PUTNEY — Yellow Barn's 50th Anniversary celebration continues with the opening of a new season of Artist Residencies.
The first retreat program for performing musicians in the U.S., Yellow Barn's fall, winter, and spring residencies bring world-class musicians to Putney for uninterrupted periods of work, often interacting with local audiences in discussion and performance.
The WholeHearted Musician, the first residency of the 2019-20 Artist Residency season, fulfills this promise. On Sept. 22, Yellow Barn welcomes back Dana Fonteneau - career consultant, psychotherapist, and former concert cellist.
Fonteneau will work with two emerging ensembles, the Argus and Omer Quartets, facilitating a week-long intensive to explore all aspects of a fulfilling, successful, and sustainable career.
The residency will be bookended by two performances of string quartets introduced by Fonteneau and further explored in post-concert discussions with the quartets. The first concert is on Monday, Sept. 23; the second is on Monday, Sept. 30. Both are at 7:30 p.m. at Next Stage, 15 Kimball Hill.
Fonteneau draws on her diverse background in music, business, finance, and psychology. Her international practice is centered in the arts, where her clients have included Grammy Award winners, Avery Fisher career grant recipients, and Fulbright Scholars.
She has also worked with members of the Boston, Dallas, and Seattle Symphonies and faculty members from the Juilliard School, New England Conservatory, Peabody Institute, and San Francisco Conservatory.
Her work with the Argus and Omer Quartets will explore psychology, health and wellness, business, finance, interpersonal dynamics, and vision and goal setting. The two residency concerts will demonstrate how these “off stage” elements, when addressed effectively, can help performance.
The Argus Quartet has won First Prize at both the M-Prize Chamber Arts Competition and the Concert Artists Guild Victor Elmaleh Competition and served as the Fellowship Quartet in Residence at the Yale School of Music under the guidance of the Brentano Quartet.
The Omer Quartet came to prominence when it received the grand prize at the Fischoff National Competition. They were Yellow Barn's Ensemble-in-Residence during the 2017 summer season.
Following study at the Cleveland Institute of Music, the Omer Quartet completed a graduate residency at the New England Conservatory, in addition to being the Ernst Stiefel String Quartet-in-Residence at New York's Caramoor Center for Music and Arts.
The quartet is currently the Doctoral Fellowship String Quartet-in-Residence at the University of Maryland, where they work with David Salness and Yellow Barn faculty member Katherine Murdock.
The complete concert program includes J.S. Bach's Selections from The Art of the Fugue, Juri Seo's Winter-Spring from Infinite Season, Beethoven's Cavatina from String Quartet in B-flat Major, Op. 130, Brahms' String Quartet in B flat Major, Op. 67, and Anton Webern's 6 Bagatellen für Streichquartett, Op. 9.