ECM New Series Releases John Holloway Ensemble’s Recording of Purcell’s Fantazias

ECM New Series Releases

Henry Purcell | John Holloway
Fantazias

John Holloway, violin; Monika Baer, viola; Renate Steinmann, viola; Martin Zeller, violoncello

ECM New Series 2249
Release Date: September 22, 2023

Henry Purcell’s “fantazias” are regarded as some of the finest and most intricately wrought examples of the fantasia, due to their profound embrace of counterpoint and great command of the polyphonal techniques of the time. Composed in the summer of 1680 – a time when the fantasia was already considered old-fashioned and had been replaced by the sonata – Purcell’s “fantazias” turned out to be the very last ensemble fantasias to be published in England. As John Holloway notes in his detailed liner text contextualizing the three- and four-part works, “it is tempting in retrospect to see their brilliant distillation of the very best of Byrd, Lawes, Jenkins and Locke as a personal farewell to a kind of music, which in Purcell’s own chamber music would soon be superseded by sonatas”.

In this recording John Holloway and his ensemble – violists Monika Baer and Renate Steinmann as well as violoncellist Martin Zeller – excel at bringing to light the emotional nuance and technical complexity of the works in all their transparency and colorfulness, naturally emphasizing Purcell’s contrapuntal idiosyncrasies in the process. Holloway’s expansive studies of Purcell’s life and work are evident in this music, and the violinist discloses his great appreciation of the composer in the accompanying text, saying, “only just out of his teens, Purcell already shows his extraordinary ability, shared by few other composers of any era, to walk the fine line between joy and sorrow, to beautifully express the melancholy which was such a characteristic mood of his times; and all this within the strictest self-imposed disciplines of complex counterpoint.”

On the album, recorded at Zürich’s Radio Studio, Holloway and his ensemble approach Purcell’s fantasias No.1 through 12 with distinct and convincing interpretations that substantiate John Holloway’s suggestion that even J.S. Bach “would have been immensely proud to have composed this music, and had he encountered it, would certainly have acknowledged it as equal to his finest achievements in this art.”

The CD includes a booklet with liner notes by John Holloway.

A pioneer of modern Early Music and historically-informed performance practice, John Holloway has been a leading figure in chamber music and concertmastering of Renaissance and Baroque music for over five decades, with many distinguished recordings under his belt. He is the founder of the baroque ensemble L’Ecole d’Orphée and in 2001 became Musical Director of the Indianapolis Baroque Orchestra, in addition to multiple other activities as teacher and instructor across Europe and the USA. Holloway made his ECM debut in 1999 with a recording of the Sonatae unarum fidium by J.H. Schmelzer and has recorded eight further albums – including this release – for the label since, with repertory spanning music of Heinrich Ignaz Franz Biber, Francesco Maria Veracini, J.S. Bach, Jean-Marie Leclair, John Dowland and more.

Esther Abrami Announces New Album Cinéma Out On Sony Classical on September 22, 2023

Esther Abrami Announces New Album

Cinéma
Out on Sony Classical on September 23, 2023

Featuring Unique Versions of Abrami’s Favorite Soundtracks

Internationally acclaimed violinist and social media sensation Esther Abrami announces the release of her new album, Cinéma, set for release on September 22, 2023 on Sony Classical and available for preorder here.

With a captivating collection of lush new arrangements for violin and orchestra of film and TV scores, classical music from the movies, anime hits and new compositions by Oscar-winning composers, Cinéma showcases Esther Abrami’s versatility, musical sensitivity and technical mastery. She carefully curated each piece on the album, noting: “I am so thrilled about my new album. I wanted to curate a diverse collection that reflects my classical background, my French and Jewish heritage, my support of women in music, the films & anime that moved me the most and to offer a rich tapestry of music that spans genres, cultures & generations.  I often reflect on the similarities between film music & classical music – the intricacy of the orchestral arrangements, the emotional depth, and the timeless beauty of both – and I hope that listeners will fall for the music of ‘Cinéma’ just as I have.”

Cinéma features unique new arrangements of blockbuster hits such as Naruto, Demon Slayer, The Witcher and The Hunger Games alongside iconic French music such as Amélie and Les Choristes as well as beloved classics by Pjotr Tchaikovsky, Dmitri Shostakovich and Astor Piazzolla. The album also includes two world premiere recordings by OSCAR-winning composers Anne Dudley and Rachel Portman. Anne Dudley wrote her new work especially for Esther Abrami and Rachel Portman has reworked her music for The Little Prince with Esther in mind. Esther Abrami came to the violin through her grandmother, has Jewish roots and since childhood already established a particularly emotional connection to the movies Life is Beautiful and The Diary of Anne Frank, hence their inclusion on Cinéma. Another particularly emotional piece on the album is a new arrangement of the protagonist's theme “Zeyn” from the Lebanese social drama Capernaum. The Oscar-nominated movie from 2018 is about the survival of a young boy in the slums of Beirut. Composer and film producer Khaled Mouzanar wrote this new arrangement especially for Esther Abrami.

Esther Abrami has been working closely with a variety of arrangers to create her own, unique arrangements for Cinéma. With stunning clarity, virtuosity, and expression, she brings this range of repertoire to life with the City of Prague Philharmonic Orchestra under the baton of Ben Palmer.  For two of the pieces on the album, however, Esther Abrami chose a very different type of instrumentation. In one – “Comptine d'un autre été, l'après-midi” from Amélie, originally written for piano - Esther incorporated a loop station and thus accompanies herself on the violin.  In another, young guitarist Marcin features as her duet partner in “Libertango” by Astor Piazzolla from Le Pont du Nord.

For the recording of Cinéma, Esther Abrami chose the legendary Smecky Studios in Prague, one of the busiest soundtracks recording studios in the world.  In its 80-year history, many famous composers have recorded soundtracks there, including Rachel Portman, Daniel Pemberton, Philip Glass, Howard Shore, Alexandre Desplat, Bear McCreary, Johann Johannsson, and Brian Tyler.

CINÉMA Tracklist:

1. Toshio Masuda: Naruto: Alone Theme

2. Dmitri Shostakovich: The Gadfly, Op. 97: III. Youth (Romance)

3. Michael Nyman: If (From "The Diary of Anne Frank")

4. Anne Dudley: Chasing Rainbows 

5. Composer Go Shiina: Demon Slayer: Kamado Tanjirou no Uta

6. Sonya Belousova / Giona Ostinelli: The Witcher: Toss A Coin To Your Witcher

7. Bruno Coulais: Vois sur ton chemin (From "Les Choristes")

8. James Newton Howard: The Hanging Tree (From "The Hunger Games: Mockingjay Pt. 1")

9. Astor Piazzolla: Libertango feat. Marcin

10. Shigeru Umebayashi: Yumeji's Theme (From "In the Mood for Love")

11. Rachel Portman: The Little Prince Orchestral Suite

12. Khaled Mouzanar: Zeyn (From "Capharnaüm")  

13. Yann Tiersen: Comptine d'un autre été, l'après-midi (From "Le fabuleux destin d'Amélie Poulain" / “AMÉLIE”) 

14. Nicola Piovani: Buongiorno Principessa (From "La vita è bella")

15. Pyotr Ilyich Tchaikovsky: Valse sentimentale, Op. 51, No. 6  

ESTHER ABRAMI

Esther Abrami is much more than a musician: she's an inspiration to a new generation of music enthusiasts. Through her large social media platform, Esther shares her passion for music, performance and practice sessions and shares behind-the-scenes glimpses into her life as a musician with an ever-growing community worldwide.  With her dazzling talent, infectious personality and boundless enthusiasm for music-making, Esther Abrami is a rising star and her new album Cinéma is not to be missed.

The 26-year-old violinist studied at the Royal College of Music and completed her master's degree at the Royal Birmingham Conservatoire, for which she received a full scholarship.  In 2019, she became the first classical musician ever to win the ‘Social Media Superstar’ category at the Global Awards and in 2021 she was featured in Classic FM's ‘30 under 30 Classical Artists to Watch’ series, curated by Julian Lloyd Webber and was listed as a “Rising Star” by BBC Music Magazine. In the UK, Esther Abrami is considered one of the most promising young classical artists of her generation and has been appointed Creative Partner and Artist in Residence by the English Symphony Orchestra. With her debut album Esther Abrami (2022) and an EP dedicated to women composers recorded with ‘Her Ensemble’, a free-form group that seeks to address the gender gap and gender stereotypes in the music industry, Esther has become an artist who achieves wide attention outside the classical sphere. In her podcast “Woman in Classical,” Esther Abrami regularly interviews outstanding women musicians and composers from the world of classical music with the hope of inspiring young people to pursue a career in music.

Esther Abrami plays a violin by Jean-Baptiste Vuillaume, kindly provided by Beare's International Violin Society.

Sony Music Masterworks comprises Masterworks, Sony Classical, Milan Records, XXIM Records and Masterworks Broadway imprints. For email updates and information please visit www.sonymusicmasterworks.com/.

FOLLOW ESTHER ABRAMI: Website || Instagram || Facebook || TikTok || YouTube

September 23rd, Simone Dinnerstein Performs with Emmanuel Music Conducted by Ryan Turner with Video Installation by Laurie Olinder

Photo of Simone Dinnerstein by Lisa-Marie Mazzucco available in high resolution at: https://jensen-artists.squarespace.com/artists-profiles/simone-dinnerstein 

Pianist Simone Dinnerstein with Emmanuel Music Conducted by Artistic Director Ryan Turner

Performing Concertos by J.S. Bach, Mozart, and Glass
with Video Installation by Laurie Olinder

Saturday, September 23, 2023 at 7pm
Distler Hall at Tufts University
20 Talbot Ave. | Medford, MA

Tickets and information:
www.emmanuelmusic.org/performance-info/season-announcement

“an utterly distinctive voice in the forest of Bach interpretation”
– The New York Times

Simone Dinnerstein: www.simonedinnerstein.com

Medford, MA – Following an immensely successful performance in June 2022, pianist Simone Dinnerstein returns to perform with Emmanuel Music on Saturday, September 23, 2023 at 7pm at Distler Hall at Tufts University (12 Talbot Ave.). Artistic Director Ryan Turner will conduct. Celebrated for her distinctive musical voice and her commitment to sharing classical music with everyone, Dinnerstein and Emmanuel Music will perform three piano concertos: Bach’s Keyboard Concerto in D minor, BWV 1052, Mozart’s Piano Concerto in C Major, K. 467, and the “Tirol” Concerto for Piano and Orchestra by Philip Glass. The performance will be coupled with a visual counterpoint in the form of an abstract video journey by artist Laurie Olinder. Dinnerstein and Olinder have collaborated before in Dinnerstein’s 2021 production, The Eye is the First Circle.

Of the opportunity to collaborate with Dinnerstein again this season, Music Director Ryan Turner says:

“I am incredibly excited to work together again! [Simone Dinnerstein’s] collaborative approach combined with dazzling skill and poetic interpretation make for an ideal musical partner. And, our orchestra relishes playing with Simone!“

Recognized for her appreciation of J.S. Bach’s work, Dinnerstein recorded Bach’s Keyboard Concerto in D Minor BWV 1052 on her 2011 Sony Classical release, Bach: A Strange Beauty. Even then, more than 10 years ago, the Grammy-nominated pianist was lauded for her approach to Bach’s music and the resulting beauty and skill of her execution. NPR described Dinnerstein’s recording as a, “wonderfully expressive interpretation.” One can also relish in Dinnerstein’s thoughtful approach to Mozart’s Piano Concerto in C Major, K. 467 on her 2017 Sony Classical release, Mozart in Havana with the Havana Lyceum Orchestra. Gramophone describes Dinnerstein’s performance as offering “heartfelt directness [and] purity of line.”

Dinnerstein recorded and extensively performed Philip Glass’s Piano Concerto No. 3, written for her in 2017, but this will be her first time performing Glass’s Piano Concerto No. 1 “Tirol” from 2000, a seldom-played work based on traditional Austrian folk music, Volkslied.

Of this unique piece by Glass and the opportunity to work with Laurie Olinder again, Dinnerstein says:

“I am eagerly looking forward to collaborating again with Ryan Turner and Emmanuel Music in this unusual program featuring three of my favorite piano concertos. I have performed Bach’s D Minor and Mozart’s K 467 many times, but this will be my first performance of Glass’s Tirol. The second movement of the Tirol is what first drew me to it. Built almost as a set of variations, the sound is lush and pulsating, and its mood relates to his Symphony No 3 for strings. I love the play between intense lyricism and a feeling of austerity, so reminiscent of Schubert’s writing.

I’m also excited that the visual artist, Laurie Olinder, will be collaborating on this performance with her colorful and dynamic video art. Laurie and I worked together over the pandemic creating The Eye is the First Circle, a devised work using my father, Simon Dinnerstein’s Fulbright Triptych and Charles Ives’s Concord Sonata. I can’t wait to see how she brings this added visual dimension to the music on this program.”

Laurie Olinder says:

“Watching the shadow of leaves trembling on a wall, a current of air fluttering the leaves on a branch or the sun’s reflection rippling on the water’s surface. The rhythm of nature has a music all its own. This is what inspires me. The mind seeks to find connections to these cadences.”

About Simone Dinnerstein: American pianist Simone Dinnerstein has a distinctive musical voice. The Washington Post has called her “an artist of strikingly original ideas and irrefutable integrity.” She first came to wider public attention in 2007 through her recording of Bach’s Goldberg Variations, reflecting an aesthetic that was both deeply rooted in the score and profoundly idiosyncratic. She is, wrote The New York Times, “a unique voice in the forest of Bach interpretation.”

Dinnerstein has played with orchestras ranging from the New York Philharmonic and Montreal Symphony Orchestra to the London Symphony Orchestra and the Orchestra Sinfonica Nazionale Rai. She has performed in venues from Carnegie Hall and the Kennedy Center to the Berlin Philharmonie, the Vienna Konzerthaus, Seoul Arts Center and Sydney Opera House. She has made thirteen albums, all of which topped the Billboard charts. During the pandemic she recorded three albums which form a trilogy: A Character of Quiet, An American Mosaic, and Undersong. An American Mosaic was nominated for a Grammy.

In recent years, Dinnerstein has created projects that express her broad musical interests. She gave the world premiere of The Eye Is the First Circle at Montclair State University, the first multi-media production she conceived, created, and directed, which uses as source materials her father Simon Dinnerstein’s painting The Fulbright Triptych and Charles Ives’s Piano Sonata No. 2. She premiered Richard Danielpour’s An American Mosaic, a tribute to those affected by the pandemic, in a performance on multiple pianos throughout Brooklyn’s Green-Wood Cemetery. Following her recording Mozart in Havana, she brought the Havana Lyceum Orchestra from Cuba to the U.S. for the first time, performing eleven concerts. Philip Glass composed his Piano Concerto No. 3 for her, co-commissioned by twelve orchestras. Working with Renée Fleming and the Emerson String Quartet, she premiered André Previn and Tom Stoppard’s Penelope at the Tanglewood, Ravinia and Aspen music festivals, and performed it at Carnegie Hall, the Kennedy Center, and presented by LA Opera. Dinnerstein has also created her own ensemble, Baroklyn, which she directs. The Washington Post comments, “it is Dinnerstein’s unreserved identification with every note she plays that makes her performance so spellbinding.” In a world where music is everywhere, she hopes that it can still be transformative. www.simonedinnerstein.com

About Emmanuel Music: Through its performing, teaching, mentoring, and scholarly activities, Emmanuel Music occupies a unique niche: a living laboratory for the music of J. S. Bach. Emmanuel Music finds new and creative ways for audiences and musicians to engage with the artistic, spiritual, and humanistic aspects of the music of J. S. Bach, the cornerstone of our musical output for our first fifty years.

We seek to make Bach’s music deeply relevant to our current lives, including highlighting the connections between Bach and artists that he influenced, especially creative voices that have been marginalized in our society. Building on the symbiotic partnership between an arts nonprofit and an intellectually curious and open-minded religious community, Emmanuel Music further embraces Bach’s sacred music, especially his cantatas, as opportunities to explore the transcendent aspects of our shared human experience.

By embracing a new mission and strategic plan in March 2021, Emmanuel Music asserts its role as an essential musical, humanistic, intellectual force for participatory engagement in its local community, and around the world through its online programming. Learn more at www.emmanuelmusic.org.

