NEWBURYPORT CHAMBER MUSIC FESTIVAL • Aug. 6 -14
When Trio Cavatina won the prestigious Naumburg Chamber Music Competition last year, the ensemble earned the opportunity to premiere a new work by eminent American composer Richard Danielpour at Carnegie Hall— a piece commissioned specifically for them. The resulting piece, “The Faces of Guernica,” will be performed at the inaugural fundraising concert on August 6 for the Newburyport Chamber Music Festival’s 2010 summer season. The program will also include Beethoven’s “Ghost” Trio and a piano quartet by Brahms. Artistic director David Yang will join the trio as guest artist at the Farwell Clay Carriage House on High Street, a renovated 1850 barn designed especially with sympathetic acoustics for chamber music.
Now in its ninth season, NCMF continues its tradition of commissioning new works during both its pre-season fundraiser in May for the Newburyport Preservation Trust (for which Philadelphia composer Kile Smith wrote a trio based on a melody by 17th-century Newbury musician John Tufts) and in August (which will feature a new quintet — as yet unnamed — by this year’s composer-in-residence, Dmitri Tymoczko). Even the children’s concert will feature a world premiere, this one by David Yang. The program is titled “Two Brothers, or Fools and Their Money are Soon Parted.” And while the festival serves as a showcase for the music of our times, it has not ignored the masters of the past. Works by Haydn, Beethoven, Mendelssohn, Brahms, Dvorak and Kodaly receive their share of attention. This year, for example, concertgoers will hear such pieces as Mendelssohn’s String Quartet in F minor and Dvorak’s Bass Quintet in G Major.
Also new this year are free lectures by music educator Charles Speicher, including a festival preview with the quartet-in-residence performing excerpts from the programs, and a brief lecture — with costume changes — for all ages.
Outdoor Concert on Inn Street
Returning are the popular free features that help integrate the festival into the fabric of the community — the open rehearsals at the Newburyport Public Library, the children’s concert with storytelling and the outdoor evening concert on Inn Street.
Inaugurated in 2002 by David Yang, director of Chamber Music at the University of Pennsylvania, as a weeklong series of chamber music concerts and events, the NCMF has established itself as a showcase for world-class musicians, introducing contemporary as well as classical masterpieces in historically important and appealing architectural spaces to an ever-expanding audience. Returning artists include music director Yang, a violist who has forged a career that is a unique blend of performing, commissioning, coaching, storytelling and composition; David Ehrlich, former first violin of the Audubon Quartet; and cellist Caroline Stinson of the Lark Quartet. They will be joined by violinist Adela Pena, founding member of the legendary Eroica Trio and recipient of two Grammy nominations, and bass player Jon Deak, a prominent American composer and former New York Philharmonic associate principal bass. Composer-in-residence Dmitri Tymoczko is the recipient of a Guggenheim fellowship and Charles Ives Scholarship from the American Academy of Arts and Letters and was a Rhodes Scholar in philosophy.
The main festival concerts are Concert I, the fundraiser with Trio Cavatina at the specially designed listening space The Carriage House (all tickets $45); Concert II, a free outdoor concert in downtown Newburyport with the quartet-in-residence, and Concerts III and IV, with the quartet-in-residence and guest musician Jon Deak (Concert IV), at St. Paul’s Church (tickets: $25 for adults, students free; a festival pass gives admission to all concerts and is $80). Tickets are available at 978-463-9776 www.newburyportchambermusic.org
FOR MORE INFORMATION:
Contact Gage Cogswell: gcogswell@mac.com / 978-914-0848
