Dec 05

Historic home of artist Leonard Ochtman for sale in Connecticut

By Jennifer Gould – New York Post – December 2, 2020

The 1891-built Cos Cob home of art-world power couple Leonard (inset) and Mina Fonda Ochtman is now asking $1.4 million.

The five-bedroom home at 35 Mianus View Terrace was renovated in 2010.

When famed Dutch-American landscape artist Leonard Ochtman moved to Connecticut in 1891 with his wife — Mina Fonda Ochtman, an accomplished American Impressionist painter in her own right — they built a house in Cos Cob and dubbed it Grayledge.

Now on the market for $1.4 million, the five-bedroom home at 35 Mianus View Terrace is where the couple became founding members of the Cos Cob Art Colony (whose famed members included Willa Cather and which helped launch NYC’s iconic Armory Show) and held classes for young artists boarding at the nearby Bush-Holley House.

The Ochtmans would also go on to become founding members of the Greenwich Society of Artists, where Leonard served as president.

Original details in the home, which was renovated in 2010, include the hardwood floors, the staircase and the solarium.

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Jan 28

Women in Business 2013: Geneva Fonda, Bear

Owner, Geneva Fonda Photography

 

Geneva Fonda
Bear
Owner, Geneva Fonda Photography

When have you arrived? Perhaps when you’ve been invited by Arianna Huffington to write for the Huffington Post. Fonda’s career as a photographer began when, as a teenager, she shot a wedding. From there, her work evolved into a true business that provides portrait photography and other services. That business continues to evolve, as Fonda becomes an author. Her book, tentatively titled “Her Brilliance,” relates life lessons she has learned from other women. It should be available in the spring. The dream: “I would love to create a philanthropic initiative that supports financial education, provides emotional encouragement, and inspires clients to elevate others as they have been elevated.”

Also see: Website, Huffington Post

Geneva Fonda is a professional portrait photographer, author, speaker, and writer whose work has appeared in national and regional publications such as Ladies’ Home Journal and Delaware Today. She is a proudly born and bred New York City gal, who lives in Northern Delaware with her family. When she’s not managing the family home, Geneva meditates, does yoga, and makes crafty things. She advocates fairness for others, is very passionate about giving back and is an active and supportive member of community events while managing her portrait photography business, Geneva Fonda Photography.

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Mar 10

Cellist Douw Fonda to perform at Holloway Hall on March 8

For the County Times, February 16, 2014

SALISBURY — Guest cellist Douw Fonda joins the Salisbury Symphony Orchestra at Salisbury University (SSO) during its inaugural concert of 2014, 7:30 p.m. Saturday, March 8, in Holloway Hall Auditorium.

Cellist Douw Fonda to perform at Holloway Hall on March 8

Cellist Douw Fonda to perform at Holloway Hall on March 8

Directed by Dr. Jeffrey Schoyen, the orchestra features Vivaldi’s Double Cello Concerto, Mozart’s Prague Symphony, Gounod’s Petite Symphony for Winds, Bach’s Concerto for Violin and Oboe, and Dvorak’s “Silent Woods” and “Rondo,” both for cello and orchestra.

A resident of the Netherlands since 1994, Fonda received his formal training at the Eastman School of Music in Rochester, NY. He played with the Cleveland and Julliard quartets and performed as a soloist with orchestras in New York and Boston. Today, he is active with Baroque and chamber ensembles including the Vespucci String Quartet, Benjamin Franklin Trio and Musica Rossi. He also is assistant principal cellist with the Netherlands Philharmonic Orchestra.

Admission is $20, $15 for seniors, $5 for children 18 and under and non-SU student ID holders. The concert is sponsored by Kuhn’s Jewelers, Eastern Shore Coffee & Water, Merrill Lynch Wealth Management, Staples & Associates Insurance & Finance and Erick Sahler Serigraphs.

For tickets visit www.SalisburySymphonyOrchestra.com or the Guerrieri University Center Information Desk.

Event: A Dutch duo

WHAT Chamber concert with Douw Fonda and Martin Kaaij

WHEN March 16, 3 p.m. WHERE Universalist Unitarian Church of Haverhill, rear entrance 16 Ashland St., with two parking lots available on both sides of Ashland Street COST $15 for adults, $10 for students; max per family $45, at the door. INFO 978-556-5046

The Fonda-Kaaij duo of Dutch musicians Douw Fonda, cello, and Martin Kaaij, guitar.

