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AMI Faculty concert to be high quality, eclectic and free
Sara Clarkson
Updated: October 1, 2012 3:24PM
While the AMI Faculty concert meant to be a grand re-opening of sorts for the nonprofit music school, it is also a gift to the community. The concert is free and open to the public and features the not inconsiderable talents of the American Music Institute faculty playing such a range of music that it could only be called “eclectic,” according to co-founder and executive director Remus Badea.
Indeed, in one afternoon, concert-goers can expect to hear the works of Mozart, Brahms and Shubert as well as Paganini, Sondheim and Gershwin not to mention some good quality jazz. The concert will also show off AMI’s new location at Christ Lutheran Church of Clarendon Hills, at 60 55th Street. AMI moved there from Hinsdale in early July and is enjoying a more accessible location, as Christ Lutheran is literally right off of Route 83 and 55th Street.
Badea co-founded AMI in 2006 ago with the intent of offering private and group music and voice lessons and at the same time being able to host music outreach programs and offer scholarships. Prior to that, he had a music school in Chicago, but the market there, he felt, was saturated. Badea is a violinist with a bachelor’s and master’s degrees from the University of Cincinnati’s College Conservatory of Music.
“Music education has always been a passion of mine,” he said.
Badea is an adjunct professor at Elmhurst College in addition to being the concert master for the Southwest Symphony Orchestra. Jonathon Roth plays the guitar, the bass and the piano and also teaches at Indiana University in South Bend. Margret Dahlberg is both a gifted pianist and piano teacher. Lisa Grisolia teaches both voice and piano. And Liz Soetedjo, originally from Jakarta in Indonesia, is a piano teacher. She graduated from Towson University in 2007 and has been teaching since then. Trumpet player and instructor Rick Temple has a special fondness for jazz and teaching.
AMI offers early, early childhood programs which start with babies and programs go up in age from there all the way up to some clients who are in their 80s. Last week young Nico Menotti — just a couple weeks shy of his third birthday — was there for his violin lesson with Badea. He already knew the violin’s four strings, had been practicing holding the bow and creating some tentative sounds, none of which were unpleasant. He was thrilled with his teacher and couldn’t wait to get started on his lesson.
For more information about the concert, which will be held at 1 p.m. Sunday, Sept. 9 at Christ Lutheran Church of Clarendon Hills, call (630) 850-8505 or visit www.amimusic.org.
