CLEVELAND — Janet Hall grimaces as she hits an off note on her violin, one of the few heard here at Judson Manor’s Friday afternoon recital, held in the chandeliered ballroom settings of the first-floor lounge of this residence for older people.
As an audience of 56 mostly older adults watches expectantly, Ms. Hall, 78, quickly recovers from the miscue. She slides her bow across the strings of her violin, drawing out the sweet and sonorous notes of a Gabriel Fauré suite.
Looking on and smiling is her accompanist on piano, Daniel Parvin, a 25-year-old doctoral candidate student at the Cleveland Institute of Music.
Over a half-century apart in age, Ms. Hall and Mr. Parvin share some things in common besides this duet. A home, for one: Both are residents at Judson Manor, formerly a luxury hotel, built in 1923, in Cleveland’s University Circle section. A love of music, for another: Ms. Hall has been playing violin longer than her co-performer has been alive — since she was a child. And she is still a member of the semiprofessional Cleveland Women’s Orchestra.
Here at Judson, young and old play nicely together, part of an intergenerational program that has led to harmonious relationships beyond the concerts. While many residences for older people are regularly serenaded by the local high school band or other area musicians, Judson Manor’s initiative has taken such interaction several steps further.
The artist-in-residence program provides furnished one-bedroom apartments to three graduate students from the Cleveland Institute of Music at no charge, for the duration of their studies. In exchange, the students perform regular concerts at Judson Manor, occasionally (as was the case at this recent Friday recital) with musically inclined residents.
The program began five years ago, when the Cleveland Institute, just a few blocks away, was experiencing a housing shortage for its students. A board member knew that rooms were available at Judson and approached the manor about the possibility of housing some of the institute’s graduate students, who make up about half of the student body (which currently numbers 438).
“When the idea was proposed, some residents were afraid of wild parties,” recalled Richard K. Gardner, 86, a resident at Judson for 12 years. His fears were quickly put to rest when a committee of residents and Judson management began interviewing candidates, all of whom were graduate students in their early and mid-20s.
The effects are evident not only in the performances but in the day-to-day interaction between Judson’s 120 residents and the students currently living at the manor: Mr. Parvin of Arlington Heights, Ill.; Marissa Stygles, a 24-year-old flutist of Charlottesville, Va.; and Tiffany Tieu, 25, a violinist from Atlanta.
Students and elders are neighbors, after all, in adjoining apartments. They bump into each other in the hall, swap recipes, meet each other’s families.
“There’s always something to chat about, always something to learn,” says Mr. Parvin.
Karen Fingerman, a psychologist and professor of human development and family sciences at the University of Texas in Austin, said, “Older adults enjoy being able to give to the new generation.
As retirement homes go, Judson Manor, run by a nonprofit, is fairly high-end. Residents — average age 79 — typically pay around $200,000 for an apartment here, with prices ranging from $75,000 to as much as $400,000, and a monthly service fee of roughly $2,000 to nearly $4,000. Included in the service are meals and basics like housekeeping, transportation and utilities, and a fitness center and all the programming, including the recitals and concerts. There is a nurse on duty around the clock, and home care is offered at an extra charge.
And the location seems ideal. What was once the Wade Park Manor hotel has been a retirement residence since the late 1950s and is close to many of Cleveland’s major cultural and educational institutions, including the Cleveland Museum of Art, Case Western Reserve University and the Cleveland Museum of Natural History, as well as the Cleveland Clinic and Case Western’s University Hospitals, access to which is important to Judson Manor’s residents.
That proximity and Judson Manor’s lush settings, performance spaces and musical amenities and programming help close the deal for residents.
“The decision to move here had a lot to do with the music,” says William Corcoran, 64, who, along with his husband, Mark Corcoran, 66, came here from a Cleveland suburb last year. William Corcoran, an accomplished pianist with a long career as a musical theater director in the Midwest, accompanied Ms. Stygles, the flutist, on the same bill as Ms. Hall and Mr. Parvin.
But the friends the young residents have made are not just ones who can sight-read a staff of music.
Ms. Tieu and 79-year-old Laura Berick have formed what both say is a deep friendship over cooking. “My family is in the restaurant business,” says Ms. Tieu. “And I spent years at the stove,” jokes Ms. Berick, the mother of four grown sons.
While they experiment with recipes, another Judson resident, Karen Holtkamp, 73, provides career advice to the students. As the owner of Karen McFarlane Artists, a Cleveland-based musical management agency, Mrs. Holtkamp (McFarlane was her previous married name) represented concert organists and choirs. Now she offers her expertise not only to the three residents, but as adviser to the Cleveland Institute of Music’s chapter of the national Mu Phi Epsilon music fraternity.
For her efforts, she gets back a lot, she says.