Contributed by Marian Fuchs

Peter Basquin, a new Collington resident, recently gave his first in-house recital. His career has included recital and concert appearances in the US, Europe and the Far East.  He has performed at the Lincoln Center, the Kennedy Center and at Carnegie Hall.  He and his wife Katie moved to Collington this year, and now he’s playing in our auditorium!

At the end of October, Peter packed the hall with a record capacity, and entertained the rapt audience with a range of pieces ranging from a Scarlatti sonata to a Bolcom rag.  He included an impromptu by Shubert, a piece of fun called Kitten on the Keys, with two lovely longer pieces:  Haydn’s sonata in E-flat Major, and Beethoven’s ‘Moonlight’ sonata.  Peter introduced his pieces with interesting information about their structure and the lives of their composers.  It was a magical hour.

One member of the audience later wrote: “Watching you play just a few feet away from where I was sitting, I saw your economy of movement and felt the connection from head to heart to hands to keys to the strings . For us, the listeners, you gave a profound sense of involvement with the complexity of the sounds and forms emerging in front of us.  It was just wonderful to be a part , for a short while, of your life’s passion.” 

He concluded by saying, surely on behalf of all who were there, “I hope you would be willing to do repeat performances on a regular, if not frequent basis!”

Music at Collington is going from strength to strength.  We now have the Collington Singers, under the professional supervision of maestro Marilyn Haskel as well as the Kollington Kats, whose players grow in skill and quantity with every performance.   We are in the third year of having two young musicians-in-residence from the University of Maryland playing, along with many of their colleagues, a series of performances throughout the year.  We have frequent and varied exciting weekend concerts arranged by resident Carol Kempske, and music every weekday evening by talented residents in the Ivy Lounge. I doubt a single CCRC our size could even come close!