Our Events

Classical Music Festivals

The Classical Music Festival consists of three hours of music provided by local musicians, with each musician or group performing ½ to 1 hour. Musicians will include local professionals, teachers, music studios, students and amateurs.

The event provides an opportunity for students to gain stage experience, sometimes performing with their teachers. It also provides an opportunity for teachers and professionals to share their music with the community; the venue, normally, is at the Bru 64 in Main St. Cortland on a Sunday afternoon.

Professionals are paid at a rate somewhat higher than that used for the festivals. Admission to these events has mostly been free and open to the public.

 Classic Guitar Festival

Classical Guitar Night presents music students at the college level, each performing two or three short pieces for classical guitar. Our Classical Guitar Nights have been very well received. We have had the help of Professor Pablo Cohen of Ithaca College who has encouraged his students to participate. The date and venue are generally on a Saturday evening at the United Presbyterian Church in Cortland.

Individual Concerts

Individual concerts are also part of our music program. These concerts present the talents professional, usually local, musicians or ensembles. Professionals are paid at a rate somewhat higher than that used for our festivals. The number of these events will vary, but three per year would probably be typical. Admission to these events has mostly been free and open to the public.
Piano, Musicologist Tekla Babyak is a fifth-year Ph.D. candidate in musicology at Cornell University, which awarded her a Master's Degree in January 2007. She received a 2003 Mellon Fellowship in Humanistic Studies, and is a recipient of the Jacob Javits Fellowship for 2004-2008. Her research focuses on musical aesthetics, specifically representation of music in philosophy and literature. Ms. Babyak has taught piano for 10 years. In the Fall 2007 semester, she taught a Freshman Writing Seminar at Cornell, "Representing the Other: Exoticism in Western Music."

Essay on Music and Memory: "MUSIC MINUS MEMORY": POPULAR MUSIC, CLASSICAL MUSIC AND MEMORY IN MILAN KUNDERA by Tekla Babyak

During the Fall 2007 semester, she taught a Freshman Writing Seminar at Cornell, "Representing the Other: Exoticism in Western Music. Western music is replete with evocations of exotic locales and peoples. These evocations are a form of what Edward Said calls Orientalism - Western discourse about the East. The Freshman Writing Seminar, Representing the Other--Exoticism in Western Music, explored the ways in which Orientalist music represents racial and geographical difference. The course asked students to engage with secondary literature, evaluate interpretive strategies and develop their own readings of Orientalist musical works. Works studied include Bizet's Carmen, Verdi's Aida, and Puccini's Madame Butterfly.

Babyak's dissertation explores gender and sexuality in Nietzsche's musical aesthetics. In his 1888 polemic The Case of Wagner, Nietzsche condemns Wagnerian opera as a perverse spectacle of hysteria and decadence. As was typical of much 19th-century music criticism, Nietzsche cites very few specific examples to illustrate his polemic. In her dissertation, Babyak identifies characters, scenes and musical features that may have motivated some of Nietzsche's generalized observations about Wagnerian opera.

Lecture Performances

The Lecture-Performances are presented by local music faculty on a topic related of music. The lecture- performance pretends to be an extension of an academic lecture, but also as a form of cultural production and an entertainment product, which explicitly dwells on the relations between art and knowledge, between art and research and between art and forms of dissemination which are generally used to engage diverse audiences with art. The Lecture-Performances will be presented in a local chamber-concert-hall, college classroom or a gallery space where the disruption is minimal. These presentations are open to the public and the admission is free.


Piano, Composer Cindy Josbena has served as the Founder and Artistic Director of the Grace Moore Concert Series and began the Mexico Community Arts Council. Her musical interests include both solo performance and accompanying. In solo performing, she has participated in numerous SUNY Oswego and other upstate concert programs. Her recital program, both in Homer and in Syracuse represents an extension of her performance activities.

Her wide experience with vocal and instrumental soloists and with choral groups in Onondaga and Oswego counties as well as for the NYSSMA Festivals have placed her much in demand throughout the Central New York Area. She has also taught periodically in the Department of Music at SUNY Oswego and has accompanied for the Oswego College Choir organizations as well as college student and faculty instrumental performances.

She has studied with Dr. John Little, and with Dr. Anthony Crain, Professor Emeritus of SUNY, Owego. She holds dual degrees in Piano Performance and Music Education from Mansfield University in Pennsylvania. Other current performing activities include two-piano performances with Dr. Anthony Crain.

Master Classes

The Master classes are offered by reputable local performers and music faculty from the local colleges and universities. Here the music students and spectators watch and listen as the master takes one student at a time. The student (typically intermediate or advanced, depending on the status of the master) usually performs a single piece which they have prepared, and the master will give them advice on how to play it, or perform it, often including anecdotes about the composer, demonstrations of how to play certain passages, and admonitions of common technical errors. The student is then usually expected to play the piece again, in light of the master's comments, and the student may be asked to play a passage repeatedly to attain perfection. Aspiring classical musicians, and their teachers, typically consider master classes to be one of the most effective means of musical development, along with competitions, examinations, and practice.
 The participants will pay a small fee to the faculty who provides the class. CortlandMusic, Inc. will provide the venue for free in order to make the classes more affordable to the students.

Salon

This year we are planning in implementing a Salon, such as the ones held in London. Salon, characterized as “a gathering of people under the roof of an inspiring host”, it is defined, in modern terms, as a cultural event linked to literature, the arts or discussion. It is held partly to entertain one another and partly to refine the taste and increase the knowledge of the participants through conversation. Like-minded people can study art, literature, philosophy or music together. The salon has the power of mentoring and monitoring, foster, critique, validate and protect the local cultural production.


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