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Music Festival, Edberg begin 20th year of ‘Friends making music for friends’
For something that has grown to become a sort of community of its own, the Greencastle Summer Music Festival began inauspiciously enough.
Eric Edberg, then a cello professor at DePauw University, knew he was going to be bored in the summer of 2005. Add to that the fact that Gobin Church had just received a seven-foot Petrof concert piano, and a tradition was born.
“For me, I just didn’t have enough to do in the summer. It’s just like Judy Garland and Mickey Rooney, ‘Let’s put on a show,” Edberg, now a professor emeritus, said. “I was going to be underutilized in the summer, and I thought, ‘Why not put on some concerts?’
“Gobin has been such a great place not only because of their hospitality, but they have a wonderful piano, great acoustics and great parking,” he added. “Of a venue to play music in, it is the most physically accessible – for someone who doesn’t want to take a long walk – of anywhere that I know of in the county, especially that has a piano.”
At that time, Larry Burton was the pastor at Gobin, and he welcomed the idea of a series of concerts. It started with six performances in 2005, then seven in 2006. In 2007, the festival began on the Wednesday after Memorial Day and ran for 12 weeks.
That tradition continues into 2024, which marks the 20th year, and will kick off at 7:30 p.m. this Wednesday, May 29, still at Gobin, on the northeast corner of the DePauw campus at 307 Simpson St., with an array of artists who live in Putnam County, including poet Joe Heithaus, pianist Claude Cymerman, Edberg on cello, violinist Teagan Faran, Him&Her (Joel and Tosh Everson), singer/songwriter Bobbie Lancaster, flutist Micah Layne, pianist/composer Cathie Malach and flutist Leo Sussman.
Seemingly everyone will know everyone else, which is a fitting kickoff for a festival that for the last 10-12 years has carried the slogan “friends making music for friends.”
It’s a mantra Edberg, the founding artistic and executive director of the festival, has repeated often over the years. It came about when guest composer Joseph Schwantner visited DePauw for the 2012 “Music of the 21st Century” event. During every rehearsal, Edberg recalled, Schwantner would say something like, “The best way to spend your life is making music with your friends. You’re not going to make a lot of money in music, so you might as well make it with friends.”
Edberg liked that.
“That’s what we’re doing,” he said. “It became a celebration of friendship as well as music.”
Over the years, though, it’s taken on a life of its own. In Schwantner’s comment, it seems to be the musicians who are making music with friends. The GSMF has become about making music for friends, which certainly also includes the audience.
“The thing that means the most to me is when somebody will come up and say, ‘I was lonely, and I started to come to these concerts, and it’s really made a difference in my life,’” Edberg said. “We almost always have an intermission so people can talk and mingle. I realized the social function of these because you see people, you get to know them. When we have guest performers, I tell them that intermission is a very important part of what we do because it’s about friendship and community.”
This has led to a secondary motto: “Creating community through shared arts experiences.”
Also being conscious of the larger Greencastle and Putnam County communities and beyond, GSMF even found its own night and own niche. The Greencastle Civic League Parkfest, now more than 30 years old, tends to focus on more contemporary “pop” genres and is staged each Tuesday at Robe-Ann Park. Greencastle First Friday, a newer development, is downtown on Fridays, of course. Additionally Derek Chastain has begun hosting open mics each Monday night at the Swizzle Stick.
Even the performances of the Brazil Concert Band are more in the march tradition and are staged each Sunday.
All of this adds up to give Wednesdays in the summer listening to classical music at Gobin Church its own time and place.
However, as even the lines of what “classical” music is have blurred, so have the genres and artists featured, which the opening night lineup suggests. Edberg noted that he was personally coming out of a “classical music snob” phase several years ago and getting into more genres.
“I was seeing in my academic perspective that people were starting to merge the genres more and more,” Edberg said, noting that “classical” musicians were playing non-classical music and collaborating with those outside the genre.
“A lot of people attributed that to the iPod,” Edberg said. “The shuffle feature had people listening to classical and non-classical pieces together.”
“As things were growing, we decided we wanted to make it more and more inclusive of other genres,” Edberg said. “Stu Fabe, as he became more and more involved, he wanted to see more connection.”
Fabe’s involvement has been critical in the growth of the festival over the years. While locals know Fabe as an artist, novelist and local champion of the arts, before retirement he was a lifelong Cincinnati resident who made his living in fundraising.
When Fabe found out about an endowment that had been started at the Putnam County Community Foundation for GSMF, he went out an raised a lot of money for it, while also advocating for expanding into non-classical music.
This season, as the related story will attest, the mix is about 50-50, with traditional classical music sharing time with folk music from various traditions, contemporary singer/songwriters, jazz, blues and popular songs.
When it comes right down to it, the goal is always connecting with current friends and making new ones. Edberg noted that current board vice president Vern Sullenger comes from Plainfield each week for the concerts.
“We asked him to be on the board, and then asked why he said yes, and he said, ‘I found out when you said, “It’s friends making music for friends,” you weren’t joking,’” Edberg said.
So it is that something that started with one man thinking, “I don’t have enough concerts,” has grown to a group of people thinking, “We don’t have enough community.” Through the Summer Music Festival, they have just a little more.
“It’s taken on a life of its own,” Edberg said. “It became about attracting more people to hear classical music. Then there is the community aspect and thinking of music as a way to be human together and be connected to each other.
“I think beyond the concert series or anything, as people live more and more inside their phones, these opportunities mean more,” he added. “There’s more and more ownership by people in the community. There really is a community of people who are the core audience. That’s just really meaningful.”