You can hear my music at two festivals coming up next month. The first is the Portland Chamber Music Festival in Portland, Maine. On Saturday, August 11, an all-star ensemble will convene for my Quintet for oboe, violin, viola, cello, and piano. Here’s the personnel:
Peggy Pearson, oboe
Sunghae Anna Lim, violin
Christine Grossman, viola
Thomas Kraines, cello
Diane Walsh, piano
The ensemble is like a standard piano quintet, but with oboe replacing one of the violins. This is the third piece I have written at the request of Peggy, having previously done an Oboe Quartet and a work for oboe, chorus and strings called Matins. (The latter will receive its second performance on a Cantata Singers program this coming January.) You can read more about the Quintet here.
I’ll be playing piano at two concerts of the Token Creek Chamber Music Festival, August 25 and 26. These programs include four of my songs with two marvelous young singers. Soprano Sarah Yanovitch will do two songs from Holy the Firm, the cycle I wrote nearly 20 years ago (!) for Dawn Upshaw and Gilbert Kalish. Baritone Ryne Cherry offers two independent songs: From Psalm 116 dates from 1995, and sets a single psalm verse in Latin; A Catskill Eagle is the Melville setting that I premiered with baritone Kyle Ferrill at SongFest earlier this year. Token Creek is directed by Rosemary and John Harbison, and takes place in a barn on a lovely property not far from Madison, Wisconsin.
As a preview, here’s the Bridge recording of one of the songs Sarah will sing, this in an orchestrated version performed by Susan Narucki and the 21st Century Consort, with Christopher Kendall conducting.