FIFTH OPENING – The Sitka seine boats Hukilau and Rose Lee pump herring aboard this afternoon at the end of Deep Inlet during the fifth opening in the Sitka Sound sac roe herring fishery. The opening was being held in two locations beginning at 11 a.m. (Sentinel Photo by James Poulson)
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Daily Sitka Sentinel
Festival Musicians to Present Memorial Concert
By SHANNON HAUGLAND
Sentinel Staff Writer
One of the first friends cellist Evan Drachman made in Sitka happened the way a lot of friendships are made here: through fishing.
“After my first concert in Sitka there was a reception,” said Drachman, who spoke to the Sentinel from Juneau. “I was saying, ‘I wish someone would take me fishing.’ The tall guy standing next to me said, ‘I have a boat.’”
Doris Stevenson and Evan Drachman perform at Centennial Hall in 2002. The two Sitka Summer Music Festival musicians will be performing again Tuesday. (Sentinel Photo)
Drachman’s friendship with the “tall guy” – who turned out to be William Stortz – involved fishing, classical music, family and all subjects in between, and lasted for years.
The year following Stortz’ death in the 2015 Sitka landslides, Drachman played a concert in Stortz’ honor, hoping it would grow into something more – and it has.
Drachman and pianist Doris Stevenson, one of the founding members of the Sitka Summer Music Festival, will play the second concert in memory of Stortz.
The free concert is 7 p.m. Tuesday at the Sitka Church of the Nazarene, 305 Lake Street. Works by Schumann, Chopin and Rachmaninoff will be on the program.
The concert and tour through Southeast communities are presented by the Piatigorsky Foundation in collaboration with the Sitka Summer Music Festival. Drachman, who is artistic director of the Piatigorsky Foundation, performed Thursday at Juneau Jazz and Classics.
With Stevenson, Drachman has a Foundation concert schedule in Alaska that includes performances in Petersburg, Gustavus, Skagway, Haines and Sitka.
“It’s been because of Paul and Linda Rosenthal that I got to come up here,” Drachman said of SSMF founder Paul, and former Juneau Jazz and Classics director Linda. “Now that both are retired, there’s not going to be a lot of opportunities to come up here.”
He hopes that these initial concerts in Southeast will lead to more opportunities in future years for school programs and concerts in the early spring, augmenting the offerings of the Sitka Summer Music Festival, which kicks off June 6.
“The concert on Tuesday is co-sponsored by the Sitka Summer Music Festival, and I think it’s an important collaboration,” Drachman said.
Drachman hopes eventually to raise enough money for an endowment that will fund an annual concert in Stortz’ memory.
Stortz was a fan of classical music, and attended most SSMF concerts. Drachman said it’s fitting to have an annual concert in his name.
“It’s so unbelievable to me the tragedy of his death,” Drachman said. “His connection to classical music and connection to music was so important, I wanted to create something he would’ve appreciated in Sitka. He had a surprising depth of knowledge about classical music, jazz, politics, art. It was amazing. He worked a lot of his life with his hands but his brain was always working. I think of all the conversations we had – he was very intelligent and thoughtful. If you asked his opinion, he always had one and it was often right on the mark.”
Stevenson, who was a Festival performer last year and in all but two years under Paul Rosenthal’s tenure, says she’s looking forward to seeing Sitka and the friends she made here over the 40 years she took part in the festival. The friends included the Stortz family.
She has traveled to 22 states through the Piatigorsky Foundation, which puts on concerts mostly in under-served areas and nontraditional venues.
“It’s fun to go to parts of the state you wouldn’t go to otherwise,” Stevenson said. “We’ve played for ranch kids, we’ve played for kids bused into a school in Wyoming.”
Her trip to Sitka last year through SSMF was a chance to see old friends from the first four decades of the Festival, including Libby Stortz, and she plans to do the same next week.
“How can you help but thinking of it as celebrating old times, or old friends we’ve made over the years?” Stevenson said.
The concert will feature pieces that Stevenson said she learned under Piatigorsky’s direction.
“I’ve played them with every cellist that has come through Sitka,” she said. “Cellists enjoy playing these pieces. You keep growing, you keep thinking of new ideas.”
Many of the musicians who have come to play in the Festival during Paul’s leadership were connected through their studies with violinist Jascha Heifetz and cellist Gregor Piatigorsky, who was Drachman’s grandfather.
At Piatigorsky Foundation concerts – often in informal settings – artists share anecdotes and insights into the works they will perform. Musicians are chosen for their artistry and ability to engage audiences through lively discussion, the foundation website says.
“By bringing musicians into familiar, intimate surroundings and creating a lively concert format, we make classical music accessible to a diverse and often uninitiated population,” the website says.
“It’ll be a lot of talking, a lot of telling of stories,” Drachman said.
Refreshments will be provided after the free concert.
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20 YEARS AGO
March 2004
Matthew C. Hunter of Sitka recently returned from Cuba as part of a St. Olaf College International and Off-Campus Studies program. Hunter, a junior physics major at St. Olaf College, is the son of Robert and Kim Hunter of Sitka.
50 YEARS AGO
March 1974
Eighth graders have returned from a visit to Juneau to see the Legislature. They had worked for it since Christmas vacation ... Clarice Johnson’s idea of a “White Elephant” sales was chosen as the best money-maker; Joe Roth won the political cartoon assignment; highest government test scorers were Ken Armstrong, Joanna Hearn, Linda Montgomery, Lisa Henry, Calvin Taylor and David Licari .....