threatened with punishment if their films are too probing or too critical of life in the Islamic Republic.

But the films keep coming, and so do the filmmakers.

Bahman Ghobadi’s latest work, “No One Knows About Persian Cats,” is banned in Iran but is being passed around for free, offering a searing portrait of life through the prism of a vibrant underground music scene. The movie has songs with lyrics like these: “This is Tehran, a city where everything you see entices you, entices your soul till you realize that you are not human, just trash.”

The film took the Jury’s Special Prize at the 2009 Cannes Film Festival, turning the red carpet of an international film festival into a platform to draw attention to the political crisis in Iran. Similar events occurred in Montreal, Berlin, Nuremberg, Mumbai and London, where Iranian filmmakers — by either their presence or their government-forced absence — have used their celebrity to keep the public focused on the turmoil that has roiled Iran since the presidential election in June, which opponents of the government have denounced as fraudulent.

First Person – Back to school
By Christina Pazzanese – January 3, 2010

Between hit records and world tours, Wyclef Jean, 37, Grammy Award-winning producer/rapper and Haitian activist, has added Berklee College of Music student to his repertoire.

You’re already successful. Why go back to school? I remember being 17 years old and not doing too well in school, and they were like “Yo, what you want to do?” and I was like “I’m almost finished. I want to go to Berklee.” Then I got with the Fugees, so Berklee was always in the back of my head. The reason I’m back is I’ve been doing a lot of scoring films. I wanted to study theory.

What has it been like so far? They interviewed me to see how serious I was. And my commitment is driving three hours up here [from New York] to make sure that I get the proper courses. The instructors, they worked with me in the sense of knowing how crazy my schedule is. But there’s really no shortcut to getting a degree. I’m struggling a little bit with my online classes. I have to find a way next semester to be on campus a little more. Despite my crazy schedule, it might take me a little longer, but I’ll really feel satisfied when I’m done.

What’s your impression of Boston? I’m no stranger to Boston. My brother actually went to Eastern Nazarene College and I used to come see him. And then he went on to Boston University. One of the places I do want to go — because I’m all about helping kids change their lives — I want to get out to Mattapan and have a talk with kids in the different parts of Boston where it’s kind of rough.

BY JOEL HARTE

A music therapy program at the Peterborough Senior Center is helping seniors rediscover their inner divas. Since October, a group of students at the Berklee College of Music has been running sing-alongs at the center, giving the seniors a new way to connect with each other and with the outside world.

“There is something about music and older people that affects them more than talking,” said Penina Adelman, director of the Peterborough Senior Center, located on Jersey Street in the West Fens. “You can see their facial expressions change.” The Berklee students come to the center once a week, and pass out shakers, maracas and other instruments to the seniors. They run through a song first to get the group warmed up, and then the singing begins.

Gloria Platt, a senior at the center who is a self-professed lover of “the schmaltzy stuff,” said the seniors usually sing classics that are well known, such as “Puff the Magic Dragon.” When asked about the popularity of the program, Platt said, “To be perfectly frank… it’s better attended than 90 percent of the groups.”

The sing-along’s popularity is partly a result of the quality of the music therapy program at Berklee. Students are required to think about music therapy clinically, which means that it is goal-oriented. “A lot of this music therapy stuff is about goals and focusing on abilities, rather than disabilities,” said Eddie Konopsaek, a music therapy major at Berklee. The students are taught to design therapy programs based on their observations of a client’s needs.

Peggy Codding, a Berklee professor in music therapy who runs the sing-alongs at the senior center, defines music therapy as “the use of music to restore, maintain, or enhance quality of life.” To do so, music therapists, who must be approved by the Certification Board for Music Therapists, first assess a client, then evaluate goals and set up a treatment program.

Music isn’t used as a blunt object to beat away any and all problems, however.

We are very much what you call an evidence-based profession,” said Codding, emphasizing that strategies differ widely based on a client’s abilities. For example, a music therapist could assist a stroke victim by helping him or her play a guitar with his or her weak hand, or try to get someone walking again by playing music to help him or her stroll on beat.

While it seems difficult to come up with a new strategy for each client, the students in the program at Berklee are, Codding said, “trained very heavily in improvisation.” They know how to play many instruments, and know many styles of music and the theory behind them. That attention to detail has had real results at the senior center. Certain seniors who were having trouble making friendships have “just come to life during this,” Adelman, the center’s director, said.

One of the reasons for this is that the program is interactive. “Among each other, just playing in a group, they’re forced to stay in the same rhythm, sing the same song,” Adelman said. She said the students who run the program are performers, “but this is focused on the bond between performer and audience.”

The interaction has created at least two fans of the students at the senior center. Platt noticed that people are more upbeat and energetic during and after the sessions, and Adelman said, “There are people for which this is the high point of the week.”

For the students, however, the high points are mixed with lots of hard work. Konopsaek, the Berklee music therapy major, said students learn the science but also have real-world experiences to back it up, which is what makes the Berklee program special.

It’s the singing, however, that gets Platt going. “I couldn’t live life without music. Music is my life,” she said.

Joel Harte is an undergraduate student at the Northeastern University School of Journalism.

This article first appeared in the December 2009 paper edition of the Fenway News.

By Kaileigh Higgins

Weekdays you can catch Ricardo Slevira walking along Queensbury Street with his violin on his back and a skip in his step on his way home from teaching at Boston Latin School.

