Artists and Musicians

Meeting House Chamber Music Festival to Conclude its Sensational 50th Anniversary Season on July 22

The Meeting House Chamber Music Festival proudly announces the concluding two concerts of its remarkable 50th Anniversary Season. The performances will be held at 7:30 PM on Monday, July 15, and Monday, July 22, at the Church of the Holy Spirit, Episcopal, in Orleans, MA. Tickets are $25 at the door, and attendees under 18 are admitted free.

The penultimate concert on Monday, July 15, features a diverse program presented by distinguished musicians Elisabeth Remy Johnson on harp, Clark Matthews on horn, and Donald Enos on piano. Ms. Remy Johnson, a Cape Cod native and the principal harpist of the Atlanta Symphony Orchestra, joins Clark Matthews, the principal hornist of the Cape Symphony, and the festival’s founder, artistic director, and pianist Donald Enos.

**Program Highlights:**
- Ferdinand Ries – Horn Sonata, Op.34 (mvmt. I)
- Antonio Soler – Concerto #1 in C Major (harp & piano)
- Johannes H.E. Koch – Toccata (1982) (harp & piano)
- Koetsier – Sonata Op.94 (horn & harp)
- Jean-Michel Damase – Sonata (1964) (mvmt. III Presto) (harp & piano)
- Mel Bonis – Melisande & Desdamona (solo harp)
- Tasha Smith Godinez – El Amonecer (solo harp)
- Clarice Assad – Solais (solo harp)
- Salzedo – Whirlwind (solo harp)
- Scriabin – Romance (horn & piano)
- Vaclav Nelhybel – Scherzo Concertante (horn & piano)
- Eric Ewazen – Sonata (1992) (mvmt. I & IV) (horn & piano)

This program showcases an exhilarating range of musical styles and periods, from the classical elegance of Ferdinand Ries to the vibrant modernity of Clarice Assad. The inclusion of works by Mel Bonis and Johannes H.E. Koch highlights the festival's commitment to presenting diverse and captivating repertoire, ensuring yet another triumph for Cape Cod’s longest-running music festival.

The season finale on Monday, July 22 will feature celebrated festival performers Katie Lansdale on violin, Matthias Naegele on cello, and Donald Enos on piano. The program's dynamic character, creativity, and artistic diversity make it a fitting conclusion to the festival’s milestone season.

**Program Highlights:**
- Beethoven – Trio in E Flat Major, Op.1#1
- Germaine Tailleferre – Trio (1978) (mvmt. III & IV)
- Heinrich von Herzogenberg – Trio #2 in D minor, Op.36 (mvmt. III)
- Gaspar Cassado – Trio (mvmt. I & III)

This finale celebrates the artistry of Donald Enos, the festival’s founder and artistic director, and features works that span the classical and modern eras, embodying the festival's tradition of excellence and innovation.

The Meeting House Chamber Festival is grateful for the support of the
Massachusetts Cultural Council, the Cape Cod 5 Foundation, and the Mary-Louise and Ruth N. Eddy Foundation.

Join us in celebrating this momentous season at the Church of the Holy Spirit, Episcopal, Orleans, MA. For more information, visit [http://www.meetinghousemusic.org}

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**About Meeting House Chamber Music Festival**
The Meeting House Chamber Music Festival, established in 1973, has been a cornerstone of the Cape Cod cultural scene, bringing world-class musicians and diverse repertoire to the community for fifty years. The festival is committed to fostering a deep appreciation for chamber music through its annual concert series.

 

 

Chamber Music Festival’s Spectacular 50th Anniversary Season Continues with Concerts on July 5 and 8

As the Meeting House Chamber Music Festival’s 50th Anniversary Season continues, we are delighted to invite Cape Cod residents and vacationers to two extraordinary concerts following the July 4th holiday. The concerts will be held at 7:30 PM on Friday, July 5 and on Monday, July 8 at the Church of the Holy Spirit, Episcopal in Orleans, MA.

Friday, July 5: Renowned cellist Amit Peled and the festival’s Founder, Artistic Director, and Pianist Donald Enos will present a quintessential example of romantic chamber music Edvard Grieg’s Sonata for cello & piano, Op.36. This will be followed, in marked contrast, by Friedrich Gulda’s Cello Concerto with its eclecticism, surprise elements, and thoroughly modernist approach. 

Monday, July 8: A superb ensemble featuring Joyce Hammann (violin), Danielle Farina (viola), Megan Koch (cello), Jeffrey Carney (double bass), and Donald Enos (piano) will perform yet another diverse and captivating program:

William Walton – Piano Quartet
Nino Rota – Intermezzo (viola & piano)
Rebecca Clarke – Midsummer Moon (violin & piano)

Franz Schubert – “Trout” Quintet

Tickets for the 6-concert series are available for $90, with single concert tickets available at the door for $25. Youth under 18 can attend free of charge. For more ticketing and program information, please visit Meeting House Chamber Music Festival.
The festival continues on Mondays July 15 and 22, featuring more world-class musicians and exciting programs of classical and contemporary chamber music. 
Join us for these exceptional performances and celebrate five decades of musical excellence with the Meeting House Chamber Music Festival.

About Meeting House Chamber Music Festival: The Meeting House Chamber Music Festival is dedicated to bringing high-quality chamber music to the Cape Cod community and visitors. Over the past 50 years, the festival has become a cultural cornerstone, known for its diverse programming and distinguished performers.
The Meeting House Chamber Festival is grateful for the support of the Massachusetts Cultural Council, the Cape Cod 5 Foundation, and the Mary-Louise and Ruth N. Eddy Foundation.
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Chamber Music Festival to Present Second Concert Monday, June 24

Following its spectacular season premiere last weekend, the Meeting House Chamber Music Festival will present another dazzler on Monday, June 24, 7:30 PM, Church of the Joly Spirit Episcopal, Orleans. The exciting and varied program will feature guest artists Heather Goodchild Wade-violin; Laura Manko Sahin-viola; and Leland Ko-cello performing with the festival’s Founder and Artistic Director Donald Enos-piano. Tickets only $25 at the door. More ticketing and other info at http://www.meetinghousemusic.org.

THE PROGRAM

Mozart Trio K.502

Mark O’Connor – Appalachia Waltz (solo cello)

Bach – Courante from Suite #1 (solo cello) Rizgar Ismael – Piece for solo viola

Brahms – Quartet in A Major, Op.26 (mvmt. IV) Schumann – Quartet, Op.47

Cape's Beloved Festival's 50th Anniversary Season to Open Sunday, June 16

Two stars from the international music scene—cellist Amit Peled and violinist Joyce Hammann— discuss the MEETING HOUSE CHAMBER MUSIC FESTIVAL, opening its spectacular 50th Anniversary Season this Sunday, June 16, 7:30 PM, Church of the Holy Spirit Episcopal, Orleans, MA! Tickets at the door: only $25. Program details, artist bios, series tickets, and more at: http://meetinghousemusic.org.

 

Hear Amit and Joyce speak about the Festival, the great musical experience Founder/Artistic Director Donald Enos has in store for us this season, and more! Tune in below to listen to the interview with Mindy Todd, host of NPR/WCAI's THE POINT.

 

https://www.capeandislands.org/.../2-beloved-music-festivals

Longest Running CC Music Festival to Open 50th Season June 16

Here is the final line-up for the 50th Anniversary season of the Meeting House Chamber Music Festival! Join us!

To purchase your season tickets (only $90 for 6 fantastic concerts!):

Make check payable to Meeting House Chamber Music Festival and mail to: Meeting House Festival      c/o Tom Dewing      16 Packet Landing      Orleans, MA 02653   Or call 508.896.3344

 

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Single tickets for each concert ($25) available at the door (under 18 free).
Cash or check only.

Dana McCoy's LILY THE TIGER Wins "BEST MUSICAL" at NEW YORK'S United Solo Festival, Spring 2024

For more!

 

 

 

  Lily the Tiger

Starring DANA MCCOY

Coaching and Direction

GRETCHEN CRYER

MARCIA HAUFRECHT

Development Producer

JANET MURPHY ROBERTSON

 

 

Sunday, November 12 @ 2 PM

United Solo Festival/NYC

(SOLD OUT)

Encore performance to be scheduled for the Spring 2024!

Stay Tuned for details!

Theatre Row

410 West 42nd Street

New York, NY 10036

 

In the original rock musical tragicomedy, Lily the Tiger, multi-award-winning Billboard chart-topping singer/songwriter Dana McCoy’s endearing character, Lily brims with unwitting grit as she navigates a parade of catastrophes with romance, family and career while searching under every rock for her inner tigress to help manage it all.

 

A completely fictional account, she assures us.

 

Much more about Lily here!

 

Now, say you’re like me (Dana)...

"... and you want to attend in the worst way, but that’s a lot of money right now. Please let us know because I have some friends who are loaded and bought tickets, but can’t make it in from Timbuktu or wherever, and I want my fellow poor friends in my loaded friends' seats!!! So speak up, don’t let money stand in the way. And if you’ve got it, you’ll be giving me the gift I want most for my birthday; the chance for us all to laugh together."

OTHER GREAT NEWS! Lily the Tiger ALBUM!!! 

Lily and her Tigers will be recording radio versions of the songs from Lily the Tiger in early December. 

If you’d like to help offset recording/mastering costs, we’d love you forever.

You can pre-order your album here!

 

 

The album will be sold for $20 each. (You can donate $20 or more!) We get your email with your donation and will get the album to you the same way.

We hope it will be ready by Christmas! 

We so so appreciate your support. Lily is purring……..

 

Meeting House Chamber Music Festival to Present Grand Season Finale

On Monday, July 24 at 7:30 PM, the Meeting House Chamber Music Festival will present a fitting cap to a season that has brought audience after audience to its feet throughout this 49th summer season. The season finale will feature chamber music gems from Telemann, Mozart, Shostakovich, Frank Bridge, and Benjamin Britten. All festival concerts are presented at Church of the Holy Spirit, Orleans. Tickets are $25 at the door (under 18 free). Additional festival information can be found at http://www.meetinghousemusic.org

Joining the festival's Artistic Director and pianist Donald Enos will be a perennial festival favorite, violinist Katie Lansdale, and violist Danielle Farina in her debut concert with the festival. They will perform Five Pieces for violin & viola by Shostakovich; Frank Bridge's Pensiero & Allegro Appassionato for viola and  piano; Benjamin Britten’s Suite, op.6 for violin and piano; Telemann's Sonata Fantasia; and Mozart’s Sinfonia Concertante K. 364.

Violinist Katie Lansdale is a highly acclaimed soloist, chamber musician, and teacher who performs to enthusiastic audiences in the U.S. and internationally. She has given outstanding performances with many prestigious orchestras, including the National Symphony, the Baltimore Symphony, the Cleveland Chamber Symphony, the Austin Mozart Orchestra, and the New York Repertory Orchestra, as well as such concert series as the Phillips Collection, the Caramoor Series, and Lincoln Center’s Rose Room. In New York, where she founded the acclaimed Locrian new music group, Lansdale’s extensive chamber music concerts have included Mostly Mozart at Lincoln Center with Yo Yo Ma and Merkin Hall with the Twentieth Centuryists. She performs regularly in Carnegie Hall's Weill Hall with the Festival Chamber Society. Lansdale is particularly known for her solo Bach performances, and her Bach CD was cited by American Record Guide as “one of the best recordings of this music.” 

Danielle Farina is the new Principal Violist of the Cape Symphony (Cape Cod, MA) and is a former member of the Manhattan String Quartet, the Lark Quartet and Elements Quartet. She performs regularly with a number of ensembles in the NY area and around the country, among them the Bedford Chamber Ensemble, Music from Copland House and the Palladium Chamber Players. A proponent of new music, Ms. Farina premiered Peter Schickele's Viola Concerto with the Pasadena Symphony and recorded Viola concertos by Jon Bauman and Andy Teirstein in addition to Anthony Newman's Sonata on the Planets for Viola and Piano and Joel Suben’s “Ciacconetta”for Viola and Orchestra with the composer conducting. Music of Robert Paterson, John Musto, Eric Ewazen, Morton Feldman and Pierre Jalbert are also part of the discography. Recent digital audio and video releases include all of J.S. Bach’s Sonatas for Gamba and Harpsichord with Anthony Newman and Richard Wilson’s Music for Solo Viola. An active teacher, Ms. Farina is on the faculty of Vassar College. A graduate of the Curtis Institute of Music, Ms. Farina studied with Karen Tuttle, Joseph dePasquale, Stephen Wyrczynski, and Byrnina Socolofsky.

Donald Enos, a native Cape Codder, holds the position of Wesley DeLacy Chair, Keyboards, with the Cape Symphony and is the resident pianist for the Chatham Chorale. He is also director of music at the South Dennis Congregational Church, where he often presents concerts on the church’s Snetzler Chamber Organ (1762), believed to be the oldest organ in continuous use in the United States. It is his exceptional musicianship and creativity that have made the Meeting House Chamber Music Festival the longest running music festival on Cape Cod. The festival will be celebrating its 50th Anniversary in the summer 2024. Prepare to be spellbound!