The Fonda-Kaaij duo of Dutch musicians Douw Fonda, cello, and Martin Kaaij, guitar.

The Fonda-Kaaij duo of Dutch musicians Douw Fonda, cello, and Martin Kaaij, guitar, will offer a chamber music concert as part of their American Tour.

Born and educated in the United States, Fonda has been active for two decades in the Netherlands and is a sought-after chamber musician. He is also the assistant principal cellist of one of the country’s preeminent orchestras, the Netherlands Philharmonic Orchestra in Amsterdam. He holds degrees from the Eastman School of Music and the State University of New York at Stony Brook. Fonda also received a Certificate in Baroque Cello from the Royal Conservatory in The Hague. He is a member of the Vespucci String Quartet and the founder of the “Muziek op de Dijk’ (Music on the Dike) in his current home town of Deil, the Netherlands.

Kaaij, a native of the Netherlands, is a well-known performer, recording artist and author. He enjoys searching out new repertoire for the guitar, a labor of love he began during his studies with Dick Visser at the Sweelinck Conservatory in Amsterdam and which continues to this day. Kaaij has performed the premiers of more than 60 new works for the guitar, and he continues to delight audiences with his performances of both new and familiar works.

The program will be a combination of solos and duets by John Dowland, Enrique Granados’ Spanish Dance #5, Joaquin Nin’s Suite Espagnole, J. S. Bach’s Suite for Unaccompanied Cello in C Major, Franz Schubert’s Sonata in a minor “Arpeggione,” and Tom Johnson’s “Failing — A Very Difficult Piece for Solo Guitar.”

 

Also see: YouTube, Vimeo

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Oct 15

PCA’s ‘The Miracle Worker’ communicates Helen Keller’s amazing story

By Scott Orr, The Daily Courier – 10/11/2011

PRESCOTT – To see “The Miracle Worker” performed live at the Prescott Center for the Performing Arts is to simultaneously suspend disbelief and realize what an effort it is to stage this very physical play effectively.

And it is effective. For anyone who has never seen the film or the play, “The Miracle Worker” tells the true story of Helen Keller, a young deaf and blind girl, and her teacher, Annie Sullivan. The story is set in the period immediately following the Civil War, when such children were sometimes believed to be uncontrollable and placed in asylums.

Annie (Joanne Robertson, right) and Helen (Carly Fonda, left) have a breakthrough in communication with the help of a doll.

Helen, played by 10-year-old Carly Fonda, is indeed uncontrollable as the play opens. Fonda, acting in a role that has no dialogue, yet sees her on stage for nearly all of the show’s two hours, gives a nuanced performance.  “I have learned that you can (convey) words through your facial expressions,” she said.

The role requires violent behavior: Helen slaps, kicks and bites people, throws silverware, breaks dishes, and wreaks all manner of other destruction whenever she fails to get her way.  Annie (Joanne Robertson) gives as good as she gets, although Robertson said playing the part required a little extra help.  “It’s very physical,” she said. “I’m wearing kneepads and I have bruises all over.”

Supporting actor Justus Burkitt as Helen’s half-brother, James, steals nearly every scene he’s in, cracking pointed jokes and delivering sarcastic comments to Annie and his father, Captain Keller (Kevin Nissen). He acts as the comic relief in an otherwise very intense show, but his appearances never seem forced or extraneous.

Helen (Carly Fonda) acts up at the breakfast table while Annie (Joanne Robertson) assesses the situation in the Prescott Center for the Arts' production of "The Miracle Worker." Callaghan Howard, Kevin Nissen, Karla Burkitt, Lois Fazio and Justus Burkitt co-star.

The show is directed by Catherine Miller Hahn; this is her 60th production. She said it was not easy to stage.  “This one is very difficult. There’s lots of pieces to it, lots of scenes, lots of places,” she said. Because of the nature of the theatre (it is a converted church), plays like this one, with multiple sets, require some unusual techniques and staging.  “In our theater, we don’t have flies (cables to a tall ceiling) to take things up or down, so you have to figure out a way to move and weave it all,” Hahn said.

The set design takes advantage of the open space above the stage, allowing the upstairs spare bedroom in which Annie writes her diary entries to literally be upstairs, above the rest of the house. As usual for this theater, there are unavoidable viewblocks presented by the structural pillars of the church which stand at the front of the stage. It is surprising how frequently these relatively small obstructions block parts of the action at times.