For Calendar Editors:

Description: Simone Dinnerstein, described by The New York Times as “an utterly distinctive voice in the forest of Bach interpretation,” performs with Emmanuel Music conducted by Artistic Director Ryan Turner in three piano concertos - J.S. Bach’s Keyboard Concerto in D Minor BWV 1052, Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart’s Piano Concerto in C Major, K. 467, and Philip Glass’s “Tirol” Concerto for Piano and Orchestra. The performance will be coupled with a visual counterpoint in the form of an abstract video journey by artist Laurie Olinder.

Short description: Pianist Simone Dinnerstein, described by The New York Times as “an utterly distinctive voice in the forest of Bach interpretation,” performs with Emmanuel Music and Artistic Director Ryan Turner in J.S. Bach’s Keyboard Concerto in D Minor BWV 1052, Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart’s Piano Concerto in C Major, K. 467, and Philip Glass’s “Tirol” Concerto for Piano and Orchestra with visuals by artist Laurie Olinder

Concert details:
Who: Pianist Simone Dinnerstein with Emmanuel Music
Conducted by Artistic Director Ryan Turner
What: Music by J.S. Bach, Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart, and Philip Glass with abstract visuals by artist Laurie Olinder
When: Saturday, September 23, 2023 at 7pm
Where: Distler Hall at Tufts University; 20 Talbot Ave, Medford, MA 02155
Tickets and information: www.emmanuelmusic.org/performance-info/season-announcement

Cellist Ofra Harnoy’s Rediscovered & Unreleased 1996 Recording of Elgar’s Cello Concerto Debuts on Sony Classical

Cellist Ofra Harnoy

Her Rediscovered & Unreleased 1996 Recording of Elgar’s Cello Concerto Gets its Long Overdue Debut on Sony Classical

Available September 15
Pre-order Now

With George Pehlivanian Conducting the London Philharmonic Orchestra, the “Lost” Elgar Performance is Coupled with Harnoy’s Celebrated 1995 Recording of the Lalo Cello Concerto

When cellist Ofra Harnoy entered London’s venerable Abbey Road Studios in 1996 to record Edward Elgar’s Cello Concerto in E Minor, Op. 85, she never imagined she would have to wait 27 years for the recording’s release – at last, set for release on September 15 via Sony Classical and available for pre-order now.

The new album also includes a reissue of Harnoy’s recording of the Cello Concerto in D Minor by the French composer Edouard Lalo, made in 1995 with the late Antonio de Almeida conducting the Bournemouth Symphony Orchestra.

The Elgar recording – with George Pehlivanian conducting the London Philharmonic Orchestra – was completed in its 1996 Abbey Road sessions. However, it was never edited and released, all but vanished. Repeated inquiries and searches over the years yielded no results, until a diligent effort in 2022 finally discovered the master tapes in the storage of a former associate.

Fortunately, notes from the sessions survived, and the Elgar recording’s original producer, Andrew Keener, was available to advise Mike Herriott, Harnoy’s husband and manager, who edited the tapes in their own home studio. Ron Searles of Red Maple Sound in Toronto mastered the final edit, as well as remastering the Lalo recording, using the latest Dolby Atmos technology.

Keener recalls how the Elgar concerto felt at the time. “The sessions at Abbey Road’s fabled Studio 1 were productive and enjoyable, fresh and uninhibited. I hope you enjoy the result.”

In the last half-century, Elgar’s Cello Concerto has emerged as one of the masterpieces of late Romantic music for cello and orchestra – and it finally makes an essential addition to Ofra Harnoy’s catalogue of recordings. Shortly after the 1996 Abbey Road sessions, she spoke with the International Cello Society, for an interview. “I recently recorded the Elgar Concerto with the London Philharmonic,” Harnoy said, at the time. “I'm very excited about this because the Elgar is one of those pieces that just wrings me dry; I always end up crying. It's such a wonderful piece.”

The sensitive, deeply spiritual Elgar was an aging man – devastated by the brutality of World War I and newly aware of his own mortality – when he was inspired to write the concerto in 1919. His work was transfiguring, if audiences at the time were not quite ready to hear that. Interestingly, it has been women cello virtuosos who most eloquently kept it in the repertoire. The British cellist Beatrice Harrison triumphed with the concerto in the first successful performances after its troubled premiere, and she went on to record it twice with the composer conducting. In the years that followed, Canadian cellist Zara Nelsova believed in the concerto so completely that she performed it in concert and even in a reduction for cello and piano.

But it was the vibrant and heartfelt stereo recording by the young Jacqueline du Pré in the mid-1960s that sparked a new and enduring interest in the work. She inspired a young Ofra Harnoy, who met her and played for her in a master class near the end of du Pré’s tragically brief life. This new release will confirm Harnoy’s place in the Elgar concerto’s distinctive legacy.

The Lalo recording from 1995 also comes from the cellist’s years as an exclusive artist on the RCA Victor Red Seal/BMG Classics label, now a part of Sony Classical. On its release, Gramophone’s critic noted how, in the opening movement of the Lalo, the recording “ensures that the soloist’s disarmingly gentle recitativo projects naturally, and readily tames the vehement orchestral protests,” then praises how “the finely graduated and eloquently phrased solo introduction for the finale again shows Harnoy at her most imaginative.”

OFRA HARNOY: ELGAR / LALO: CELLO CONCERTOS

RELEASE DATE: SEPTEMBER 15, 2023

TRACKLIST

Elgar: Cello Concerto in E Minor, Op. 85

1. I. Adagio – Moderato

2. II. Lento - Allegro molto

3. III. Adagio

4. IV. Allegro - Moderato - Allegro, ma non-troppo - Poco più lento – Adagio

Lalo: Cello Concerto in D Minor

5. I. Prelude. Lento - Allegro maestoso

6. II. Intermezzo. Andantino con moto - Allegro presto

7. III. Introduction. Andante - Allegro vivace

Sony Music Masterworks comprises Masterworks, Sony Classical, Milan Records, XXIM Records, and Masterworks Broadway imprints. For email updates and information please visit www.sonymusicmasterworks.com/.

CONNECT WITH OFRA HARNOY: WEBSITE | FACEBOOK | INSTAGRAM | YOUTUBE

Brandon Patrick George Releases New Album Twofold on In a Circle Records September 15th

Brandon Patrick George Releases New Album Twofold on In a Circle Records

Pairing Canonical Works for Solo Flute with New Compositions

Featuring Music by C.P.E. Bach, Claude Debussy, Reena Esmail, Saad Haddad, Shawn E. Okpebholo, Ruth Crawford Seeger, and Toru Takemitsu

Release Date: September 15, 2023

Downloads available to press on request​

www.brandonpatrickgeorge.com

Grammy®-nominated flutist Brandon Patrick George has been praised as “elegant” by The New York Times, as a “virtuoso” by The Washington Post, and as a “knockout musician with a gorgeous sound” by The Philadelphia Inquirer. On September 15, 2023, In a Circle Records will release George’s second solo album, Twofold, which explores musical dialogues that transcend space, time, and identity. The recording features music by C.P.E. Bach, Claude Debussy, Reena Esmail, Saad Haddad, Shawn E. Okpebholo, Ruth Crawford Seeger, and Toru Takemitsu, and is being released digitally in stereo as well as in full Dolby Atmos spatial audio, available via Apple Music.

Twofold follows the success of Brandon Patrick George’s debut solo album, which included music by Kalevi Aho, J.S. Bach, Pierre Boulez, and Sergei Prokofiev, and was released in 2020 on Haenssler Classics. George was featured in The New York Times around the album’s release, in an article titled “A Flutist Steps into the Spotlight,” which described the album as “a program that showcases the flute in all its wit, warmth and brilliance."

George’s concept for his new album Twofold is to pair canonical works for solo flute with new compositions, reveling in the conversations composers have across time and space. He was inspired by Saad Haddad’s piece Tasalsul I, which was written in response to the slow movement from C.P.E. Bach’s Sonata in A minor, WQ. 132, H. 562 – both included on the album.

Three extraordinary lyrical works – Claude Debussy’s Syrinx, Tōru Takemitsu’s Air, and Reena Esmai’s Zinfandel – provide Twofold’s core, plumbing the interplay between European, Hindustani, and Japanese musical traditions. Debussy’s colorful harmonies and textures were a source of inspiration for Takemitsu, the celebrated Japanese composer who blended sounds from the East and West. Reena Esmail weaves scales and harmonies from Hindustani music throughout her music. She has said that it was in this work, Zinfandel, that she first began exploring this concept, which is now part of her signature compositional style.

The final pairing comes from two American composers, both Chicago-based but working at a distance of 90 years from one another. Ruth Crawford Seeger’s Diaphonic Suite from 1930 is written in a conversational style, with the flutist providing both halves of a dialogue. Likewise, Shawn E. Okpebholo’s On a Painting by Henry Ossawa Tanner - The Thankful Poor from 2021 imagines a soulful dialogue between a boy and his grandfather, depicted in Tanner’s painting.

Engaging in his own colloquy with all of these exceptional composers, George takes listeners on an adventurous journey and invites them to join the conversation themselves.

About Brandon Patrick George:
Brandon Patrick George is a leading flute soloist and Grammy®-nominated chamber musician whose repertoire extends from the Baroque era to today. He is the flutist of Imani Winds and has appeared as a soloist with the Atlanta, Baltimore, and Albany symphonies, American Composers Orchestra, and the Orchestra of St. Luke’s, among others.

George has performed at the Elbphilharmonie, the Kennedy Center, the Dresden Music Festival, and the Prague Spring Festival. In addition to his work with Imani Winds, his solo performances include appearances at Lincoln Center, the Metropolitan Museum of Art, 92nd Street Y, Tippet Rise, and Maverick Concerts. His current collaborations include touring projects with harpsichordist Mahan Esfahani, pianist Aaron Diehl, and harpist Parker Ramsay.

In 2021, Brandon Patrick George was part of the inaugural class of WQXR’s Artist Propulsion Lab, a program designed to advance the careers of early and mid-career artists and support the future of classical music. During his yearlong residency at WQXR, he guest hosted Evening Music, interviewed Ford Foundation president Darren Walker about diversity and equity in the performing arts, and recorded with pianist Aaron Diehl and harpist June Han.

Prior to his solo career, Brandon Patrick George performed as a guest with many of the world’s leading ensembles including the Los Angeles Philharmonic, the Pittsburgh Symphony Orchestra, the Orpheus Chamber Orchestra, and the International Contemporary Ensemble (ICE). With the Los Angeles Philharmonic, he performed at Walt Disney Concert Hall and at the Hollywood Bowl with music Director Gustavo Dudamel. His ensemble work allowed him to work closely with some of the foremost composers of our time including John Adams, Louis Andriessen, Tania León, Steve Reich, and George Lewis.

Raised by a single mother in Dayton, OH, George is the proud product of public arts education. He draws on his personal experiences in his commitment to educating the next generation, performing countless outreach concerts for schoolchildren every year, and mentoring young conservatory musicians of color embarking on performance careers. He trained at the Oberlin Conservatory of Music, the Conservatoire de Paris, and the Manhattan School of Music, and he serves on the faculty of the Curtis Institute and the Banff Centre for Arts and Creativity.

About In a Circle Records:
In a Circle Records was founded in 2008 by Grammy® Award-winning violinist and producer Johnny Gandelsman. Since then, the label has released albums by Brooklyn Rider, Christopher Cerrone, Layale Chaker & The Sarafand, Nicholas Cords, Christina Courtin, Sandeep Das & The HUM Ensemble, The Knights, Jon Mendle, Silkroad Ensemble & Yo-Yo Ma, Kojiro Umezaki & Wu Man, and Gandelsman himself. The label received its first Grammy® Nomination in 2021, for Brooklyn Rider's Healing Modes. Most recently, the label released an album of original music from Ken Burns & Lynn Novick's PBS documentary, The U.S and the Holocaust.

Track Listing:
Twofold
Brandon Patrick George, flute
Release Date: September 15, 2023
In a Circle Records | ICR029

C.P.E. Bach: Sonata in A minor, WQ. 132, H. 562 (1747)
1. Poco adagio [4:26]
2. Allegro [5:04]
3. Allegro [4:26]

4. Saad Haddad: Tasalsul I (2022) [5:55]

5. Reena Esmail: Zinfandel (2010) [5:06]

6. Shawn E. Okpebholo: On a Painting by Henry Ossawa Tanner - The Thankful Poor (2021) [8:32]

Ruth Crawford Seeger: Diaphonic Suite (1930)
7. Scherzando [0:37]
8. Andante [2:10]
9. Allegro [1:05]
10. Moderato, Ritmico [0:41]

11. Claude Debussy: Syrinx (1913) [2:50]

12. Toru Takemitsu: Air (1995) [6:30]

Total Time: [47:22]

Executive Producer: Brandon Patrick George
Producer: Graham Parker
Engineer & Editor: Charles Mueller, Oktaven Audio
Mastering Engineer: Oscar Zambrano, Zampol Productions
Recorded: June 12-13, 2022 at Oktaven Audio, Mount Vernon, NY
Photography: Lauren Desberg
Art Direction & Design: Christopher Kornmann / Spit + Image

Simone Dinnerstein Joins The Williamsburg Symphony Orchestra as Featured Soloist on September 8th

Photo by Lisa Marie Mazzucco available in high resolution at: https://www.jensenartists.com/simone-dinnerstein

Pianist Simone Dinnerstein is Featured Guest Soloist
with The Williamsburg Symphony Orchestra
Conducted by Music Director Michael Butterman

Dinnerstein’s First Performance of
Brahms’ Piano Concerto No. 2 in B-flat Major

Friday, September 8, 2023 at 7:30pm
Williamsburg Community Chapel
3899 John Tyler Hwy. | Williamsburg, VA 23185

Tickets (In-Person and Livestream Available) and information:
https://www.williamsburgsymphony.org/concerts

“an artist of strikingly original ideas and irrefutable integrity,”
– The Washington Post

Simone Dinnerstein: www.simonedinnerstein.com

Williamsburg, VA – Pianist Simone Dinnerstein, described by The New Yorker as an artist​​ of “lean, knowing, and unpretentious elegance,” will be the featured guest soloist with The Williamsburg Symphony Orchestra for its opening night concert on Friday, September 8, 2023 at Williamsburg Community Chapel (3899 John Tyler Hwy.). Dinnerstein, who is heralded for her distinctive musical voice and commitment to sharing classical music with everyone, will perform ​​Brahms’ Piano Concerto No. 2 in B-flat Major as part of a concert program which also features a performance of Mozart’s Symphony No. 40 in G minor. The performance will be conducted by Music Director Michael Butterman and a pre-concert lecture will be held at 6:30pm. A masterclass will be held at Williamsburg Presbyterian Church (215 Richmond Rd.) on Wednesday, September 6 at 5pm. Student musicians are encouraged to attend and view from the audience. The class is open to the public.

While Dinnerstein has come to be recognized and celebrated for her appreciation of music by J.S. Bach, she has also brought bold and expressive artistry to the work of Brahms in performances for over 10 years –– including the other of Brahms’ two piano concertos: No. 1 in D Minor, Op. 15. This will be her first performance of Brahms’ second piano concerto. Dinnerstein says:

“Brahms’s second piano concerto has long been my favorite, but I never felt ready to play it. Something about turning fifty felt like it was about time I faced this challenge, and I have spent the past few months delving deep into the forest of this remarkable work.” she says. “I am so thrilled that my very first experience of performing it will be with my dear friend, Michael Butterman, and The Williamsburg Symphony Orchestra. I have the greatest respect for Michael’s musicianship and I am looking forward to exploring Brahms’s world with him and the wonderful musicians of the symphony.”

About Simone Dinnerstein: Simone Dinnerstein is an American pianist with a distinctive musical voice. The Washington Post has called her “an artist of strikingly original ideas and irrefutable integrity.” She first came to wider public attention in 2007 through her recording of Bach’s Goldberg Variations, reflecting an aesthetic that was both deeply rooted in the score and profoundly idiosyncratic. She is, wrote The New York Times, “a unique voice in the forest of Bach interpretation.”