The Meeting House Chamber Festival is grateful for the support of the Massachusetts Cultural Council, the Cape Cod 5 Foundation, and the Mary-Louise and Ruth N. Eddy Foundation.

Meeting House Chamber Music Festival to Present Masterpieces from around the World

On Monday, July 17 at 7:30 PM, the Meeting House Chamber Music Festival will present a selection of full-fledged masterpieces with the characteristic intimacy and human scale of chamber music. The program features music from various countries and historical eras, all allied in their portrayal of intense and contrasting emotions. All festival concerts are presented at Church of the Holy Spirit, Orleans. Tickets are $25 at the door (under 18 free). Additional festival information can be found at http://www.meetinghousemusic.org

The first movement of Schubert’s Arpeggione Sonata is a blend of light and darkness, much like the composer’s own life. The astonishing range in mood runs from sensitivity and lyricism to gaiety to intense sadness. Gaspar Cassado’s Trio is agile and virtuosic. Like the Schubert piece, it creates a powerful dark-tinged mood that yields to a carefree dancing finale. Panufnik’s Piano Trio is full of panache and youthful romanticism and, like all the pieces in this program, it has an incredibly rich and varied emotional range. Mendelssohn’s Trio bursts with fiery emotion and also contains sublime, prayer-like moments.

Joining the festival's Artistic Director and pianist Donald Enos will be violinist Joyce Hammann and cellist Matthias Naegele. Joyce Hammann is a virtuoso who is equally at home on the concert stage, in a jazz club, and in front of screaming fans at a rock concert. She has performed and recorded with Paul McCartney, Sting, Michael Jackson and Bruce Springsteen and served as concertmaster for The Phantom of the Opera. Matthias Naegele has performed extensively as soloist and chamber musician in Europe, the United States, Mexico, Brazil, and Asia. Naegele's performances are regularly broadcast over National Public Radio and Public Television. He plays a Mateo Gofriller cello made in Venice in 1735. 

The Meeting House Chamber Music Festival is the longest-running music festival on Cape Cod. The finale for this 49th summer season will take place on Monday, July 24 and will feature works by Shostakovich, Frank Bridge, Benjamin Britten, Telemann, and Mozart. A complete program listing for the 2023 season is attached and available at http://www.meetinghousemusic.org.

The Meeting House Chamber Festival is grateful for the support of the Massachusetts Cultural Council, the Cape Cod 5 Foundation, and the Mary-Louise and Ruth N. Eddy Foundation.

Meeting House Chamber Music Festival to Present “American Landscape”

On Monday, July 10 at 7:30 PM, the Meeting House Chamber Music Festival will take its audience on an exhilarating tour of American music culminating in a Broadway-themed premiere. Artistic Director Donald Enos is known for drawing inspiration from diverse cultures and historical periods and he and his longtime collaborator, the renowned cellist Amit Peled, have upped the ante once again. This “American Landscape” concert will feature American composers George Gershwin, Florence Price, Aaron Copland, Samuel Barber, and Victor Herbert. The premiere of “Broadway Famous Themes arranged for cello and piano”—a delightful piece by Israeli cellist/composer Guy Eylon—will complete the musical tour. All festival concerts are presented at Church of the Holy Spirit, Orleans. Tickets are $25 at the door (under 18 free). After the July 10 concert, the fourth of the season, the festival will continue for two more Mondays: July 17 and 24. Additional festival information can be found at http://www.meetinghousemusic.org

 

Musical ideas migrate, cross-pollinate, and evolve into new forms and styles over time and the upcoming program uses American music as a shining example. Gershwin’s Three Preludes is a fitting start for the journey as it exemplifies the influence of jazz on early-20th-century American classical music. Next up is a piece by Florence B. Price, the first black woman in the U.S. to be recognized as a symphonic composer. Price’s gorgeous adagio from her Concerto in One Movement has a lyrical theme in the classical European tradition withstrains of African American folk. In the tradition of spirituals combining European religious elements with African music forms, the spiritual “Motherless Child” dates back to the era of slavery and expresses the suffering and intermittent despair of a child torn from her parents and a people separated from its motherland. 

 

Samuel Barber’s Sonata for Cello and Piano, written by this American composer as he traveled in Europe, is profound and passionate in the manner of the great European romantic composers such as Brahms. Aaron Copland’s Waltz and Celebration incorporates several cowboy tunes and American folk songs and evokes the pioneer West with its colorful characters like Billy the Kid. Victor Herbert’s Concerto number 2 is another stunning example of how musical ideas migrate. This moving piece gives hints of the musical interchange between Herbert and Dvořák, colleagues at New York's National Conservatory in the early 1890s. While Herbert inspired Dvořák to write a cello concerto himself, this concerto bears the imprint of Dvorak’s music and, in particular, the Symphony from the New World. And finally, the audience will be treated to Guy Eylon’s new piece, a tribute to the quintessentially American genre, the Broadway musical!

 

The Meeting House Chamber Music Festival is grateful for the generous support of the Massachusetts Cultural Council, Cape Cod 5, and the Mary Louise and Ruth N. Eddy Foundation.

Meeting House Chamber Music Festival Announces Summer 2023 Line-up!

Dana McCoy's LILY THE TIGER is Roaring!

 

Dana McCoy will be presenting a private showcase of Lily the Tiger next month at SMASH STUDIOS. This is an important step in the development process and our team is excited! As we proceed, we will be exploring wonderful opportunities for Lily, including a Rock Album, a Touring Show, a film, a TV Series...and, if the world sees the potential we do....a Broadway Rock Musical! Thank you so much for supporting us as we move along! More about Lily. 

For the showcase, Dana's amazing fellow tigers include:

Drums ALBERT BOUCHARD (Blue Oyster Cult)

Bass ALEC MORTON (Raging Slab and Monster Magnet)

Guitar MIKE FORNATALE (Murderer's Row, Dot Wiggin Band, The Left Banke)

Keyboards C.P. ROTH (worked with Ozzy Osbourne, Denis Leary, Sex&Drugs&Rock&Roll)

And we are so grateful for the support of Marcia and Gretchen!

Director: MARCIA HAUFRECHT (Actors Studio, Armageddon Time)

Coaching: Hit Broadway performer, writer, and director GRETCHEN CRYER (I'm Getting My Act Together and Taking it on the Road)

The show is touching, bound to both break your heart and split your sides. And the music is melodious, memorable, and foot-stomping! We are now assembling a machine to bring Lily to the world. Please contact me (Development Producer, Janet Murphy Robertson) if you would like to collaborate. More information here!

 

We welcome and appreciate donations along the way and, unless you prefer to be anonymous, we will publicly and enthusiastically acknowledge your generosity. Thank you!!!

Two Music World Stars to Perform with the MH Chamber Music Festival, Tuesday July 19

Violinist Irina Muresanu

Two stars from the international music scene will perform with the Meeting House Chamber Music Festival. Romanian-born violinist Irina Muresanu, a Festival favorite, is known for her passionate, fearless playing. Her dazzling performances have been cited frequently by The Boston Globe as among the best of classical music performances. Cellist Sergey Antonov was the Gold Medal Winner (XIII) in the International Tchaikovsky Competition. Music critic Stephen Brookes of The Washington Post referred to Antonov as one of Russia’s "most spectacular soloists.” Both of these musicians have people crowding into recital halls around the world and Cape Cod residents and visitors will have their opportunity to hear them, along with the Festival’s artistic director and pianist Donald Enos, at Holy Spirit Episcopal in Orleans. Single tickets ($25) may be purchased at the door. Complete ticketing and program information at http://www.meetinghousemusic.org or by calling 508.896.3344.

The concert program includes Brahms’ Piano Trio in B major, premiered by a youthful Brahms in 1855 and imbued by the composer with even greater beauty and dynamism in a revision three decades later. A second piece is by the Norwegian composer, conductor, and violinist Johan Halvorsen—a widely acknowledged work of genius that has an important place in the chamber music repertoire: Passacaglia for Violin and Cello, based on the final movement of Handel’s Harpsichord Suite in G Minor. 

This 48^th summer season of the Meeting House Chamber Music Festival might be called the season of standing ovations, as concert after concert has brought audiences to their feet. This penultimate concert promises to do the same. The final concert of the season will be given on Monday, July 25 at 7:30 PM, also at Holy Spirit Episcopal. It will feature Donald Enos and the highly lauded soloist, chamber musician, and teacher Katie Lansdale.A complete program listing for the 2022 season is available at http://www.meetinghousemusic.org.

The Meeting House Chamber Festival is grateful for the support of the Massachusetts Cultural Council, the Cape Cod 5 Foundation, and the Mary-Louise and Ruth N. Eddy Foundation.

Hot New Musical "Lily the Tiger" to Rock Cotuit on Tuesday, June 28!

On Tuesday, June 28, at 7:30 pm, a “campfire version” of Dana McCoy’s rock musical Lily the Tiger will be presented in the outdoor theater of Cotuit Center for the Arts, Cotuit, MA. The show features McCoy’s original songs and a story filled with poignancy and humor as “Lily” navigates a parade of catastrophes. McCoy will bring to the performance a plethora of New York talent including notable rock musicians Albert Bouchard of Blue Oyster Cult, Alec Morton of Raging Slab and Monster Magnet, and Mike Fornatale of The Losers’ Lounge NYC, Dot Wiggin Band and The Left Banke. The audience will be treated to a peek at the new musical’s stories and songs in advance of McCoy’s UK tour and the show’s New York launch later this year. Tickets are $35; $30 for Cotuit Center members; $33 for seniors and veterans. Ticketing and additional information: https://artsonthecape.org/explore/lily-the-tiger.

Lily the Tiger took its first steps onto the stage at New York’s historic Theatre 80 on May 31, 2022 in a reading for invited guests, including producers and potential investors. Hit Broadway performer, writer, and director, Gretchen Cryer of I’m Getting My Act Together and Taking It On The Road fame is helping to shape and direct Lily The Tiger, which also features marvelous dramatic coaching from Marcia Haufrecht of the Actor’s Studio. The show’s developmental producer is Janet Murphy Robertson of ArtistsAndMusicians.org. In early July, McCoy will set off on a UK tour performing selected songs from the evolving show.

A part-time local resident, Dana McCoy is delighted to share her latest creative work here on the Cape as she continues its development. Increasingly well known to Cape audiences, McCoy was actor, story-writer, composer, and co-director for A Woman’s Heart, based on the poetry of Judith Partelow, in 2019. In addition to her original score, the play featured songs composed and sung by McCoy. The Cape Cod Times’ features editor Gwenn Friss said of McCoy’s portrayal of a woman raising her children as she deals with a depressed and abusive husband, “Watching how she pulls off a lightness of being for her child is like seeing a Disney princess cast in a Quentin Tarantino movie.”

Dana McCoy’s professional accomplishments fill the gamut of performing arts—from dance and instrumental music to voice and theater performance, on stage, on film, and in video. McCoy and her music compositions have been heard in venues throughout the U.S., including CBGB’s, The Ritz, and Lincoln Center, as well as in Europe and the U.K. Her hit songs have been performed by such noted groups as Inner City, Degrees of Motion, and Left Field. She produced and performed “88 Butterfly, Taking Shape, a solo CD designated by Billboard editors as one of the best albums of the year. McCoy’s work on stage also includes her original rock musical "Prom Queens" co-written with Jennifer Schanke and Christina Cass. She workshopped the musical at Arnold Engelman’s Westbeth Entertainment in New York, a performance venue known for presenting bold new works from the likes of Stephen Colbert, Patti LuPone, and Sandra Bernhardt—and at Don Hill’s, a SoHo club at the heart of the New York rock scene. The musical was showcased off-Broadway and at Crown & Anchor’s Paramount Room in Provincetown, MA. McCoy played the lead role of Daisey and provided lead and background vocals and dance.

She also originated the starring role of Ingrid in Richard Caliban’s MoM: A Rock Concert Musical,winner of Outstanding Musical at the New York International Fringe Festival in 2008. The musical was selected as part of the Fringe Benefits Anniversary Series and was named one of the Fringe’s best 15 musical in 15 years. Reviewers at numerous publications, including The New York Times and Broadway World cited McCoy’s outstanding work. New York Times theater critic Anita Gates wrote, “(McCoy’s character) Ingrid is the interesting one. She begins as a trophy-wife type with a French twist, goes through an entertaining Patsy Stone of “Ab Fab” phase and ends up as Janis Joplin.” TalkinBroadway.com saluted McCoy for her charisma in the role, as well as her work on keyboards, bass, and percussion.

Dana McCoy has performed regularly at Joe McGinty’s Loser's Lounge, sharing the stage with former Saturday Night Live cast member Fred Armisen, cabaret artist Justin Vivian Bond, and other notables. She later founded and hosted Life Café NYC’s Naked Music Series which provided more than 300 gigs for well- and lesser-known musicians. She is an active performer and producer with New York’s Ukelele Cabaret.

