Organist Cherry Rhodes has performed all over the country as well as in Europe. But it is a nostalgic trip back to Baltimore that has her most excited.
From 1972 to 1975, Rhodes taught organ at the Peabody Conservatory. And it is now, in the institute?s 150th year, that many musicians are coming “home” to celebrate.
“It?s been a long time,” Rhodes said of her trip east, “and I return with pleasure.”
She marks her visit with an organ performance at Peabody on Sunday afternoon.
As a graduate of the Curtis Institute of Music and as a recipient of Fulbright and Rockefeller grants, Rhodes has also studied in Munich and Paris. She currently holds the position of adjunct professor of organ at the Thorton School of Music in Los Angeles, which opened in 1884 at the University of Southern California and is the oldest continually operating cultural institution in the city.
The first American to win an international prize at the Munich Competition in 1996, Rhodes has gone on to stellar performances as a soloist in organ festivals at the Notre Dame Cathedral in Paris and the Royal Festival Hall in London. She has also performed with such orchestras as the Los Angeles Philharmonic, the Phoenix Symphony and the South German Radio Orchestra.
For her evening?s repertoire, she has chosen “fun pieces” such as the delightful “4 piezas para la Misao” by Jose Lidon.
“After the fourth movement, you want to shout ?Ole?,” Rhodes laughed.
Playing three keyboards with a 32-note foot-pedal board, Rhodes will also perform Mozart?s “Adagio and Fugue in C, K.V. 546.” This, she explains, is the most technical of the pieces, involving difficult trills. “Afternoon of a Toad,” a work she chose by Clarence Mader, is “a charming, witty piece [in the] American styles of jazz and swing bass.”
Donald Sutherland, current coordinator of the organ department at Peabody, is thrilled over Rhodes? visit.
“We are celebrating Cherry and her relationship with the conservatory,” he said, and commenting on her virtuosity, added, “Fabulous is not an adequate description; she?s incredible.”
IF YOU GO
Organ Recital of Cherry Rhodes
When: 4 p.m. Sunday
Where: Peabody Institute, Leith Symington Griswold Hall
17 E. Mount Vernon Place, Baltimore
Admission: $18; $10 for seniors and $8 for students
Information: Call 410-659-8100
