“It was a wonderful experience to meet someone who was so gentle and unassuming,” says Luanne Fondell, performance arts director of the Dawson-Boyd Arts Association. Pianist Robert McDonald accompanied Midori. “Both were very curious about the community and the school,” Fondell says.
The once-in-a-lifetime performance was held in the Dawson-Boyd High School auditorium, which seats 700 people. She played selections that included pieces composed by Ludwig Von Beethoven and Antonin Dvorak.
“It was amazing, phenomenal,” says Kristyn Wicht, who also attends the Covenant church and serves on the association’s volunteer board of directors.
Midori appeared as part of the association’s six-year-old music series that has attracted artists such as Butch Thompson, who was the featured pianist for Garrison Keillor’s Prairie Home Companion for two decades, and trumpeter Maynard Ferguson.
The classical violinist became an overnight sensation 25 years ago at the age of 11 when she was a surprise guest at the New York Philharmonic’s annual New Year’s Eve concert. She was named a “Messenger of Peace” last month by Ban Ki-Moon, secretary general of the United Nations.
Her interests are as local as they are global. In 2001, she used the monetary award she received as part of her Avery Fisher Prize to found Partners in Performance (PIP). The foundation aims to promote classical music through recitals and concerts in communities that otherwise would not have access to such events.
The program awarded the arts association a grant to subsidize the concert’s cost so that just a nominal administrative fee was required. “There’s no way we could have afforded something like this,” says Wicht.
Communities submit grant requests and must be located at least 100 miles from a cultural center and committed to enhancing the arts. Tickets cost only $12 for adults and $6 for students, far less than the cost in large metropolitan areas, which can easily cost more than $100.
All proceeds must be invested locally because another PIP goal is to help promote classical music in schools at a time when music programs are being eliminated.
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More than 140 of the 500 students in the Dawson-Boyd School District participate in its orchestral program. “The district has made a tremendous commitment to keep the program strong in the face of budget cuts and declining enrollment,” Fondell says.
Dawson submitted its grant almost two years ago, Fondell says. She could hardly believe what she heard when she pressed the play button on her voice mail a year ago and learned that the community had been chosen as one of only four sites in the country to host a concert. “There was no one else in the office so I just stood there screaming,” Fondell recalls, laughing.
Peggy Crosby Pederson, another attendee of the Covenant church, also serves on the association’s board of directors.
