Lasting musical legacy: Memorial fund allows MCC to purchase new instrument, expand concert repertoire

David Sommer has been playing the soprano B-flat clarinet since he was a sixth grader in the music program at Marlowe Middle School in Huntley, where the instrument was provided. Today, the 18-year-old Huntley High School graduate attends McHenry County College, is a member of the school’s concert band and once again, thanks to a donation, he is learning to play a new instrument.

Last fall, he was provided with a bass clarinet, a larger, lower toned instrument purchased for the MCC Music Department out of memorial funds provided in 2016 by Grace C. Hajeck, a lifelong musician and educator. It cost about $2,700.

Sommer, who is taking meteorology, calculus and speech classes at MCC, said he was excited when he learned the bass clarinet would be available to him.

“It has been pretty fun to play,” Sommer said, adding it has allowed him to expand his musical horizons and learn more in-depth technical pieces. Hearing the sound flow from the instrument was maybe even more exciting.

“The bass needs more air support to push the sound out of the clarinet compared to the soprano,” Sommer said. “Mostly the fingerings and the key work is the same … Hearing [the sound] come out was very relieving and also very chilling too. It is this huge shaking sound of low clarinet that sounds beautiful.”

Sommer performs with MCC’s concert band and chamber ensemble, as well as with groups outside the college. Since the bass clarinet became available, Sommer has been taking lessons from a school music teacher as well as a private teacher. “It is the first time I played the bass clarinet,” he said. “I am trying to experiment with more clarinets in the family, the E-flat, the alto. I am excited to start working with the bass clarinet.”

He said the instrument opens new opportunities to play different pieces “within the band and orchestra world.”

“The bass is more of a support role for the band,” he explained. “We have a lot of low notes to help keep the band in time ... then there are a lot of different solos that bass clarinet can only play. It adds more texture to music overall.”

Paige Lush, director of MCC’s concert band, said the purchase of the bass clarinet “is really big.” In the 15 years since she’s been the director, the band has not had a bass clarinet and had to hope someone would join from the school or community who already had one. The new instrument creates more opportunity to add pieces to the band’s repertoire. Having it also is a draw to attract bass clarinet players, she said.

“Half the time someone in the band has it, but when you don’t have it we don’t have one to loan out,” Lush said. “A student is never able to count on that, so I have always been very careful in choosing what music we play. It can’t have an important bass clarinet [part]. This is really opening up new selections in [our] music.”

She described Sommer as an “excellent clarinet player” and when the bass clarinet arrived, he “really dove in.”

This is “opening up a whole new career possibility for him that he may not have had before,” she said.

Lush said other recent purchases paid for by the fund include 18 music stands. A future purchase from the fund include a new walk-in instrument storage unit, and she hopes soon to buy a bassoon, which start at around $5,000. The band has one bassoon but three musicians who play.

Of the growing band and its increased needs, Lush said “growth is cool, but budgets don’t grow along with it necessarily. This donation is very cool.”

She hopes for more donations in the future.

Because the band – made up of MCC students and members of the community, ranging in ages 15 to 80-something – has grown from 25 to 55 people over the last 15 years, it has become “nomadic,” Lush said. The band has outgrown the stage at MCC and now performs at various high schools that have bigger performance spaces.

On Sunday, a free concert is being offered from 3 to 4:30 p.m. at Crystal Lake Central High School. It is open to the public.

Sommer said he is looking forward to performing this Sunday and is specially excited to play the bass clarinet in “American Salute.” The playlist will be comprised of American classical music and some other more known pieces in the classical world, Sommer said.

Sommer, who plans on transferring to Purdue University and majoring in computer science, also aims to continue his music career. He will continue playing with various ensembles in school and afterward. Though likely decades away, in retirement he plans on a second career as a musician and auditioning for orchestras around the country.

In 2016 when Hajeck died, $10,000 was donated to the college in her name. In the early years of her career, Hajeck was an elementary music teacher in Crystal Lake as well as a church organist. After marrying Vernon Hajeck, she furthered her professional interests by taking a position as a special education teacher in Woodstock, according to information provided by the Friends of McHenry County College Foundation. The foundation administers the funds to help students achieve “success and continue to work toward their personal, educational and professional goals, said Brian DiBona, executive director of the fund.

In retirement, Grace Hajeck continued as a church organist and taught voice and piano part-time at MCC while also studying organ. Because there was no organ at the college, students used a rented organ at a local church for their lessons. When an old pipe organ in Ohio became available, Hajeck donated the cost of its repair and installation, making MCC one of the few community colleges to own a pipe organ at that time. This was done as a memorial to her late husband and her late parents, all of whom were avid music lovers, according to the foundation.

It seems the gift of the bass clarinet to the band is fitting, as Sommer said music is “pretty important to me.”

“It helped me throughout a lot of my schooling career,” Sommer said. “It has pretty much been a safe haven.”