Funds support the Midsummer’s Music resident string quartet’s work with marginalized communities in interactive programs.
Midsummer’s Music’s resident string quartet, the Griffon String Quartet, received a generous grant from Project: Music Heals Us for 2022 to support its work with marginalized residents in Door County. The award targets those who may not have access to live performances due to their home life, health care needs, economic needs, or physical location. Midsummer’s Music is fortunate to have partnered several times in the past with the Good Samaritan Society’s Scandia Village in Sister Bay. Drawing from the quartet’s B Double Sharp program—where the ensemble presents miniconcerts for the aging or disabled, as well as their caregivers—the Griffon is adapting for this new outreach opportunity. The quartet plans to add additional partners as the concerts progress throughout the year.
Griffon presentations for Scandia Village patients are conducted virtually, allowing for a 2-way video that provides the musicians and viewers the opportunity to interact. Beginning in January, the weekly concerts—featuring a solo musician and, so far, up to eight residents—range from 30 to 90 minutes. The musicians have reported positive results, with violist Blakeley Menghini commenting that, during the second concert, a patient experiencing weather-related pains said how much the music brightened and improved her day. Patients clapped, sung, and smiled during the performances.
Midsummer’s Music Executive Director Allyson Fleck said, “The Griffon’s mission is ‘Captivating every generation, bringing music to our complete community, and to educate, enrich, and excite.’ So, this exemplifies our mission that it’s every generation. Yes, we do focus on the young, but we also focus on our seniors. Music is important at any stage of life, and we’re finding that Covid makes it hard in our rural communities for patients to experience art and culture one-on-one. On the first day, a Scandia program director was so enthralled that she told violinist Vini that the miniconcerts will change the residents’ lives.”
Fleck added, “The caregivers are excited, because it inspires them with a new, fresh idea concept that gives their clients time not to think about their medicine or their doctor. The patients are engaged, and they are talking to our quartet members, who say to themselves that they’re having a wonderful time. The Griffon musicians are young professionals, and here they are working with seniors, and that connection brings the best to both generations. Studies show that music is not only the first ‘latch-on’ in our lives, but it’s also one of the last. Music is a very cognitive, functional way to communicate, so when somebody’s language is no longer there, they can still sing a tune or hum it. Research says this is exactly the right approach not only for seniors but also for shut-ins.”
Project: Music Heals Us is a nonprofit organization that exists to provide encouragement, education, and healing through bringing high-quality live music performances and interactive programming to marginalized communities with limited ability to access it themselves—with a focus on the elderly, disabled, rehabilitating, incarcerated, and homeless populations. Now in its eighth season, Project: Music Heals Us has presented over 1,000 free concerts and workshops in hospitals, nursing homes, hospice centers, retirement homes, food pantries, centers for individuals with disabilities, correctional facilities, homeless shelters and refugee centers.
One of the most vibrant and engaging quartets of their generation, the Griffon String Quartet was formed in the fall of 2018 as a collaboration led by Midsummer’s Music. The quartet is a groundbreaking project to enrich the lives of children and adults throughout Northeast Wisconsin through concerts, workshops, and music education outreach. Members of the Quartet include violinists Ji-Yeon Lee and Vinicius Sant’Ana, violist Blakeley Menghini, and cellist Ryan Louie. Extraordinary musicians who have performed with orchestras and ensembles around the globe in the finest halls from Carnegie Hall and Brazil’s Teatro Municipal de São Paulo to Ukraine’s Lviv Philharmonic Hall, and won prestigious music competitions and awards, they are equally dedicated to music education and inspiring the next generation of music lovers. Each member of the Griffon String Quartet has advanced degrees and significant professional experience, both as educators and performers, and the ensemble has been recognized for “their youthful vigor, which is absolutely infectious!”
Midsummer’s Music was co-founded in 1990 by Jim and Jean Berkenstock, long-time Door County summer residents and principal orchestral players with the Lyric Opera of Chicago. What began as two concerts among friends has become one of the Midwest’s most anticipated chamber music series, bringing thousands of chamber music enthusiasts from around the globe to the magical Door County Peninsula.
For more information visit www.midsummersmusic.com.
High-resolution photos can be downloaded at https://midsummersmusic.com/photos/.