McCoy worked with Gretchen Cryer, Evelyn Page, and Lesley Gore as founder, producer, and performer in Pillow Fight Theatre Festival: Hot Chicks of Substance" at 45 Bleecker in 2007. She wrote, performed, and produced her rock musical Cube Rat which tells the story of a superstar stuck in a cubicle. The musical was workshopped at New York’s SIR studios, the Green Room, and the Pillowfight Theater Festival and was presented at the Edinburgh Film Festival in 2011. Colin Quinn of Saturday Night Live called the musical “amazing.” Reviewers at the Fringe said of the work that “it fascinates, thrills and the songs are rhythmic, original and catchy. Beautiful sounds and ideas from a beautiful person.”  The musical was included in the York Shakespeare Company's 10th Season.

Chamber Music Festival's Season Finale: Monday, July 29

Katie Lansdale, Donald Enos, and Megan Koch

The season finale of the Meeting House Chamber Music Festival will be held on Monday, July 29, 7:30 pm at Church of the Holy Spirit in Orleans. Performing in this special celebratory concert will beKatie Lansdale, violin; Megan Koch, cello; and Donald Enos, piano. Tickets can be purchased at the door or reserved in advance by phone (508.896.3344) or email ([email protected]). Tickets: $25 (under 18 free). More information at  http://meetinghousemusic.org.

The typical Festival concert presents a series of treats, each with its unique style of expression, ideas, and cultural foundations. The season’s festive finale will serve up even more than the customary amount of delectable fare. A centerpiece of the program will be the Divertimento in D, Hob.XI:113 by Joseph Haydn (Austrian, 1732-1809)—as joyous and entertaining a piece of music as exists in the repertoire. Entirely different in mood and bursting with folk flavor are works for solo violin by Antonín Dvořák (Czech, 1841-1904). Another featured composer who, like Dvořák, mastered the violin in early childhood and went on to write soaring music for it, is Eugène-Auguste Ysaÿe(French-Belgian, 1858–1931). The passionate elegance of this “King of the Violin” comes through loud and clear in the “Les Furies” movement of his Violin Sonata No. 2.

And then there is the panache of AndréPrevin (b.1929), the German-American pianist and composer whose work has brought him four Academy Awards and eleven Grammys, including one for Lifetime Achievement. Previn wrote his beautiful Sonata for Cello and Piano for Yo-Yo Ma, and the piece was premiered by the world-renowned Chinese-American cellist in 1993. “Spring” from Astor Piazzolla’s The Four Seasons of Buenos Aires is fast, intense, and dramatic. Piazzolla (Argentine, 1921-1992) was the grand master of tango music and this piece is an exciting blend of traditional tango and classical and contemporary influences. Camille Saint-Saëns (French, 1835-1921) worked in many different styles and music formats during his long life, and chamber music was one of his early passions. His First Piano Trio is an exuberant, youthful, and at times even boisterous piece written when the composer was 28.

Three Superb Musicians Featured in Festival Concert

 

Donald Enos--Festival Founder, Artistic Director, Pianist

Three superb musicians performed in the Meeting House Chamber Music Festival’s fifth concert of the season on Monday, July 22 at Church of the Holy Spirit in Orleans. 

Donald Enos founded Cape Cod’s longest-running music festival in 1973 and this concert put his remarkable musicianship and creative direction on full display. Mozart’s Trio K. 254 is written for piano, violin, and cello, and Enos played the most demanding and virtuosic part at the work’s center. He designed the program to include three additional trios with all the intensity and intimacy characteristic of chamber music and interesting back-stories to boot. In Arvo Pärt's “Mozart” Adagio, written in the 1990s, this contemporary Estonian composer creates a respectful and moving

Violinist Joyce Hammann

tribute to the Classical Period master of two centuries before. Maurice Ravel composed his Trio during World War I, just before he volunteered for military service. The piece has a traditional form with some fascinating twists, including a Basque dance and a second movement inspired by the Malaysian poetic form “Pantoum.” Franz Schubert’s radiant Trio Op. 99 was composed in the immensely prolific last year before his death in 1828 at the age of 31.

Cellist Matthias Naegele

Violinist Joyce Hammann and cellist Matthias Naegele completed this concert’s extraordinary trio of musicians. Hammann is a
performer lauded by The New York Times for her"splendid soloing" and "sweet, rich tone.” Naegele performs to enthusiastic audiences around the world and his performances are carried regularly by NPR and public television. Learn more about these artists and the festival itself at http://www.meetinghousemusic.org.

Next up will be the festival’s season finale on July 29 at Church of the Holy Spirit, 204 Monument Road, Orleans, MA.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Short clips from Meeting House Chamber Music Festival concerts earlier this season

Magnificent Trios from a Magnificent Trio, July 22

Schubert Trio in B Flat, Op. 99

Mozart Trio in B Flat

Dazzling violinist Irina Muresanu performing with festival founder/artistic director/pianist Donald Enos on July 1.

 

Bo Ericsson, Heather Goodchild Wade, and Donald Enos performing in West Barnstable, July 14. Violist Laura Manko Sahin also performed superbly in this concert. 

Festival Presents Concerts in West Barnstable and Orleans on July 14 and 15

Photo by Nancy Viall Shoemaker

On Sunday and Monday, July 14 and 15, the Meeting House Chamber Music Festival will featured a quartet of superb musicians and several works that are among the finest in the entire repertoire of chamber music. Sunday’s concert was held at 7 pm at 1717 Meetinghouse in West Barnstable and Monday’s concert began at 7:30 pm at Church of the Holy Spirit in Orleans. More information about the festival can be found at http://meetinghousemusic.org.

One of the most brilliant lights amidst the program’s gems was the sublimely melodious A Major Piano Quartet from Johannes Brahms, which was premiered in Vienna in 1863 with Brahms himself at the piano. Also featured was Haydn’s Trio No.13 in A Major, whose piano part is particularly complex and exciting. The glorious “Summer” concerto from Vivaldi’s The Four Season, which was written in the very year construction began on the historic 1717 Meetinghouse, is a brilliant evocation of the season. In the Finale from the important Romantic composer Carl Maria von Weber’s Piano Quartet, one could hear the influence of Mozart, as well as the freer forms and lyrical quality of Weber’s later Romantic-style works.

And in true Donald Enos form, there were some surprises—glittering works that are lesser known but no less moving, such as Praeludiumby the Swedish Romantic composer Jakob Adolf Hägg.  Rounding out the program was a charming piece called ABird Came Down the Walkfrom the largely self-taught, highly innovative Twentieth-Century Japanese composer Tōru Takemitsu. With a poem by Emily Dickinson as its jumping-off point, Takemitsu’s music mirrors the poet’s open-mindedness, economy of language, and inspiration from nature.                                                    

The outstanding musicians performing in this concert were Heather Goodchild Wade, violin; Laura Manko Sahin, viola; Bo Ericsson, cello; and Donald Enos, piano. Biographies and additional information about the festival can be found at http://www.meetinghousemusic.org.

The festival continues with performances on Mondays through the end of July (July 22 and 29) at Church of the Holy Spirit, 204 Monument Road, Orleans, MA. On Sunday, July 14, the festival travels to 1717 Meetinghouse, 2049 Meetinghouse Way, West Barnstable, MA (same program as July 15).

 

Elizabeth Remy Johnson and Clark Matthews Headlined Festival Concert July 8

Elizabeth Remy Johnson

On Monday, July 8 at 7:30 pm, two highly popular guest artists performed with Donald Enos and the Meeting House Chamber Music Festival: Elisabeth Remy Johnson, harp, and Clark Matthews, French horn. The concert was held at Church of the Holy Spirit in Orleans, MA.  More information about the festival can be found at http://meetinghousemusic.org.

Elisabeth Remy Johnson is one of the most celebrated of Cape Cod’s native-born musicians. She holds the endowed Delta Air Lines Chair with the Atlanta Symphony—the orchestra that snapped her up immediately upon her graduation Phi Beta Kappa from Harvard. Matthews performs as principal hornist with the Cape Symphony, as well as the Indian Hill Symphony Orchestra and Discovery Ensemble.

In this third concert of the season, Enos pulled out all the stops as he continues his exploration of the finest chamber music from around the globe. The audience was treated to the dramatic beauty of the ballet music from Romeo and Juliet, the light playfulness of a scherzo for French horn, and a panoply of melody and moods in between. And with characteristic creativity, Enos paired harp, horn, and piano—spotlighting the instruments both individually and together—in a program that reaches technical and expressive heights through works of many styles and periods.

Remy Johnson is a fan of ballet in general and Sergei Prokofiev (1891-1953) in particular. Performed with Donald Enos, her rendition of Prokofiev’s Romeo and Juliet was a stand-out piece in the superb program. Composed in 1935 and based on Shakespeare’s play about star-crossed lovers across a social divide, the ballet’s premiere was delayed by five years due to political squabbles concerning its interpretation.

Dutch composer and conductor Jan Koetsier (1911-2006) was featured in the program with two pieces: Sonata Op.94 for harp and horn

Clark Matthews

and Scherzo Brillante Op.96 for horn and piano.Koetsier was a piano prodigy who developed a passion for brass and created many highly original compositions revered by brass fans for their fresh, conversational character. John Williams (b. 1932)—distinguished American composer of classical music as well as countless magnificent film scores—was represented in the program with his Horn Concerto. Williams himself described this work, which premiered in 2003, as a symphonic poem exploring a variety of colors and moods.The harp gem Whirlwindby the French harpist and composer Carlos Salzedo (1885-1961) illustrates well why Salzedo is credited with making the harp into a virtuoso instrument.

Turning back to earlier periods, Prelude, Theme and Variationsby Gioacchino Rossini (1792-1868) gave witness to the spirited and technically-demanding best of the Classical style. The earliest piece in the program was the Concerto in C by Johann Sebastian Bach (1685-1750), which was originally scored for two harpsichords—the go-to instrument of the Baroque period. And rounding out the concert’s global voyage was Concerto No.1 in C by Antonio Soler (1729-1783), a Spanish Catalan priest and astonishingly prolific composer of more than 500 works.

The festival continues with performances on Mondays throughout July (July 15, 22, and 29) at Church of the Holy Spirit, 204 Monument Road, Orleans, MA. On Sunday, July 14, the festival travels to 1717 Meetinghouse, 2049 Meetinghouse Way, West Barnstable, MA (same program as July 15).

 

Cellist Amit Peled and His New Vernon Virtuosi Open Chamber Music Festival

 

Cellist Amit Peled. 

Photo credit: Melissa Golden

On Monday, June 10, Donald Enos launched the 46th season of the Meeting House Chamber Music Festival in collaboration with one of the most brilliant and colorful figures on the global music stage today, Grammy-nominated conductor, cellist, and pedagogue Amit Peled. The season premiere featured works by Tchaikovsky, Stutchewsky, and Mozart.

Amit Peled is no stranger to fans of the Meeting House Chamber Music Festival. Enos spotted the young Israeli-American cellist more than a dozen years ago, not long after Peled moved to the US to assume his teaching position at Johns Hopkins University’s Peabody Conservatory. Peled brings to the June 10 event his profound musicianship and larger-than-life personality and, adding to the usual high level of excitement, Peled will also conduct the Mount Vernon Virtuosi, the orchestra he founded to be an important platform for young performers.

On Monday, July 1, another virtuoso—violinist Irina Muresanu, whom critics have acclaimed as “dazzling” and “spellbinding” will headline a program that also exemplifies the cultural diversity of the festival. 

Violinist Irina Muresanu

The offerings will range from folk airs from Muresanu’s native Romania to the lush artistry of French composer Gabriel Fauré.

And on each Monday through July 29, the festival will continue its presentation of traditional and contemporary repertoire from around the world performed by top-flight international and regional talent. Artists this year will include Elisabeth Remy Johnson, Clark Matthews, Heather Goodchild Wade, Laura Manko Sahin, Bo Ericsson, Joyce Hammann, Matthias Naegele, Katie Lansdale, and Megan Koch. A complete season listing is available here or visit Meeting House Chamber Music Festival

Donald Enos, the festival’s founder, artistic director, and pianist, welcomes all to experience the great music he has in store for this summer. In his words, the festival offers “live music that everyone can love—music that emerges naturally almost like a conversation among musicians, expressing raw, authentic human emotion. Join us and see why chamber music is known as the ‘music of friends!’”

The Meeting House Chamber Festival is grateful for the support of the Massachusetts Cultural Council, the Cape Cod 5 Foundation, and the Mary-Louise and Ruth N. Eddy Foundation.

Concerts are held at 7:30 pm on Monday evenings at Church of the Holy Spirit in Orleans. The Monday, July 15, program will also be presented at 7 pm on Sunday, July 14, at 1717 Meetinghouse in West Barnstable.

 

 

Andrea Baker's SING SISTAH SING! to Rock Cotuit Again on Sunday, April 28, 2 pm

 

On Sunday, April 28 at 2 pm, Cotuit Center for the Arts will present Sing Sistah Sing!—an award-winning celebration of the sound and extraordinary breadth of African American female voices over the centuries. Conceived and performed by internationally acclaimed mezzo-soprano Andrea Baker, the show celebrates such musical greats as Leontyne Price, Marian Anderson, Donna Summer, Nina Simone, and Billie Holiday. Sing Sistah Sing! uniquely features traditional storytelling and music ranging from African American field songs to spirituals, gospel, jazz, blues, and opera.

