CityMusic Cleveland's March performances put focus on refugees

Once a year, CityMusic Cleveland devotes a program to a social issue, to heighten community awareness. In past seasons, the ensemble has explored genocide and bullying. This year’s project, “Fleeing,” focuses on refugees who have journeyed to Cleveland to begin new lives after years of displacement and suffering. CityMusic Cleveland is bringing attention to the topic through a series of concerts in March, some of which will include performances by refugees.

To celebrate refugees in Cleveland, CityMusic Cleveland commissioned Dan Visconti, graduate of the Cleveland Institute of Music and winner of the Rome Prize, to compose the percussion concerto, “Roots to Branches.” Featuring instruments from many countries, it will be performed under the direction of James Feddeck, former assistant conductor of the Cleveland Orchestra, March 12–16 at venues throughout Greater Cleveland, including Cleveland Heights.

Visconti’s concerto will share the program with other music relevant to the theme of hope and courage: Cambodian-American composer Chinary Ung’s “Khse Buon” (“Four Strings”) for solo cello and Beethoven’s Symphony No. 3, known as the “Eroica.”

The project has been in the works since 2012, when Eugenia Strauss, CityMusic Cleveland’s executive director, began to explore the possibility of a project about refugees with Rebecca Schweigert Mayhew, the orchestra’s principal oboe and director of community engagement.

“Cleveland Heights has a sizeable refugee community,” said Strauss. “Every time . . . we bring up the topic of refugees living among us, people are completely surprised. This whole project, with the help of Cuyahoga Arts and Culture and the Cleveland Foundation is to . . . make people aware of the thousands and thousands of people who live among us and nobody really knows anything about.”

The Cleveland Foundation directed Strauss and Mayhew to the Refugees Service Collaborative, which comprises 13 local organizations that help individuals and families make the transition from distant refugee camps to new lives in the Great Cleveland.

“We were intrigued by fact that they were trying to bring the story of the refugees to the people through a different medium,” said Eileen Wilson, director of refugee ministries at Building Hope in the City, a Lutheran organization.

“Our goal is to increase awareness of Cleveland's refugees, and to highlight the positive cultural and economic contributions they make to our city,” said Mayhew. “There is enormous pressure on the refugees to assimilate, learn English and become Americanized. But it is very important for us—and them—to remember that the language, art, dance and music they bring with them are treasures to both of us.”

Mayhew has invited refugees from Bhutan, Burma, Burundi, Congo, Iraq, Nepal, Russia, Somalia and Sudan to perform songs and dances of their native lands, together with members of CityMusic Cleveland chamber music groups, in a series of chamber music concerts also planned for March. Titled “Journeys of Hope: They Did Not Choose to Come,” they’ll perform the concert in Cleveland Heights on Monday, March 3, at 7 p.m. at the Lee Road Library, 2345 Lee Road.

On Wednesday, March 12, at 7.30 p.m., CityMusic Cleveland will perform the world premiere of “Roots to Branches” at Fairmount Presbyterian Church, 2757 Fairmount Blvd.

For more information about CityMusic concerts, go to www.citymusiccleveland.org or call 216-321-8273. All concerts are free, and no tickets are required. To make a recording of Visconti’s new work possible, funds are being solicited through donations on the crowdfunding website Indiegogo (www.indiegogo.com/projects/music-celebrating-refugees).