The Bowdoin International Music Festival continues this week, featuring works by Beethoven, Mozart, Dvoák, and the festival’s composer- in- residence, Samuel Adler.
Mozart Piano Concerto today
The Bowdoin International Music Festival will continue its 50th anniversary celebration tonight, Friday, July 18 with beloved works by Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart and Antonín Dvoák.
Pianist Shai Wosner, a highly- regarded Mozart interpreter, will present Mozart’s Piano Concerto in D Minor, K. 466. In 2006, Wosner was invited to debut with the Vienna Philharmonic Orchestra in Salzburg during the 250th anniversary celebrations of Mozart’s birth. Lewis Kaplan will conduct the Bowdoin Festival Orchestra.
A faculty ensemble will collaborate before intermission on Dvoák’s sublime Piano Quintet in A Major, Op. 81. Ani Schnarch and Cyrus Forough will perform on violin, Michelle LaCourse on viola, Steven Doane on cello, and Elinor Freer on piano.
A quartet of virtuosos from the Festival’s new Kaplan Fellowship Program, Charlene Kleugel, violin; Minjung Chun, viola; Nathaniel Pierce, cello; and Min Young Park, piano, will open the concert with Mozart’s Piano Quartet in G Minor, K 478.
Festival Fridays concerts are held at 7: 30 p. m. in Brunswick High School’s Crooker Theater. Tickets are $40.
Beethoven String Quartets Monday
Beethoven’s string quartet cycle is being presented in its entirety this season by the Bowdoin Festival. The world-renowned Shanghai Quartet performs the fourth concert in the series on July 21, with Beethoven’s String Quartet No. 5 in A Major, Op. 18, No. 5; String Quartet No. 13 in B-flat Minor, Op. 130 with the Grosse Fugue, Op. 130; and an encore performance of the Finale from Op. 130 (rev. 1825-26).
Beethoven Mondays concerts are held at 7:30 p.m. in Brunswick High School’s Crooker Theater. Tickets are $40.
Wednesday Upbeat!
The Wednesday Upbeat! concert on July 23 presents works by Dmitri Shostakovich, Antonin Dvoák, and Festival composer in-residence Samuel Adler.
Jesus Rodolfo, accompanied by Peter Basquin on piano, will open the concert with Shostakovich’s Viola Sonata, Op. 147.
The Cassatt String Quartet, led on first violin by Bowdoin Festival alumna and faculty member Muneko Otani, will present the world premiere of Mr. Adler’s tenth String Quartet. Adler will address the audience immediately prior to the performance.
The evening will close with a performance of Dvo?ák’s Piano Quartet No. 2 in E- flat Major, Op. 87, which is considered one of the masterpieces of the form. Performers include Janet Sung, violin; Dimitri Murrath, viola; Nicholas Canellakis, cello; and Constance Moore, piano.
Wednesday Upbeat! concerts are held at 7:30 p.m. in Studzinski Recital Hall on the Bowdoin campus. Tickets are $40.
Bowdoin Festival Extra
The Bowdoin Festival’s educational series, Bowdoin Festival Extra, continues with two events this week. On Tuesday, July 22 at 4:00 pm., Lyris Hung, the Orchestral Strings Product Manager of D’Addario & Company will give a lecture/ demonstration entitled “ Demystifying Your Strings” in Gibson Hall, Room 101. Then, at 11:00 am Wednesday, composer in residence Samuel Adler will give a composition masterclass in Studzinski Recital Hall’s Rehearsal Room.
All Bowdoin Festival Extra events are free and open to the public.
July 25 Concert to Feature Sarah Chang
The renowned American virtuoso violinist Sarah Chang will perform Antonin Dvoák’s Violin Concerto in A Minor, Op. 53 in the Bowdoin International Music Festival’s concert at Crooker Theater on Friday night, July 25. Also on the program are works by Claude Debussy and George Crumb.
Cellist Nicholas Canellakis will team up with pianist Peter Basquin to open the concert with Debussy’s Sonata for Cello and Piano.
The three original performers of the Aeolian Chamber Players’ Grammynominated recording of George Crumb’s Vox Balaenae (Voice of the Whale) will reconvene for an anniversary performance of the work. Erich Graf, flute; Jerry Grossman, cello; and Walter Ponce, piano, who recorded the work for Columbia Records in 1974, return to celebrate the Bowdoin Festival’s fifty- year commitment to new music.
Chang, widely recognized as one of the world’s great violinists, will close the concert, performing with the Bowdoin Festival Orchestra. Since her debut with the New York Philharmonic at the age of 8, Chang has performed with the great orchestras, conductors, and accompanists of the world in a career spanning more than two decades. Lewis Kaplan will conduct.
Festival Fridays concerts are held at 7: 30 p. m. in Brunswick High School’s Crooker Theater. Tickets are $40.
Performances are held daily from through August 8, 2014. A complete listing of all Festival performances and ticket information can be found at www.bowdoinfestival.org. For more information, call 207-725-3895.
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