Red Cedar Chamber Music is hitting the national airways today on the nationally syndicated radio show Performance Today. Click the link below to listen on Performance Today’s website.
The show is also broadcast in Iowa on Iowa Public Radio today from 5-7 p.m.
Red Cedar Chamber Music has been working with social media experts Greg Epstein and Andrew Nicholas of Qwest’s Social Media Launchpad program for almost two months and we are making big strides in blogging and learning how to use the numerous social media resources available to us.
Qwest’s Social Media Launchpad program is helping Red Cedar Chamber Music optimize our ability to use social media. This is a win-win situation because we get 3 months of personal, one-on-one consulting with Qwest’s social media experts for free (how cool is that!) and Qwest develops an organic online presence because Red Cedar Chamber Music has agreed to blog on four separate occasions to give our honest opinion about our experience with Qwest’s Social Media Launchpad program. This is my second post about working with Qwest – see also April 4th blog.
We are very pleased with Qwest’s program and have found Greg and Andrew to be extremely professional, knowledgeable, personable and patient in explaining what to do and in walking us through the process. We have weekly phone meetings with them and they are also available to us via email or phone if we have questions in the interim.
Here is what we and Qwest have accomplished to date:
Greg from Qwest created several social media accounts for us and designed those social media sites to be similar in appearance to our existing website. He also linked these sites together so that any time we post a blog it posts to both our Twitter and Facebook accounts.
Jan Boland, Red Cedar Chamber Music’s executive director and webmaster has modified our website to incorporate links to our blog and I have been active learning how to blog using WordPress. See my first posted blog (May 10) about our ongoing project with Perhaps Gilead, a newly commissioned work by Harvey Sollberger for flute, guitar and string quartet, that we just premiered on May 21st and May 22nd.
My next Red Cedar Chamber Music blog will be about recording Sollberger’s Perhaps Gilead at the end of May for our 10th compact disc on the Fleur de Son Classics label.
I have to sign off now as it is time for a phone meeting with Andrew from Qwest’s Social Media Launchpad program. He is going to help me connect to other chamber music organizations through Facebook and I hope to learn more about inviting my blog readers to leave comments on this site.
John Dowdall,
Artistic Director and Guitarist
Click on this photo of Red Cedar Chamber Music musicians and composer of Perhaps Gilead to read Gazette article by Diana Nollen
Get tickets:
May 21st & May 22nd Setting Sun to Rising Moon tickets available in advance or at the door for both concerts.
Tickets in advance: Mail check by Thursday May 19th to –
Red Cedar Chamber Music
PO Box 154
Marion, IA 52302
Tickets will be held for you at the door.
Tickets at the door: Show up at the concert site 45 minutes prior to the performance.
Tickets price:
This is it! My first blog about Red Cedar Chamber Music and oh my is this an exciting time!
We are just 11 days away from the official premiere weekend of Perhaps Gilead, a terrific new composition by Marion, Iowa native and internationally renowned composer Harvey Sollberger.
Perhaps Gilead is inspired by the companion novels Home and Gilead written by Pulitzer Prize-winning Iowa novelist Marilynne Robinson. Red Cedar Chamber Music commissioned Perhaps Gilead and will be performing it in an upcoming series of concerts called Setting Sun to Rising Moon, culminating with official premiere concerts at First Presbyterian Church at 310 5th St. SE in Cedar Rapids at 8 p.m. on Saturday May 21, 2011 and at St. Raphael Orthodox Church at 722 E. College St. in Iowa City at 2 p.m. on Sunday May 22, 2011.
Order tickets:
Media Coverage: I will give you some of the highlights of this amazing all-Iowa project here, but check out this terrific media coverage to get the full flavor of the project
Click photo of Diana Nollen to read her great, in-depth article that beautifully describes the Perhaps Gilead project and lists all the performances! (Cedar Rapids Gazette April 10, 2011)
Click on Harvey Sollberger's photo to hear Iowa Public Radio's story of Perhaps Gilead for All Things Considered and Morning Edition by John Pemble
Click on Harvey Sollberger's photo to hear an interview with rehearsal out takes by videographer John Richard
Click on musician's photo to see a video of Perhaps Gilead performed at Grinnell College featuring a section from the third movement Fantasy-Potpourri: Sunday Afternoon Music at Reverend Boughton's (4-22-11)
Click on photo to hear KCCK Setting Sun to Rising Moon Interview on 5-12-11 by George Dorman
Click photo of Laird Addis to read his article – Iowan Sollberger composes 'Perhaps Gilead', which appeared in the Iowa City Press Citizen on 5-1-11
Click photo of Carey J. Hahn to read his article – Marion composer to bring to life Pulitzer Prize-winning novel, which appeared in the Marion Times on 3-21-11
So, what makes this project so special and an all-Iowa treat?
Our Iowa composer:
• Harvey became a leading exponent of contemporary composition and expanded instrumental techniques on the flute while at Columbia University where he co-founded (with Charles Wuorinen) the Group for Contemporary Music in New York at Columbia University in 1962 and directed that ensemble for 27 years.
• He was born in Cedar Rapids but was raised and attended elementary through high school in Marion and then attended the University of Iowa.
• He has had numerous major commissions but is recently retired from University of CA San Diego.
• He now lives in Strawberry Point, Iowa and is Red Cedar Chamber Music’s composer in residence.
The Iowa Inspiration of Perhaps Gilead : Red Cedar Chamber Music commissioned Harvey Sollberger to write a 15 minute work for flute, guitar and string quartet and he became so immersed in the project he wrote us a 30 minute work .
• Harvey became engrossed with the Iowa-based novels Home & Gilead by Pulitzer Prize-winning novelist Marilynne Robinson, who teaches at the Iowa Writer’s Workshop
• His new musical work interprets the philosophical and emotional content of these novels in soundscape.
• Harvey believes Perhaps Gilead is the best piece he has created in over 50 years of composing
The Iowa Author and Novels that Inspired Perhaps Gilead :
Home & Gilead are companion novels by a renowned Iowa author Marilynne Robinson about her fictional small town of Gilead, Iowa. Set in the 1950s, Home & Gilead deal with important social & philosophical issues ie. slavery/integration as seen through the eyes of two ministers in the town who are lifelong friends
The Iowa Performers :
All 6 performers of Perhaps Gilead are well-known Iowa musicians
The Iowa Sponsorship and Collaboration :
Oh, and once the premiere concerts are completed, we get a one – week break and then we record Perhaps Gilead, which will be released on our 10th Fleur de Son Classics compact disc.
But that is the subject of another blog.
Stay tuned!!
John Dowdall
Artistic Director
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