carthage music department presents
Hope
Presented by Milwaukee Youth Symphony Orchestra (MYSO)
Saturday, November 8 | 7:30 p.m.
A. F. Siebert Chapel
Divertimento Leo Smit (1900-1943)
Memorial to Lidice Bohuslav Martinu (1890-1959)
Violin Concerto, Op. 61
I. Allegro ma non troppo
Ludwig van Beethoven (1770-1827)
violin - Dr. Charlene Kluegel
Symphony No. 5, Op. 67
I. Allegro con brio
IV. Allegro
Ludwig van Beethoven (1770-1827)
program notes
Leo Smit – Divertimento (1938)
Leo Smit’s Divertimento opens the evening with music of deceptive lightness. Rooted in the neoclassical style, it sparkles with wit, rhythmic buoyancy, and crystalline clarity—music seemingly untouched by the turbulence of its time. Yet Smit’s life, cut short at the hands of the Nazis in 1943, casts a long shadow behind the elegance. Listening today, we hear more than charm: there is defiance in its poise, resilience in its restraint. In the very act of writing joyous music on the eve of catastrophe, Smit leaves behind a testament—one in which grace refuses to yield to brutality.
Bohuslav Martinů – Memorial to Lidice (1943)
Bohuslav Martinů, himself a refugee from the Nazi regime, composed Memorial to Lidice in response to one of the war’s most harrowing atrocities: the annihilation of the Czech village of Lidice. In reprisal for the assassination of a top Nazi official, 173 men aged 15 and older were executed. The remaining 184 women and 105 children were deported to concentration camps, while a handful of children deemed “racially suitable” were taken by SS families for Germanization. This work refuses sentimental lament. It opens in a murmur of low strings, like a nation holding its breath, unfolding in stark harmonies and private grief. Fragmented themes struggle upward, only to sink again into silence. Amid the darkness, two ghostlike quotations emerge: a distant strain of the St. Wenceslas Chorale—the 12th century Czech hymn of endurance—and, almost subliminally, the “Fate” motif from Beethoven’s Fifth Symphony. Neither arrives in triumph; both appear as memory, frail and unresolved.
Martinů offers no consolation. Instead, he offers witness. This is music not of spectacle, but of remembrance—where the most powerful cry is the one nearly swallowed by silence.
Ludwig van Beethoven – Violin Concerto in D Major, Op. 61 (1806)
I. Allegro ma non troppo
Beethoven’s Violin Concerto is a study in serenity and vastness. Unlike the fiery virtuosity that would define later concertos, this music speaks with the dignity of long breath and open skies. The violin enters not as a conqueror, but as a poet—spinning lines spacious enough to hold contemplation. Its expansiveness invites the listener into a deeper kind of listening, where beauty is found not in bravura, but in patience. Near the end of his memoir Night, Elie Wiesel recalls a fellow prisoner, a violinist named Juliek, playing a fragment of a Beethoven concerto in the darkness of a concentration camp—bowing out his final notes into a void before being found dead the next morning. “Never before had I heard such a beautiful sound,” Wiesel recalls. That fragile memory reminds us that Beethoven’s music has lived not only in concert halls, but also in places where hope had nearly perished. In such a setting, this concerto’s quiet nobility becomes not mere music, but an act of spiritual endurance. Tonight’s performance will be played on a Violin of Hope. A violin that survived the Holocaust and reminds us that hope endures.
program notes
Ludwig van Beethoven – Symphony No. 5 in C Minor, Op. 67 (1808)
I. Allegro con brio – IV. Allegro
Few works in history carry a first movement as instantly recognizable—or as overexposed—as Beethoven’s Fifth. Its opening motto, four notes etched into our collective memory, has become a trope, a cliché even. Yet behind this familiarity lies astonishing drama. Beethoven begins in the iron grip of fate: terse rhythms, relentless momentum, conflict without relief. It is music forged under pressure. But it is essential to listen with fresh ears. This is not merely a symphony of struggle; it is a symphony of becoming. Its final movement, blazing forth in C major, does not erase the darkness—it transfigures it. The journey from minor to major is hard-won, radiant, triumphant. Even in the darkest moments of history, this symphony has been invoked—sometimes cruelly, as when prisoners were forced to perform it under torment. Yet despite all attempts to bend its meaning, the music remains steadfast in its message.