Since that recording, she has had a busy performing career. She has played with orchestras ranging from the New York Philharmonic and the Montreal Symphony Orchestra to the London Symphony Orchestra and the Orchestra Sinfonica Nazionale Rai. She has performed in venues from Carnegie Hall and the Kennedy Center to the Berlin Philharmonie, the Vienna Konzerthaus, the Seoul Arts Center and the Sydney Opera House.

Simone has made thirteen albums, all of which topped the Billboard classical charts, with repertoire ranging from Couperin to Glass. From 2020 to 2022, she released a trilogy of albums recorded at her home in Brooklyn during the pandemic. A Character of Quiet (Orange Mountain Music, 2020), featuring the music of Philip Glass and Schubert, was described by NPR as, “music that speaks to a sense of the world slowing down,” and by The New Yorker as, “a reminder that quiet can contain multitudes.” Richard Danielpour’s An American Mosaic (Supertrain Records, 2021), surpassed two million streams on Apple Music and was nominated for a 2021 Grammy Award in the category of Best Classical Instrumental Solo. The final installment in the trilogy, Undersong, was released in January 2022 on Orange Mountain Music.

In recent years, Simone has created projects that express her broad musical interests. She gave the world premiere of The Eye Is the First Circle at Montclair State University, the first multi-media production she conceived, created, and directed, which uses as source materials her father Simon Dinnerstein’s painting The Fulbright Triptych and Charles Ives’s Piano Sonata No. 2. She continues to perform it across the country this season. She premiered Richard Danielpour’s An American Mosaic, a tribute to those affected by the pandemic, in a performance on multiple pianos throughout Brooklyn’s Green-Wood Cemetery. Following her recording Mozart in Havana, she brought the Havana Lyceum Orchestra from Cuba to the U.S. for the first time, performing eleven concerts. Philip Glass composed his Piano Concerto No. 3 for her, co-commissioned by twelve orchestras. Working with Renée Fleming and the Emerson String Quartet, she premiered André Previn and Tom Stoppard’s Penelope at the Tanglewood, Ravinia and Aspen music festivals, and performed it at Carnegie Hall, the Kennedy Center, and presented by LA Opera. She has also created her own ensemble, Baroklyn, which she directs from the keyboard. This season, Simone presents two series anchored by Bach at Miller Theatre at Columbia University and at the Gogue Center for the Performing Arts at Auburn University. She joins Awadagin Pratt for a four-hand piano program presented by Washington Performing Arts at The Kennedy Center, and is the featured soloist for the Chamber Orchestra of New York’s performance at Carnegie Hall’s Zankel Hall.

Simone is committed to giving concerts in non-traditional venues and to audiences who don’t often hear classical music. For the last three decades, she has played concerts throughout the United States for the Piatigorsky Foundation, an organization dedicated to the widespread dissemination of classical music. It was for the Piatigorsky Foundation that she gave the first piano recital in the Louisiana state prison system at the Avoyelles Correctional Center. She has also performed at the Maryland Correctional Institution for Women in a concert organized by the Baltimore Symphony Orchestra. In 2009, Simone founded Neighborhood Classics, a concert series open to the public and hosted by New York City Public Schools to raise funds for their music education programs. She also created a program called Bachpacking during which she brought a digital keyboard to elementary school classrooms, helping young children get close to the music she loves. She is a committed supporter and proud alumna of Philadelphia’s Astral Artists, which supports young performers. Simone is on the piano faculty of the Mannes School of Music and is a guest host/producer of WQXR’s Young Artists Showcase.

Simone counts herself fortunate to have studied with three unique artists: Solomon Mikowsky, Maria Curcio and Peter Serkin, very different musicians who shared the belief that playing the piano is a means to something greater. The Washington Post comments that “ultimately, it is Dinnerstein’s unreserved identification with every note she plays that makes her performance so spellbinding.” In a world where music is everywhere, she hopes that it can still be transformative. For more information, please visit www.simonedinnerstein.com.

About Williamsburg Symphony Orchestra: The Williamsburg Symphony Orchestra is a professional orchestra based in Williamsburg, Virginia. Now in its 39th season, the orchestra offers a six-concert Masterworks series, Pops concerts, and a series of educational initiatives. The orchestra is committed to diversity, equity, and inclusion. For immediate comment, contact: Carolyn Keurajian at 201-218-8114 or carolyn@williamsburgsymphony.org. For Michael Butterman’s bio and approved images, visit www.williamsburgsymphony.org/press/approved-press-images.

For Calendar Editors:

Description: Simone Dinnerstein, described by The Washington Post as “an artist of strikingly original ideas and irrefutable integrity,” is presented as the featured guest soloist with The Williamsburg Symphony Orchestra in a performance led by Music Director Michael Butterman of Brahms’ Piano Concerto No. 2 in B-Flat Major. The evening’s program will also include Mozart’s Symphony No. 40, K.550.

Short description: Pianist Simone Dinnerstein, described by The Washington Post as “an artist of strikingly original ideas and irrefutable integrity,” is presented in concert with The Williamsburg Symphony Orchestra led by Music Director Michael Butterman as the featured soloist in Brahms’ Piano Concerto No. 2 in B-Flat Major.

Concert details:
Who: Pianist Simone Dinnerstein
Presented by The Williamsburg Symphony Orchestra
Conducted by Music Director Michael Butterman
What: Music by Johannes Brahms and Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart
When: Friday, September 8, 2023 at 7:30pm
Where: Williamsburg Community Chapel, 3899 John Tyler Hwy., Williamsburg, VA
Tickets (In-Person and Livestream) and information: www.williamsburgsymphony.org/concerts

ECM New Series September 2023 New Releases

ECM New Series September 2023 New Releases

Veljo Tormis: Reminiscentiae
Estonian Philharmonic Chamber Choir, Tallinn Chamber Orchestra, Tõnu Kaljuste
Release Date: September 8, 2023

Éventail
Heinz Holliger, oboe & Anton Kernjak, piano
Music by Ravel, Debussy, Milhaud, Saint-Saëns, Casadesus, Koechlin,
Jolivet and Messiaen
Release Date: September 22, 2023

Veljo Tormis: Reminiscentiae

Estonian Philharmonic Chamber Choir, Tallinn Chamber Orchestra, Tõnu Kaljuste

ECM 2793

Release Date: September 8, 2023

The elemental power of ancient folk music is the lifeforce that drives the compositions of Veljo Tormis (1930-2017). As the great Estonian composer famously said, “I do not use folk song. It is folk song that uses me.” This sentiment is echoed in definitive performances by the Estonian Philharmonic Choir and the Tallinn Chamber Orchestra under the direction of Tõnu Kaljuste, for decades one of Tormis’s closest musical associates. Four orchestral cycles celebrate the changing seasons: Autumn Landscapes, Winter Patterns, Spring Sketches, Summer Motifs. And three pieces – Worry Breaks The Spirit, Hamlet’s Songs and Herding Calls – feature new arrangements by Tõnu Kaljuste, continuing and commemorating Tormis’s work. The album opens with The Tower Bell In My Village which Kaljuste commissioned 45 years ago. It sets words by Fernando Pessoa that seem entirely pertinent in the context of this tribute. “Oh death, it’s a bend in the road/You can’t be seen when you’ve passed by/But still your steps continue…” Reminiscentiae was recorded at Tallinn’s Methodist Church in October and November 2020.

Éventail

Heinz Holliger, oboe & Anton Kernjak, piano

Music by Ravel, Debussy, Milhaud, Saint-Saëns, Casadesus, Koechlin, Jolivet and Messiaen

ECM 2694

Release Date: September 22, 2023

In his Éventail de musique française, Swiss oboist and composer Heinz Holliger traverses a broad selection of French works for oboe and piano in a multichromatic programme of early 20th century music. As Holliger states in his liner note, “the closeness of the oboe to the human voice inspired my idea of opening up the richly coloured fan of French music through the still far too little known collection of Vocalises-Études.” Contained in this wide-ranging recital are compositions by Ravel, Debussy, Milhaud, Saint-Saëns, Casadesus as well as Koechlin, Jolivet and Messiaen – Holliger cultivated a personal relationship with several of the composers. On piano returns Anton Kernjak, who appeared on Holliger’s 2014 recording Aschenmusik, while French harpist Alice Belugou comes in to play on André Jovilet’s Controversia pour hautbois et harpe. The richness of the 20th century oboe-repertoire is on full display throughout and finds Holliger in engaging dialogues with piano and harp. Éventail follows the release of Heinz Holliger’s multiple awards-winning large-scale opera Lunea from 2022.

Pianist Simone Dinnerstein is Presented by Maverick Concerts on August 26th as Featured Soloist with Caroga Arts Ensemble Conducted by Alexander Platt

Photo of Simone Dinnerstein by Tanya Braganti available in high resolution at: https://jensen-artists.squarespace.com/artists-profiles/simone-dinnerstein 

Pianist Simone Dinnerstein presented by Maverick Concerts
with Caroga Arts Ensemble

Performing Bach’s Piano Concerto in D Minor
Conducted by Alexander Platt

Saturday, August 26, 2023 at 6pm
Maverick Concert Hall | 120 Maverick Rd | Woodstock, NY
Tickets and information: www.maverickconcerts.org/events/annual-chamber-orchestra-concert-2/

“an utterly distinctive voice in the forest of Bach interpretation”
– The New York Times

Simone Dinnerstein: www.simonedinnerstein.com

Woodstock, NY – Pianist Simone Dinnerstein is presented by Maverick Concerts at Maverick Concert Hall (120 Maverick Rd) on Saturday August 26, 2023 at 6pm. Dinnerstein, who is heralded for her distinctive musical voice and her commitment to sharing classical music with everyone, is the featured soloist in a performance of Bach’s Piano Concerto in D Minor with the Caroga Arts Ensemble, conducted by Music Director Alexander Platt. The concert also includes Mozart’s Adagio and Fugue, K.546; Mahler’s Adagietto from the Symphony No.5; and Schoenberg’s Transfigured Night (version 1943).

Recognized and celebrated for her appreciation of J.S. Bach’s work, Dinnerstein recorded Bach’s Keyboard Concerto in D Minor BWV 1052 on her 2011 Sony Classical release, Bach: A Strange Beauty. Even then, more than 10 years ago, the Grammy-nominated pianist was lauded for her approach to Bach’s music and the resulting beauty and skill of her execution. NPR described Dinnerstein’s performance with the Keyboard Concerto in D Minor on the album as a “wonderfully expressive interpretation.” The San Francisco Classical Voice writes that it’s Dinnerstein’s “almost Romantic-style legato and narrow-ranged rhythmic freedom that impresses,” and that “this approach reaps the greatest rewards to the listener.”

On the chance to perform this Bach concerto with the Caroga Arts Ensemble, Dinnerstein says:

“It is always such an inspiring experience to perform at the Maverick. There’s something about the old wood of the concert hall mingling with the sound of the birds outside and the palpably wrapt listening of the audience that makes the music come alive in a new way. I am looking forward to meeting the wonderful musicians of the Caroga Arts Ensemble and bringing Bach’s music to life in this special space.”

About Simone Dinnerstein: American pianist Simone Dinnerstein has a distinctive musical voice. The Washington Post has called her “an artist of strikingly original ideas and irrefutable integrity.” She first came to wider public attention in 2007 through her recording of Bach’s Goldberg Variations, reflecting an aesthetic that was both deeply rooted in the score and profoundly idiosyncratic. She is, wrote The New York Times, “a unique voice in the forest of Bach interpretation.”

Dinnerstein has played with orchestras ranging from the New York Philharmonic and Montreal Symphony Orchestra to the London Symphony Orchestra and the Orchestra Sinfonica Nazionale Rai. She has performed in venues from Carnegie Hall and the Kennedy Center to the Berlin Philharmonie, the Vienna Konzerthaus, Seoul Arts Center and Sydney Opera House. She has made thirteen albums, all of which topped the Billboard charts. During the pandemic she recorded three albums which form a trilogy: A Character of Quiet, An American Mosaic, and Undersong. An American Mosaic was nominated for a Grammy.

In recent years, Dinnerstein has created projects that express her broad musical interests. She gave the world premiere of The Eye Is the First Circle at Montclair State University, the first multi-media production she conceived, created, and directed, which uses as source materials her father Simon Dinnerstein’s painting The Fulbright Triptych and Charles Ives’s Piano Sonata No. 2. She premiered Richard Danielpour’s An American Mosaic, a tribute to those affected by the pandemic, in a performance on multiple pianos throughout Brooklyn’s Green-Wood Cemetery. Following her recording Mozart in Havana, she brought the Havana Lyceum Orchestra from Cuba to the U.S. for the first time, performing eleven concerts. Philip Glass composed his Piano Concerto No. 3 for her, co-commissioned by twelve orchestras. Working with Renée Fleming and the Emerson String Quartet, she premiered André Previn and Tom Stoppard’s Penelope at the Tanglewood, Ravinia and Aspen music festivals, and performed it at Carnegie Hall, the Kennedy Center, and presented by LA Opera. Dinnerstein has also created her own ensemble, Baroklyn, which she directs. The Washington Post comments, “it is Dinnerstein’s unreserved identification with every note she plays that makes her performance so spellbinding.” In a world where music is everywhere, she hopes that it can still be transformative. www.simonedinnerstein.com

About Maverick Concerts: Maverick Concerts, Inc. is the oldest, continuous summer chamber music festival in America, celebrating over a century of world class music in the woods. The mainstay of the festival, which runs from June to September, is to be found in the Sunday chamber music concerts performed by renowned soloists and ensembles. Jazz and Contemporary Music presentations have been given more prominence in recent seasons. Our popular Young Mavericks Festival, designed to introduce students to the wonder and power of various musical genres, are free for youth age 16 and under. The festival is a winner of the Award for Adventurous Programming, accorded jointly by Chamber Music America and the American Society of Composers, Authors and Publishers (ASCAP.)

Maverick Concerts, Inc., is a 501(c)3 not-for-profit organization. Concerts are made possible in part with an award from the National Endowment for the Arts; funds from the New York State Council on the Arts, a state agency, with the support of Gov. Andrew Cuomo and the New York State Legislature; the Maverick Concerts Endowment Fund; Friends of Maverick; the towns of Woodstock and Hurley; local businesses; individual donors; and other public and private foundations. Yamaha, the official piano of Maverick Concerts, appears through the generosity of Yamaha Artist Services.

For Calendar Editors:

Description: Simone Dinnerstein, described by The New York Times as “an utterly distinctive voice in the forest of Bach interpretation” is presented by Maverick Concerts as the featured soloist with the Caroga Arts Ensemble. Together, Dinnerstein and the Ensemble will perform J.S. Bach’s Keyboard Concerto in D Minor BWV 1052, as part of a concert program which also includes music by Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart, Gustav Mahler, and Arnold Schoenberg.

Short description: Pianist Simone Dinnerstein, described by The New York Times as “an utterly distinctive voice in the forest of Bach interpretation,” is presented by Maverick Concerts with the Caroga Arts Ensemble, performing J.S. Bach’s Keyboard Concerto in D Minor BWV 1052.

Concert details:
Who: Pianist Simone Dinnerstein and Caroga Arts Ensemble Conducted by Music Director Alexander Platt
Presented by Maverick Concerts
What: Music by J.S. Bach, Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart, Gustav Mahler, and Arnold Schoenberg
When: Saturday, August 26, 2023 at 6pm
Where: Maverick Concert Hall, 120 Maverick Rd, Woodstock, NY
Tickets and information: www.maverickconcerts.org/events/annual-chamber-orchestra-concert-2/

Newport Classical Announces 2023-2024 Chamber Series Concerts from September through June

Newport Classical Announces 2023-2024 Chamber Series Concerts
Tickets on Sale August 1

Including a Special Concert on October 6 Featuring Internationally Renowned Violinist Chad Hoopes and Pianist Anne-Marie McDermott

“Embracing a new tune, Newport [Classical] is reimagining classical music for a wider audience.”
– The Public’s Radio

Information & Tickets: www.newportclassical.org

Newport, RI – Following its successful summer festival, Newport Classical continues its commitment to ongoing year-round programming for the third year, with a full season, nine-concert Chamber Series held on Fridays at 7:30pm, running from September 2023 through June 2024 at the organization’s home venue, Newport Classical Recital Hall (42 Dearborn St.). Tickets will go on sale to the public on August 1 at www.newportclassical.org. 

