Ernest Bloch Commemoration The Ernest Bloch Legacy Committee of the Lincoln County Historical Society is pleased to present a special program focused on the history of composer Ernest Bloch on Sunday, July 14 at 2 p.m. in the Doerfler Family Theater located in the Pacific Maritime Heritage Center. Dr. Frank Jo Maitland Geltner will be joined by Charmaine Leclair on cello and Dr. Alexander Knapp by Zoom. The main focus will be Ernest Bloch’s Suite No. 1 for solo cello performed by Dr. Charmaine Leclair. Dr. Knapp will share his insights into Bloch’s musical composition. Each year the Ernest Bloch Legacy Committee presents a commemorative program as part of its effort to preserve the legacy of the composer. The cello piece was one Ernest Bloch composed in Agate Beach in 1956, three years before his death.
The Ernest Bloch Sesquicentennial or Bloch 150 will be celebrated in 2030. Efforts are now underway to begin planning for that occasion. While final plans are not yet complete, the one idea that has taken hold is to work towards hosting an international symposium in Agate Beach in the former Bloch residence. More on that in time.
Dr. Geltner will be sharing some excerpts from Dr. David Z. Kushner’s Ernest Bloch Companion, Helen Johnston Kintner’s The Ernest Bloch I Knew, and Suzanne Bloch’s Creative Spirit. Kushner’s book has been the primary source book for those interested in Bloch. Johnston served as Bloch’s personal secretary for the last decade of his life. Suzanne Bloch, the composer’s daughter, who served for over four decades on the faculty of the Juilliard School of Music, produced Creative Spirit in 1976 in anticipation of the Bloch Centennial in 1980.
The Lincoln County Historical Society will distribute copies of the Ernest Bloch Booklet during this program. An ongoing Ernest Bloch exhibit is on display in the Burrows House Museum.
Dr. Alexander Knapp is a freelance musicologist, ethnomusicologist, lecturer, consultant, teacher, composer and pianist. From the late 1960’s to the present day, Alex has researched, published and lectured extensively in the UK, USA, many parts of Western and Eastern Europe, Israel, Western Russia, Eastern Siberia, and China, on the subject of Jewish music, and especially the work of composer Ernest Bloch. He contributed substantially to a volume entitled Ernest Bloch Studies (2016) that he co-edited for Cambridge University Press. Dr. Knapp will be sharing news from the International Ernest Bloch Society.
Dr. Charmaine Leclair recently retired to Newport, Oregon where several of her relatives have lived for generations. She was appointed as a core member of the cello section of the Newport Symphony by Maestro Adam Flatt in April of 2024. Leclair received her Ph. D. in music history and cello performance from the University of Oregon. For twenty years she lived in Charleston, South Carolina, where she was a cellist in the Charleston Symphony and the Hilton Head Island Orchestra as well as an orchestra librarian. She volunteers regularly maintaining and forging trails with Trail Keepers of Oregon and Newport Trail Stewards (NEWTS) in designated wilderness areas and parks along the Oregon coast.