A walk in the park for music
America's first major pledge walk to support community-based music programs will stretch out around the Back Bay Fens on Sunday -- regardless of the weather.
''We're raising a lot of money for these organizations," says Ellen Schreiber, founder and executive director of Walk for Music. ''And rain or shine, that will take place."
Registration is between noon and 1 p.m., the walk is 2 p.m. to 3 p.m., and a rally for music runs 3 p.m. to 4 p.m. There will be musical performances along the 2-mile walk, and the rally will culminate in a community sing led by gospel musician Donnell Patterson.
Schreiber says more than 1,000 walkers are expected to raise funds for more than 65 music programs, including American Classics, the Back Bay Chorale, Boston City Singers, Boston Modern Orchestra Project, Boston Secession, Just 4 Praize, Longwood Symphony, NEC Youth Philharmonic, and Youth Pro Musica.
Schreiber organized a pilot walk a couple of years ago to benefit the PALS Children's Chorus, and the event proved so popular that other groups became interested. There is a small registration fee for walkers, but all participating organizations will keep every nickel of the pledges the walkers collect, and she is hoping the event will raise $100,000 to $200,000.
The Red Sox have just joined the lineup of blue-chip sponsors, which include many of the city's most prestigious institutions.
''We have three goals," says Schreiber. ''The first is to raise a lot of money and in the process create a new fund-raising mechanism for the arts. The second is to increase awareness of the need for funding for the arts. . . . And the third goal is to celebrate music making, and to have a fun afternoon with our families, hanging out and listening to some music."
For information, visit www.walkformusic.org.
A Russian 'Adventure'
The legendary documentary filmmaker Richard Leacock was one of many important creative artists the legendary conductor, impresario, and stage director Sarah Caldwell roped into collaborating on her productions for the Opera Company of Boston. Beginning in the early '60s, Leacock contributed visual elements to several of Caldwell's most famous shows, including ''The Good Soldier Schweik," ''Les Troyens," and ''Die Soldaten." A special event at the Museum of Fine Arts celebrates this collaboration on Wednesday at 6 p.m. with a screening of Leacock's hourlong 2003 documentary ''A Musical Adventure in Siberia."
In 1996, after the money dried up in Boston and the Opera House became derelict, Caldwell created one of the last major events of her career in Yekaterinburg, Siberia, where she was principal guest conductor of the Ural Philharmonic. It was the stage premiere of a work by Prokofiev, a version of Pushkin's ''Eugen Onegin" for orchestra and actors that had been banned in the 1930s by the Stalinist authorities and forgotten until the score was recorded in 1994.
Caldwell invited Leacock to come and videotape the rehearsals and performances, even though no money would be involved. Leacock couldn't resist; until the Soviet regime fell, Yekaterinburg, where the last czar and his family were killed, was off limits to visitors from other countries.
''A Musical Adventure" offers a lively look at clashes of culture and temperament as Caldwell, who created the project, periodically loses control to the stage director, whose ideas about the piece are not based on thorough knowledge of its musical content and Prokofiev's intentions.
The music is colorful and charming, and there are some lively dances offset by some amusingly porcine acting. The woman playing the heroine, Tatiana, is the best performer, but she looks about 20 years older than she is supposed to be.
The MFA will also screen the silent film Leacock shot for Caldwell's production of Berg's ''Lulu" in the '60s (featuring the notorious Edie Sedgwick from Andy Warhol's Factory), and Leacock will be on hand to reminisce.
Caldwell is said to dislike the film, and you can understand why. She is not flatteringly photographed, and Leacock displays her mostly in crisis, a mode she was familiar with. But her vigorous intelligence and her love for music and spectacle shine through, and her willpower levels all before it.
