Greetings from Limbe, Haiti - August 17, 2022
So, it is early in the morning and I am sitting in the shade of a huge mango tree waiting for breakfast to be prepared. Today it is “lam veritab” or bread fruit, one of my very favorite things to eat here in Haiti. It can be boiled, grilled, fried, dried, made into juice and even pounded into a very healthy flour that can be used to make gluten-free bread or cakes… All quite delicious. This morning we will have it with a sardine sauce - yum!
The Cemuchca Annex Limbe camp is almost at an end and students are super excited for the concerts that will happen this weekend. They have been working very hard and have made a lot of progress! This is not only the first camp the CEMUCHCA -Limbe Annex has had, it is also a “sleepover” camp - multiplying difficulties that were all handled expertly by the dedicated staff.
Though I was VERY disappointed not to be able to get to the Dessaix-Baptiste Music School summer camp in Jacmel - the first time since 2001 that I have been in Haiti and not gone to this wonderful program - being in Limbe has had its own rewards. Tchoupy Hylaris, conducting the orchestra this week, master teacher and master luthier, has been doing remarkable work!
Here is a link to a video of a youngster who has only been playing for TWO days - wow! The program wants to get strings off the ground and Tchoupy has been doing a lot of pedagogical training with some of the more experienced players. They will be able to keep things functioning.
Haitian Orchestra Institute - Chamber Music/Chamber Orchestra Institute
Looking ahead, 11 musicians from the Utah Symphony, Rick Baldassin, the orchestra’s piano technician, and maestro Jean Rudy Perrault will be arriving in Haiti soon to teach at the Chamber Music/Chamber Orchestra Institute - a week long seminar of intensive work devoted to string quartets by Beethoven, Dvorak, Haydn and Mozart, woodwind quintets by Agay, Danzi, Haydn and Lefebvre and works by Dédé and Perrault for Chamber Orchestra.
40 of Haiti’s most accomplished musicians, selected by audition, from across the country will meet in Cap Haitian for the week of music-making, culminating in two concerts at the Collége Notre Dame du Cap Haitien. Given all of the current difficulties in Haiti, from gang violence, to political unrest, to outlandishly high prices for everything from gas to basic food stocks, this will be a week of refuge, of intense focus, and of creating beauty for the players involved.
Rick Baldassin, the piano technician from the Utah Symphony, will work with several Haitian apprentices to put into playing condition the marvelous 7’6” Bechstein instrument that was very generously donated by the Haitian Orchestra Institute to our partner in Cap Haitian, the CEMUCHCA Institute of Music. The instrument will receive its official presentation and inaugural concerts at the end of March 2023 during the full orchestra version of the Haitian Orchestra Institute - a thrilling week for all!