Newport Classical Executive Director Gillian Friedman Fox says, “This year’s Newport Classical Music Festival drew nearly 7,500 attendees, with 38% of audience members attending a concert for the first time. We are so thrilled to have welcomed so many familiar faces and new patrons to experience classical music with us in an inviting and intimate atmosphere. Our Chamber Series continues this programming throughout the year, and we can’t wait to share with the community the incredible artistry of these world-class musicians who will be coming to perform from September through June in downtown Newport.”

As part of Newport Classical’s desire to create connections between classical music, the artists who perform it, and the Newport community, all musicians performing on the Chamber Series will also go into the Newport-area public schools to perform for and speak with students, through Newport Classical’s Music Education and Engagement initiative.

Newport Classical’s Chamber Series opens on September 1 with musicians from Young Concert Artists on Tour, featuring today’s emerging star performers and arts leaders in music by Mendelssohn, Strauss, and more. On October 6, internationally renowned soloists and chamber musicians violinist Chad Hoopes and pianist Anne-Marie McDermott come together to create an exciting duo in a program anchored by Beethoven’s Sonata No. 9. Hoopes previously performed on the series in 2022, and McDermott has a long relationship with the organization – from 1990 to 1997, she was in residence as a Festival Artist. Violinist William Hagen, who performs on November 3 with pianist Orion Weiss, has been hailed as a “brilliant virtuoso…a standout” (The Dallas Morning News). On January 26, rising-star pianist Eric Lu, who has been described by The Guardian as “a veritable poet of the keyboard," will make his Newport Classical debut in a program featuring music by Schubert, Mendelssohn, Bach, and Chopin. The Galvin Cello Quartet, which burst onto the scene after capturing the Silver Medal at the 2021 Fischoff Competition and the 2022 Victor Elmaleh Competition, will perform on February 23. Bassoonist Eleni Katz and pianist Evren Ozel take the stage on March 22 in a program celebrating the many facets of the bassoon, featuring music by Debussy, Ravel, Saint-Saëns, Coleridge-Taylor, and more. On April 26, the award-winning Balourdet Quartet, which recently won the Grand Prize at the 2021 Concert Artists Guild Victor Elmaleh Competition, will present a program featuring Hadyn, Kurtág, and Schubert. Polish-American soprano Magdalena Kuźma, praised as a "standout" with "star quality" by Opera News, performs a program spanning from Chopin to Rachmaninoff to Rodgers and Hammerstein on May 17. On June 7, pianist Asiya Korepanova closes the Chamber Series with music by Rachmaninoff, Mussorgsky, Beach, Chopin, and more.

During the 2023-2024 season, Newport Classical will also present several free family-friendly Community Concerts at neighborhood-centered locations, generously sponsored by BankNewport, and two holiday programs, which will be announced later this year. The 2024 Newport Classical Music Festival will take place from July 4-21, 2024.

Newport Classical 2023-2024 Chamber Series Schedule At-A-Glance:
September 1: Young Concert Artists Sing Mendelssohn and Strauss
October 6: Chad Hoopes and Anne-Marie McDermott in Concert
November 3: Violinist William Hagen Plays Dvořák and Brahms
January 26: Pianist Eric Lu Performs Bach and Mendelssohn
February 23: Galvin Cello Quartet Plays Vivaldi and Piazzolla
March 22: Eleni Katz and the Bassoon
April 26: Balourdet Quartet Plays Schubert and Haydn
May 17: Soprano Magdalena Kuźma Sings Barber, Rachmaninoff, Chopin
June 7: Pianist Asiya Korepanova Plays Mussorgsky and Rachmaninoff

Complete concert details can be found at www.newportclassical.org/concerts. All Chamber Series concerts are held on Fridays at 7:30pm at Newport Classical Recital Hall (42 Dearborn Street). 

About Newport Classical

Newport Classical is a premier performing arts organization that welcomes people of every age, culture, and background to intimate, immersive musical experiences. The organization presents world-renowned and up-and-coming artistic talents at stunning, storied venues across Newport – an internationally sought-after cultural and recreational destination.

Originally founded in 1969 as Rhode Island Arts Foundation at Newport, Inc. and previously known as Newport Music Festival (NMF), Newport Classical has a rich legacy of musical curiosity presenting the American debuts of over 130 international artists and rarely heard works and is most well-known for hosting three weeks of concerts in the summer in the historic mansions throughout Newport and Aquidneck Island. The organization has produced more than 2,000 concerts and hosted more than 1,000 musicians and singers. In 2021, the organization launched a new commissioning initiative – each year, Newport Classical will commission a new work by a Black, Indigenous, person of color, or woman composer as a commitment to the future of classical music.

Newport Classical is proud to be an essential pillar of New England’s cultural landscape, and to invest in the future of classical music as a diverse, relevant, and ever-evolving art form. Newport Classical’s four core programming initiatives – the iconic summer Music Festival taking place across Newport; the year-round Chamber Series at the organization’s home base Newport Classical Recital Hall at Emmanuel Church in downtown Newport; the free family-friendly Community Concerts held in green spaces around Aquidneck Island; and its newly expanded Music Education and Engagement Initiative program – illustrate the organization’s ongoing commitment to presenting “timeless music for today.”

Telegraph Quartet Announces New Album, Divergent Paths, on Azica Records out August 25

Telegraph Quartet Announces New Album on
Azica Records: Divergent Paths

Worldwide Release: August 25, 2023

Downloads and CDs available to press on request​

“precise tuning, textural variety and impassioned communication”
– The Strad on Telegraph Quartet’s musicianship

www.telegraphquartet.com

San Francisco, CA – The Telegraph Quartet (Eric Chin and Joseph Maile, violins; Pei-Ling Lin, viola; Jeremiah Shaw, cello) announce Divergent Paths. The Quartet’s newest album –– the first in a series of recordings titled 20th Century Vantage Points –– is set for worldwide release, digital and CD, on August 25, 2023 via Azica Records. This first volume features two works that (to the best of the quartet’s knowledge) have never been recorded on the same album before: Maurice Ravel’s String Quartet in F Major and Arnold Schoenberg’s String Quartet No. 1 in D minor, Op. 7. Through this series, the Telegraph Quartet intends to explore string quartets of the 20th century –– an era of music that the group has felt especially called to perform since forming in 2013. The new album's release will also mark the ensemble’s tenth anniversary together.

The Telegraph Quartet’s new release offers a glimpse into the beginning of the 20th century –– a time of bewildering and unbridled creativity –– through the work of Arnold Schoenberg and Maurice Ravel, whose music on this album weaves threads of great contrast and surprising similarity. For what would be Ravel’s first and sole string quartet, the piece offers a fascinating dimension of duality within itself. Conventionally Classical writing with four movements of traditional form and temperament, which simultaneously presents modal scales, complex melodies over extended harmonies, novel time signatures, and vibrant character reminiscent of Spanish or Basque dances, as well as Russian and Asian music. Like Ravel’s Quartet, Schoenberg’s String Quartet No. 1 is a work of similarly early status against his whole body of work. A staggering 46 minutes in length, Schoenberg’s piece also embraces the traditional classical structure in four movements. However, unlike Ravel, Schoenberg unites the elements in a continuous fashion, revealing a refined way to connect the Brahms’ approach to Classical writing and the Romantic New German School of Liszt, Wagner and Strauss. For the modern day listener, the Telegraph Quartet offers an analogy of musical form: “Schoenberg’s Op. 7 is like a Wagner opera for string quartet”. It is a chamber music tone poem.

The Telegraph Quartet found these two works by Ravel and Schoenberg, despite their contrasting qualities, make an appealing and intriguing pair. They say:

"As an ensemble, we've always been attracted to these two quartets by Ravel and Schoenberg –– at first for almost opposite reasons: the Ravel Quartet has a vibrant purity, while Schoenberg's epic Quartet No. 1 is thoroughly tumultuous and bewildering. Yet we found that both works, written within two years of one another and by composers of the same age, truly do reflect the sensuality and exploration of the human psyche that was such an important part of the dawn of the 20th century."

Celebrated by the San Francisco Chronicle as having “soulfulness, tonal beauty and intelligent attention to detail,” and seen as “an incredibly valuable addition to the cultural landscape," the Telegraph Quartet’s sophisticated blend of meticulous technicality and emotive chemistry has led the group to connect with audiences from all walks of life, bringing their memorable musicality to concert halls, classrooms, and vineyards alike.

Divergent Paths is the Telegraph Quartet’s second full length release and the group’s debut album with Azica Records. This record follows Into The Light (2018), an album highlighting a gripping set of works by Leon Kirchner, Anton Webern, and Benjamin Britten. Strings Magazine described the Telegraph Quartet’s performance of Britten's Three Divertimenti as “sparkl[ing] with brilliant humor,” calling the full recording an “exciting new disc.” AllMusic describes the ensemble as an “adventurous group,” stating that Into the Light “[put] the Telegraph Quartet on the map.”

Divergent Paths | Telegraph Quartet | Azica Records | Release Date: August 25, 2023 (Digital, CDs, Worldwide)

[1-4] Maurice Ravel (1875 - 1937): String Quartet in F Major (1902-1903)
[5-8] Arnold Schoenberg (1874 - 1951): String Quartet No. 1 in D minor, Op. 7 (1904-1905)
[Total Time: 71:57]

Recorded July 14-16, 2022 at St. Stephens Episcopal Church, Belvedere, CA.
Recorded and Produced by Alan Bise
Cover image: “Gaze” ca. 1910 Catalogue raisonné 62
Used by permission of Belmont Music Publishers, Los Angeles
Graphic Design: Monica Mussulin

About the Telegraph Quartet: The Telegraph Quartet (Eric Chin and Joseph Maile, violins; Pei-Ling Lin, viola; Jeremiah Shaw, cello) formed in 2013 with an equal passion for the standard chamber music repertoire and contemporary, non-standard works alike. Described by the San Francisco Chronicle as “…an incredibly valuable addition to the cultural landscape” and “powerfully adept… with a combination of brilliance and subtlety,” the Telegraph Quartet was awarded the prestigious 2016 Walter W. Naumburg Chamber Music Award and the Grand Prize at the 2014 Fischoff Chamber Music Competition. The Quartet has performed in concert halls, music festivals, and academic institutions across the United States and abroad, including New York City’s Carnegie Hall and Lincoln Center, San Francisco’s Herbst Theatre, the San Francisco Conservatory of Music’s Chamber Masters Series, and at festivals including the Chautauqua Institute, Kneisel Hall Chamber Music Festival, and the Emilia Romagna Festival. The Quartet is currently on the chamber music faculty at the San Francisco Conservatory of Music as the Quartet-in-Residence.

Notable collaborations include projects with pianists Leon Fleisher and Simone Dinnerstein; cellists Norman Fischer and Bonnie Hampton; violinist Ian Swensen; composer-vocalist Theo Bleckmann; the Henschel Quartett, and the St. Lawrence String Quartet.. A fervent champion of 20th- and 21st-century repertoire, the Telegraph Quartet has premiered works by John Harbison, Robert Sirota, and Richard Festinger, and Osvaldo Golijov.

In 2018 the Quartet released its debut album, Into the Light, featuring works by Anton Webern, Benjamin Britten, and Leon Kirchner on the Centaur label. The San Francisco Chronicle praised the album, saying, "Just five years after forming, the Bay Area’s Telegraph Quartet has established itself as an ensemble of serious depth and versatility, and the group’s terrific debut recording only serves to reinforce that judgment." AllMusic acclaimed, “An impressive beginning for an adventurous group, this 2018 release puts the Telegraph Quartet on the map.

Beyond the concert stage, the Telegraph Quartet seeks to spread its music through education and audience engagement. The Quartet has given master classes at the San Francisco Conservatory of Music Collegiate and Pre-College Divisions, through the Morrison Artist Series at San Francisco State University, and abroad at the Taipei National University of the Arts, National Taiwan Normal University, and in San Miguel de Allende, Mexico. Telegraph has also served as artists-in-residence at the Interlochen Adult Chamber Music Camp, SoCal Chamber Music Workshop, and Crowden Music Center Chamber Music Workshop. In November 2020, the Telegraph Quartet launched ChamberFEAST!, a chamber music workshop in Taiwan.

The Telegraph Quartet adapted to the challenging times presented by the COVID-19 pandemic and performed virtual concerts presented by the San Francisco Conservatory of Music, Crowden Chamber Music Workshop, Noe Music, Noontime Concerts, Music in Corrales, and Intermusic SF. For Earth Day 2020 (the 50th anniversary of Earth Day), the National Academy of Science in collaboration with the ClimateMusic Project hosted a virtual performance by the Telegraph Quartet of Richard Festinger’s Icarus in Flight. In 2020, Telegraph launched an ongoing online video project called TeleLab, in which the ensemble collectively breaks down the components of a movement from various works for quartet. For more information, visit www.telegraphquartet.com.

Star Classical Guitarist MILOŠ to Release Debut Album on Sony Classical, Baroque, on October 13

Star Classical Guitarist MILOŠ

Launches a New Era with the Release of his Debut Album on Sony Classical

Baroque to be Released on October 13, 2023

New York, New York – “Every generation has that super special guitarist, one with star quality and universal appeal, praised for their effortless technique and musical integrity. We have Miloš – the hottest guitarist in the world.” (The Sunday Times)

MILOŠ - the superstar musician who has led today’s classical guitar revival, begins a new era in his exceptional career with a debut album for Sony Classical. Titled simply Baroque, the album presents MILOŠ’ carefully curated selection of baroque works especially transcribed and arranged for the guitar, both solo and in collaboration with Jonathan Cohen and his ensemble Arcangelo. The album will be released on October 13 and is set to enrich the unrivaled legacy of Sony Classical’s recordings of legendary guitarists, which boast John Williams and Julian Bream amongst others.

Since his incredible breakthrough in 2011, when his debut album held the no. 1 position in the UK Classical charts for a breathtaking 28 weeks, MILOŠ has built an impressive international career by performing solo recitals and concertos at most of the world’s leading concert venues. His six studio albums have sold the equivalent of over half a million copies and conquered the classical album charts in multiple territories, earning him a Classical BRIT, Echo Klassik and two Gramophone Awards. Not to mention worldwide critical acclaim, BBC Music Magazine included him in “Six of the Best Classical Guitarists of the Past Century” and The New York Times cited him as “one of the most exciting and communicative classical guitarists today.” His wide variety of musical influences and repertoire, ranging from baroque to contemporary music, via the Beatles and beyond, has helped MILOŠ build a loyal international fanbase and introduce his instrument to a whole new generation of listeners. 

His long list of musical collaborators ranges from Yannick Nézet-Séguin, Lisa Batiashvili, Alison Balsom, and Jess Gillam, to Tori Amos, Gregory Porter and Anoushka Shankar. He was the first-ever classical guitarist to perform a sold-out solo show at the Royal Albert Hall, where he returned last summer playing to a capacity audience. He has presented on both BBC and Sky TV and has his own series of educational books “Play Guitar with Miloš” published by Schott Music. He recently launched the "Miloš Karadaglić Foundation"- based in Porto Montenegro - this philanthropic organisation aims to act as a regional hub of influence by empowering artistic excellence though various educational opportunities, partnership and close mentorship.

Baroque heralds a new milestone in MILOŠ’ career. “Since the very beginning of my life as a musician, I have been deeply inspired by the incredible variety and electrifying energy of the baroque repertoire. This golden era of music is mysterious and extraordinary, flamboyant, often endlessly lyrical, ultimately timeless. And yet within the classical guitar context, apart from J.S. Bach, I believe we have only ever managed to touch the surface. This very thought inspired me to, over the years, try and dig deeper, go beyond the obvious, experiment, collaborate and transcribe, to open a new door of possibilities for my instrument and its own baroque voice”.

MILOŠ’ own transcription of Bach’s monumental Chaconne sits at the heart of this recording, anchoring the richly varied constellation of baroque composers’ masterpieces. MILOŠ particularly wanted to present the guitar across a wide range of European influences, and not merely within the more familiar Spanish context. He has selected luminescent works by nine composers here, the majority of which have never been played on solo guitar before.

