Musician Spotlight by Lauren Fischer
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Essential Updates from your Baltimore Symphony Orchestra
Left: Sidney Friedberg with daughter Laura Burrows, at the 1983 Gala dedication of the Miriam A. Friedberg Concert Hall at The Peabody Institute. Below: Miriam Friedberg.
Musician Spotlight by Lauren Fischer
A New Named Box at the Meyerhoff
Unveiling The Miriam A. and Sidney M. Friedberg Grand Tier Box G Left
Miriam Arenson and Sidney Friedberg shared a love of music and met while studying piano at The Peabody Institute. Sidney would later serve on the Board of Directors at several of Baltimore’ s cultural institutions, including Peabody, the Baltimore Opera Company, and the Baltimore Symphony Orchestra. Miriam was equally dedicated to musical access and opportunity, helping to introduce the Young Audience Program into Baltimore City Public Schools, organizing the New Town Concerts to promote young artists through Maryland, and rallying around the founding of the Shriver Hall Concert Series. Their daughter, Laura Burrows, spoke about her mother’ s passions fondly, recalling that“… she was a talented pianist, who turned her attention to championing young musicians. Great young artists came to our house all the time to perform in our living room … it was incredible.”
Miriam passed away in 1981, but her family continued to champion her musical legacy. With Sidney’ s generous support, Peabody’ s historic concert hall was renovated and later dedicated to Miriam upon its grand re-opening in 1983. During that same period, the Joseph Meyerhoff Symphony Hall was being built. Laura remembers her father visiting the Hall during construction, choosing four seats in the second row of Grand Tier Box G Left( seats 3-6) for their subscription. She attended many concerts and opening Gala nights with her father in the family’ s seats. After his passing, Laura retained two of those seats, where she continues to enjoy the BSO’ s performances as a season subscriber. As you can imagine, she particularly enjoys concerts featuring great pianists, as well as the BSO’ s own resident keyboardist Lura Johnson, who is the holder of the endowed chair in the family’ s name.
Earlier this year, Laura committed a generous new gift to the Baltimore Symphony Endowment Trust to honor her parents and name in perpetuity Box G Left: The Miriam A. and Sidney M. Friedberg Box. Laura celebrated the unveiling of this new named signage at an October concert and hopes that everyone who walks past or through the door to Box G Left will be inspired to follow in her parents’ footsteps— to love music, to champion music education, and to support the Baltimore Symphony Orchestra.
Courtesy of Laura Burrows
Casey Karr
BASS
Every Tuesday night finds BSO bassist Casey Karr at CrossFit Federal Hill.
“ Being a trainer is really satisfying because I get to see people grow personally through their fitness and as individuals,” Karr said.
CrossFit offered Karr an outlet for his fitness hobby and a supportive community.
“ There’ s very little judgement,” Karr said.“ Everyone likes to meet you where you’ re at and is just happy to see you working hard and pushing yourself.”
While working out helps Karr build strength and discipline as a bassist, he first learned these lessons as a young musician, noting“ the level of focus required for music carries over to almost anything in life, and especially with fitness, being able to lock in on your workout, forget everything else, and just truly be in the moment is a skill that I gained initially from music.”
Mitro Hood
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