Tickets $50, $40 for balcony seating. Discounts: $5 for members, $2 for seniors/veterans. Ms. Baker’s acclaimed new solo CD will be available for sale at the event. 

In this dazzling show, Andrea Baker will evoke the pantheon of African American vocalists and their brave struggles for civil rights and artistic freedom. Whether they chose jazz, pop, or opera to express their inner truth, these women all carried in their souls and voices the sounds of their ancestors’ songs of the plantation. Only a highly-trained and soulful vocalist like Andrea Baker could contemplate such a demanding program, drawing as it does on sublime musicality, a profound connection with American history, and direct personal experience. Ms. Baker’s own great-grandfather Thomas Nelson Baker, Sr. was born into slavery, made his way to Massachusetts, and became the first African American to receive a Ph.D. in philosophy from Yale University. The long-time minister of the Second Congregational Church in Pittsfield, MA, he lent inspiration for Sing Sistah Sing! via an essay he wrote in 1908, titled “The Negro Melodies.”

Sing Sistah Sing! has been performed to rave reviews in Europe and was spotlighted in “The Best of the Fringe” in Edinburgh’s prestigious Fringe Festival. The show’s sensational American debut was held at Cotuit in June 2018 as a benefit for Zion Union Heritage Museum.

Andrea Baker’s 2019 tour opened in San Francisco on April 7 and will include stops at Arizona State University and Tennessee King Institute before arriving at Cotuit on April 28. Throughout the tour, Ms. Baker’s US fans will also be treated to the rollicking piano mastery of Peter Maleitzke, a popular and multi-talented San Francisco-based artist (bio attached).

Websites:http://www.singsistahsing.com; http://www.andreabaker.org

Video links: https://vimeo.com/292672581;https://vimeo.com/227806238;https://vimeo.com/268377731;https://soundcloud.com/andrea-baker-mezzo/sets/tuscaloosa-bbc-radio-scotland

http://www.facebook.com/SingSistahSing/

https://twitter.com/ABakerMezzo

Internationally-Acclaimed Vocalist Andrea Baker Tours the U.S.

Internationally-acclaimed mezzo-soprano Andrea Baker and her fabulous program SING SISTAH SING! is touring the U.S. The spring portion of the tour includes performances in California, Arizona, Tennessee, and Massachusetts. To book a performance of SING SISTAH SING!, please contact ArtistsAndMusicians.org at [email protected].

Enjoy a glimpse of Andrea Baker's special magic in these clips:

1. At this link, under “Seen and Heard,” you will see a clip from Porgy and Bess with the Berlin Philharmonic, Simon Rattle conducting:

https://andreabaker.org/repertoire.html

2. Sing Sistah Sing Short Show Reel
https://vimeo.com/227806238

3. Sing Sistah Sing! Long Show Reel
https://vimeo.com/211636678

ArtistsAndMusicians.org is now lining up additional venues. We will be including several iconic Civil Rights Movement locales, as well as other churches, theaters, and concert halls. Please contact us to discuss the opportunities for a performance or fundraising event!

In the meantime...

Andrea Baker is a stand-out this summer at one of Europe's finest arts festivals. More

 

BBC Radio Scotland airs Andrea Baker's Tuscaloosa Documentary. More

"FUNK & SOUL" to be presented at Cotuit on Saturday, February 16

The GroovaLottos, L-R: Mwalim DaPhunkee Professor, Eddie Ray Johnson, The ZYG 808, and Richard Johnson. Photo by David John Correia.

 

"FUNK & SOUL,” a special concert presented by Zion Union Heritage Museum in honor of Black History Month, will take place at Cotuit Center for the Arts on Saturday, February 16. Doors will open at 7 pm for a 7:30 pm start. Featuring The GroovaLottos, 6-time Grammy nominees, the evening is a fundraiser for the landmark museum, which celebrates the African-American, Cape Verdean, and Wampanoag populations, as well as the ethnic and demographic diversity, of Cape Cod. Tickets for the event are $27 and $32, with senior discounts available. They can be purchased in advance by contacting the Cotuit Center for the Arts at 508.428.0669 x1 or on-line at https://artsonthecape.org/explore/funk-and-soul-celebration.

The GroovaLottos are a powerhouse soul-funk-blues band, said to play with their souls instead of their hands. A high-energy band on a mission to unlock the spirit and the soul—and closely connected with the who's who of classic soul, funk and blues legends—these journeymen are keepers of a musical tradition and legacy, rich with storytelling and infectious grooves. Incredible music and wild senses of humor make them one of the most entertaining bands around. The group is comprised of Eddie Ray Johnson, drums and vocals; Mwalim Daphunkee Professor, keyboards and vocals; and Richard Johnson, bass, and child prodigy percussionist and MC, The ZYG 808.

The GroovaLottos and Cotuit Center for the Arts have a common link. The Center's founder, Cotuit resident and former Motown session guitarist James Wolf, brought drummer Eddie Ray Johnson and keyboardist/singer/songwriter Mwalim together for jam sessions in 2009 that evolved into The GroovaLottos. The group made their first concert appearance at the Multicultural Festival at Cape Cod Community College’s Tilden Arts Center in 2011.

The Zion Union Heritage Museum was founded in part by the Community Preservation Act and the Lyndon Paul Lorusso Foundation, in partnership with the Town of Barnstable. Opened a decade ago on the site of the century-old Zion Union Church, the museum is increasingly recognized, not only as a historical landmark in the Commonwealth, but also as a destination of national significance. The museum is sponsoring a wide range of events in honor of Black History Month and hosting an important new exhibition Lewis Hayden and the Underground Railroad.

Festival to Conclude 2018 Season with Fanfare, Monday, July 23 in Orleans

The Meeting House Chamber Music Festival will bring its successful 2018 season to a close with fanfare befitting the occasion. Performing in the exciting and varied program will be horn player Clark Matthews, violinist Audrey Wright, and the eminent Cape Cod pianist and artistic director Donald Enos, who founded this longest-running Cape Cod music festival 45 years ago. The concert will be given at the festival’s principal venue, Church of the Holy Spirit in Orleans. Tickets can be purchased at the door or reserved in advance by calling 508.896.3344 or emailing [email protected]. Tickets: $25 (under 18 free).

A selection of delightful and historically significant works will mark the celebratory mood. Fantasy for Solo Horn by Malcolm Arnold—the prolific 20^thcentury English composer and Oscar-winning producer of more than 100 film scores—is esteemed by critics and fans for its brilliant expression of both joy and grief. Another piece for solo horn—a sparkling, fast-paced work by the contemporary British composer Alan Abbott— strongly evokes the instrument’s origins in the actual animal horns used for calls during the stages of a hunt.  In Brahms’ Horn Trio, Op. 40, the horn will be joined by the violin and piano and engage in a musical conversation inspired by the beauty and tranquility of the Black Forest. Beethoven’s Violin Sonata No. 8 in G Major, an early work by this great composer, is regarded as transformational in its technical difficulty, structure, and emotive power. This varied program also includes works by Richard Strauss, aleading late Romantic/early modern German composer; the important 20^thcentury Argentine composer Alberto Evaristo Ginastera; the 20^thcentury Czech American composer Václav Nelhýbel; and the contemporary American composer and teacher Eric Ewazen.

Meeting House Chamber Music Festival Travels to Historic West Barnstable Venue on Sunday, July 15. Concert to be given a second time in Orleans, Monday, July 16

 

Interior of 1717 Meetinghouse. Photo by Nancy Viall Shoemaker

On Sunday, July 15 at 7:00 pm, the Meeting House Chamber Music Festival will travel to a magnificent and exceptionally fitting venue in West Barnstable. Not only does the name “1717 Meetinghouse” echo the title of the festival itself, the building was constructed in the century when chamber music began its evolution into a distinct musical form. The program includes two piano quartets that are acknowledged masterpieces, plus an excellent early example and two 20^thcentury pieces that demonstrate chamber music’s enduring relevance. On Monday, July 16 at 7:30 pm, the same program will be given at the festival’s principal venue, Church of the Holy Spirit, Orleans. Performing in this concert will be: cellist Bo Ericsson, violinist Heather Goodchild Wade, and violist Laura Manko Sahin, as well as the festival’s founder/artistic director/pianist Donald Enos. Tickets can be purchased at the door or reserved in advance by calling 508.896.3344 or emailing [email protected]. Tickets: $25 (under 18 free).

Artful programming by Donald Enos creates a musical bridge across the centuries.The program’s earliest composition is a Baroque period violin sonata by Giovanni Battista Pergolesi, renowned as a composer to this day despite his untimely death in 1736 at age 26. A generation later, Mozart’s bright and genial Quartet in E Flat, K. 493 shows how this musical genius moved beyond the Baroque, giving each instrument an independent voice that responds to the other. The Romantic tragic/heroic energy of the Brahms Quartet in G minor shows how the chamber music form had fully evolved by the mid-19^thcentury into "four rational people conversing,” as chamber music has come to be called. Swedish composer Lars-Erik Larsson and Turkish composer Necil Kazim Akses’ further expanded the chamber music form, adding 20^thcentury techniques and sensibilities and creating an exciting, modern, and culturally rich conversation.

Meeting House Chamber Music Festival

The Meeting House Chamber Music Festival is the longest-running music festival on Cape Cod for a reason. This year's line-up once again includes an extraordinary mix of engaging music from different periods and countries around the world. And, as always, the festival features the finest local talent and additional top instrumentalists from the national and international stage. The season finale will be held on Monday, July 23 at 7:30 pm at Church of the Holy Spirit. To view the schedule for the entire season, as well as biographies of the artists, please visit http://www.meetinghousemusic.org.

 

Baroque, Tango, and more!

Violinist Katie Lansdale

On Monday, July 9 at 7:30 pm, the Meeting House Chamber Music Festival will continue its stellar 45^thsummer season with a concert that ranges from the exuberance of the Baroque to the passion of the Argentine tango. Two outstanding instrumentalists—violinist Katie Lansdale and cellist Megan Koch—will join the festival’s founder/artistic director/pianist Donald Enos. The concert will be given at the festival’s principal venue, Church of the Holy Spirit, Orleans, MA. Tickets can be purchased at the door or reserved in advance by calling 508.896.3344. Tickets: $25 (under 18 free).

Featured will be five compositions from the 18^thto the 20^thcenturies, each as moving and expressive as the next:  J.S. Bach’s Toccata & Fugue in D minor; Mendelssohn’s Cello Sonata, Op. 58; Seasons composition by Vivaldi and by Astor Piazzolla; and Frank Bridge’s Phantasie Trio.

As an organ piece, the Bach toccata is well known and popular, yet it is an enigma. Atypical of the great composer in many respects and not particularly “organ-like,” it strikes scholars as either a youthful creation or a transcription of an earlier violin composition. With the artistry of pianist Donald Enos and violinist Katie Lansdale, this iconic work will be served up with a twist and promises to be one highlight in a concert filled with delight after delight.

The festival will also give a musical tribute to the different moods and emotions associated with nature’s ever-repeating cycles. In 1721 when the great Baroque composer Vivaldi composed his Four Seasons, the best known of all his works, the concerto was unusual and even revolutionary as it evoked flora and fauna, storms, landscapes and other distinctive features of particular times of the year. Enos will juxtapose this brilliant composition with the musical portrait of nature that Argentine tango composer Astor Piazzolla composed two centuries later.

Cellist Megan Koch

Scholars have noted the fascination that Bach held for Mendelssohn. While the Cello Sonata is a powerful and passionate work, mostly conveying an exultant mood, the Adagio seems inspired by a Bach chorale and includes a touching cello solo to be performed by Megan Koch.

The early 20^thcentury British composer Frank Bridge is increasingly recognized, not only as Benjamin Britten’s teacher, but also as an important composer in his own right. Especially in his earlier years, Bridge composed deeply moving, melodious works with a late Romantic feel. His Trio is a great example and rounds out a program bound to move its audience in the special way that only chamber music can do.

The festival continues with additional performances on July 15, 16, and 23.

Sensational Romanian Violinist to Headline Festival Concert

On Monday, July 2 at 7:30 pm, the Meeting House Chamber Music Festival will present yet another exciting evening of chamber music at the festival’s principal venue, Church of the Holy Spirit, Orleans, MA. This time the headliner will be the sensational Romanian violinist Irina Muresanu—one of the most popular musicians ever to perform with the festival, and one whose “irresistible” performances have been cited by The Boston Globe as “among the bestin classical music.” Performing with Ms. Muresanu this year will be Gabriela Diaz, critically acclaimed as a young violin master and one of Boston’s most valuable players. Donald Enos—the festival’s founder, artistic director, and pianist—will join the duo in an extraordinary display of expressed emotion and violin and piano virtuosity.

