North America

Kazuki Yamada leads The Cleveland Orchestra in Edward Elgar’s First Symphony. Earlier that day, members of the NA Branch engaged with the maestro in a delightful, wide-ranging conversation.

Members of the North American Branch gathered in Cleveland April 24 to 27 for their Annual Conference. Following dinner, the well-known Elgarian scholar Charles McGuire, professor at Oberlin Conservatory of Music, impressively set the scene for Saturday’s concert of Elgar’s Symphony in A-flat.

Friday morning saw us at Severance Hall, where the vivacious Andria Hoy, archivist of The Cleveland Orchestra, took us on a behind-the-curtain tour of the renowned Hall while providing detailed histories of both the Orchestra and the venue. Next, we headed over to the nearby Cleveland Museum of Art, whose massive façade displays two huge banners framing the doors: ‘For the Benefit of / All The People Forever’. Cheered by these inspiring words, we lunched at the CMA café, then entered the Museum proper, guided by a docent eager to show us works she thought everyone should see on their first (and maybe only) visit. It was a sumptuous visual feast!

Members of the Elgar Society and the British American Chamber of Commerce at the reception hosted by BACC to welcome the Elgarians to Cleveland.

The high point of late Friday afternoon was a reception hosted by the British American Chamber of Commerce. Following words of welcome from Bob Boyce (BACC treasurer) — and despite the current unsettled state of governmental relations — members of both groups mingled amiably as good friends. A mini-bus took us out of the city to Lake Erie College for an organ recital by Ken Cowan, professor at Rice University. The intimate setting was the perfect setting for the college’s magnificent E.M. Skinner organ and the organist to shine in the featured work, Elgar’s Organ Sonata. It was a pleasure to hear this infrequently performed piece played by a musician whose special bond with the work was obvious.

Saturday was another day filled with highlights. We enjoyed a lengthy conversation with guest conductor Kazuki Yamada, whose comments again and again showed the depth and intensity of his love of music. Among the topics were his career beginnings, future plans, his directorship of the CBSO, and an unforgettable climb to the top of the Malvern Hills, revealing a vista he recalls often when conducting Elgar. To thank the maestro for giving so generously of his time, Arthur Reynolds presented Elgar in America and The Best of Me. The maestro was delighted, saying he now looked forward to his flight home so he could start reading.

That afternoon, Lani Spahr offered an absorbing presentation ‘Elgar Remastered: How I Did it’.  Lani provided the technical details that enabled us to understand how he achieved such remarkable transformations of original recordings filled with ill-defined music submerged beneath the background noise of (as he put it) ‘frying sausages’ into genuinely listenable tracks.

Seven o’clock saw us at Severance Hall for an engaging pre-concert talk by Caroline Oltmanns, professor of piano at Youngstown State University. Then, seated in a hall we now considered very much our own, we reveled in the sound of the Clevelanders under Maestro Yamada, who offered a memorable, often thrilling account of Elgar’s First Symphony.

Sunday morning was reserved for packing, breakfast, and an official branch meeting, at which Arthur Reynolds was re-elected as chairman and sincerely thanked for all his efforts that resulted in such an outstanding conference.