There is plenty of light and shade within the music, reflecting baroque’s unique chiaroscuro character. Works such as Alessandro Marcello’s Adagio from ‘Oboe Concerto in D Minor’; Domenico Scarlatti’s ‘Sonata in D minor’; the Menuet from George Frideric Handel’s ‘Suite in B-Flat Major’; Jean-Philippe Rameau’s The Arts and the Hours or François Couperin’s Les Barricades mystérieuses offer more introspective moments, while Antonio Vivaldi’s movements from La Notte and L’estro Armonico, originally written as a concerto for 4 violins, or indeed Boccherini’s Fandango from ‘Quintet No. 4 in D Major’ provide fireworks of thrilling virtuosity.

MILOŠ worked very closely with Jonathan Cohen on all the orchestral transcriptions, as well as with Michael Lewin, the eminent British guitarist and lutenist with whom he studied at the Royal Academy of Music in London and with whom he now shares a wonderful creative collaboration.

“Everything I have learned and experienced in my musical life so far, all the influences and various musical traditions, converge in this album” says MILOŠ. “I wanted to convey a new vision of baroque here, with all the variety of style and texture, while preserving the innate intimacy and typical beauty of the guitar sound.”

While for MILOŠ one creative circle closes with the release of this album, Baroque ultimately serves as the foundation of a brand-new era in this artist’s already extraordinary career.

MILOŠ will perform works from Baroque at Carnegie Hall, New York in November this year, before embarking on a UK tour with Jonathan Cohen and Arcangelo in January 2024, followed by the North American tour in Spring 2024 with Les Violons Du Roy.

Baroque will be released internationally on Sony Classical on October 13, 2023 on CD and Digital formats.

Jonas Kaufmann to Release The Sound Of Movies Sony Classical on September 15

Jonas Kaufmann
“The World’s Greatest Tenor” (The Telegraph)

Records The Sound of Movies

New Album on Sony Classical
Release Date: September 15, 2023

All-New Recordings Of Worldwide Hit Songs From Classic Movies

West Side Story, Gladiator, Cinema Paradiso, The Sound Of Music, Les Misérables, The Mission, The Great Caruso, Singin’ In The Rain And Many More

June 21 – New York, NY -- Great songs from classic movies have been a passion of the tenor Jonas Kaufmann throughout his life, and his new Sony Classical album The Sound of Movies celebrates that with almost a century of unforgettable movie songs that have thrilled global audiences. The album will be released on September 15, 2023 and is available for preorder here.

Newly recorded in spectacular sound with the Czech National Symphony Orchestra and Choir, conducted by Jochen Rieder, Kaufmann is also joined on three tracks by the acclaimed guitarist Miloš Karadaglić.

“Immersing yourself in this world for a few hours and forgetting everything around you is incredibly fascinating – similar to the theater or opera,” Kaufmann says about classic film music. “I’ve traveled a lot over many years, often alone for weeks and months in foreign cities at the other end of the world. In addition to museums, it was the cinema – that great opportunity to entertain yourself when you’re alone – that captured my imagination.”

Kaufmann initially became enamored by cinema music via leading Weimar-era tenors Joseph Schmidt and Richard Tauber, as well as the sublime orchestrations of the great golden-age film composers like Erich Korngold and Max Steiner who were steeped in the heritage of Puccini and Strauss. For Kaufmann, The Sound of Movies presents the undeniable influence of opera on this most popular of art forms.

The Sound of Movies reflects Kaufmann’s fascination with a selection of popular hits, in a variety of languages, that span from Weimar-era Germany (a title song written to accompany the 1929 silent film Ich küsse Ihre Hand, Madame) to “Bring Him Home” from the 2012 film of the global hit musical Les Misérables.

The album includes Kaufmann’s interpretations of Hans Zimmer’s “Nelle tue mani” (Now We Are Free) from Gladiator; the Oscar®-winning “Moon River” from Breakfast at Tiffany’s; and Vangelis’s epic title song from 1492: Conquest of Paradise. Great musicals are featured as well, with memorable titles such as “Maria” from Leonard Bernstein’s West Side Story; the title song from Singin’ in the Rain; plus several numbers from the legendary creative duo Rodgers & Hammerstein including “Edelweiss” (The Sound of Music) and “You’ll Never Walk Alone” (Carousel).

From the Italian master Ennio Morricone, Kaufmann has chosen songs taken from the great melodies in the scores of Cinema Paradiso, The Mission and Once upon a Time in America.

A premiere on the album is a special arrangement of a song based on the main title theme of The Cider House Rules (with lyrics by Gene Scheer), created for the album by its composer Rachel Portman, the first woman to win an Oscar® for scoring a film. The album also includes songs immortalized by their use in films, such as “What a Wonderful World”, heard in Good Morning, Vietnam; “Strangers in the Night” from A Man Could Get Killed; and Carlos Gardel’s classic Argentinian tango “Por una cabeza,” a highlight on the soundtracks of Scent of a Woman and Tango Bar.

Guitarist Miloš Karadaglić joins Kaufmann for intimate interpretations of “Moon River,” “Edelweiss” and “She Was Beautiful,” based on the “Cavatina” from Stanley Myers’s score for the Oscar®-winning film The Deer Hunter.

In addition, Kaufmann recreates two hits from American star tenor Mario Lanza, with “The Loveliest Night of the Year” from The Great Caruso and “Serenade” from the film version of The Student Prince.

JONAS KAUFMANN – THE SOUND OF MOVIES

Track List:

1 The Loveliest Night of the Year from The Great Caruso
2 Where Do I Begin? from Love Story
3 Maria from West Side Story
4 The Cider House Rules main title
5 Nelle tue mani (Now We Are Free) from Gladiator
6 Se (If) (Tema d’amore) from Nuovo Cinema Paradiso
7 E più ti penso (Deborah’s Theme) from Once upon a Time in America
8 Strangers in the Night from A Man Could Get Killed
9 Bring Him Home from Les Misérables
10 Nella fantasia (Gabriel’s Oboe) from The Mission
11 Conquest of Paradise from 1492: Conquest of Paradise
12 What Is a Youth? (Love Theme) from William Shakespeare’s Romeo + Juliet
13 She Was Beautiful (Cavatina) from The Deer Hunter – with Miloš Karadaglić
14 Por una cabeza from Scent of a Woman
15 What a Wonderful World from Good Morning, Vietnam
16 You’ll Never Walk Alone from Carousel
17 Moon River from Breakfast at Tiffany’s – with Miloš Karadaglić
18 Singin’ in the Rain main title
19 Ich küsse Ihre Hand, Madame main title
20 Reality from La Boum
21 Edelweiss from The Sound of Music – with Miloš Karadaglić
22 Serenade from The Student Prince

JONAS KAUFMANN tenor

Czech National Symphony Orchestra · Jochen Rieder conductor

Sony Music Masterworks comprises Masterworks, Sony Classical, Milan Records, XXIM Records, and Masterworks Broadway imprints. For email updates and information please visit  www.sonymusicmasterworks.com/.

CONNECT WITH JONAS KAUFMANN
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Clancy Newman and Natalie Zhu Release New Album From Method to Madness: The American Sound on Albany Records

From Method to Madness cover art.

Clancy Newman and Natalie Zhu Release New Album
From Method to Madness: The American Sound

Music by Samuel Barber, Kenji Bunch, Lukas Foss, & Clancy Newman

Release Date: August 1, 2023
Albany Records

On August 1, 2023, longtime friends and collaborators cellist Clancy Newman and pianist Natalie Zhu will release a new duo album titled From Method to Madness: The American Sound, on Albany Records. The recording features music by American composers and includes Samuel Barber’s Sonata for Cello and Piano in C Minor, Op. 6; Kenji Bunch’s Broken Music for Cello and Piano; Lukas Foss’s Capriccio for Cello and Piano; and Newman’s own piece, From Method to Madness.

Newman and Zhu’s program was born out of a virtual performance which took place during the pandemic shutdown, presented by the Kingston Chamber Music Festival, of which Zhu is the Artistic Director. A patron who was watching online was so taken by the collaboration and the music that he encouraged Newman and Zhu to go into the studio to record, and helped make that possible – a silver lining during a difficult time. The pieces on the album each showcase an element of friendship or collaboration – between composers, performers, and friends.

Natalie Zhu says, “I feel connected with this program because of the way it reflects this ever-changing world that we live in, in an organic and incisive way.”

“The first time Natalie and I played this music together, it was at the height of the pandemic,” says Clancy Newman. “I will always associate it with that turbulent time, deeply personal, when life, art and music all seemed to take on a deeper meaning.
“There is so much variety, so much richness, and so much beauty encompassed in these four works by American composers,” he adds.

About the Music on the Album:

Clancy Newman gave the premiere performance of violist/composer Kenji Bunch’s Broken Music at Lincoln Center in 2003 – the piece was written for Newman by Bunch, commissioned by the Walter W. Naumburg Foundation. This is the first commercial recording of the work, which is in four movements, each exploring a different meaning of the word “broken.” “Broken Voice” is informed by the concept of a voice breaking with emotion or exhaustion; “Broken Chord” utilizes arpeggiated figures; and “Broken Verse” suggests a song that is somehow stuck. In his note for the piece, Bunch explains that the last movement, “Broken Music,” takes this idea of being stuck to an extreme. He writes, “As part of a series of works I’ve written recently exploring this technique, this movement is made up of twenty-some bars that are each repeated four times, creating an acoustic version of an electronic groove, or a broken record that slowly develops material while sustaining an unrelenting, furious energy.”

The other work on the album recorded for the first time is Clancy Newman’s own piece, From Method to Madness, written in 2008. Newman had recently discovered a new method of composing based on The Golden Ratio, which he explored in this work. He writes, “The first half of the piece obeys the rules of this method very strictly; at a certain point, however, the music cannot be contained by the rules any longer, and it overflows into a jazzy, Latin sounding tune. From there, it continues to approach the boiling point, ending in a frenzy that recalls nothing of the serene discipline of the opening measures.”

Samuel Barber's Sonata for Cello and Piano in C Minor, Op. 6 showcases the composer's affinity for melody and song, and was the last piece he wrote while studying with composer Rosario Scalero. Barber began the work in 1932, while vacationing in Europe with fellow student composer Gian-Carlo Menotti, and finished it back at school with cellist Orlando Cole giving the premiere later in the year.

Lukas Foss wrote his Capriccio for Cello and Piano in 1946, while he was the Boston Symphony’s pianist under Serge Koussevitzky. The piece was composed for the famous cellist Gregor Piatigorsky, with Foss and Piatigorsky giving the premiere at Tanglewood in 1947. The piece is one of Foss’s most frequently performed works. Of it Foss remarked, “I like its combination of Bach, humor and American characteristics."

Watch Samuel Barber’s Sonata for Cello and Piano in C Minor, Op. 6

About Natalie Zhu:

Known for captivating interpretations of a wide repertoire, pianist Natalie Zhu is the recipient of the Avery Fisher Career Grant, Musical Fund Society Career Advancement Award, the Andrew Wolf Memorial Chamber Music Award, and Astral Artists Award. The Philadelphia Inquirer heralded Zhu in recital as a display of “emotional and pianistic pyrotechnics.” Selections from her live performances are frequently broadcasted on National Public Radio’s “Performance Today.”

Natalie Zhu has performed throughout North America, Europe, and Asia as a soloist and chamber musician. She made her European debut in 1994 at the Festival de Sully et d’Orleans in France, she has also given solo recitals at the Carnegie’s Weill and Zankel Hall in New York City, Philadelphia Chamber Music Society, Seattle Chamber Music Society, New York’s Steinway Hall and Merkin Hall, Portland Piano Festival in Oregon, Munich’s Herkulessaal in Germany, and Beijing Concert Hall in China. She has performed with the Daedalus, Dover, Miami, Vermeer Quartets, and collaborated with members of the Guarneri, St. Lawrence, Orion, Mendelssohn, and Ying Quartets, as well as the Beaux Arts Trio and Time for Three. Natalie Zhu has been a touring recital partner with renowned violinist Hilary Hahn, and has maintained an ongoing partnership, most noticeably a Mozart Violin Sonatas recording with the Deutsche Grammophon label in 2005, as well as Suzuki Violin Books 1-3 in 2020.

As an active chamber musician, Natalie Zhu has appeared in Marlboro Music Festival, Philadelphia Chamber Music Society, Curtis-On-Tour, Norfolk Chamber Music Festival, Tanglewood Music Festival, Seattle Chamber Music Society, Maestro Foundation Concert Series, Skaneateles Festival, Amelia Island Chamber Music Festival, Bay Chamber Concerts, Great Lakes Chamber Music Festival, Chicago Chamber Musicians, Crested Butte Chamber Music Festival, The Friends of Chamber Music Reading Concert Series, and Brooklyn Library Chamber Music Series. Since 2009, she has been the artistic director of the Kingston Chamber Music Festival in Rhode Island. 

Natalie Zhu began her piano studies with Xiao-Cheng Liu at the age of six in her native China and made her first public appearance at age nine in Beijing. At eleven she emigrated with her family to Los Angeles, and studied with Robert Turner and Li Ming-Qiang. By age fifteen was enrolled at the Curtis Institute of Music where she received the prestigious Rachmaninoff Award and studied with Gary Graffman. She received both Master of Music degree and Artist Diploma from the Yale School of Music where she studied with the late Claude Frank. Natalie Zhu lives in the Philadelphia suburbs with her husband, Che-Hung Chen, a violist in the Philadelphia Orchestra, and her daughter, Clara.

Watch Kenji Bunch’s Broken Music

About Clancy Newman:

Cellist Clancy Newman has enjoyed an extraordinarily wide-ranging career, not only as a cellist, but also as a composer, producer, writer, and guest lecturer. He began playing cello at the age of six, and at twelve he received his first significant public recognition when he won a Gold Medal at the Dandenong Youth Festival in Australia, competing against contestants twice his age. In the years that followed, he won numerous other competitions, including the Juilliard School Cello Competition, the Astral Artists National Auditions, and finally the prestigious Naumburg International Competition.

He has performed as soloist throughout the United States, as well as in Europe, Asia, Canada, and Australia. A recipient of an Avery Fisher career grant, he can often be heard on NPR’s “Performance Today” and has been featured on A&E and PBS. A sought after chamber musician, he is currently a member of the Clarosa piano quartet, and he has also toured as a member of "Musicians from Marlboro" and performed with the Chamber Music Society of Lincoln Center.                                               

As a composer, he has expanded cello technique in ways heretofore thought unimaginable, particularly in his "Pop-Unpopped" project, where he writes solo cello caprices based on pop songs. He has also lectured on the Golden Ratio Method, a method of composition he invented, and has been featured on series by the Chamber Music Society of Lincoln Center and the Chicago Chamber Musicians. In March 2019 his piano quintet, commissioned by the Ryuji Ueno Foundation, was premiered at the opening ceremony of the National Cherry Blossom Festival in Washington DC.                                     

Also interested in other forms of expression, Newman produced an album entitled "From Hungary to Taiwan" for the Formosa String Quartet, which is available on Bridge Records. In 2021, the Kingston Chamber Music Festival commissioned him to produce four educational videos to assist school teachers as they navigate the covid-19 pandemic, a project that involved script writing, set designing, video editing, animation, and acting.  

Clancy Newman is a graduate of the five-year exchange program between Juilliard and Columbia University, receiving a M.M. from Juilliard and a B.A. in English from Columbia. His teachers have included David Gibson, Joel Krosnick and Harvey Shapiro. 

Watch Lukas Foss’s Capriccio

---

Track Listing:

From Method to Madness
Clancy Newman, cello & Natalie Zhu, piano
Release date: August 1, 2023
Albany Records | TROY1935                          

Samuel Barber: Cello and Piano in C Minor, Op. 6
1. Allegro ma non troppo [8:42]
2. Adagio [4:28]
3. Allegro appassionato [5:33]

4. Lukas Foss: Capriccio for Cello and Piano [6:47]

Kenji Bunch: Broken Music for Cello and Piano
5. Broken Voice [5:01]
6. Broken Chord [3:31]
7. Broken Verse [7:10]
8. Broken Music [2:56]

9. Clancy Newman: From Method to Madness [5:01]

Total Time: 49.43

Produced, engineered and mastered by Andreas Meyer at Swan Studios.
Recorded at the Troy Savings Bank Music Hall, December 21-23, 2021.
Photos by Joie Elie Photography.

