Summerfest | Week One: Only a Beginning

Our first concert celebrates our 30th anniversary by showcasing the variety of chamber music in which we look forward to the next thirty years of concerts with a collection of the some of the most exciting voices in chamber music today. Mark O’Connor is probably best known for his collaborations with Yo-Yo Ma and his bluegrass O’Connor Band. F.C.’s Jig, drawn from the third movement of his “Fiddle Concerto” showcases both aspects of his career with its thrilling, lilting folk-like melodies and rhythms set in a Classical structure. Caroline Shaw is the youngest winner of the Pulitzer Prize in music and her Ent’racte for string quartet demonstrates why. Building off Haydn’s Op. 77, No. 2 string quartet, Shaw refracts that inspiration through a contemporary lens, helping us hear classical music anew, as though we’re seeing it in color for the first time. Gian Carlo Menotti is no stranger to Summerfest, and his Cantilena e Scherzo for harp and string quartet features some of his most beautiful instrumental melodies, almost like the quartet is singing to you. Jessica Meyer is a rising composer and her Only a Beginning is made for this time, as it depicts how we are changed by sacrificing for others. We end the summer with one of the great works of chamber music, Clara Schumann’s Piano Trio in G minor, Op. 17. Displaying intense virtuosity for all three performers, Schumann’s Trio travels through a range of emotions, ultimately ending with a note of triumph, a feeling we could all use more of these days.