Well, I promised you some juicy advance chamber series program leaks, and – thanks to my delightfully protracted chat with Charles Wadsworth a couple of weeks back (and his express permission) – I hope I’m delivering the goods. Here’s the next batch, just in the nick of time.
Chamber programs II (beginning Sunday, 11 a.m.) and III will be, in substantial part, a tribute to an American institution that you may not be aware of: New Hampshire’s MacDowell Colony, named for 19th-century American composer Edward MacDowell. It’s an artistic retreat that has given many of America’s cultural icons (composers, writers, and other artists) the peace and solitude they’ve needed to produce some of their best work. Wadsworth wants to celebrate this year’s 100th Anniversary of the colony’s founding with works that were created there.
We’ll hear from two of them in program II, beginning with the luscious, ultra-romantic Chanson d’Amour by pioneering early 20th-Century American composer Amy Beach – featuring soprano Courtenay Budd and friends. Then it’s on to an emerging young modern master, Kevin Puts: his striking Arches for solo violin that was played here four or five Spoletos ago (I was there). Really good stuff.
The program proceeds with the music of non-MacDowell alums. The St. Lawrence String Quartet will take their first festival bows after delivering Debussy’s ravishing string quartet (his only one) – and then the affair will end with some pyrotechnics for flute (Tara Helen O’Connor) and harp (Catrin Finch) – a fantasy on tunes from Bizet’s beloved Carmen by a composer I never heard of named Borne.
I’ll try to tell you about program III’s MacDowell commemorations by tomorrow. That is, if there’s enough blogging time left after I get out of Gluck’s L’Isle du Merlin tonight.