Jupiter String Quartet Presented as part of Bowdoin International Music Festival

Photo by Todd Rosenberg. More photos available in high resolution at www.jensenartists.com/jupiter-string-quartet

Jupiter String Quartet

Presented in Three Concerts by the Bowdoin International Music Festival

Monday, July 17, 2023 at 7:30pm
Studzinski Recital Hall | 12 Campus Road S. | Brunswick, ME

Monday, July 24, 2023 at 7:30pm
Studzinski Recital Hall | | 12 Campus Road S. | Brunswick, ME

Friday, August 4 at 7:30pm
Crooker Theater | 116 Maquoit Rd. | Brunswick, ME

Livestream (All Performances): www.bowdoinfestival.org/festivalive/

“The Jupiter String Quartet, an ensemble of eloquent intensity, has matured into one of the mainstays of the American chamber-music scene.” – The New Yorker

www.jupiterquartet.com

Brunswick, ME – The internationally esteemed Jupiter String Quartet –– winner of the Fischoff National Chamber Music Competition and the Banff International String Quartet Competition –– will be presented by the Bowdoin International Music Festival at Studzinski Recital Hall (12 Campus Road S.) in two performances on Monday, July 17 and Monday, July 24, 2023, in addition to the final concert on Friday August 4 at Crooker Theater (116 Maquoit Rd.). Each of the three performances, as well as the other concerts presented during the season, will be livestreamed at no charge.

The Jupiter String Quartet is a particularly intimate group, consisting of violinists Nelson Lee and Meg Freivogel, violist Liz Freivogel (Meg’s older sister), and cellist Daniel McDonough (Meg’s husband, Liz’s brother-in-law). Finding new ways to showcase the beauty of their family-driven musical bonds, the Jupiter Quartet continues to shine as a prominent beacon of inspiration and education within the global musical landscape.

The Jupiter Quartet celebrates and embraces long-standing relationships with the Bowdoin International Music Festival and the Ying Quartet, with whom the Jupiter has previously performed at the Festival several times. On Monday, July 17, 2023 at 7:30pm David Ying of the Ying Quartet will perform alongside Jupiter Quartet for a collaborative performance of Anton Arensky’s String Quartet No. 2 in A Minor, Op. 35 for two cellos, violin and viola. Also as part of the program, Jupiter Quartet cellist Daniel McDonough will collaborate with the Ying Quartet to perform Franz Schubert’s String Quintet in C Major, Op. 163, D. 956.

On Monday July 24, 2023 at 7:30pm, the Jupiter Quartet will perform on their own in a second concert featuring excerpts from "At the Octoroon Balls," String Quartet No. 1 by Wynton Marsalis, Béla Bartók’s Quartet No. 6, and Antonin Dvořák’s Quartet in A-flat major Op. 105. Then as part of the Festival’s final concert on Friday August 4, 2023, the Jupiter Quartet will perform Max Bruch’s String Octet in B-flat Major, together with violinists Renée Jolles and Kurt Sassmannshaus; violist Kirsten Doctor; and bassist Anthony Manzo. The concert will also feature pianist Joyce Yang in a performance of Tchaikovsky’s Piano Concerto No. 1 in B-flat Minor, Op. 23, performed with the Bowdoin Festival Orchestra and conducted by Jayce Ogren.

More about the Jupiter String Quartet: The Jupiter String Quartet has performed in some of the world’s finest halls, including New York City’s Carnegie Hall and Lincoln Center, London’s Wigmore Hall, the Kennedy Center in Washington D.C., and more. Major music festival appearances include the Aspen Music Festival and School, Bowdoin International Music Festival, and many others. The Jupiter Quartet has been the artist-in-residence at the University of Illinois in Champaign-Urbana since 2012, where the group maintains private studios and directs the chamber music program.

Their chamber music honors and awards include the grand prizes in the Banff International String Quartet Competition and the Fischoff National Chamber Music Competition; the Young Concert Artists International auditions in New York City; the Cleveland Quartet Award from Chamber Music America; an Avery Fisher Career Grant; and a grant from the Fromm Foundation. From 2007-2010, they were in residence at the Chamber Music Society of Lincoln Center’s Chamber Music Two. The quartet's latest album is a collaboration with the Jasper String Quartet (Marquis Classics, 2021), produced by Grammy-winner Judith Sherman. The quartet’s discography also includes numerous recordings on labels including Azica Records and Deutsche Grammophon.

The quartet chose its name because Jupiter was the most prominent planet in the night sky at the time of its formation and the astrological symbol for Jupiter resembles the number four.

For more information, visit www.jupiterquartet.com.

About the Bowdoin International Music Festival: The Bowdoin International Music Festival is one of the world’s premier music institutes. Founded in 1964, the Festival engages exceptional students and enthusiastic audiences through world-class education and performances. Each summer, 250 students from more than 20 countries and nearly every state attend the Festival to study with distinguished faculty and guest artists. Community members attend memorable guest artist and faculty performances as well as 175 free events including student performances, composer lectures, masterclasses, community concerts, and family events. The Festival is an independent 501(c)(3) non-profit organization.

For Calendar Editors:

Description: The Jupiter Quartet, described as “an ensemble of eloquent intensity” by The New Yorker, performs as part of the Bowdoin International Music Festival, one of the world’s premier music institutes. The Festival engages exceptional students and enthusiastic audiences through world-class education and performances. In concerts on July 17, 24, and August 4, Jupiter Quartet will perform on their own and collaborate with members of Ying Quartet, plus violinists Renee Jolles and Kurt Sassmannshaus; violist Kirsten Doctor; and bassist Anthony Manzo, in three distinct programs that feature the music of Anton Arensky and Franz Schubert; Wynton Marsalis, Béla Bartók, and Antonín Dvořák; and Max Bruch.

Short description: The Jupiter Quartet, “an ensemble of eloquent intensity” (The New Yorker), performs in three concerts as part of the Bowdoin International Music Festival.

Concert details:

Who: Jupiter String Quartet and Ying Quartet
Presented by Bowdoin International Music Festival
What: Music by Anton Arensky and Franz Schubert
When: Monday, July 17, 2023 at 7:30pm
Where: Studzinski Recital Hall, 12 Campus Road, S Brunswick, ME
Tickets and information: www.bowdoinfestival.org/event/jupiter-ying-quartets-2023/

Who: Jupiter String Quartet
Presented by Bowdoin International Music Festival
What: Music by Wynton Marsalis, Béla Bartók, and Antonín Dvořák
When: Monday, July 24, 2023 at 7:30pm
Where: Studzinski Recital Hall, 12 Campus Road, S Brunswick, ME
Tickets and information: www.bowdoinfestival.org/event/jupiter-string-quartet/

Who: Jupiter String Quartet with violinists Renee Jolles and Kurt Sassmannshaus; violist Kirsten Doctor; and bassist Anthony Manzo
Presented by Bowdoin International Music Festival
What: Music by Max Bruch
When: Friday, August 4, 2023 at 7:30pm
Where: Crooker Theater, 116 Maquoit Rd., Brunswick, ME
Tickets and information: www.bowdoinfestival.org/event/joyce-yang-plays-tchaikovsky/

Announcing US Tour of The Music Critic Starring John Malkovich - Written and Conceived by Aleksey Igudesman - October 2023; June 2024

John Malkovich in The Music Critic
Written and conceived by Aleksey Igudesman

Announcing US Tour
October 17-28, 2023; June 2024

Watch the Trailer: https://youtu.be/tXEfvkVJ-38

The Music Critic Album Release Date: October 27, 2023 (EuroArts/Warner)
Album information: www.euroarts.com/labels/6572-music-critic

For more information: www.themusiccritic.com

New York, NY -- John Malkovich stars in The Music Critic – a show in which classical music, theater, and comedy collide – written and conceived by Aleksey Igudesman, in a US tour which runs from October 17 to October 28, and continues in June 2024. The tour coincides with the release of The Music Critic album digitally and on CD on October 27, via EuroArts/Warner Music.

In The Music Critic, writer and composer Aleksey Igudesman fuses the sardonic and straight-faced humor for which actor John Malkovich is renowned, with the slapstick and out-of-the-box zaniness of renowned comic duo Igudesman & Joo. Igudesman, who is joined on the tour by longtime collaborator pianist Hyung-ki Joo, is determined to avenge some of the most brilliant pieces of music which were railed and reviled by critics at their premieres.  

Legendary actor John Malkovich performs in this evening length show where he batters, insults, and laughs at the music of composers like Bach, Mozart, Beethoven, Chopin, Brahms, Schumann and more whose works premiered to jeers and negative press for performers and composer alike. In addition to Aleksey Igudesman and Hyung-ki Joo, they are joined by cellist Antonio Lysy, violist Hsin-Yun Huang, and violinist Claire Wells.  

John Malkovich says, “I have always loved the opportunity to collaborate on The Music Critic with Aleksey Igudesman, Hyung-ki Joo, and many other gifted and thoughtful musicians. We are all happy to be back on the road, and for the first time also in the USA, participating in an evening which consists of some of the greatest compositions in the history of classical music, paired with the perhaps rather unexpected initial reactions those compositions elicited from some of the world’s renowned music critics, along with some other surprises.”

Aleksey Igudesman says, “The Music Critic is a project very close to my heart and bringing it to the USA is something I dreamed of from its inception. My dear friend John Malkovich in the role of the evil critic is despicable and lovable at the same time and evokes the critic in every one of us.”

Tanja Dorn, Principal of Dorn Music, which is exclusively managing and booking the tour, says, “We are thrilled to finally be bringing this insightful and hilarious show to audiences in the United States.  Aleksey and John have created a brilliantly witty and creative evening of comedy and music making.”

Tour schedule:

Benaroya Hall, Seattle WA – October 17, 2023
Presented by the Seattle Symphony

Orpheum Theatre, Los Angeles CA – October 20, 2023
Presented by Live Nation

Majestic Theater, Dallas, Texas – October 21, 2023
Presented by AT&T Performing Arts Center

Tobin Center for the Performing Arts, San Antonio, Texas – October 22, 2023
Presented by Tobin Center for the Performing Arts

Long Center for the Performing Arts, Austin, Texas – October, 23, 2023
Presented by Long Center for the Performing Arts

Filmore Theatre, Detroit, MI – October, 25, 2023
Presented by Live Nation

Chicago Theatre, Chicago IL – October 26, 2023
Presented by Live Nation

The Beacon Theatre, New York, NY – October 28, 2023
Presented by Live Nation

US Premiere of The Music Critic at the Symphony – with the Oregon Symphony
Arlene Schnitzer Concert Hall, Portland, OR – June 12, 2024
Presented by the Oregon Symphony 

Official Trailer:

Press Room: https://bit.ly/TheMusicCriticPressRoom

 Exclusive Worldwide Management and Booking for “The Music Critic:”

Tanja Dorn & Anthony Acocella, Dorn Music LLC www.dornmusic.com

Igor Levit's New Double Album Fantasia to be released on Sony Classical September 29

Igor Levit’s New Double Album Fantasia
to be Released by Sony Classical on September 20, 2023

Preorder HERE

Features a Wide Range of Works from Various Periods, Showcasing Key Compositions by Franz Liszt, Ferruccio Busoni, Johann Sebastian Bach, and Alban Berg

New York, NY - On his new Sony Classical double album, Fantasia, arriving September 29 and available now for preorder, IGOR LEVIT performs four paradigmatic works spanning a period of almost two centuries from 1720 to 1910. For Igor Levit, these works “have something incredibly expansive about them, their frequent intimacy notwithstanding. They are not only emotional but also instrumental.”

The starting point of all four works is the music of Johann Sebastian Bach, which for Igor Levit represents “maximal freedom and imagination and at the same time great rigour”. Igor Levit has chosen Bach’s exceptional Chromatic Fantasy and Fugue in D minor and combined it with Liszt’s B minor Sonata, a highly charged piece that at the time of its composition looked far ahead into the future (which Igor Levit is currently performing to great acclaim all over the world), together with Busoni’s Fantasia contrappuntistica, in which Busoni perpetuated the Bach tradition, and Alban Berg’s only Piano Sonata.

These four major works are complemented by four shorter pieces that for Igor Levit provide “lead-ins that I feel intuitively are right”. These four shorter pieces are Alexander Siloti’s arrangement of the famous Air from Bach’s Third Orchestral Suite, Liszt’s transcription of Schubert’s song Der Doppelgänger, Busoni’s Nuit de Noël and an early piano piece in B minor by Alban Berg.

Igor Levit’s Fantasia will be released by Sony Classical on September 29, 2023 both as double CD and in digital formats and is available now for preorder. 

IGOR LEVIT: FANTASIA

Track List:
CD 1 
Johann Sebastian Bach 1685–1750 
1  Suite for String Orchestra No. 3 in D Major, BWV 1068: Air (Arr. for piano by A. Siloti)      
2-3 Chromatic Fantasia and Fugue in D minor BWV 903 

Franz Liszt 1811–1886 
4–6 Piano Sonata in B minor S 178 
7 Der Doppelgänger S 560/12 

CD 2 
Alban Berg 1885–1935 
1 Klavierstück in B minor 
2 Piano Sonata op. 1 

Ferruccio Busoni 1866–1924 
3 Fantasia contrappuntistica BV 256 
4  Nuit de Noël BV 251 

Igor Levit piano 

Sony Music Masterworks comprises Masterworks, Sony Classical, Milan Records, XXIM Records, and Masterworks Broadway imprints.

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Anna Lapwood Releases Luna - Debut Album on Sony Classical Out on September 29

Organ Sensation Anna Lapwood
Announces Debut Album on Sony Classical

Luna - Out Sept 29th

New Single: Max Richter’s ‘On The Nature Of Daylight’
Out Now - LISTEN HERE

“She is much more than a gifted organist, choral conductor and social media sensation…she’s a star on a mission” - The Sunday Times

“She had rightly become “the world’s most visible organist” - New York Times

“Imaginative, open-minded and a brilliant musician, the organist and conductor Anna Lapwood is the dream ambassador for classical music.” - Gramophone

Watch the CBS Saturday Morning Feature on Anna Lapwood: https://youtu.be/eHSm--LWcRo

Marking an exciting new chapter in her career, organ sensation Anna Lapwood, stands on the cusp of something special as she announces her eagerly anticipated new album Luna - out September 29th on Sony Classical.

The album follows a flurry of exciting activity this year. She picked up the prestigious RPS Gamechanger Award at The Royal Philharmonic Society Awards, celebrated the release of her stunning 5 track EP Midnight Sessions At The Royal Albert Hall, and is about to perform a solo recital as part of this year’s BBC Proms season.

An album that represents a rounded reflection of her highly impressive career to date, Luna is a fifteen-track collection of traditional classical repertoire alongside contemporary composers and new film music transcriptions. The album predominantly features Anna as an organist, but the other side of her life is showcased too, conducting the Pembroke College Chapel Choir for two of the tracks.

Anna explains: “One of the highlights of my year is the time I spend teaching music in Zambia. I love it for the people, the music & the laughter, but I also always look forward to the first time I see the Zambian night sky again. You look up and it’s just completely full of stars. Bright stars, dull stars; some twinkling, some static; some glowing orbs and others dots smaller than pinpricks. With this album, I’m imagining we’re standing there, gazing at the sky, overwhelmed by the magnitude of what we can see. I’m imagining that as we stare upwards, our minds can almost take us there, travelling through the night sky and exploring individual stars with their unique personalities and characteristics.”

Originally written by Max Richter, the album’s new offering ‘On the Nature of Daylight’, is a thought-provoking re-imagining that gives the piece an other-worldly dimension. Listen here.

“This was a piece I've been wanting to try on the organ for such a long time,” comments Anna. “When I started running through ideas with our producer, Jonathan Allen, he suggested adding a choir, and the moment we tried it the piece seemed to take on new life. It feels very special to be releasing this as the first single from the album as it brings together the two sides of who I am as a musician: playing the organ but also working with the amazing choirs at Pembroke.”

The 27-year-old from a small Oxfordshire village has been making waves with her exciting approach to organ playing, awakening the senses of young and old alike, opening the gateways to classical music and shining a light on an often under-appreciated instrument.

In 2022, only 8% of organ recitals in the UK were given by women. To try and encourage more women to try the organ, Anna initiated the #playlikeagirl social media hashtag, not to divide but to unite and remind women to own themselves, be themselves and find themselves through music.