Slevira, a longtime Fenway resident better known to his students as “Maestro,” has spent most of his career sharing his love of music with others, and will take the next step to share it with others in upcoming summer seasons. He recently won a grant from the Fenway Mission Hill Neighborhood Trust to produce a summer concert series for the next six years in Fenway’s Ramler Park and Mission Hill’s Fitzgerald Park.

Slevira, who can be seen giving a summer concert series of his own at his Fenway victory garden three times a day, practicing and playing outside for whoever is around, is excited about his most recent community music endeavor.

“I’m very proud to say I’m a music director for two city parks,” Slevira said. “I get a big chance to influence the neighborhood. I get to provide some deserved therapy and culture for these neighborhoods.”

Before he began his journey to bring culture to the neighborhood, Slevira said, he was just a hyperactive kid singing and dancing in Montana. His parents divorced when he was young, and his mother, whom he credits for his love and dedication to music, raised Slevira and his two siblings.

“I remember sitting on the kitchen floor entranced by it, by music,” Slevira said. “Entranced by how she was happy singing, the song she was singing was happy; it’s like all of the sudden the world was changed and it was happy, just by singing.”

In the fourth grade, when he was invited to play the violin, he became dedicated to his craft and truly competitive. He continued his love of music throughout his high school years and then decided to continue his studies in college. He earned the Presidential Music Scholarship at DePauw University in Indiana.

“Music was a huge part of my life,” Slevira said. “I decided, ‘Sure! I’ll go to music school!’ ”
He headed east to the Boston Conservatory to earn a graduate degree in music performance. He moved into the Fenway area in 1989, and set up his victory garden there, which he has had since.

Slevira spent the next 15 years as a freelance musician, besides teaching private lessons and running grant-financed programs for inner-city kids. “I was really teaching the gamut,” Slevira said.

He ran several programs throughout Boston, teaching music to inner-city kids. He had originally received a grant from the Boston Conservatory Development Office to run a program in four schools for four years. “I found that (the kids) all wanted to work,” Slevira said. “They felt special.”

After four years, the program ended for lack of financing. Slevira went on to the Blackstone School in the South End, teaching fourth-graders to play classical music. Slevira gave them the opportunity to play for many audiences, trying to expose his mission and work to the community.

“My motto is ‘Viability is gotten through visibility’,” Slevira said. “So the more people saw us, the more we were of value.”

He then taught private lessons in suburbs such as Lexington and Belmont, but he still thought that something was missing.

“I missed the inner city,” Slevira said. “I missed the feisty, brave attitudes. That’s all they were asking for, an opportunity to make some music. So they fit me really well.”

It was also during this time that Slevira began to play for the Boston Ballet Orchestra, which he said was a “dream come true.”

Slevira was then approached by Boston Latin School to become its interim director of orchestras for one year. His position has since become permanent. In his eight years there, the program has tripled in size, the students have won gold medals, and they have performed on the Symphony Hall stage.

For his next endeavors, at Ramler and Fitzgerald parks, Slevira will be putting on four concerts during the summer months, with a program put on by musicians from his company, Ambiance Music, in addition to guest artists. Encouraged and supported by a friend and fellow member of the Fenway Civic Association, Freddie Viekley, Slevira has received financing for the next six summers, and hopes to garner additional money and support from Fenway businesses.

“I want consistency and tradition, just like the Esplanade,” Slevira said. “I want (the) Ramler and Fitzgerald Park music series to become (a) tradition that these neighbors know about, they talk about, extend to their friends, bring people in, reward themselves, treat themselves.”

Slevira plans to be a part of those neighborhood traditions for a while. “I love the Fenway, I wouldn’t live anywhere else. I plan on staying here for a very, very long time,” he said.

Kaileigh Higgins is an undergraduate student in the Northeastern University School of Journalism.

Handel & Hadyn conductor Jaap ter Linden.
Photo courtesy of Handel & Hadyn.

By Jonathan Kim

The jovial Jaap ter Linden seemed to win the Fenway crowd in his first appearance with the Handel and Hadyn orchestra.

Roughly a hundred attended the intimate concert at Jordan Hall. The small orchestra, clustered together in the soft light of the golden lighted stage sounded magnificent in what Linden called one of the most beautiful concert halls in the world.

I had a wonderful time, despite being grossly underdressed and without a date, and can say that at this particular concert, sitting closer to the stage is absolutely worth the added cost. The strings projected quite loudly, but you had to be quite close to truly appreciate the oboe and bassoon players.

Concertmaster Daniel Stepner, first chair violin, delivered a spectacular performance. He and Linda Quan, second chair, exuded a chemistry of playfulness in the movements that they shared.

A Baroque Gift will be played again tomorrow afternoon at 3 p.m. in Jordan Hall. Tickets can be purchased online or through the Jordan Hall Box Office at 617-585-1260.

The Program:

1. Concerto Grosso in C Major, op. 3 no. 12, “Christmas Concerto” — Francesco Manfredini
2. Concerto Grosso in B-flat Major, op. 3 no. 2 — George Frideric Handel
3. Armonico Tributo, Sonata V in G Major — Georg Muffat
4. Suite (Overture) no. 2 in B Minor, BWV 1067 — J.S. Bach
5. Concerto Grosso, op.6 no.8 G Minor, “Christmas Concerto” — Arcangelo Corelli