Portland Press Herald / Maine Sunday Telegram (Portland, ME)
June 6, 2004

Take A Bow, Mr. Kaplan
By BOB KEYES

Lewis Kaplan, founder of the Bowdoin International Music Festival, is not one to dwell on his 40 years of running the show. He's too busy thinking about the next decade.
His friends call him a classical music entrepreneur: He sees opportunity and figures out a way to make it work.

This summer, Lewis Kaplan celebrates the 40th anniversary of his greatest impresario act to date, the founding of what is now known as the Bowdoin International Music Festival. The slight name change - it used to be known as the Bowdoin Summer Music Festival - reflects its status worldwide as a premier center for the study and performance of chamber music and as a vital incubator for contemporary classical music.
That the six-week festival exists at all is evidence of Kaplan's wisdom, energy and dogged determination, say those who know him best.

Forty years ago on a late-spring Friday afternoon, Kaplan, a violin and chamber music instructor at The Juilliard School in New York, received a phone call from Bob Beckwith, then chairman of Bowdoin College's music department. Beckwith wanted to know if Kaplan's chamber ensemble could fill a vacancy for a four-concert chamber series on the Brunswick campus that summer.

Beckwith also offered Kaplan a concert series the following summer and, in association with the college, the opportunity to offer a summer music school.

Sounds great, Kaplan replied. The only catch, Beckwith urgently added, was that Kaplan needed to be in Brunswick the next afternoon to sign a contract. If a contract wasn't signed immediately, Bowdoin would have to cancel the upcoming series. "I said, 'If you're serious, I'll be on the next flight.' He said, 'We're serious. And, oh, by the way, bring plans for a summer school with you.' "

Those plans started modestly. In 1965, the first year of the summer school, 20 students enrolled. At this year's festival that opens later this month, 282 students will enroll, with another 65 faculty and musical guests, representing more than 20 countries.

Together, students, faculty and guests will present more than 50 concerts, all of which are open to the public. Much of the music occurs on Wednesday and Friday evenings at the 600-seat Crooker Theater at Brunswick High School, although concerts also are scheduled in Kresge Auditorium and elsewhere on the Bowdoin campus.

Since 1965, the Bowdoin festival has produced more than 3,000 festival alumni, many of whom perform as soloists and concert masters around the globe. Other alumni are among our most accomplished contemporary composers.

But those numbers only quantify what those in the classical music world long have known: The Bowdoin festival, which became independent of the college in 1997, is among the very best in all the world, fostering a collegial environment that encourages musicians to come to Brunswick to teach and perform, with the hope and promise that the music they create in Maine will be among the most satisfying of their career.
For students, Bowdoin offers the chance to learn from by the masters of their profession.

And for those who simply are fans, the festival offers the chance to hear extraordinary chamber music performances in intimate settings by top young musicians and established giants in the field.

Among the highlights of the summer ahead:

On July 23, violinist and longtime Kaplan friend Jamie Laredo returns to perform two double concertos, Brahms' "Concerto in A Minor for Violin and Cello, Op. 102" and Bach's "Two Violins in D Minor, BWV 1043."

Laredo, whose has appeared a soloist with the Boston, Chicago and London symphonies, as well as the New York and Royal philharmonics, will perform the first with cellist and wife Sharon Robinson. The Festival Orchestra will accompany, conducted by Kaplan. Kaplan then will join Laredo for the second piece, which they will perform in memory of their friend and festival regular Michael Rabin.

On July 5, guest artist Tsuyoshi Tsutsumi will perform all six Bach cello suites, a rarely accomplished feat. Many perform the span of music, but rarely all at once. Tsutsumi, a faculty member at Indiana University and one of the finest contemporary cello players, will perform three suites each in concerts that begin at 4 p.m. and 7:30 p.m.
Six composers will debut music commissioned for the 2004 festival: Robert X. Rodriguez, David Crumb, Anthony Bradt, Dalit Warshaw, Gia Comolli and Vineet Shende. All are either former festival students or faculty. Comolli lives in Topsham and Shende is a Bowdoin College faculty member. Each piece, written in honor of the 40th anniversary, will receive its premiere in a Wednesday night concert performed by a festival faculty or guest. Comolli wrote her piece for Kaplan, and Kaplan will perform it Aug. 4.