Anna has spent 7 years as Director of Music at Cambridge University’s Pembroke College, running the choirs and teaching academic music. After work and as night falls, her role as Associate Artist of the Royal Albert Hall sees her granted special access to the majestic instrument while most of us are fast asleep. This has led to some spectacular spontaneous collaborations, the most famous being with electronic musician Bonobo - one late-night practice session was interrupted by a request shouted up from the stage, which turned out to come from a couple of members of Bonobo’s band. 18 hours later, she was helping them close their show to an unsuspecting audience of 5,000.

Anna continues to relive the magic of that event through her videos to her 550,000+ TikTok followers - a tool she is using with exciting results having now passed 1 million social media followers across all platforms. The power of social media gives the ability to demystify the outdated baggage the organ once carried along with it, throwing open the doors to new music, new possibilities, and new audiences.

Luna Track List:

1. Flying (from "Peter Pan")
   Composer: James Newton Howard

2. Grain Moon
   Composer: Olivia Belli

3. Nocturne Op. 9, No.2
   Composer: Frédéric Chopin

4. Dreamland
   Composer: Kristina Arakelyan

5. Dawn (from "Pride and Prejudice")
   Composer: Dario Marianelli

6. Stay (from "Interstellar")
   Composer: Hans Zimmer

7. Ave Maria
   Composers: Johann Sebastian Bach & Charles Gounod

8. Mad Rush
   Composer: Philip Glass

9. In Paradisum
   Composer: Ghislaine Reece-Trapp

10. Stars
    Composers: Ēriks Ešenvalds & Sara Teasdale

11. Star Fantasy
    Composer: Kristina Arakelyan

12. On the Nature of Daylight
    Composer: Max Richter

13. An Elf on a Moonbeam
    Composer: Florence Beatrice Price

14. Experience
    Composer: Ludovico Einaudi

15. Clair de Lune
    Composer: Claude Debussy

Composer Robert Sirota’s Muzzy Ridge Concerts Returns for Third Season

Top: Neave Trio | Bottom Left: Fischer Duo | Bottom Right: Composer Robert Sirota

Robert Sirota’s Muzzy Ridge Concerts Returns for Third Season
with Fischer Duo and GRAMMY-nominated Neave Trio

The Fischer Duo
Saturday, August 19, 2023 at 3pm
Sunday, August 20, 2023 at 3pm

The Neave Trio
Saturday, August 26, 2023 at 3pm
Sunday, August 27, 2023 at 3pm

Tickets and Information: www.robertsirota.com/muzzy-ridge-concerts

Searsmont, ME – Composer Robert Sirota’s third annual Muzzy Ridge Concerts series brings the highly acclaimed Fischer Duo and GRAMMY-nominated Neave Trio to Maine for performances presented over two weekends in August.

Each of the series’ four concerts will be held in the Searsmont, Maine studio where composer and series founder Robert Sirota has written much of his music over the past 35 years. The Sunday programs will be a repeat of the Saturday programs. Performances will run for approximately 60 minutes with no intermission. Indoor seating is limited to 50 patrons with an additional 20 outdoor seats.

Featured in the first weekend of performances on August 19 and August 20, both at 3pm, are Norman and Jeanne Kierman Fischer of The Fischer Duo, performing works that span from the early 19th century to the present day, including Family Portraits, a new work composed by Robert Sirota and dedicated to the Fischer Duo. Sirota and the Fischer Duo, as well Norman and Jeanne’s two musician daughters Rebecca, and Abigail, share a history steeped in mutual appreciation for music and a meaningful relationship of more than 50 years. The Fischer Duo has embraced opportunities to perform Sirota’s work and with the recording of Family Portraits on the Fischer Duo’s 2022 album 2020 Visions comes a beautiful testament to the friendship these artists share with one another.

Performing on the series’ second weekend, August 26 and August 27 both at 3pm, is the Boston-based, GRAMMY-nominated Neave Trio. The Trio will perform a program showcasing all-women composers: Lili Boulanger, Gabriela Lena Frank, and Ethel Smyth. Though the Neave Trio will be making their Muzzy Ridge Concerts debut, the group has a strong bond of artistic camaraderie with Sirota. Most recently this connection has resulted in the development of Rising, a new collaborative work between the Neave Trio and Sirota, as well as choreographer Gabrielle Lamb and dance company Pigeonwing Dance. Weaving together music, text, and dance, Rising is a meditation not only on rising temperatures and sea levels, but also on humanity’s rising awareness of our connection to and dependence on the Earth’s oceans.

Tickets for all Muzzy Ridge Concerts performances are now on sale at www.robertsirota.com/muzzy-ridge-concerts.

About the Artists:

The Fischer Duo –– GRAMMY-award winning cellist Norman Fischer and pianist Jeanne Kierman Fischer –– has performed on five continents in its over-50-year history. Founded in 1971 while students at Oberlin College, the Duo has developed a wide-ranging repertoire covering the traditional “canon” plus many forgotten or unknown works of the past. In addition, the Fischers have been very active with music of our own time, commissioning over 30 works and recording even more. The Duo’s extensive discography includes 18 albums from Beethoven, Brahms, 20th Century French Masters, Chopin and Liszt, to generations of American composers.These recordings have garnered rave reviews from The Strad, Gramophone, Strings Magazine, and BBC Music Magazine.

Since forming in 2010, Neave Trio has earned enormous praise for its engaging, cutting-edge performances. WQXR explains, "'Neave' is actually a Gaelic name meaning 'bright' and 'radiant', both of which certainly apply to this trio's music making." The Boston Musical Intelligencer included Neave in its "Best of 2014" and “Best of 2016” roundups, claiming, “their unanimity, communication, variety of touch, and expressive sensibility rate first tier.” Neave Trio strives to champion new works by living composers and reach wider audiences through innovative concert presentations, regularly collaborating with artists of all mediums. During the 2023-24 season, the Neave Trio will collaborate with Pigeonwing Dance, composer Robert Sirota, and choreographer Gabrielle Lamb, to perform Rising, a brand new evening-length work.

Neave Trio's latest album, Musical Remembrances, released in April 2022 on Chandos Records, was nominated for a 2022 GRAMMY Award in the category of Best Chamber Music/Small Ensemble Performance. Musical Remembrances features Rachmaninoff’s Trio élégiaque No. 1, Brahms’ Piano Trio No. 1, Op. 8, and Ravel’s Piano Trio in A minor, Op. 67, and is the Neave Trio’s fourth album with Chandos Records. It follows Her Voice (2019), French Moments (2018), and Neave’s Chandos debut, American Moments (2016). In 2018, Neave Trio also released its critically acclaimed album, Celebrating Piazzolla (Azica Records, 2018), featuring mezzo-soprano Carla Jablonski. More information at: www.neavetrio.com.

During his fifty-year career, composer and Muzzy Ridge Concerts Artistic Director Robert Sirota’s works have been performed by orchestras across the US and Europe by ensembles such as Alarm Will Sound, Sequitur, yMusic, Chameleon Arts, and Dinosaur Annex; by the Chiara, American, Telegraph, Ethel, Elmyr, and Blair String Quartets; and at the Tanglewood, Aspen, and Cooperstown festivals. His Recent commissions include music for the American Guild of Organists, the American String Quartet, Alarm Will Sound, the Naumburg Foundation, yMusic, and arrangements for Paul Simon. Having served as chief executive of the Boston University School of Music, the NYU Music Department, and the Peabody Conservatory, Sirota retired as President of the Manhattan School of Music in 2012.

ECM New Series Releases Keith Jarrett’s 1994 Recording of CPE Bach’s Württemberg Sonatas for the First Time

ECM New Series Releases

Keith Jarrett’s 1994 Recording of CPE Bach’s Württemberg Sonatas

Released for the First Time on June 30, 2023

ECM 2790/91
CD: 0289 4858495 6

New York, New York – Keith Jarrett’s account of Carl Philipp Emanuel Bach’s Württemberg Sonatas is a revelation.

“I’d heard the sonatas played by harpsichordists, and felt there was a space left for a piano version,” says Jarrett today. This outstanding recording, made in May 1994 and previously unreleased, finds the pianist attuned to the expressive implications of the sonatas in every moment. The younger Bach’s idiosyncrasies: the gentle playfulness of the music, the fondness for subtle and sudden tempo shifts, the extraordinary, rippling invention…all of this is wonderfully delivered. The fluidity of the whole performance has a quality that perhaps could be conveyed only by an artist of great improvisational skills. In Jarrett’s hands, CPE Bach’s exploration of new compositional forms retains the freshness of discovery. The pianist also takes to heart CPE’s famous statement:  “Since a musician cannot move others unless he himself is moved, he must of necessity feel all of the affects that he hopes to arouse in his listeners."

Carl Philipp Emanuel Bach’s Württemberg Sonatas were written in 1742-3, and dedicated to Carl Eugen Duke of Württemberg, who studied with CPE at the court of Frederik the Great in Berlin. Published in 1744, they are regarded today as musical masterpieces of the era between the Baroque and the Classical. 

Keith Jarrett’s recording of the Württemberg Sonatas followed a period in which he had been focussing on the music of Johann Sebastian Bach. ECM New Series documented Jarrett’s interpretations of Das Wohltemperierte Klavier Buch 1 (recorded February 1987), the Goldberg Variations (January 1989), The French Suites (September1991) and, with Kim Kashkashian, the 3 Sonaten für Viola da Gamba und Cembalo (also September 1991).  Other classical recordings made by Jarrett in this period included Shostakovich’s Bach-inspired 24 Preludes and Fugues (recorded July 1991) and Suites for Keyboard by Bach’s contemporary Georg Friedrich Händel (September 1993).  

In parallel with all this activity, Jarrett was continuing to work with his improvising trio with Gary Peacock and Jack DeJohnette, raising the bar for interpretive performances of jazz standards. Just three weeks after the CPE Bach recording, the trio was at New York’s Blue Note for an historic three-night run subsequently issued as an award-winning 6-CD box set. 

At the year’s end, there was further classical activity, Jarrett playing Mozart Piano Concertos with the Stuttgarter Kammerorchester under the direction of Dennis Russell Davies. It was Mozart who had hailed CPE Bach as “the father of us all,” a musician who brought a new creative freedom to composing for the keyboard.

The 2-CD set includes booklet with liner notes by Paul Griffiths. 

2023 Newport Classical Music Festival - Presenting Timeless Music for Today in 27 Concerts from July 4-23, 2023

2023 Newport Classical Music Festival

Presenting Timeless Music for Today in 27 Concerts from July 4-23, 2023

Performances by Kelli O’Hara, Hélène Grimaud, Anthony McGill, Philharmonia Baroque Orchestra, The Knights, Simone Dinnerstein, Cantus, Aizuri Quartet, Hermitage Piano Trio, and many more

 Opera Night at The Breakers featuring Così fan tutte

World Premiere of The Gilded Cage by Curtis Stewart
Commissioned by Newport Classical

Historic Venues include The Breakers, The Elms, Castle Hill Inn, Chinese Tea House, and more

Tickets & Information: www.newportclassical.org/music-festival

Newport, Rhode Island – The 2023 Newport Classical Music Festival will present twenty-seven concerts this summer between July 4-23, 2023, bringing timeless music for today to Newport’s stunning historic mansions and venues including The Breakers, Blithewold Mansion, The Elms, Castle Hill Inn, Chinese Tea House, King Park, Norman Bird Sanctuary, Redwood Library & Athenæum, and more. Tickets are now available at www.newportclassical.org/music-festival or by calling the Box Office at 401-849-1133 x1.

Highlights of the 2023 Newport Classical Music Festival include performances by Broadway and opera star Kelli O'Hara (currently starring in HBO’s The Gilded Age, filmed in Newport); Philharmonia Baroque Orchestra; The Knights; renowned pianists Hélène Grimaud, Simone Dinnerstein, and Charlie Albright; New York Philharmonic principal clarinetist Anthony McGill in a return performance with pianist Anna Polonsky; riveting low-voice acapella ensemble Cantus; celebrated chamber ensembles including the Hermitage Piano Trio, Aizuri Quartet, Excelsis Percussion Quartet, Sinta Saxophone Quartet, and Fenway Quintet; acclaimed cellists Zlatomir Fung and Amit Peled; charismatic Norwegian violinist Eldbjørg Hemsing; and the world premiere of The Gilded Cage, a new work commissioned by Newport Classical from three-time GRAMMY®-nominated violinist/composer Curtis Stewart. Other highlights include the festival’s popular Opera Night at The Breakers featuring Così fan tutte in a bold new un-staged production, Sunrise Meditations concerts, a concert inspired by nature at Norman Bird Sanctuary, a free Fourth of July concert at King Park, and this year’s young professional Newport Classical Festival Artists in nine performances throughout the festival.

Executive Director Gillian Friedman Fox, says, "This year’s Festival encapsulates the full range of expression within classical music. From solo piano and string recitals to large chamber ensembles and vocal performances, each concert draws upon varied instrumentation to offer interpretations of repertoire from the Baroque period all the way to today. I hope audiences come away from this summer feeling inspired, having musical experiences that turn them on to a new composer or performance style.”

Newport Classical’s Festival Artists program brings together professional musicians at the early stages of their careers for an intense period of rehearsal and music making during the festival. This year’s Festival Artists are Ariel Horowitz, violin; Lun Li, violin; Edwin Kaplan, viola; Titilayo Ayangade, cello; and Llewellyn Sanchez-Werner, piano. Ariel Horowitz is a recent graduate of the Yale School of Music, and recently won the Concert Artists Guild Ambassador Prize. She is the Founder and Artistic Director of The Heartbeat Music Project, a tuition-free program providing instruments, music, and Navajo (Diné) cultural knowledge to young people in grades K-12 living in the Navajo Nation. A native of Shanghai, China, violinist Lun Li won First Prize in the 2021 Young Concert Artists Susan Wadsworth International Auditions, the Paul A. Fish Memorial Prize, the Buffalo Chamber Music Society Prize, and is a recent graduate of the Curtis Institute of Music and The Juilliard School. Edwin Kaplan is the violist of the award-winning Tesla Quartet. Among his most cherished projects is the Tesla Quartet's annual call for scores, where he meticulously evaluates and selects from the many compositions submitted by composers worldwide. With cellist Titilayo Ayangade, he performs as Duo Kayo. Titilayo Ayangade has spent over two decades behind her instrument, performing in orchestras, chamber ensembles, and commissioning new music. She holds degrees from the University of Cincinnati-CCM and the University of Texas at Austin, and has also worked closely with members of the Artemis Quartet. Llewellyn Sanchez-Werner was selected as a winner of the Concert Artists Guild 2022 Victor Elmaleh Competition and has been distinguished as a Gilmore Young Artist, an honor awarded to the most promising American pianists of the new generation.

2023 Newport Classical Music Festival Concerts:

The 2023 Newport Classical Music Festival kicks off on Tuesday, July 4 at 7:30pm with a free, outdoor Fourth of July Patriotic Pops concert preceding the fireworks at King Park featuring Fenway Quintet, one of Boston’s most esteemed professional brass quintets. This concert is part of the 2023 BankNewport Community Concert Series.

On Wednesday, July 5 at 6pm, Sinta Quartet presents a Saxophone Soirée outdoors in the beautiful private gardens of Bellevue House, featuring chamber music steeped in lively folk traditions, as well as a catalog of traditional music from around the globe by a wide range of composers including Bela Fleck, Mark O’Connor, Jay Unger, Ligeti, and Dvořák.

Newport Classical Music Festival’s Opening Night concert on Thursday, July 6 at 8pm at The Breakers features GRAMMY-nominated pianist Simone Dinnerstein, described as “an artist of strikingly original ideas and irrefutable integrity” by The Washington Post. Her passionate and nuanced program features music from her 2022 album Undersong, the third in a trilogy of albums she recorded at home during the pandemic. Dinnerstein says, “Undersong is an archaic term for a song with a refrain, and to me it also suggests a hidden text. Glass, Schumann, Couperin, and Satie all seem to be attempting to find what they want to say through repetition, as though their constant change and recycling will focus the ear and the mind. This time has been one of reflection and reconsidering for many of us, and this music speaks to the process of revisiting and searching for the meaning beneath the notes of the undersong.”

