08/17/2007

Three dates, one versatile violinist

Ann Arbor musician returns for area shows

By MARTA HEPLER DRAHOS

mdrahos@record-eagle.com

Special to the Record-Eagle
Gabe Bolkosky will play three shows around the region Aug. 30 and 31 and Sept. 1.

TRAVERSE CITY — Gabe Bolkosky has played classical violin since early childhood. But it wasn't until he discovered jazz that he fell in love with music.

"It was sort of like a lightning bolt,” said Bolkosky, who was playing in a pickup orchestra during his last year at the University of Michigan when a jazz ensemble within the orchestra took the lead. "I decided at that point I needed to study jazz, I needed to discover what it was about. In a roundabout way, it brought me back to classical music again. Had it not been for the study of jazz, I don't think I would have come back to classical music with the same love and care.”

The Ann Arbor musician will demonstrate his versatility when he returns to northern Michigan for three dates this month. He'll perform a classical concert with pianist Michele Cooker at 8 p.m. Aug. 30 at the Leelanau School in Glen Arbor, a variety concert with cellist Crispin Campbell at 8 p.m. Aug. 31 at Rhonda's Wharfside in Frankfort, and a jazz concert with jazz pianist-composer Jeff Haas and friends at 8 p.m. Sept. 1 at the Unitarian Universalist Congregation in Traverse City.

Bolkosky, 34, last appeared in the area in the spring as a member of the Solar Trio with Campbell and pianist Paul Sullivan of Paul Winter Consort fame. Together they performed everything from Bach to tango, fiddle tunes to original jazz. Before that, he collaborated with Haas in the composer's 2003 piece for jazz and string quartet.

"I really feel a sense of oneness with all this music,” said the violinist, who believes delving into different styles has made his classical work more accessible now. "It's all one thing for me.”

A native Detroiter, Bolkosky attended Interlochen's National Music Camp as an All-State camper and later earned a master's degree at the University of Michigan. Besides performing and recording — he's released five CDs, from solo music to children's folk, klezmer and contemporary music with the groups Gemini, Into the Freylakh and Non Sequitur — he teaches at his own private studio and as a clinician at schools and workshops throughout North America.

He is executive director of the Ann Arbor arts organization Phoenix Ensemble, which helps artists make projects happen and provides quality music education for students of all ages, and performs with the Phoenix Quartet. The organization's signature event is PhoenixPhest!, an annual amateur chamber music festival held each May.

Previously he served as assistant director for Strings Attached, an intensive string program for children in inner-city Cleveland, and as assistant to master violin teacher and Cleveland Quartet founding member Donald Weilerstein at the Cleveland Institute of Music.

His program with Cooker — part of the Manitou Music Festival — will feature Prokofiev's "Sonata No. 1 in F minor” for violin and piano, written around the time of WWII. The sonata is one of the composer's "darkest works” and is known for its gripping "wind in the graveyard” sequence, Bolkosky said.

Cooker has performed in concert series and at festivals throughout the U.S., Canada and Mexico. She has appeared on PBS and has performed programs broadcast live for WFMT-radio in Chicago and the CBC in Canada. She teaches piano privately at Ann Arbor's Kerrytown Concert House, where she is a member of the board.

Tickets are $15; for more information, visit www.glenarborart.org or call 334-6112.

Tickets for Bolkosky's other area performances are $15 in advance and $18 at the door.