Monday, June 15, 2009

Chamber Music Northwest blasts off next week


Chamber Music Northwest opens its 39th summer season next week, offering five weeks (June 22 - July 26) of great music with top tier musicians from all over the nation. This summer's programming celebrates the 200th anniversaries of Felix Mendelssohn (who was born in 1809) and Joseph Haydn (who died in 1809), and the music of many other greats in the classical field will be performed as well: Beethoven, Brahms, Mozart, Bach, Schumann, Vivaldi, and Tchaikovsky. Several concerts will blend pieces from Telemann, Marcello, Schoenberg, Bartok, Bloch, Korngold, Kernis, Adams, Schubert, and others to keep your ears tuned up. Also consider the following:

- The Guarneri Quartet will be featured in three concerts
- The Punch Brothers - mandolinist Chris Thile's virtuoso ensemble - will play three toe-tapping concerts
- The Miró Quartet will perform in four concerts
- The Daedalus Quartet appear in two concerts

If you can't afford a ticket, you can still take in the open rehearsals on Thursday, June 25th, and every Wednesday in July. (Often, you can learn more about music-making in a rehearsal than in a concert.)

The festival kicks off next Monday (June 22nd) in grand fashion with the piece that was played at President Obama's inaugural - yes the one the broadcast as a recording because it was too cold for the instruments:
John Williams "Air and Simple Gifts for Violin, Clarinet, Cello, and Piano (2009)
The program also features:
- Haydn's Tring Quartet in B-Flat Major ("Sunrise")
- Mendelssohn's Trio No. 2 in C Minor for Piano and Strings
- Mendelssohn's Octet in E-Flat Major for Strings

The performers for this first concert include the Orion String Quartet (Daniel Phillips, Todd Phillips, Steven Tenebom, and Timothy Eddy), Jun Iwasaki, Ida Kavafian, Paul Neubauer, Peter Wiley, and Anne-Marie McDermott.

This year, the CMNW Summer Festival is using more venues than ever before. So be sure to check the times and places for each concert.

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