Join us for our final summer 2021 concert: Music for a New World!
Summer is winding down, and the PIP is looking back on the three wonderful concerts we have had in our summer season and looking forward to the last of them on September 12th with the theme "Music for a New World".
We are pleased to announce that PIP's September concert is being underwritten by the Erie Community Foundation, by way of a Community Impact Grant, recognizing the PIP's efforts to help create a more inclusive, diverse, and equitable society with its gift of music for everyone, regardless of their ability to pay for a ticket, and its opportunities to play and hear music from many places and times, often far off the beaten path of the 'standard' concert repertoire.
We offered that opportunity in our July concert, which featured ravishingly
beautiful music most of us had never heard before, from composers most of us had never heard of – and left us longing for more of it!
September 12:
Louis Nicolia, violin, James Pearson, cello, and Sonny Froman, drums, will bring us a program ranging widely from 19th-century Vienna to the streets of New York, to the mountains of Appalachia, featuring musicians from Beethoven's teacher to Moondog.
This month's trio will continue that theme with 'Music for a New World: Music Old and New from the Old World and the New'. Louis Nicolia designed it from his own dual life as a concert violinist with the Erie Philharmonic as well as the PIP, and his second career as champion of the music of Moondog (Louis Hardin), the highly innovative and creative street musician of New York and Munster. Sonny Froman, drummer for many of the greatest popular musicians and TV programs of the last half-century, will have his own solo space in one of Moondog's compositions. James Pearson will be half of some lovely classical duos, and also offer 'Cello Dreams' of Peter Sculthorpe, which draws on Aboriginal music of the 'Everwhen', the primeval age of the ancestors. American fiddle tunes are included, as well as some Russian music using folk themes.
If you'd like to attend this event virtually, watch the livestream here.
People sometimes shy away from the unfamiliar in music, as in some other areas of life. The craving for 'what's new', so prevalent in our society, often doesn't seem to extend to high art. But the experience of PIP audiences this summer would be enough to convince anyone that there are treasures beyond price in voices seldom heard and musical forms we never thought of before. The compositions of women, people of color, 'folk' artists, and simply people from parts of the world remote from us, need to be lifted up and valued at their true worth – and these casual, informal summer concerts have been a showcase of the riches to be found for the looking. We are grateful for the insights and perseverance of our artists, who have brought these riches to our knowledge and enjoyment, and invite all of you to come on the 12th and sample the latest courses at this feast.
The support of the Erie Community Foundation for this concert and others has brought us particular joy since it is a vote of confidence in music's ability to be a force for change in our society, and the PIP's ability to present that music in concerts for literally everyone. This generous financial gift is equally a gift to our community since it enables us to continue the casual, informal, interactive mode of these summer concerts into the fall and winter seasons. We hope that, by what we play and what we say, our efforts may indeed help lay the foundation for a new world, in which old oppressions and old ignorance may make way for a more just, more inclusive, and more diverse society, in which the contributions of all are welcomed and enjoyed by all.