Beethoven himself, years later, wrote in a conversation book:
“Many assert that every minor piece must end in the minor. Nego! On the contrary, I find that … the major has a glorious effect. Joy follows sorrow, sunshine—rain.” This is the heartbeat of the Fifth Symphony. It does not promise ease. It promises transformation.
Charlene Kluegel, violin
Hailed for her “unsentimental verve, musical feeling and great technical skill” (New York Classical Review), Charlene Kluegel is known for a diversity that transcends traditional boundaries of classical music. An award-winning violinist, her performances as a soloist and chamber musician have taken her to the Ravinia Festival’s Bennett Gordon Hall, the Grand Teton Music Festival, the Kennedy Center, the Tonhalle Zurich, and the Banff Centre for the Arts. Kluegel is the cofounder of Duo FAE (violin & piano) whose album of music by suffragettes on Albany Records was released to much acclaim. She collaborated on Patois’s explorative CD of Latin Jazz “Canto America” which was nominated for a GRAMMY - Best Latin Jazz Album.
Charlene Kluegel’s commitment to teaching has taken her to education residencies and masterclasses at the Eastman School of Music, Northwestern University, the University of Texas at Austin, Michigan State University, the McDuffie Center for Strings, Roosevelt University, and Lawrence University. A graduate of the Peabody Conservatory and Cornell University, she earned her doctorate from Indiana University’ Jacobs School of Music as a recipient of the Artistic Excellence Award. Her principal teachers include Pamela Frank, Jorja Fleezanis, Stanley Ritchie, Susan Waterbury, and Monika Urbaniak-Lisik. She currently teaches at Carthage College and the Zodiac Music Festival and receives ongoing string sponsorship from Larsen Strings.
violin I
Emma Richardson
Euphrates Willis
Ben Thoma
Jerry Farias
Caila Abarro
Sophia Nevarez-Padilla
violin II
Katherine Rieckmann
Diego Solano
Jasmine Turner
Isabella Aguirre
Kylene McNeese
Claudia Schwantner
Robert Lach
Emily Van Laningham
Sugar Wradislavsky
viola
Meghan Keiffer-Zagar
Hailey Hoelzer
Elizabeth Whittier
Lauryn Klinger
Ava Putnam
Rachel Lenzi
Eli Miklusak
Giada Castelli
Quentin Zeller
Samantha Gant
Danika Stewart
Rebecca DeBoer
Aubri Smith
Addison Kelnhofer cello bass flute
Riley Gaylord
Oliver Juarez Wunderlin
Emma Gough
Mandy Nelson
Jessica Golden
Toby Staaden
Bella Howard
Laurel Brown Laurel Brown oboe english horn
upcoming events
Laura Strickling
Tuesday, November 11 • 7:30 p.m.
Sunday, October 26 • 7:30 p.m.
A.F. Siebert Chapel
Silent Film Concert
Wednesday, November 12 • 7:30 p.m.
A.F. Siebert Chapel
Historical Improvisational Piano Recital
Friday, November 14 • 6:30 p.m.
A.F. Siebert Chapel
Fall Dance Show - Everything You Touch
Friday, November 14 • 7:30 p.m.
Wartburg Theatre
Tickets Required. Visit www.carthage.edu/tickets for ticket information
Mi Wang, Student Recital
Saturday, November 15 • 7:30 p.m.
A.F. Siebert Chapel
Jana Paulsen, Student Recital
Tuesday, November 18 • 7:30 p.m.
H. F. Johnson Recital Hall
Fine Arts at Carthage acknowledges that the land on which our building stands is part of the traditional Potawatomi, Sioux, Peoria, Kickapoo, and Miami peoples past, present, and future. These homelands reside along the southwest shores of Michigami, North America’s largest system of freshwater lakes. We honor with gratitude the land itself, and the people who have stewarded it throughout the generations. Many Indigenous peoples thrive in this place—alive and strong, andthis calls us to commit to continuing to learn how to be better stewards of the land we inhabit as well.