Ithaca College

School of Music Dean Karl Paulnack will collaborate in the world premiere of Justin Merrit’s Ithaka, the first work commissioned through the Michael Steinberg and Jorja Fleezanis Fund. The concert will take place at 4 p.m. on Sunday, May 8, at MacPhail Center for Music’s Antonello Hall in Minneapolis. 

Jorja Fleezanis, a professor of violin at Indiana University’s Jacobs School of Music, served as concertmaster of the Minnesota Orchestra from 1989 to 2009. Her late husband, Michael Steinberg, was a man whose personal mission was to have a public voice in speaking about classical music. He was the music critic of the Boston Globe from 1964-75, the program note annotator for the Boston Symphony and the San Francisco Symphony. Oxford University Press has published four books of his program notes and miscellaneous writings

The Fund’s mission is “to spur curiosity and growth through the performing arts and the written word” by annually commissioning a work that melds words and music. Fleezanis relates “I decided that I would pick the text for the Fund’s very first commission for sentimental reasons, and I chose a poem very often read by Michael and myself at poetry readings by C.P. Cavafy called Ithaka.”

Paulnack, who has performed with Fleezanis for nearly twenty years, recalls “Jorja and I had many performances where we were joined on stage by Michael, who selected poetry to read in between musical works. We also partnered with him in works that combine music with spoken text. such as Schönberg’s Ode to Napoleon Bonaparte.  A musical and spoken setting of Cavafy’s Ithaka seems like the perfect tribute to Michael, and something that would fit right in to our musical practice together.”

Joining Fleezanis and Paulnack are two Minnesota Orchestra musicians, principal cellist Anthony Ross and clarinetist David Pharris, as well as the actor Stephen Yoakam, who will deliver Cavafy’s spoken text. The performance also features Messiaen’s Quartet for the End of Time.

Tickets to the concert are available and can be purchased online at this link or by telephone at 800-838-3006.