Music festival made memories for cellist

Friday, July 27, 2001 | 9:27 a.m.

The Las Vegas Music Festival, a jewel in the local cultural crown for the past 10 years, will always be music to Jack Rappaport's ears.

At last year's festival he met and fell in love with his future wife, Rachael, 28, a cellist who attended the event as a student from Connecticut and remained behind to perform with the Las Vegas Symphony and to wed Rappaport.

"It was karma," said Rappaport, who is president of the festival and head of R&R Commercial Real Estate Services.

Rappaport can't promise everyone they will meet someone and fall in love at the annual feast of chamber and orchestral music taking place in Las Vegas Saturday through Aug. 16, but he says everyone will be culturally enriched by the experience and may find a love of a different kind.

"I grew up in the rock 'n' roll era. I had nothing to do with classical music," said Rappaport, who became involved with the festival two years ago. "Begrudgingly I went to a concert four years ago (the Vanda Master Series at UNLV) with my aunt and I was hooked.

"It's easy to get hooked. I don't think I'm an exception. I think I'm the norm."

More than 40 professional orchestral musicians and instructors from around the country will perform at several concerts during the three-week period as part of a program designed to help students ages 15-28 gain experience by performing with masters.

About 90 musical students from around the world -- 45 of them from Las Vegas -- will attend workshops and receive private instruction and then appear in concert with their mentors, Rappaport said.

"Ten years ago (the festival) had 30 students and one concert," Rappaport said. "This year we will have 90 students and 15 performances."

There will be recitals, concerts and chamber music from one end of town to the other -- at Beam Recital Hall and Artemus Ham Concert Hall on the UNLV campus, at the Summerlin Library and Performing Arts Center, at the Clark County Library Theater and at the Sammy Davis Jr. Festival Plaza at Lorenzi Park.

Rappaport has been president of the festival for two years. His expertise, he said, is organizing.

"I envision building a strong foundation," he said. "I don't know how far we can go with this. Half seriously, we have talked about a two-month festival with mini-camps within camps. Students could come for two weeks or six weeks.

"But it's like everything else, financing is the only thing that can hold us back."

Rappaport is president of the Alfred and Marjorie Rappaport Foundation, which created the Introduction to the Arts Program at UNLV in 1996. The program distributes 2,500 tickets annually to students in the Clark County School District so that they can experience orchestral and chamber music.

Several organizations and businesses in Las Vegas support the festival, Rappaport said, which allows the students' tuition to remain low -- about $350 compared with $5,000 for the Aspen (Colo.) Music Festival, which is attended by about 3,000 students.

The Las Vegas Music Festival was created in 1990 by Evan Christ (it was called the Las Vegas Summer Orchestra). At the time, he was a 19-year-old music student.

Christ, who is traveling and studying in Europe, was the president of the organization until leaving in 1999.

Stelluto said Christ's purpose was to give students the opportunity to perform in full orchestral works.

George Stelluto is music director of the festival, as well as for the UNLV Symphony Orchestra.

He said the goal of the festival is to provide world-class musical training and performing opportunities for high school and college musicians at low cost and to produce professional performances for the "cultural enrichment of Las Vegas."

"The festival brings in people from major orchestras, conservatories and universities from all over the country," he said.

Stelluto, who choses student candidates from tapes and resumes, said the first week will be one of rehearsals culminating in a concert; the second week will be for chamber music and the last week another concert by the orchestra.

"We have taken the best aspects of other festivals and put them together here," he said.