The program is geared to lead the audience to new discoveries. Mozart’s Violin Sonata K.301 is an unusual and engaging piece made up solely of two allegros. Stravinsky’s Suite Italienne is a light, innovative piece even as it echoesBaroque and Romantic styles. Featured as well will be the Suite for Two Violins and Piano by German-Polish composer and pianist Moritz Moszkowski—the late 19^thcentury/early 20^thcentury composer named by some critics in the same breath as his earlier compatriot, the great Chopin. Moszkowski’s profound knowledge of both violin and piano, his flair for melody, and his zest for life will bring a new and delightful experience to many festival fans. Kodály’s Adagio for Violin is Romantic in theme, melancholy in mood, and utterly beautiful. A piece by Romantic period composer and violin virtuoso Sarasate will showcase this composer’s exemplary technique. It may also inspire music-lovers to learn more about this noteworthy Spaniard referenced in the works of Arthur Conan Doyle, Anthony Burgess, Edith Wharton, and James McNeil Whistler.

As if this were not enough, the program will include a piece by Mark O’Connor, the contemporary cultural icon whose compositions in bluegrass, country, jazz, and classical music sent The New York Timesraving about “one of the most spectacular journeys in recent American music.”  All in all, an extraordinary concert lies ahead on July 2. And the festival continues with additional performances on July 9, 15, 16, and 23.

Tickets can be purchased at the door or reserved in advance by calling 508.896.3344 or emailing [email protected]. Single tickets: $25 (under 18 free). 6-Concert Series: $95.

Dazzling Oboe/Bassoon Duo to Perform with Festival on Monday, June 25

On Monday, June 25, at 7:30 pm, the Meeting House Chamber Music Festival will once again feature a dazzling young duo from New York: bassoonist Nanci Belmont and oboist Stuart Breczinski. With Donald Enos at the piano, they will present a diverse program with works by both classical and contemporary composers. The program will include:  Malcolm Arnold, Sonatina Op.28 Summer Song; Saint-Saëns, Bassoon Sonata; Pierre Max Dubois, Sonatine Tango; Music of Daniel Black, Rochberg, Vivaldi; André Previn, Trio (1994). The concert will be presented at the festival’s principal venue: Church of the Holy Spirit in Orleans.

The oboe and the bassoon are orchestra mainstays, but they are seldom granted solo roles or put in the spotlight together. Belmont and Breczinski’s brilliance in playing these difficult instruments leaves one wondering why and wanting more. In last year’s festival opening, they played beautifully and engaged their audience with fascinating stories about the pieces they chose. This year’s audience is bound to be charmed once again. 

Next up in this outstanding summer series, now celebrating its 45^th season, will be a concert on Monday, July 2 headlined by the sensational violinist Irina Muresanu. Attached is the full season schedule Additional concerts are slated for July 9, 15, 16, and 23.

Tickets can be purchased at the door or reserved in advance by calling 508.896.3344 or emailing [email protected]. Single tickets: $25 (under 18 free). 6-Concert Series: $95. 

World-Renowned Cellist Opens Meeting House Chamber Music Festival

On Monday, June 11, the internationally acclaimed cellist Amit Peled performed in Orleans for the season premiere of the Meeting House Chamber Music Festival. Enjoy this review by Keith Powers in The Cape Cod Times: Peled gives personal touch to fest opener

Grammy-nominated cellist Amit Peled, photo by Melissa Golden

House Chamber Music Festival. Peled put his bow to the superb 1733 Gofrillercello once treasured and played by the great Pablo Casals himself, and took music-lovers on the personal musical journey Peled calls When Bach Met Bloch. The event launched this year’s 6-concert series and the 45^thseason for Cape Cod’s longest-running music festival, founded by pianist Donald Enos in 1974. In the span of seven weeks ending July 23, Enos will bring Cape Cod music-lovers an exciting mix of traditional and contemporary repertoire performed by top-flight regional and international talent

With his larger-than-life persona and musicianship, 6-foot-tall Amit Peled has enchanted the festival’s many fans each summer for more than a dozen years, just as he has thrilled audiences around the globe. Enos sought to team with Peled not only because of the cellist’s virtuosity, but because he brings to his performances the authenticity, raw emotion, and diverse cultural inspirations that Enos himself values, and that have become the festival’s trademark. This concert surprised and delighted listeners as the Grammy-nominated Peled journeyed through Bach’s solo pieces for cello—regarded to be among the most profound works in the entire classical repertoire—and those of the twentieth-century Swiss-American composer Ernest Bloch, whose works integrate elements of traditional Jewish music and post-Romantic form.

The festival’s imaginative programming continues on June 25 in the hands of a dazzling young duo from New York, bassoonist Nanci Belmont and oboist Stuart Breczinski. With Enos at the piano, they will present a diverse and energetic program with works by Vivaldi, Saint-Saëns, Pierre Max Dubois, Daniel Black, George Rochberg, André Previn, and others.

Acclaimed as “irresistible” by the Boston Globe, violinist Irina Muresanu has left earlier festival audiences spellbound with her passionate, elegant, and moving performances. She returns on July 2, accompanied this year by Gabriela Diaz, who has been heralded by critics as “a young violin master” and “one of Boston’s most valuable players.” 

As the season unfolds, the line-up of outstanding instrumentalists will also include cellists Bo Ericsson and Megan Koch; violinists Katie Lansdale, Heather Goodchild Wade, and Audrey Wright, violist Laura Manko Sahin, and hornist Clark Matthews. The series will include a remarkably diverse set of works from composers ranging from Pergolesi, Mozart, Brahms, and StravinskytoLars-Erik Larsson, Astor Piazzolla, Zoltán Kodály, Malcolm Arnold, and Frank Bridge.

Festival Founder/Artistic Director/Pianist Donald Enos, photo by Janet Murphy Robertson

Festival founder/artistic director/pianist Donald Enos welcomes all to experience the Meeting House Festival this summer. In his words, the festival offers “the delight of hearing exquisite instrumental nuance in ensemble, and the full range of exposed emotion made possible through chamber music.”

The Meeting House Chamber Festival is grateful for the support of the Massachusetts Cultural Council, the Cape Cod 5 Foundation, and the Mary-Louise and Ruth N. Eddy Foundation.

Performances are typically held at 7:30 pm on Monday evenings at Church of the Holy Spirit in Orleans. The Monday, July 16, program will also be presented at 7 pm on Sunday, July 15, at 1717 Meetinghouse in West Barnstable. Tickets can be purchased at the door or in advance by calling 508.896.3344. Single tickets: $25 (under 18 free). 6-Concert Series: $95.

Here is the complete season listing: Festival Concerts

Visit the Festival's website for more: Meeting House Chamber Music Festival

 

Chatham Chorale's "Magnificent Mozart" Concert to Feature Joan Kirchner as Soprano Soloist!

Orleans Historical Society Concert Features Anne Franciose Perrault and Bo Ericsson

On Friday, November 17 at 7:30 pm, the Orleans Historical Society presented “Masterpieces for Cello and Piano,” with works from the Baroque, Classical, and Romantic periods. The concert opened with Couperin’s delightful Pieces en Concert, followed by Beethoven’s Sonata No. 4 in C major, op. 102, #1. Highlighting the program was Chopin’s Sonata in G minor, op. 65, which he dedicated to his close friend, the French cellist and composer Auguste Franchomme. The last of Chopin’s works to be published during his lifetime, the piece was performed in Paris by Chopin and Franchomme at Chopin’s last public concert in 1848.

Two of this region’s finest musicians—pianist Anne Franciose Perrault and cellist Bo Ericsson—collaborated to share these outstanding works with Cape Cod music-lovers. Anne Franciose Perrault is the former chair of the piano department of the Longy School of Music, Cambridge. Bo Ericsson is the retired principal cellist of the Cape Symphony. The duo has been hailed for “the sensitivity and feeling of cohesiveness” of their performances.

 

The Music of Monteverdi on Cape!

Claudio Monteverdi (1567-1643)

"Pastoral Beauty," a concert featuring the rarely heard but astonishing music of Claudio Monteverdi, was presented on Saturday, August 26 at 7:00 pm at St. Barnabas Episcopal Church in Falmouth, and Sunday, August 27 at 3:00 pm at the Congregational Church of Chatham. 

Soprano Joan Kirchner

Performers included Joan Kirchner and Jessica Edgar, sopranos; Todd Fruth, tenor; and Lucy Banner, pianist. Music will include selections from the master’s well-known “1610 Vespers," his opera “The Coronation of Poppea” and his many books of madrigals. Solos, duets, and trios covering sacred and secular texts illustrate the many facets of the long career of this pivotal composer.

An intimate and inspiring concert featuring infrequently performed works from a great composer! 

Longest-Running Cape Cod Music Festival Presents Yet Another Musical Feast

On Monday, July 24, the Meeting House Chamber Music Festival once again presented delightful music for a summer evening at Church of the Holy Spirit, Orleans. For this sixth concert of the seven-concert series, Donald Enos—the festival’s founder, artistic director, and pianist—designed an evening of music ranging from the exuberance of the Baroque to the dramatic flair of a contemporary film score. He was joined in this concert by violinist Katie Lansdale and cellist Bo Ericsson.

Two important figures of the Baroque period (roughly 1600-1750) were featured: the French composer François Couperin and the Venetian composer Giuseppe Tartini. The more personal and passionate music of the Romantic Period was represented by the Russian composer Anton Stepanovich Arensky (1861-1906), a Tchaikovsky-inspired composer who is increasingly recognized for his high-caliber chamber music. Three of Arensky’s contemporaries who lived well into the twentieth century were also on the program: the Belgian/French violinist, composer, and conductor Eugène Ysaÿe (1858-1931), regarded as "The King of the Violin;" Claude Debussy (1862-1918), one of the most influential composers of the 20th century; and the Spanish cellist and composer Gaspar Cassadó (1897-1966), a brilliant student of the great Pablo Casals. As if this line-up were not enough, the festival’s artistic director had another gem in store: the "Devil’s Dance” from the 1987 film The Witches of Eastwick, composed by John Williams (b. 1932), who wrote some of the most popular music in cinematic history, including scores for Jaws, Star Wars, and the first three Harry Potter films.

Meeting House Chamber Music Festival

The Meeting House Chamber Music Festival is the longest-running music festival on Cape Cod for a reason. This year's line-up once again includes an extraordinary mix of engaging music from different periods and countries around the world. The season finale will be held on Sunday-Monday, July 30-31, at both Highfield Hall in Falmouth and Church of the Holy Spirit. To view the schedule for the entire season, please visit http://www.meetinghousemusic.org.

ADMISSION: Tickets available at the door. Single tickets: $25. 7-Concert Series tickets valid at all festival locations: $110. Under 18 free. CONTACT: [email protected].

Musicians Performing in this Concert

Pianist Donald Enos, a native Cape Codder, is the founder and director of the Meeting House Chamber Music Festival. Mr. Enos holds the position of Wesley DeLacy Chair, Keyboards, with the Cape Symphony and is the resident pianist for the Chatham Chorale and Chamber Singers. He is also director of music at the South Dennis Congregational Church, where he often presents concerts on the church’s Snetzler Chamber Organ (1762), believed to be the oldest organ in continuous use in the United States.

Violinist Katie Lansdale is a highly accomplished soloist, chamber musician, and teacher who performs actively both in America and Europe. As concerto soloist, she has performed a wide range of repertoire with diverse orchestras: the National Symphony, the Baltimore Symphony, NYC Spectrum Orchestra, the Cleveland Chamber Symphony, the Austin Mozart Orchestra, and the New York Repertory Orchestra. Recent recitals and guest artist venues have included the Cleveland Museum of Art, the Phillips Collection (DC), the Palais de l'Europe (Paris), Merkin Hall, and Jordan Hall in Boston.

Lauded for her Bach performances, she won high praise from the American Record Guide for her solo Bach CD: "This is one of the best recordings there is of this music." Grand prizewinner at both the Yellow Spring and Fischoff National Chamber Competitions, Ms. Lansdale is a frequent guest on chamber series, collaborating with Yo Yo Ma, Felix Galimar and Donald Weilerstein. As a member of the Lions Gate Trio, she has toured America and Europe annually for sixteen years. Now in residence at Hartt and Yale, the Trio's concert tours have taken them across Europe, and their third CD (duos and trios of Robert Schumann) was released to acclaim last year by Centaur Records. Former Artist-in Residence at SUNY-Stony Brook, she is currently on the faculty at the Hartt School in Hartford, Connecticut.

Bo Ericsson, cellist, a native of Sweden, graduated from the Gothenborg Conservatory of Music and studied at the Swedish Radio School in Stockholm. He has been principal cellist with both the Bergen (Norway) Philharmonic Orchestra and the Upsala (Sweden) Chamber Orchestra. As a cellist of the Berwald String Quartet he toured extensively throughout Europe. On Cape Cod he is principal cellist with the Cape Symphony, an active chamber musician and teacher of cello, and a member of the Schultze-Ericsson Cello Duo.

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Chamber Music Festival to Perform at Historic Mid-Cape Venue, Sunday, July 16

1717 Meetinghouse (Photo by Nancy Viall Shoemaker)

On Sunday and Monday, July 16 and 17, the Meeting House Chamber Music Festival presented the fifth of its seven concerts of the 2017 season. Sunday’s concert was held at the 1717 Meetinghouse—the magnificent, acoustically excellent structure that has served as a community gathering place in West Barnstable for 300 years. On Monday, the festival returned to its primary venue, Church of the Holy Spirit, Orleans. Joining the festival’s founder/director/pianist Donald Enos were three outstanding musicians: cellist Bo Ericsson and violinist Heather Goodchild Wade—both principals with the Cape Symphony—and violist Laura Manko Sahin. In a nod to the tricentennial celebration of the 1717 Meetinghouse, the program spanned three centuries of great music, including a Vivaldi violin concerto of 1717, the great Schumann Piano Quartet, a viola solo Caprice by Vieuxtemps, and masterworks by Mozart and Saint-Saëns.