On Friday, July 7 at 8pm, the Aizuri Quartet performs at The Breakers. Praised by The Washington Post for “astounding” and “captivating” performances that draw from a notable “meld of intellect, technique and emotions,” the infectiously energetic Aizuri Quartet brings together their own four distinctive musical personalities, tracing a journey from darkness to dawn, and culminating in the warmth of Haydn’s “Sunrise” Quartet. This program explores the ways in which the atmosphere, psychological power, and political metaphor of the night have been an inspiration for composers from the classical era to the present-day, and in addition to Haydn includes music by Clara Schumann, Bartók, and Robert Schumann.

The Minnesotan low-voice ensemble Cantus takes the stage at The Breakers on Saturday, July 8 at 8pm. Cantus has developed a national following for their trademark warmth and blend, innovative programming, and riveting performances of music ranging from the Renaissance to the 21st century. In this program, Cantus explores the challenges of connecting in our modern age by pairing works by Sibelius and Saint-Saëns with compositions from contemporary luminaries including Andrea Ramsey, David Lang, Christopher H. Harris, Cam Butler, Ingrid Michaelson, Simon & Garfunkel, and more.

On Sunday, July 9 at 9am, the day begins with Strings in Nature, a morning performance by the Newport Classical Festival Artists at Norman Bird Sanctuary, taking audience members on a journey through touchpoints between music and nature, anchored by a string quartet reduction of Benjamin Britten’s Simple Symphony that explores themes from Britten’s childhood memories.

That evening at 8pm, Newport Classical presents Opera Night: Così fan tutte at The Breakers in a bold and unforgettable un-staged production of Mozart's 1790 Italian opera buffa. Featuring six quickly emerging operatic stars – soprano Maria Valdes (Fiordiligi); mezzo-soprano Leah Heater (Dorabella); baritone Armando Contreras (Guglielmo); tenor David Blalock (Ferrando); bass-baritone James Demler (Don Alfonso); and soprano Victoria Okafor (Despina). Under the musical direction of acclaimed pianist Charles Kim, and reimagined by Newport Classical’s own Trevor S. Neal, this beloved opera, sung in gossamer Italian, is a probing look into romantic relationships through the collaborative genius of Mozart and his brilliant librettist, Da Ponte.

On Tuesday, July 11 at 4pm at Newport Art Museum, internationally renowned Israeli cellist Amit Peled presents his program American Landscapes. Peled is acclaimed as one of the most exciting and virtuosic instrumentalists on the concert stage today. His performances have been justly described as “fiery and intelligent” by The Strad magazine and full of “glowing tone” by The New York Times. Joined by longtime musical collaborator pianist Solomon Eichner, this program explores music by pioneering American composers including Florence Price, George Gerswhin, Aaron Copland, Samuel Barber, and George David Weiss. Peled will also present a free conversation and performance at 11am that day at Temple Shalom entitled “Journey with my Jewishness.”

On Wednesday, July 12 at 11am at The Elms, flutist Anthony Trionfo, whose playing has been called “breezily virtuosic” (The New York Times), joins the Festival Artists for a delightful morning concert featuring chamber masterworks for flute, strings, and piano, including the first of Mozart’s flute quartets; Friedrich Kuhlau’s last and possibly greatest composition Grand Trio; French composer Louise Farrenc’s trio for flute, cello and piano; and other works by rarely heard composers of the late-Classical and early Romantic periods.

That evening at 8pm, Zlatomir Fung performs the Bach Cello Suites at The Breakers. Bach's six Cello Suites are among the most extraordinary and iconic works ever written for cello. Each piece resonates with its own unique characteristics and sonority. This is a rare opportunity to hear the full collection performed in its entirety by one of the preeminent cellists of our time. Zlatomir Fung is the youngest musician ever to win First Prize at the International Tchaikovsky Competition Cello Division. His impeccable technique demonstrates his mastery of the canon.

On Thursday, July 13 at 11am at The Elms, the Festival Artists explore the famous feud between Brahms and Liszt, in which both sought to build upon their own legacies to match that of the great Mozart, in Classical Rivalries, a program featuring music by all three legendary composers.

That evening at 8pm, the singular pianist Hélène Grimaud performs at The Breakers. Grimaud is known around the globe for her fierce intelligence, fearless interpretations, and sincere freedom of expression. In this characteristically thoughtful program, her long-anticipated debut as a Newport Classical recitalist, she approaches each work with deep respect as well as individual artistry. Her program includes Beethoven’s Piano Sonata No. 30 in E Major, Op. 109; Brahms’s Three Intermezzi for piano, Op. 117 and 7 Fantasien, Op.116; and J.S. Bach’s Chaconne from Violin Partita No.2 in D minor, BWV 1004 (arr. Busoni).

On Friday, July 14, the day begins early with a 5:15am Sunrise Meditations concert at Chinese Tea House. Experience an unforgettable sunrise over Newport’s iconic Cliff Walk through this whimsical and inspiring morning concert with the Festival Artists. Music by Vieutemps, Mozart, Bologne, Rolla, and Schubert, introspective in nature and written for different string configurations, makes for a meditative and uplifting start to the day.

That evening at 8pm, charismatic Norwegian violinist Eldbjørg Hemsing performs at The Breakers. Hemsing is one of the leading young violinists of our time. At Newport Classical, she returns to her roots as a specialist of the music of Edvard Grieg, opening this imaginative program with his Sonata for violin and piano No. 2. Llewellyn Sanchez-Werner, a Festival Artist and “gifted virtuoso” (San Francisco Chronicle), joins Hemsing on the piano for this astonishing recital program which also includes music by Jacob Shea, Fauré, and Ravel. In partnership with NewportFILM, on July 13 Hemsing will deliver a post-screening artist talk, following a showing of the documentary film Forte which features her. This free screening will be part of NewportFILM’s outdoor summer programming, with more details to come.

On Saturday, July 15 at 3pm, the Festival Artists Fanfare will be an invigorating afternoon concert at Emmanuel Church, where the stunning English Gothic Revival architecture shapes an enveloping acoustic experience. This program, featuring music by Mozart, Debussy, Dohnanyi, and Rebecca Clarke, highlights the solo and virtuosic capabilities of these talented emerging artists – and concludes with Frank Bridge’s Phantasy for Piano Quartet, which is credited with catapulting Bridge’s career. All ticket sales for this performance will go toward supporting Emmanuel Church and the vibrant community who gather here.

That evening at 8pm at The Breakers, Philharmonia Baroque Orchestra, under the musical direction of Richard Egarr in his second season as Music Director, offers a thoughtful program of Handel and Biber performed entirely on period instruments. This program also features the East Coast premiere of a new work by Mason Bates, which the composer describes as “a dreamy and lyrical mediation on the interesting connection between Baroque performance practice and early bluegrass.” Considered the most versatile ensemble of its kind, Philharmonia Baroque Orchestra is recognized as “America’s leading historically informed ensemble” (The New York Times).

On Sunday, July 16 at 8pm, the Hermitage Piano Trio presents a Rachmaninoff 150th Birthday Celebration at The Breakers. Now entering their second decade, the United States-based Hermitage Piano Trio has solidified its place as one of the world’s leading piano trios, garnering multiple GRAMMY Award nominations, audience raves, and high press accolades for their performances. The Washington Post has singled them out for playing with “such power and sweeping passion that it left you nearly out of breath.” Hermitage Piano Trio has assembled this program in celebration of Rachmaninoff’s 150th birthday, pairing his second piano trio with works by three composers – Josef Suk, Dmitri Shostakovich, and Amy Beach – who each drew inspiration from the prolific composer.

On Tuesday, July 18 at 11am at Blithewold Mansion, Newport Classical’s Festival Artists present a morning concert exploring the Great American Songbook. The Great American Songbook is to American music what the complete works of Shakespeare are to English literature: an indispensable and crucial foundation for a unique and sophisticated art form. Composers and lyricists such as George and Ira Gershwin, Richard Rodgers with Lorenz Hart, and the inimitable Cole Porter created a formidable repertoire of songs for Broadway stage musicals and Hollywood movies. These subsequently became the bedrock of singers and instrumentalists in jazz’s golden age. Newport Classical’s Festival Artists embark on a grand instrumental journey featuring eloquent break-up ballads, wistful reveries, and exultant celebrations of love and romance.

That evening at 7:30pm at Castle Hill Inn, internationally award-winning pianist Charlie Albright performs Gershwin’s Rhapsody in Blue, on a program exploring the full range of piano repertoire, from the core canon to classical improvisations on popular works of today –  all set next to Castle Hill's magical seaside vistas. The concert will include Beethoven’s “Tempest” Sonata No. 17 in D minor; Bach’s Jesu, Joy of Man's Desiring; and a live improvised sonata created on the spot by Albright based on notes from the audience. Albright has quickly become a Newport Classical Music Festival favorite for his ability to bring music to everyone, connecting with audiences through his music, speaking, and his uniquely playful approach to concerts.

On Wednesday, July 19 at 11am at The Elms, mezzo-soprano Heather Gallagher and baritone Joseph Parrish join the Festival Artists in presenting Classical Lieder, an enchanting morning of art song and Lieder. Director of Artistic Planning Trevor Neal has curated an intriguing recital program of songs composed in the nearly forty years between 1888 and 1922. His selections highlight the changing styles of music that emanated from four important centers of music-making: from Vienna, the voice of the Hugo Wolf, known as the aesthetic adversary to the traditionalist Brahms; from France, varied sound-pictures of Faure; from Italy, the genius of the often-overlooked Respighi; and from the UK, the imagination and sensitivity of Gerald Finzi.

On Wednesday, July 19 and Thursday, July 20 at 8pm, Newport Classical presents An Evening with Kelli O'Hara at The Breakers, a spectacular night with stage and screen star Kelli O’Hara, one of Broadway and Opera’s greatest leading ladies. Her portrayal of Anna Loenowens in The King and I garnered her a Tony Award for Best Leading Actress in a Musical. In 2015, she made her Metropolitan Opera debut in Lehar’s The Merry Widow opposite Renee Fleming and returned as Despina in Mozart’s Cosí fan tutte and Laura Brown in Kevin Puts’s The Hours. O’Hara received an Emmy nomination for her work as Katie Bonner in The Accidental Wolf and can currently be seen starring alongside Christina Baranski and Cynthia Nixon in HBO’s series The Gilded Age. O’Hara now returns to The Breakers for a vocal recital celebrating her illustrious and varied career, with pianist Dan Lipton.

On Friday, July 21, the day begins with a Sunrise Meditations concert at 5:15am at Chinese Tea House. As the sun rises over the Atlantic, the Newport Classical Festival Artists welcome the day with a program of meditative musical poetics. This program explores the spaces in which we gather: physically, mentally, and spiritually. These selections highlight composers from historically underrepresented communities and from the indigenous diaspora. Alexis Roland-Manuel references baroque dance style; Paul Wiancko fuses traditional Appalachian music with Japanese folk song. Lei Liang’s Gobi Canticle grew out of the composer’s interest in Mongolian music. The traditional Catalan carol The Song of the Birds was made famous by cellist Pablo Casals when he performed it as a plea for peace upon receiving the United Nations Peace Medal in 1971. Korngold’s String Quartet No. 2 closes the program with impressionistic touches, evoking waltzes, and the musical lightness of Vienna.

That evening at 8pm, Newport Classical presents Concert and Cocktails: A Musical Soirée with Anthony McGill and Anna Polonsky at Redwood Library and Athenæum. Clarinetist Anthony McGill is one of classical music’s most recognizable and brilliantly multifaceted figures. In addition to holding the Principal Clarinet chair at the New York Philharmonic, McGill enjoys an equally impressive international solo and chamber music career. His program includes music by Amanda Harberg, Aaron Copland, Adolphus Hailstork, and more. During the special extended intermission reception, explore the Library while enjoying cocktails and an array of hors d’oeuvres.

In the afternoon on Saturday, July 22 at 2pm at Colony House, Newport Classical presents Excelsis Percussion Quartet. The New York City-based quartet is an international and multilingual group of women who speak the universal language of rhythm, rooted in their belief that music possesses an ability to unite us all. They have been hailed by timpanist Jonathan Haas as "one of the most innovative and exciting percussion ensembles to emerge in the golden age of chamber music" for their immersive sound world. Excelsis infuses vibrancy and new energy into the percussion community through eclectic programming, innovative storytelling, and embracing their intersectional identities. Their program includes music by Daniel Levitan, Eric Whitacre, Owen Clayton Condon, Rüdiger Pawassar, Yaz Lancaster, and Vanessa Thomlinson.

That evening at 8pm, the Festival Artists Finale at The Breakers will feature the world premiere of The Gilded Cage, a new work by three-time GRAMMY-nominated violinist/composer Curtis Stewart, commissioned by Newport Classical. Stewart’s piece is inspired by his father’s time living in Newport and growing up within the Baptist AME church, as well as the history of The Breakers and the Newport residents who have taken care of the space over its many years. The program, curated by Stewart, also features a thrilling selection of piano quintets by Schumann, Bruch, and Shostakovich.

The 2023 Newport Classical Music Festival concludes on July 23 at 8pm with The Knights perform Appalachian Spring at The Breakers. The Knights, led by brothers Eric Jacobsen (artistic director and conductor) and Colin Jacobsen (artistic director and violinist) are a New York-based orchestral collective of adventurous musicians dedicated to transforming the concert experience and eliminating barriers between audiences and music. Members bring a range of cultural influences to the group, from baroque and classical performance practice, to jazz and klezmer genres, to pop and indie rock. Driven by an open-minded spirit of camaraderie and exploration, The Knights inspire listeners with vibrant programs that honor the classical tradition alongside their passion for artistic discovery. Their program at The Breakers includes Vivaldi’s Flute Concerto featuring flutist Alex Sopp, Anna Clyne’s Prince of Clouds, Bartók’s Romanian Folk Dances featuring violinist Alex Gonzalez, Aaron Copland’s Appalachian Spring, and Colin Jacoben’s A Shadow Under Every Light.

For the full schedule, visit: www.newportclassical.org/music-festival

About Newport Classical

Newport Classical is a premier performing arts organization that welcomes people of every age, culture, and background to intimate, immersive musical experiences. The organization presents world-renowned and up-and-coming artistic talents at stunning, storied venues across Newport – an internationally sought-after cultural and recreational destination.

Originally founded in 1969 as Rhode Island Arts Foundation at Newport, Inc. and previously known as Newport Music Festival (NMF), Newport Classical has a rich legacy of musical curiosity presenting the American debuts of over 130 international artists and rarely heard works and is most well-known for hosting three weeks of concerts in the summer in the historic mansions throughout Newport and Aquidneck Island. The organization has produced more than 2,000 concerts and hosted more than 1,000 musicians and singers. In 2021, the organization launched a new commissioning initiative – each year, Newport Classical will commission a new work by a Black, Indigenous, person of color, or woman composer as a commitment to the future of classical music.

Newport Classical is proud to be an essential pillar of New England’s cultural landscape, and to invest in the future of classical music as a diverse, relevant, and ever-evolving art form. Newport Classical’s four core programming initiatives – the iconic summer Music Festival taking place across Newport; the year-round Chamber Series at the organization’s home base Newport Classical Recital Hall at Emmanuel Church in downtown Newport; the free family-friendly Community Concerts held in green spaces around Aquidneck Island; and its newly expanded Music Engagement Initiative program – illustrate the organization’s ongoing commitment to presenting “timeless music for today.”

Photo credits:

Aizuri Quartet by Shervin Lainez, Amit Peled by Lisa-Marie Mazzucco, Anthony McGill by Todd Rosenberg, Cantus by Nathan Ryan, Charlie Albright courtesy photo, Curtis Stewart by Marilena Arvelo, Eldbjørg Hemsing by Gregor Hohenberg, Excelsis Percussion Quartet courtesy photo, Hélène Grimaud by Mat Henneck, Hermitage Trio by Lisa-Marie Mazzucco, Kelli O'Hara courtesy of Polk & Co., Philharmonia Baroque by Frank Wing, Simone Dinnerstein by Lisa-Marie Mazzucco, Sinta Quartet courtesy of General Arts Touring, The Knights by Shervin Lainez, Zlatomir Fung by I-Jung Huang

Newport Classical concert photos by Lisette Rooney.