The Houston Symphony Fidelis String Quartet in practice of the Mozart Clarinet Quintet. Starting lower left: Rodica Gonzalez 1st violin, Mihaela Frusina 2nd violin, guest artist Sondra Cross clarinet, Jeffrey Butler cello, and guest artist Robert Swan,

An interview with the Houston Symphony Fidelis String Quartet, here for performances and master classes as part of the White Lake Chamber Music Festival, had to be fitted around a rehearsal.

When you listen intimately to the musicians’ skill of pulsating strings and the vibrant clarinet interpreting the brilliance of the Mozart Quintet for Clarinet and Strings, your ears and mind tell you that the musicians are right. When they answer the “health of classical music” question, it is “Yes, classical music lives.”

Just an examination of the five pages of talent and multi- activities planned by Sandra Cross in the 2nd White Lake Chamber Music Festival, held last August, is more proof of the strength of the music and those who play it and plan it.

The connections of organizer Cross to the invited groups are national.

The Fidelis String Quartet is traced to her personal knowledge of Houston Symphony cellist Jeffrey Butler. “I have been with the Houston Symphony for 15 years. I knew Sondra when we were younger, and I reconnected with her on Facebook. Our Fidelis is a natural for this Festival since it replicates the outreach that we do out of Houston. It is critical that we have music education for children. The advantages of being around great art and striving to play it becomes an important part of a child’s personality: you can’t be a quitter.”

The Fidelis String Quartet recently appeared at the Weil Recital Hall in Carnegie Hall, with a CD underway.

Guest Artist violist Robert Swan is retired from the Chicago Symphony, and a Fruitland Township resident. His praise for Cross is fulsome especially in her role of strengthening classical music in the area, and its outreach to children: to create the ability for them to make this art part of their lives.

The strength of classical music, for Swan, is in part that “we have never had better musicians than now,” and personal: “You don’t know what great music can do for you. It has pulled me through life.”

First violin Rodica Gonzalez, with the Symphony 21 years, and her sister Mihaela Frusina, 2nd violin, with the Symphony 15 years, both have Masters in Violin Performance at Rice University, having been invited there after studying with Sergui Luca in Romania. Classical music has obviously been their life, and as they view of music world, they are sorry that many young people have no opportunity to hear classical music, and especially not to have the advantage of live performances.

Mihaela expressed the hope for more exposure to classical music. Her daughter, Simone, a high school junior in Houston, plays in the band, and now swims rather than playing the violin. She believes that at least the classical music sound is familiar to many young people. Although “if there is a choice between that and what they are familiar with, familiarity wins.”

For the second year, Cross is creating our own familiarity by giving us a chance to choose to listen or participate in so many venues that for one week, classical music is all there is.