If you know the story or have seen the film, you know how it ends. This production also includes a touching “extra” after the end of the play itself.

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Sep 11

Student finds his soundtrack to success

The past few weeks of Grant Fonda’s life would not make for a very stirring motion picture.

Although Fonda participated in an international contest that tested his skill and resolve, there was no final scene of victory, only quiet affirmations. No triumphant hoisting of a trophy over his weary head, only subtler moments to be cherished and worthwhile lessons to be tucked away for a future date.

University of Missouri graduate student Grant Fonda recently traveled to Poland to compete in the Transatlantyk Instant Composition Contest.

The graduate student at the University of Missouri School of Music traveled to Poland earlier this month to compete in the Transatlantyk Instant Composition Contest, a compositional pressure cooker that tested his ability to write emotive music for motion pictures. Although Fonda did not achieve a level of glory worthy of having his own tale captured on celluloid, he came home with a better understanding of what it means to be part of the film industry.

Fonda applied to the competition — founded by Oscar-winning composer Jan Kaczmarek (“Finding Neverland”) — almost as an afterthought, engaging the process between finishing a commission and heading to his native California for vacation. In addition to submitting previously composed works, he was required to score two short film clips that were distinct but equally daunting. The first, a climactic scene from the 2009 film “Get Low,” included a stirring soliloquy from Oscar winner Robert Duvall; it was an “intense” and “delicate” moment with dialogue that needed to be preserved, not drowned out, he said. The second was from a “bizarre” French cartoon in which a young girl, among other things, falls into a bowl of alphabet soup and is attacked by zombies.

For the Duvall clip, he evoked themes of mystery and absolution through the use of unresolved dissonances, inverted chords and pedal tones; Fonda balanced “menacing” and “childlike” themes for the latter. For his work, he was selected as one of 30 participants, which meant trekking to Poland, watching a short film, and composing and performing an accompaniment before a panel of American and Polish judges on the spot.

Fonda was shown a five-plus-minute piece called “Walking,” produced by a Canadian travel commission decades ago; the work was bizarre and psychedelic, with no discernible plot or dialogue, he said. Immediately upon leaving the screening room, he sat at the piano and performed his level best. His strategy: attach a winning theme to the film’s central character and balance out its more extreme elements with a relatively accessible, melodic score. Ultimately, Fonda did not take his place among the 10 finalists. He received praise from the American panelists but was told the European judges wished he’d taken more risks; other contestants incorporated elements of prepared piano or relied on a more serial, clustered set of tones.

Although Fonda did not advance in the competition, his compositional sensibilities were advanced by encouraging, “invaluable” interactions with the likes of composers Christopher Young (“Spider-Man 3,” “The Grudge”), George S. Clinton (the “Austin Powers” films), Bruno Louchouarn (“Total Recall”) and producer Roy Conli (“Tangled,” “The Hunchback of Notre Dame”); these professionals offered lessons on life and art in master classes and specific feedback in personal conversations.

Among the comments Fonda received were praiseworthy pronouncements on his ability to convey mood and character and his capacity to musically captain viewers through a spectrum of emotions in a short period of time. Clinton remarked on his remarkable capacity for suggesting and creating color through orchestration. Additionally, he was told he had a fitting temperament for composition and was encouraged to stand up for his abilities, even while avoiding walking on others in collaboration. Ultimately, he was deeply encouraged by Young’s comments on the relationship between a composer’s maturity and the potency of his or her music.

“He said, ‘You’re not going to be able to evoke the right emotion for a romantic scene if you’ve never been married,’ ” Fonda recalled. “ ‘You’re not going to be able to evoke the right emotion for a funeral if you’ve never witnessed somebody close to you die.’ He said there’s just a certain advantage that being older in the industry has than being younger. … All this time I had been thinking,” as someone who’s closer to 30 than 20, “I’d missed my stride.”

Fonda said he’s likely to reapply next year — this year’s contest might not have provided a feel-good movie ending, but, as he exercises his talent and applies messages received an ocean away, there’s little doubt a sequel is in the works.

Reach Aarik Danielsen at 573-815-1731 or e-mail ajdanielsen@columbiatribune.com.
Copyright 2011 Columbia Tribune. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed.
This article was published on page C2 of the Sunday, August 28, 2011 edition of The Columbia Daily Tribune.

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