07/22/2007

Northern People

One More Encore

Musician gets ready to leave area after almost 50 years of teaching, performing

By Tom Carr

tcarr@record-eagle.com

Special to the Record-Eagle
Rosemary Malocsay is the featured soloist during a 4 p.m. Benzie Area Symphony Orchestra performance today in Lake Ann.

TRAVERSE CITY — Violinist Rosemary Malocsay was working in Oklahoma in 1956 when Joseph Maddy, founder of what would become Interlochen Center for the Arts, invited her to come north and teach at the National Music Camp.

Maddy was in Oklahoma as a judge in a tri-state festival at which Malocsay's students took first place.

"He heard my students and asked me if I wanted to teach in Interlochen,” said Malocsay. "I'd always known about Interlochen.”

She couldn't do it then because she was committed to teaching music at a girls' high school in Cambridge, England, for two years.

"When I got back, I wrote to him and he said there's a place for me,” she said.

Malocsay, 81, is now ready to leave the area after almost a half-century. To commemorate the transition, she is the featured soloist with the Benzie Area Symphony Orchestra in a 4 p.m. performance today in Lake Ann.

Malocsay has been performing in concert with the local orchestra for about eight years and is also on its board of directors. For today's concert, she'll play the contemplative and wistful "Meditation from Thais” by Massenet.

"It was just a piece I like to play and usually one that people like to hear,” Malocsay said.

Dorothy Kunkel, conductor of the Benzie Symphony, said she'll miss Malocsay's musical knowledge and friendship.

"She's invaluable,” Kunkel said. "She can come in and do one rehearsal and add strength and depth to the violin section.”

The two have known each other since Kunkel joined the staff of the National Music Camp in 1970.

"She is one of my closest and dearest friends,” Kunkel added.

Malocsay had played with the Kansas City Philharmonic and the Baltimore symphonies, which she had left for teaching before she met Maddy. She'd figured it was good to do something other than relying on performance for her livelihood in case "you're performing and someone steps on your hand,” she said.

She began teaching during the summer camp of 1958.

For the first couple of years, when there wasn't an Interlochen Arts Academy but only a music camp, she went home to Oklahoma each winter to teach in public schools.

In the early 1960s, she took a year-round position as an educator at the academy.

"I wanted to be here. I liked Interlochen,” she said.

While teaching, she's continued to perform with several orchestras and chamber groups through the years.

Now she wants to spend the entire year in Orange City, Fla., where she's recently been spending her winters.

"I'll miss my friends, but I'm looking forward to a very active new life,” she said. "I'm a golfer and I would like to play golf all year. I didn't do much of that while I was teaching.”

The Benzie Area Symphony Orchestra featuring Malocsay as violin soloist is scheduled for 4 p.m. today at Lake Ann United Methodist Church's New Life Center, 19900 First St. in Lake Ann. Tickets aren't required, though donations to the orchestra are requested.