The festival celebrates the work of Pulitzer Prize-winning composer George Crumb, in honor of his 75th birthday. Performances will include "The Eleven Echoes of Autumn," commissioned by the festival in 1966. Crumb's son, David, wrote a still- untitled piece that Crumb's daughter, Anne, will sing. As an example of the kinds of ensembles the festival puts together, consider the following all-star group that will perform a Mozart oboe quartet on July 7: Joe Robinson, first oboe with the New York Philharmonic; Mary Kay Robinson, his wife and a former festival violin student; Ralph Fielding, president of the American Viola Society; and Peter Howard, principal cellist for the St. Paul Chamber Orchestra. In a phone interview from New York, Kaplan, 70, said he never dreamed the festival would grow to its present size or stature.
"Did I ever envision this? My answer to that would be about the same as if you asked Columbus, 'Did you envision New York?' Never."

Tim Garrett, a 23-year-old cello player from Brunswick who now lives in Gorham, says being a musician and growing up near Bowdoin was a joy. He went to many concerts when he was younger and now serves as a member of the festival's board, representing student interests.

He simply shakes his head in wonder at what the festival has become in international music circles. "I feel very fortunate to actually be from Brunswick," he says.
Garrett enrolled for the first time in 2001 and will return again this summer as he prepares for graduate-school entrance auditions. He recently graduated from the University of Southern Maine's School of Music. He attributes the festival's success directly to Kaplan.

"Lewis is an extremely enthusiastic person who has a very strong effect over people. He's a very persuasive person. It just seems as if every day is a new beginning and joy for him. It's very contagious," Garrett says. Peter Simmons, who has worked as year-round executive director for the past five years, says the festival's success hinges mostly on Kaplan's ability to lure qualified students and faculty. He does that by making, and holding, personal promises, Simmons says.

He affords faculty latitude to choose the music they perform and how they teach. He tells students they will get the very best instruction in an environment that encourages performance excellence. And he backs his pledge by following through on his word.
"He literally tells these people, 'Send me your wish list,' and then he takes those couple of hundred suggestions and puts a program together from there," says Simmons.
"He can get these people because he provides them an opportunity to perform what they want to perform in a very stimulating environment. As a result, you get really good performances from people who really want to play with the people they're playing with."
Kaplan prefers extending invitations to Bowdoin during one-on-one meetings, often over a glass of wine. A tireless traveler whose professional schedule takes him overseas several times a year, Kaplan typically doesn't have to make many hard sales pitches.
Many of the people he targets are friends or professional acquaintances, and most already are familiar with Bowdoin.

"I try to think about what they would most enjoy about coming to Bowdoin. What would make them happy? Would they come because it would be an ideal place to teach, or because of a particular performance they would like to do?
"I try to go by a philosophy I learned from a friend of mine in Los Angeles, a very wealthy man named Dick Colburn. I am sitting in the kitchen with him in Salzburg, and I said, 'Dick, what's the secret - nah, nah, I can't ask that question.'
"And he said, 'No, go ahead. Ask it.' "

"I said, 'Dick, what is the secret to making so much money?' And he said, 'Not a silly question at all. It's not the smartest person, the most driven person. It's the person who can motivate everyone around him.' That's the philosophy I use when I think about the festival. How do I motivate the people around me? That's always looming at the front of my mind."

Toward that end, Kaplan says he is more concerned about the festival's next 10 years than the 40 that preceded them.

"People talk about my enthusiasm and my energy. They say, '40 years - you must have been 12 when you started.' But I feel that I have more enthusiasm, along with more experience, than I did 40 years ago. And more joy, too. I really look forward to a great, great future of this festival."

© 2004- Blethen Maine Newspapers, Inc.