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For Calendar Listings:
Name: Griffon String Quartet at Gibraltar High School
Description: The Griffon String Quartet presents an event with music appreciation/history topics and plays works by a contemporary composer and/or a woman/minority composer to assist with the school’s mission for diversity and inclusivity.
Date: February 22, 2022
Time/Location: 8:15pm, Gibraltar School, 3924 WI-42, Fish Creek, WI 54212
Name: Gather with the Griffon
Description: Intended for the senior members of our community, these sessions are designed to engage the mind and spirit through music and conversation. A generous grant from the Greater Green Bay Community Foundation funds a portion of the Griffon’s B Double Sharp programming to present miniconcerts for the aging or disabled, as well as their caregivers.
Dates: March 9, 2022, April 13, 2022, May 11, 2022
Time/Location: 11:30am, First Presbyterian Church, 200 S Ashland Ave., Green Bay, WI 54303
Name: Griffon String Quartet: Community Concert for Sunshine Resources
Description: The Griffon String Quartet plays for Sunshine House clients in this free community concert
Date: March 10, 2022
Time/Location: 11:00am, Sunshine Resources, 55 Yew St., Sturgeon Bay, WI 54235s
Name: Griffon String Quartet Spring Concerts
Description: Mozart’s String Quartet No. 19 in C Major, K.464; Hindemith’s String Quartet No. 1 in C Major, Op. 2
Date 1: March 18, 2022
Time/Location: 5:00pm, St. Luke’s Episcopal Church, 2336 Canterbury Ln., Sister Bay, WI 54234
Date 2: March 19, 2022
Time/Location: 2:00pm, Brown County Library, 515 Pine St., Green Bay, WI 54301
Date 3: March 20, 2022
Time/Location: 3:00pm, Donald & Carol Kress Pavilion, Egg Harbor, WI 54209
Name: Griffon String Quartet Plays for the 88 Key Society
Description: Members of the Midsummer’s Music 88 Key Society are invited to participate in this high tea featuring cellist James Waldo.
Date: April 2, 2022
Time/Location: 2:00pm, Donald & Carol Kress Pavilion, Egg Harbor, WI 54209
Name: Griffon String Quartet Concert
Description: The Griffon String Quartet presents a special performance at St. John’s on the Lake in Milwaukee. Repertoire: Florence Price’s Five Folksongs in Counterpoint; Paul Hindemith’s String Quartet No. 1 in C Major, Op. 2
Date: April 30, 2022
Time/Location: 2:00pm, St. John’s on the Lake, 1800 N Prospect Ave., Milwaukee, WI 53202
Name: Griffon String Quartet—All Florence Price Concerts
Description: The Griffon String Quartet plays music by African American composer Florence Price.
Date 1: May 14, 2022
Time/Location: 7:00pm, Ephraim Moravian Church, 9970 Moravia St., Ephraim, WI 54212
Date 2: May 15, 2022
Time/Location: 3:00pm, SWY231, 231 N 3rd Ave., Sturgeon Bay, WI 54235
Name: Griffon String Quartet—Green Bay Rotary Banquet
Description: The Green Bay Rotary “Free Enterprise Banquet” is in its 35th year where they honor a local business or community leader. The Griffon String Quartet will perform from 5:30 – 6:30pm.
Date 1: May 16, 2022
Time/Location: 5:30pm, Green Bay Radisson Hotel and Conference Center, 3050 Airport Dr., Green Bay, WI 54313
Name: Griffon String Quartet Concerts
Description: The Griffon String Quartet 2021/2022 season end performances.
Haydn: String Quartet in E-flat Major, Op. 33/2 “the Joke”
Webern: Langsamer Satz
Beethoven: String Quartet No.10 in E-flat Major, Op. 74 “Harp”
Date 1: May 27, 2022
Time/Location: 7:00pm, St. Luke’s Episcopal Church, Sister Bay, WI 54234
Date 2: May 28, 2022
Time/Location: 2:00pm, Brown County Library, 515 Pine St., Green Bay, WI 54301
Date 3: May 30, 2022
Time/Location: 3:00pm, Woodwalk Gallery, Egg Harbor, WI 54209
Name: Griffon String Quartet Fundraising Gala
Description: A fundraising gala to benefit the Griffon String Quartet and its mission
Date 1: May 29, 2022
Time/Location: 3:00pm, Donald & Carol Kress Pavilion, Egg Harbor, WI 54209