RUST BELT ROMANCE

Whenever I tell anyone that I'm off to Cleveland, the reponse is "Cleveland??? Why on earth would you go to a place like Cleveland?"

I discovered Cleveland only because I have a dear friend who has lived most of his life there. Through him I see amd hear the best this forgotten city has to offer.

Yes, most people know that it has the I.M. Pei designed Rock and Roll Hall of Fame. Most people know it has a great ball park once named Jacob's Field but now sporting a corporate name. A few people know that Cleveland also has the Frank Gehry designed Weatherhead School of Business, a rippling, flowing extravaganza of stainless steel.

But I go to Cleveland because it is a culture centre. (At this point most people wrinkle their noses and raise their eybrowws in a display of disbelief.)

Today I found one more reason to respect and admire what Cleveland does for the Arts. You do know, I hope, that Cleveland has always had one of the world's great symphony orchestras p0laying in what may be the most beautifil and acoustically perfect auditorium: Severance Hall. I was there today to hear the Clevleland Youth Orehstra whose members are from 12 to 18 and who play with a zest that one rarely hears, even from "adult" performers. Their playing is clear, clean, and tonally perfect.

They played the romantic and tear-inducing Brahms Symphony #3. Then they launched into four of Dvorak's Slavonic Dances, the first of which they played with no conductor. They closed the program with the loud, demanding, cacaphonous Scythian Suite of Prokofief.

It doesn't really matter what they played. What does matter to me is that as I try to kepep "Looking Ahead" I am often confronted with despair as in"things fall apart," (you'll have to check thre literary refence for yourself,) I am redeemed from my pessimism by an experience like the Cleveland Youth Orchesatra. More than a hundred "chuldren", guided by their schools, their teachers, members of the Cleveland Symphony, and the love and care of decvoted parents, make me feel better about tomorrow.

Becuase if the title of what I write is "Looking Ahead" it is this visit to Cleveland that gives me hope.