When the 39th summer season of the Martha's Vineyard Chamber Music Society opens on Monday and Tuesday, July 13 and 14, it will be with the world-class artists the society's audiences have come to expect. But the season is opening with an unprecedented twist.
Gretchen and Sam Feldman, supporting an event at Polly Hill Arboretum. Photos by Nis Kildegaard
Just weeks ago, with the summer's program set and ticket sales already underway, Chilmark resident Sam Feldman offered to underwrite the first program in remembrance of his wife, Gretchen, who died in November - covering the cost of all tickets, so both performances could be opened to the public free of charge.
Pianist Delores Stevens, the Chamber Music Society's artistic director, says, "This is something we've never done before - not ever," adding, "We feel it's a great opportunity for us and for the Island. This is a great chance for us to let people discover what wonderful music we're bringing here."
During lunch at his home overlooking Tilton Cove in Chilmark, Mr. Feldman says: "This is about Gretchen and her love of chamber music and about the Chamber Music Society."
Sam and Gretchen Feldman (left) listen as Delores Stevens, Chamber Music Society artistic director, speaks about music.
The Feldmans' connection to the cellist William De Rosa, and to the idea of sponsoring this pair of concerts, goes back to last July, when the Chamber Music Society hosted a fund-raising event on an estate on Cedar Tree Neck in West Tisbury. Mr. De Rosa played the Bach cello suite in a barn overlooking Vineyard Sound, and Mr. Feldman sat next to his wife, who was then in the late stages of her battle with lung cancer.
He recalls the day: "William De Rosa was sitting at an open window. We looked at him and out at this magical view of the Sound, and he played for an hour and a half without any written music. It was such a magical experience - a kind of musical epiphany. Here Gretchen was with stage-four cancer at this point, and anything that brought brightness and uplift to our lives was so welcome."
The Feldmans met on a blind date and married in 1955. "I always tailed along with Gretchen's interests in art," Mr. Feldman says. "She liked music, and dance, and painting. When we were first married, we got a subscription to Eugene Ormandy and the Philadelphia Symphony, and we'd go to their concerts. I was working hard in those days, and I'd regularly fall asleep at the concerts, but she was in awe of them."
"I suppose that was the genesis, the seed of my idea for this concert." Mr. Feldman continues. "I wanted to do something that Gretchen would have liked. I like the fact that we can provide this art, this music, to people, free of charge. And I was very pleased that (Chamber Music Society president) Elaine Pace and the executive committee accepted this so quickly. So often, there's red tape and bureaucracy - 'Oh, what are we going to do with the season ticket holders and blah blah blah' - but they decided they'd just figure that out, and accept my offer. I appreciated that."
Mr. Feldman, who has maintained a low profile in his many years as an Island philanthropist, hopes the concerts he's sponsoring will be useful to the society as a form of outreach. "I'm hoping these concerts will attract friends of Gretchen who have never been to hear the Chamber Music Society. Who knows what will happen?"
Noting his wife's preference for anonymity, Mr. Feldman allows that she might have objected to his gesture of dedicating a pair of concerts to her memory. "In a way she would not be entirely pleased with what I'm doing here," he says, "But I'm doing it because it's for me, and for her memory, and for the Chamber Music Society."
Nis Kildegaard, who serves on the board of the Martha's Vineyard Chamber Music Society, writes the bi-monthly "Soundings" column for The Times.
Martha's Vineyard Chamber Music Monday, July 13, 8 pm, Old Whaling Church, Edgartown and Tuesday, July 14, at the Chilmark Community Center. Featured cellist William De Rosa. All are guests of Sam Feldman in honor of his late wife, Gretchen Feldman.