 

Meeting House Chamber Music Festival

The Meeting House Chamber Music Festival is the longest-running music festival on Cape Cod for a reason. This year's line-up once again includes an extraordinary mix of engaging music from different periods and countries around the world. For the sixth concert of the series on Monday, July 24, the festival will remain at Church of the Holy Spirit. The season finale will be held on Sunday-Monday, July 30-31, at both Highfield Hall in Falmouth and Church of the Holy Spirit. To view the schedule for the entire season, please see Meeting House Chamber Music Festival.

ADMISSION: Tickets available at the door. Single tickets: $25. 7-Concert Series tickets valid at all locations: $110. CONTACT: [email protected]. 

 

 

Enjoy this short clip—a taste of the beauty and excitement in every Meeting House Chamber Music Festival concert!  

 

Musicians Performing in the July 16-17  Concert

Pianist Donald Enos, a native Cape Codder, is the founder and director of the Meeting House Chamber Music Festival. Mr. Enos holds the position of Wesley DeLacy Chair, Keyboards, with the Cape Symphony and is the resident pianist for the Chatham Chorale and Chamber Singers. He is also director of music at the South Dennis Congregational Church, where he often presents concerts on the church’s Snetzler Chamber Organ (1762), believed to be the oldest organ in continuous use in the United States.

Bo Ericsson, cellist, a native of Sweden, graduated from the Gothenborg Conservatory of Music and studied at the Swedish Radio School in Stockholm. He has been principal cellist with both the Bergen (Norway) Philharmonic Orchestra and the Upsala (Sweden) Chamber Orchestra. As a cellist of the Berwald String Quartet he toured extensively throughout Europe. On Cape Cod he is principal cellist with the Cape Symphony, an active chamber musician and teacher of cello, and a member of the Schultze-Ericsson Cello Duo.

Bo Ericsson and Laura Manko Sahin (Photo by Janet Murphy Robertson)

Since 2007, violinist Heather Goodchild Wade has held the position of principal second violin with the Cape Symphony. Prior to that appointment she lived in Chicago, where she played with the Illinois Philharmonic and South Bend Symphony. Heather has performed in Carnegie Hall and Lincoln Center in New York, Mechanics Hall and Jordan Hall in Massachusetts, and at the Auditorium Theater, Millennium Park and Ganz Recital Hall in Chicago. Now a mother of four, Ms. Wade maintains an active life at her home in Rhode Island, well balanced by her orchestral and chamber music appearances throughout New England.

Violist Laura Manko Sahin has performed as a soloist, chamber musician, and orchestral player throughout the United States, Europe, and the Middle East. Following her solo debut with the Pittsburgh Symphony Orchestra in 2005, she has soloed with the Cape Symphony, New England Repertory Orchestra, Oure Pleasure Singers, University of North Carolina School of the Arts Symphony Orchestra, and the Boston University Choir. Laura was formerly the Principal violist of the Cape Symphony and violist of the Boston Harp Trio. She has been a member of the Knoxville and Winston-Salem Symphony Orchestras, as well as resident artist at the Luzerne Music Center, Boston University Tanglewood Institute, and Meeting House Chamber Music Festival. Laura recently moved to Albuquerque, where she is on the string faculty at the New Mexico School of Music. She regularly performs with the New Mexico Philharmonic, Santa Fe Symphony, Santa Fe Pro Musica, and Chatter ABQ. Formerly, she was living in Ankara, Turkey where she was the violist of the Bilkent Piano Quartet and Nodus Contemporary Music Ensemble, as well as a violist with the Bilkent Symphony Orchestra—Turkey’s premiere touring orchestra.

Previews and Reviews

Keith Powers previews the season in the Cape Cod Times

Keith Powers reviews premiere concert in the Cape Cod Times

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Outstanding Festival Concert Presented on July 10 in Orleans

Donald Enos and Elisabeth Remy Johnson. (Photo by Janet Murphy Robertson)

On Monday, July 10, the Meeting House Chamber Music Festival presented the fourth of its seven concerts of the 2017 season. Mezzo-soprano Krista River performed with harpist Elisabeth Remy Johnson and pianist Donald Enos. The program included W.F. Bach's Duetto for harp and piano; Ravel's Five Greek Folk Songs; Caplet's Divertissements à la française and à l’espagnole; and Salzedo's Variations on a Theme in Ancient Style, as well as music by Rossini, Britten, Massenet, and Damase. The concert was given at the festival’s primary venue, Church of the Holy Spirit, Orleans.

Krista River, a resident of Boston, has been praised by The New York Times for "her 

Krista River and Elisabeth Remy Johnson. Photo by Janet Murphy Robertson

shimmering voice...with the virtuosity of a violinist and the expressivity of an actress.”

Elisabeth Remy Johnson grew up on Cape Cod, graduated Phi Beta Kappa from Harvard University and, upon graduation, was appointed principal harpist of the Atlanta Symphony Orchestra. Her performances have been described as "meticulous, full of variety, and gorgeously vibrant.” Donald Enos is the founder, artistic director, and pianist for the Meeting House Chamber Music Festival, Cape Cod’s longest-running music festival, now in its 44th year. Known for his astonishing versatility and eloquence at the keyboard, Enos also holds the position of Wesley DeLacy Chair with the Cape Symphony.

Internationally Acclaimed Violinist Performs with the Meeting House Chamber Music Festival, Monday, July 3

On Monday, July 3, at Church of the Holy Spirit, the Meeting House Chamber Music Festival presented “Musical Portraits,” an exciting evening of music to delight not only classical music lovers. A good deal of the sparkle was provided by the internationally acclaimed violinist Irina Muresanu, known for her passionate, elegant, and moving performances. Muresanu performed with Donald Enos—the festival's founder and artistic director, and the superb pianist who holds the Wesley Delacy Chair with the Cape Symphony.

A centerpiece of the concert was Beethoven's “Kreutzer” Sonata, Op.47, a work so captivating and monumental that great writers such as Tolstoy were inspired by it. The program also included Ravel's Tzigane rhapsody and J.S. Bach’s Baroque masterpiece, The Chaconne for solo violin, among other works.

Tickets are available at the door or in advance. Single ticket: $25 (under 18 free). 7-Concert Series: $110. Ticket contact: Donald Enos, Director, at 508.896.3344 or [email protected].

Church of the Holy Spirit is located at 204 Monument Road, Orleans, MA 02653.

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Previews and Reviews

Keith Powers previews the season in the Cape Cod Times

Keith Powers reviews premiere concert in the Cape Cod Times

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Nanci Belmont and Stuart Breczinski Headline Meeting House Chamber Music Festival Premiere

Bassoonist Nanci Belmont

The Meeting House Chamber Music Festival opened its 44th season at Cotuit Center for the Arts on Sunday, June 25. Two outstanding New York-based musicians—oboist Stuart Breczinski and bassoonist Nanci Belmont—joined the festival’s founder and pianist Donald Enos in an exciting program of classical and contemporary works. On Monday, June 26, the premiere concert was given again at the festival’s primary venue, Holy Spirit Episcopal Church in Orleans.

The concert opened with a romantic piece, “Terzetto,” by the French virtuoso oboist and composer Théodore Lalliet (1837-1892). With its dramatic introduction, enchanting melodies, and lyrical quality, the work showcased the character and beauty of the oboe, bassoon, and piano. The exhilarating possibilities of these three instruments were further explored in works by Saint-Saëns, Albinoni, Francaix, Jolivet, Carter, André Previn, and Francis Poulenc.

The festival’s 2017 series spans six weeks, with music also by Mendelssohn (Trio, Op. 49), Schumann (Quartet op. 47), Beethoven ("Kreutzer" Sonata), Boccherini, Ysaye, Mozart, Arensky (Trio, Op. 32), Vivaldi, Rossini, John Williams, and many others. A complete season listing is attached and available at http://www.meetinghousemusic.org.

Cape Cod residents and visitors look to this concert series—Cape Cod’s longest-running music festival— for great music performed by superb musicians from the region and the world stage, and this year will not disappoint. Two internationally acclaimed artists—cellist Amit Peled and violinist Irina Muresanu—will be featured, along with Joyce Hammann, a highly versatile artist famous for delivering performances that dazzle, whether they be on Broadway or in the intimate concert settings of the Meeting House Chamber Music Festival. Gracing the festival as well this year will be mezzo-soprano Krista River, acclaimed by The New York Times for her “shimmering voice...with the virtuosity of a violinist and the expressivity of an actress."

As the season unfolds, the line-up of outstanding instrumentalists will also include cellists Bo Ericsson and Matthias Naegele; violinists Katie Lansdale and Heather Goodchild Wade, violist Laura Manko Sahin, and harpist Elisabeth Remy Johnson.

Joyce Hammann and Donald Enos performing at a festival concert at Church of the Holy Spirit, Orleans

Two additional Cape Cod venues will host festival concerts this year, broadening the festival’s reach to music-lovers Cape-wide. A mid-season concert will be held at 1717 Meetinghouse in West Barnstable on Sunday, July 16, at 7:30 pm and the season finale will take place at Highfield Hall in Falmouth on Sunday, July 30 at 4 pm.

The Meeting House Chamber Music Festival was founded in 1973 by Donald Enos, who also holds the position of Wesley DeLacy Chair in Perpetuity with the Cape Symphony. Enos welcomes all to experience the Meeting House Festival this summer. In his words, the festival offers “the delight of hearing exquisite instrumental nuance in ensemble, and the full range of exposed emotion made possible through chamber music.”

The Meeting House Chamber Festival is grateful for the support of the Massachusetts Cultural Council, the Cape Cod 5 Foundation, and the Mary-Louise and Ruth N. Eddy Foundation.

Tickets can be purchased at the door or in advance. Single tickets: $25 (under 18 free). 7-Concert Series: $110. Contact: 508.896.3344 or [email protected]. A complete listing of concerts is attached and available on the festival’s website: Meeting House Chamber Music Festival. 

Enjoy this glimpse of a Meeting House Chamber Music Festival concert in 2015!

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Meeting House Chamber Music Festival from Janet Murphy Robertson on Vimeo.

Moonlight over Montmartre at the Cultural Center

In the colorful and decadent Parisian culture of the turn of the 20th century,  American jazz took Europe by storm in the cafés and cabarets in and around Montmartre, and this musical revolution also captured the hearts and minds of painters, writers and intellectuals, influencing their thoughts and works. On Sunday, April 24, "I Musicisti" took its audience at the Cultural Center back to this Bohemian setting for an evening of fun and reminiscence as they presented cabaret tunes, a bit of Joplin ragtime and music from such greats as Gerswhin, Debussy, Poulenc and even Puccini, who lived in Paris for a time.

“I Musicisti” performers include, Anne Franciose Perrault, Mark Crociati, and Joan Kirchner. Click here to experience a taste of this group's engaging music: I Musicisti

Meeting House Chamber Music Festival Features Virtuoso Irina Muresanu in Season Opening

Photo courtesy of Irina Muresanu

The Meeting House Chamber Music Festival opened its new season on Sunday, June 21, at Highfield Hall in Falmouth, MA, and Monday, June 22, at the Church of the Holy Spirit, Orleans, MA. Irina Muresanu—the superb violinist who graced last year’s opening with her exuberance and virtuosity—was on Cape Cod for a welcome encore, joining artistic director and pianist Donald Enos in a program titled “Rorem, Ravel, and Rags.”

With Ms. Muresanu on violin and Mr. Enos on piano, “Rorem, Ravel, and Rags” moved with grace and panache from a contemporary American masterpiece to the entrancing music of one of France’s greatest composers to the distinctively American genre of ragtime. The old-fashioned “3 R’s” were a lot less fun," wrote Keith Powers in his excellent review of Monday night's performance in The Cape Cod Times. Duo opens festival...

And there is so much more to come! On Monday, June 29, at 7:30 pm, the festival's second concert will be held at Holy Spirit Episcopal Church in Orleans, MA. The program will include Beethoven's "Spring" Sonata, the Brahms Horn Trio Op.40, and works by Bargiel, Abbott, and Ewazen. Performing in this concert will be Lee Wadenpfuhl – horn; Alexey Shabalin – violin; and Donald Enos – piano. Don't miss this wonderful evening of music!

The Meeting House Chamber Music Festival is the longest-running chamber music festival on Cape Cod, founded in 1973 by Mr. Enos, who also holds the position of Wesley DeLacy Chair in Perpetuity with the Cape Symphony Orchestra. The festival has endured for a reason. “What distinguishes us,” explains Mr. Enos, “is that we create a moving experience for our audiences—not only for our long-time fans, but also for people experiencing chamber music for the first time.” In a region rich with musical offerings, the Meeting House Chamber Music Festival is a standout with creative programming and top-flight musicianship that has touched and delighted audiences for more than forty years.

Concerts will be held every Monday evening through the end of July,

Amit Peled, photo by Melissa Golden

typically in Orleans, and on selected other dates and locations. The concert of Monday, July 20, will be given at Cotuit Center for the Arts for the convenience of Mid-Cape fans. 

Also among this year’s soloists will be the Israeli-American cellist and virtuoso Amit Peled, who will perform in Orleans on Friday, July 3. Mr. Peled is regarded as one of the finest instrumentalists performing on the world stage today. In a special “Meet the Artist” event that includes a reception as well, the virtuoso will play Pablo Casals’ cello, made by Matteo Goffriller in 1733 and now on loan to this gifted cellist from Casals’ widow and the Casals Foundation.

Another superb soloist featured again this year will be Elizabeth Remy Johnson, the principal harpist of the Atlanta Symphony Orchestra. Ms. Remy Johnson, who grew up on Cape Cod, is a festival favorite renowned for the vibrant, contemporary sound she coaxes from the harp. On Monday, July 6, she will perform in a concert with an exciting mix of music from the French harpist and composer Carlos Salzedo, as well as Gustav Holst, John Rutter, and Zoltán Kodály, among others. Also performing in this concert will be the Chatham Chorale Chamber Singers, Joseph Marchio, Director.

Additional concerts in the series will include works from the pantheon of classical and contemporary composers—from Bach, Beethoven, and Brahms to Poulenc and Previn. The line-up of outstanding instrumentalists includes violinists Joyce Hammann, Katie Lansdale, Alexey Shabalin, and Heather Goodchild Wade; violist Laura Manko; cellists Bo Ericsson and Matthias Naegele; hornist Lee Wadenpfuhl; bassoonist Nanci Belmont; and oboist Stuart Breczinski.

Donald Enos, Founder and Artistic Director of the Meeting House Chamber Music Festival

The Meeting House Chamber Festival is grateful for the support of the Arts Foundation of Cape Cod, the Massachusetts Cultural Council, the Cape Cod 5 Foundation, and the Mary-Louise and Ruth N. Eddy Foundation.

ADMISSION:

Tickets are available at the door or in advance. Single ticket: $22 (under 18 free). 6 Concert Series: $95. For advance ticket sales, please call Hilary Ward at 508.896.2386.

CONCERT LOCATIONS:

Church of the Holy Spirit Episcopal, 204 Monument Rd., Orleans, MA

Highfield Hall, 56 Highfield Drive, Falmouth, MA

Cotuit Center for the Arts, 4404 Falmouth Rd., Cotuit, MA

 

FULL CONCERT SCHEDULE

Note: This schedule highlights concerts at the Festival's primary venue in Orleans. For the convenience of Cape Cod audiences, the musicians will also perform at Highfield Hall in Falmouth on Sunday, June 21, 4 pm and at Cotuit Center for the Arts on July 20, 7:30 pm. More details below!

For more information, please visit the festival’s website: http://www.meetinghousemusic.org

I Musicisti Delights Audience in Orleans, MA

The Cape Cod chamber trio "I Musicisti" presented a varied program of works by Brahms, Spohr, Poulenc, and Schubert on Sunday, June 14, at Orleans Historical Society Museum. The trio's outstanding musicians—soprano Joan Kirchner, pianist Anne Franciose Perrault, and clarinetist Mark Crociati—performed the Brahms and Poulenc Sonatas for clarinet and piano, the Romantic Airs and Brahms songs for voice and piano, the lovely Spohr songs, and Schubert’s Shepherd on the Rock for voice, piano and clarinet. More about I Musicisti, Joan Kirchner, Anne Franciose Perrault. 

 

At right: Anne Franciose Perrault, Mark Crociati, Joan Kirchner. Photo by Janet Murphy Robertson.

"We Are the Men" in Concert, Harwich Port, MA

Pilgrim Congregation Church in Harwich Port, MA hosted "We Are the Men" in concert on Sunday, May 17. The group's energetic and varied programs featured hymns and other traditional songs from Wales, Ireland, and Scotland, sea shanties, spirituals, a little opera, English and American folk songs and, here and there, a piece in German or Latin. For more information on this talented group, please contact Music Director Chris Roberts at [email protected] or [email protected] 

You may also catch this excellent ensemble at subsequent concerts this summer: 

St. Andrews by-the-sea, Sunday, July 12th, 5 pm

12 Irving Avenue, Hyannis Port, MA 02647

Federated Church of Hyannis, Sunday, September 27th, 2 pm

320 Main Street, Hyannis, MA 02601

First Church of Christ, Sunday, October 11th, at 3 pm

136 Main Street, Sandwich, MA 02563

 

CHATHAM CHORALE SINGS THE MOZART REQUIEM with 100 Voices, Top Soloists, and Orchestra with Basset Horns

Mozart c. 1780, detail from portrait by Johann Nepomuk della Croce

For the first time in two decades, the Chatham Chorale brought Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart’s celebrated and beloved Requiem to Cape audiences. The 100-plus singers, meticulously prepared by music director Joseph Marchio, were joined by a full orchestra and stellar vocal soloists in a single superb performance on Sunday, November 16, at the auditorium of Mattacheese Middle School in West Yarmouth, MA.

“This Requiem holds such a special place in the choral repertoire,” says Marchio, “and I wanted to make sure we had the right forces assembled to do it in the best style.” Since taking the reins of the group four years ago, Marchio has worked to hone the unified sound and vocal technique the work calls for. He has also engaged top-flight instrumentalists from the Cape Symphony and Boston to play the timeless score—including the rarely heard parts for two basset horns.

What’s a basset horn?

“Basically it’s an oversize clarinet with a bend near the top and additional keys that give it an extended lower range and a darker, richer timbre than a standard clarinet,” says Marchio. Mozart loved the sound of this instrument and used it in several important works—never more memorably than in the Requiem, where the basset horn solo that begins the first movement establishes the mood of the piece: “lyrical but melancholy, full of gravitas, sort of like a dark cloud approaching on the horizon.” That darkness can be heard as foreshadowing Mozart’s impending death; he left the Requiem not even half finished.

The first basset horn part in the Requiem was played by Chester Brezniak on a basset horn owned by the Boston Symphony Orchestra. A noted wind player and instructor at UMass Boston and Worcester Polytechnic Institute, Brezniak is the former principal clarinet  of the Sao Paulo Symphony in Brazil. He notes that while Mozart exploited the instrument’s low notes in other works, “in the Requiem, the basset horn parts are written quite high. This makes them technically challenging but imparts a sweet yet haunting quality, like a mezzo-soprano voice.”

The solo vocal quartet for this Requiem was a distinguished group. Singing the exquisite soprano part was Rachele Schmiege, who has earned raves for her performances in both opera and concert settings; she was heard with the Chorale last May in the Cape Symphony concerts of the Verdi Requiem. Taking the mezzo role was Desiree Maira, who has appeared with the Chorale twice before, most recently in Haydn’s “Lord Nelson” Mass last year. Maira performs widely in opera and oratorio repertoire and has taught at Boston Conservatory. Tenor Matthew White appears in oratorio and opera in the Boston area and Florida, his current home. Baritone Colin Levin, who recently joined the faculty of the Tanglewood Institute, also reunited with the Chorale after previous solo turns in Beethoven’s Mass in C and Vaughan Williams’s Dona Nobis Pacem.

More than any other classical work, Mozart’s Requiem has become embedded in popular culture—especially since the 1989 hit film Amadeus portrayed the composer dictating one of its movements on his deathbed. We’ve heard bits and pieces of the score—especially the hair-raising “Dies irae” (Day of wrath) and the tender “Lachrymosa”—in more than 20 movies, from The Big Lebowski to X-Men 2. We remain fascinated by its mysterious origins—it was commissioned anonymously by the eccentric Count

Facsimile of sheet music from the Dies Irae movement of the Mozart Requiem, in the composer's own handwriting

von Walsegg—as well as its almost miraculous completion by Franz Süssmayer, Mozart’s relatively unknown contemporary. But it’s on the strength of the glorious music that the Requiem ranks so high among favorite choral works for audiences and singers alike. Cape Cod rarely enjoys a performance like this one, Marchio promises, “done in the classic Mozartean style.”

Marchio draws attention to the unusual orchestration Mozart used for the Requiem: “not just the basset horns, but he has three trombones and no flutes at all, very rare for the typical classical-era band. The whole effect he achieves is solemn and monumental but never depressing, always beautiful and even dance-like at times.”

To kick off this all-Mozart program, soprano Rachele Schmiege and the orchestra performed the

Photo of Soprano Rachele Schmiege by Arielle Doneson

composer’s brilliantly virtuosic solo motet Exsultate, jubilate. Hailed for her “crystalline voice” and “absolutely thrilling” portrayals, Schmiege performs a wide range of repertoire throughout North America; she debuted at the Weill Recital Hall at Carnegie Hall in 2008.

Top-notch soloists for the Mozart Requiem also included mezzo-soprano Desiree Maira and baritone Colin Levin. Providing piano accompaniment was the distinguished musician Donald Enos, who also holds the Wesley DeLacey Chair in Perpetuity at the Cape Symphony Orchestra.

The Chatham Chorale is a long-established choral ensembles, for 44 years presenting an annual concert series with programs ranging from choral masterworks to Broadway, pops stylings, and premieres of new works by regional composers. The Chorale also regularly collaborates with the Cape Cod Symphony.

For information on upcoming programs, please visit www.chathamchorale.org.

Robert Wyatt Presents "Gershwin, by George!" at Eventide Arts in Dennis, MA

Pianist and Gershwin authority Robert Wyatt presented an engaging program on George Gershwin's life and legacy at Eventide Arts in Dennis, MA on November 1 and 2. The evening included live performance of the solo version of Rhapsody in Blue, early and unpublished music, piano improvisations, and classic Gershwin hits. The program also featured archival recordings of Gershwin’s early-1930s radio program, Music by Gershwin.  

Wyatt drew a large audience in the midst of a 'Noreaster and delighted his guests with a fascinating music lecture and recital. The end of World War I signaled the beginning of a new and distinctively American era of prosperity, changing morals and manners, and a deepening fascination with all types of popular entertainment. Celebrities like John Barrymore, Fanny Brice, Babe Ruth, and Mary Pickford, dominated the newspapers, airwaves, and magazines. With a runaway hit song called “Swanee” in 1919, a young Brooklyn-born composer named George Gershwin joined them in the spotlight. For nearly two decades, his fame and musical output would grow meteorically, catapulting him to international acclaim before his tragic death in 1937. 

WOODSTOCK: An Evening of Song and Celebration with Carlene Thissen

On Friday, September 12, the Jacob Sears Memorial Library in East Dennis, MA, hosted a cabaret starring singer/songwriter Carlene Thissen from Naples, Florida. Carlene's expressive style is inspired by such greats of the Woodstock era as Joan Baez, Bob Dylan, Judy Collins, Melanie, and Peter, Paul & Mary.

Yes, Carlene was at Woodstock and remembers enough to talk about it! Carlene (also a published author) will share observations about the impact that the political and social movements of the '60s and 70s had on folk music and how, in turn, the music inspired and influenced events.  

 

Carlene gave her audience a first-person look at Woodstock---from "Alice's Restaurant" and "Blowin' in the Wind" to "Woodstock" and "We Can Change the World." 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Carlene performing at Woodstock at Westport, 2011:

 

 

 

And singing "Diamonds and Rust"...

 

 

Stephanie Miele and Lucy Banner Delight Audience in Falmouth, MA

Vocalist Stephanie Miele performed with pianist Lucy Banner at the First Congregational Church in Falmouth, MA, on Wednesday, July 30. The program, titled "Everything Old is New Again," featured enchanting tunes from stage and screen.

 

 

 

Meeting House Chamber Music Festival, a Cape Cod Treasure, to Open Sunday, June 22

The outstanding Rumanian violinist Irina Muresanu was the featured soloist when the Meeting House Chamber Music Festival opened its forty-first season on Sunday, June 22, at Highfield Hall in Falmouth, MA.

The festival—one of the Cape’s traditional summer delights—will include a total of six captivating programs through the end of July. Its musical gems are mined from around the world, and across the ages, by the festival’s founder and resident pianist, Donald Enos. Mr. Enos is a highly distinguished musician in his own right, and holds the position of Wesley DeLacy Chair in Perpetuity with the Cape Cod Symphony Orchestra. 

The centerpiece of the opening concert was Irina Muresanu’s Four Strings around the World, a spellbinding musical tour of periods and styles. Playing in the fierce and mesmerizing style for which she is known, Muresanu served up a dazzling array of short works in quick succession, all the more impactful in the intimate chamber music setting. At one or the other opening performance, delightful surprises Muresanu includes works by Bach, Paganini, and other classical composers, Rumanian and Irish folk songs, Indian, Persian, and Chinese music, tangos, American country music and more.

The concert opened with a work by the minimalist composer Arvo Pärt, setting up a skillful contrast with the lush and energetic workthat follows. Pärt’s Mozart-Adagio Trio includes a transcription of the slow movement of Mozart’s Piano Sonata No. 2 in F major (K 280). The brilliant twentieth-century composer Arvo Pärt studied music from the age of seven amidst oppression and artistic censorship in his native Estonia, the former Soviet republic, and rose to become one of the world’s foremost composers of classical and sacred music.

The concluding work of the concert was Beethoven’s Piano Trio in B-flat major, Op. 97 (“Archduke”).
Dedicated to Beethoven’s patron and student Archduke Rudolph of Austria, this work is considered by many scholars to be the greatest piano trio in the entire classical repertoire.

Mr. Enos and Ms. Muresanu were joined in this performance by cellist Karen Ouzounian. Ms. Ouzounian has performed as chamber musician, recitalist and soloist throughout North America and Europe. She has been described as a “radiant cellist” and praised in The New York Times for her “rich tone.”

The Meeting House Chamber Music Festival’s five additional concerts in July also bear the trademark of its founder’s artistic direction. “What distinguishes us,” explains Mr. Enos, “is that we create a moving, and often exciting, experience for our audiences--- not only for our long-time fans, but also for people experiencing chamber music for the first time. We find that they are surprised, and even thrilled, to see the full range of exposed emotion that is possible with chamber music.”

General admission is $20, and a six-concert season ticket is $90. Students under 18 are admitted free.

The Season Ahead

The five subsequent concerts in the series feature outstanding soloists from around the country, as well as several of the finest professional musicians from the region. Great works by such composers as Handel, Haydn, Mozart, Brahms, Mendelssohn, Ravel, Debussy, and Rodrigo will be presented, with instruments ranging from violin, cello, and piano to French horn, viola, harp, and oboe. The concert on July 21 will include the Chatham Chorale Chamber Singers, Joseph Marchio, Director.

Concert programs and dates are:

Monday, June 30, 8 pm, Church of the Holy Spirit, Orleans, MA

"Harmonious Winds"

            Rosetti – Concerto for Two Horns

            Carl Nielsen – Two Fantasy Pieces

            Trios by Mozart and Herzogenberg

Lee Wadenpfuhl – horn; Tiffany Damicone – horn; Elizabeth Doriss – oboe; Donald Enos – piano

Sunday, July 6, 8 pm, Church of the Holy Spirit, Orleans, MA

            Handel – Concerto for Solo Harp

            Diversions from France & Spain

            Music of Ravel, Debussy, Caplet, Salzedo and Rodrigo

Elisabeth Remy Johnson – harp; Donald Enos – piano

Monday, July 14, 8 pm, Church of the Holy Spirit, Orleans, MA and Tuesday, July 15, 8 pm, Cotuit Center for the Arts, Cotuit, MA

            Brahms Piano Quartet in A major

            Masterworks by Haydn, Mozart, Ernest Chausson and Joaquin Turina

Heather Goodchild Wade – violin; Laura Manko – viola; Bo Ericsson – cello; Donald Enos – piano

Monday, July 21, 8 pm, Church of the Holy Spirit, Orleans, MA 

"Music of Love & Passion"

            Whitacre – Brahms – Perera

            Haydn – Sarasate – Monti

            Farkas – Rodrigo – Say 

Katie Lansdale – violin; Donald Enos – piano; Chatham Chorale Chamber Singers, Joseph Marchio, director

Monday, July 28, 8 pm, Church of the Holy Spirit, Orleans, MA

            Mendelssohn Trio in D minor

            Fred Hersch Lyric Piece

            Trios by Shostakovich and Haydn

Joyce Hammann – violin; Matthias Naegele – cello; Donald Enos – piano

A full list of programs, performance dates, and venues is also available on the festival’s website: Meeting House Chamber Music Festival

"I Musicisti" Opens its Spring Season on Cape Cod

The first spring concert of “I Musicisti” took place at the West Falmouth Library on Saturday, May 10, featuring Anne Franciose Perrault, pianist, and Mark Crociati, clarinetist. The next two concerts will take place on June 15 and June 26.  

For more on "I Musicisti," please visit Anne Franciose Perrault's website

Many "I Musicisti" performances also include Cape Cod's beloved soprano Joan Kirchner. To hear the beautiful music of Joan, Anne, and Mark, please click here: "I Musicisti" in Performance

Jacob Sears Memorial Library Welcomes Spring with a Cabaret Performance by Tradewinds

On Sunday, April 27, the Jacob Sears Memorial Library presented a joyous evening of uplifting music and delicious fare after the endless winter of 2013-14. The event featured Tradewinds, a top-notch a cappella group that delighted the audience with selections from the Great American Songbook, plus traditional, jazz, and pop tunes, mostly in the “barbershop" style. Tradewinds began its career as the School Committee barbershop quartet in The Music Man on the Cape in the late 1990s. 

Performing were: Bill Mock, lead; Michel Perrault, bass; Peter Clark, tenor; and Chuck Woringer, baritone.

Chatham Chorale Chamber Singers Present “From Darkness to Light" in Concert featuring Prodigy Julian Petrallia

On April 12 and 13, the Chatham Chorale Chamber Singers, led by Music Director Joseph Marchio, presented “From Darkness to Light,” a program of motets, madrigals, and other chamber works that celebrate the rebirth of life and light in springtime. Concerts took place at First Congregational Church of Yarmouth and at First Congregational Church, Main Street, in Chatham.

Fittingly for the weekend of Palm Sunday, these concerts explored the themes of darkness and light in
both sacred and secular musical settings. Says Marchio, “There are musical echoes of the journey, during Holy Week, from the darkness of betrayal and death to the brightness of the Resurrection. Madrigals that hail spring and the blossoming of love express the gratitude and wonder we all feel as winter’s gloom gives way to light, warmth, and new life.” Audiences heard works by Bach, William Byrd, Maurice Duruflé, Franz Joseph Haydn, Felix Mendelssohn, Thomas Morley, Jean Sibelius, and more.

Featured with the Chamber Singers was pianist Donald Enos, the Chorale’s resident pianist and founder and director of the Meeting House Chamber Music Festival, and the next generation of Cape Cod keyboard geniuses in the person of seventeen-year-old Julian Petrallia, on the organ. The multitalented Petrallia, a junior at Nauset Regional High School, was recently profiled in the Cape Cod Chronicle. He appeared with the Chorale this March on the flute, but the organ is his instrument of choice. Joseph Marchio, who is music director of Chatham’s First Congregational Church in addition to leading the Chorale, offered the young musician a chance to practice on the church organ and was so impressed that he soon gave Petrallia the job of assistant organist. “It’s hard to find a place to practice the organ. I remembered what that was like,” says Marchio, who calls Petrallia  “incredibly talented.”

Chatham Chorale is one of Cape Cod’s longest-established choral ensembles, for 43 years presenting an annual concert series with programs ranging from choral masterworks to Broadway, pops stylings, and premieres of new works by regional composers. The Chorale and Chamber Singers also regularly collaborate with the Cape Cod Symphony and sing in service to the community. 

Falmouth Chamber Players Orchestra Present “A Very Masterful Concert”

The Falmouth Chamber Players Orchestra, John Yankee music director, gave its spring performance, “A Very Masterful Concert,” on Saturday, March 29, and Sunday, March 30, at John Wesley United Methodist Church, 270 Gifford Street, Falmouth.

The orchestra performed Johann Sebastian Bach’s Brandenburg Concerto No. 5 in D Major featuring guest harpsichord soloist Linda Skernick of Connecticut; Antonio Rosetti’s Partita No. 15 for Winds; Franz Schubert’s Symphony No. 8 (“Unfinished”); and Gioacchino Rossini’s Finale from the William Tell Overture.

J. S. Bach (1685-1750) wrote six Brandenburg concertos, which were first performed in 1721 and widely regarded as some of the best instrumental music of the Baroque period. The first concerto to feature a harpsichord, No. 5 was probably written in 1719 to feature a new harpsichord that Bach brought back from Berlin. A virtuoso harpsichordist himself, Bach most likely played the part at the concerto’s premiere.

“The Brandenburg 5 was Bach's first big solo piece for harpsichord, in the form of the long, technically difficult cadenza in the first movement,” said harpsichord soloist Linda Skernick. “There comes a point where the orchestra falls off, with the solo violin and flute, and the harpsichordist is left flying solo! It’s very exciting!”

Brandenburg 5 also features concertmaster Laura Sonnichsen and principal flutist Lorrie Hassan as soloists, as well as the entire string section of the orchestra.

“All of Bach's Brandenburg concertos are significant for their unusual combinations of instruments and textures,” said Yankee. “The extensive and demanding writing for harpsichord is what makes No. 5 distinctive, and we are thrilled to have Linda back to play it with us.”

Skernick’s first appearance with the FCPO was in 2011, when she performed Bach’s Harpsichord Concerto IV in A major, BWV 1055.

Skernick has a distinguished career as a harpsichordist. A graduate of the Juilliard School, she has had solo recitals at the Los Angeles Harpsichord Center, Washington DC's Phillips Collection, the Cleveland and Birmingham Museums of Art, New York's Lincoln Center, the Tchaikovsky Conservatory in Moscow, as well as at the Yale Collection of Musical Instruments and at Wesleyan University.

She has toured with Alexander Schneider's Brandenburg Ensemble and performed with Gerard Schwarz's Mostly Mozart Festival, as well as the Seacliff Chamber Players' Long Island Bach Festival, and many local Connecticut series.

Skernick and Laura Sonnichsen were good friends in the 1970s, but lost track of each other. They came together again through Facebook about three years ago, and when Skernick learned that Sonnichsen had founded an orchestra, she said to her, “We must do a Brandenburg 5 together, at some point. I am so very happy that that moment is here.”

Sonnichsen was glad to comply. “Brandenburg 5 is a great piece for the violin both technically and emotionally. There is constant interaction between all the strings and the three soloists that makes it far more than another performance piece.  It is complex and beautiful.”

Flutist Lorrie Hassen is also looking forward to the concert. "Brandenburg 5 is so much fun to play, and it is an honor to have been asked to play it with the Falmouth Chamber Players Orchestra," she said.

Francesco Rosetti (1750-1792) was a prolific composer from the classical period and a contemporary of Haydn and Mozart. Rosetti's Partita in F Major for Winds features the woodwind and French horn players.

“One can hear Haydn's influence on Rosetti, particularly in terms of melody and wit,” said Yankee. 

“The well-known Unfinished Symphony No. 8 by Schubert is a work I've been looking forward to having the FCPO perform for quite a while,” said Yankee. “It is both delicate and demanding, and our orchestra is stepping up to the challenge wonderfully.”

No one knows why Franz Schubert (1797-1828) did not complete his Symphony No. 8 in b minor, which consists of only two movements, a dramatic and lyrical Allegro moderato and a calmly beautiful Andante con moto. Some suggest he set it aside because he was seriously ill, because he was intimidated by his growing awareness of Beethoven’s extraordinary talent, or simply because he couldn’t think of a suitable way to conclude the symphony.

In any case, the symphony, composed in 1822, was not performed until 1865, long after Schubert’s death. It was met with wide acclaim and is sometimes called the first Romantic symphony because of its use of expressive melody, strong harmony, and creative use of orchestral tone.  

The William Tell Overture by Gioachino Rossini (1792-1868) closed the concert. Familiar to many as the theme from “The Lone Ranger,” this is a high-energy cavalry charge called “The March of the Swiss Soldiers.”

“The brass section drives this piece, the trumpets in particular,” said Yankee. “I felt this would be a good selection for our principal trumpet, Richard Bahman, who is retiring from the orchestra after this concert. He has been a fabulous player and a key member of our orchestra, and will certainly be missed.”

The overture is one of Bahman’s favorites. “The Finale of the William Tell is a good example of the trumpeting style,” he said. “Although the trumpet can play lyrical melodic passages, it is historically known for its proclamation, fanfare style, and bugle calls.  After all it was used to bring down the walls of Jericho.”

Chatham Chorale Presents "A Celtic Celebration" to Sold-Out Audience

On Saturday, March 15, and Sunday, March 16, the Chatham Chorale presented “A Celtic Celebration,” under the baton of its music director Joe Marchio. This second annual program of Celtic music offered up classical and traditional selections from this rich repertoire to an enthusiastic sold-out audience in Harwich, MA. The program featured the Cape Cod premiere (and possibly the U.S. premiere) of the 1870 cantata St. Patrick at Tara by John William Glover. The first large choral work ever composed on an Irish subject, it dramatizes how Christianity was brought to Ireland in the fifth century, in music set to the words of Ireland’s great writers. The program also included such well-loved tunes as “The Galway Piper,” “Killarney,” “The Rose of Tralee,” “Danny Boy,” and “Home from the Sea.” The musicians played jigs and reels, and the Chorale sang a new arrangement of “Highland Cathedral,” Scotland’s unofficial anthem.

Soloists included Chatham Chorale member Charles Ferris, Martin Kelley, and Richard Sullivan, tenors; Máiréad Loughnane Doherty, Irish harp; Matthew Phelps, bagpipes; Laurel Martin and Mark Oien, fiddle; Julian Petrallia, flute; and Jeff Myers, percussion.

The concerts were held at Holy Trinity Catholic Church, Route 28, West Harwich, MA. For tickets and more information on upcoming concerts, please visit Chatham Chorale or call 888.556.2707.