PUTNEY-On Friday, July 11, Yellow Barn opens the doors for its 56th Summer Music Festival. More than 70 musicians representing 17 countries will travel to Putney for five weeks of extraordinary chamber music, including 19 concerts and five masterclasses in the Big Barn.
This season's repertoire spans 300 years, from Couperin to new works composed specifically for this season. For Opening Night, Artistic Director Seth Knopp has programmed Sounds of Earth, live and recorded performances from The Golden Record, which traveled with Voyager I and II in 1977.
A kind of time capsule, the Voyager message was designed to communicate a story of our world to extraterrestrials, and is carried by a phonograph record, a 12-inch gold-plated copper disk containing sounds and images selected to portray the diversity of life and culture on Earth.
In addition to live performances of works contained on the Golden Record - Bach's Well-Tempered Clavier and Beethoven's Cavatina from his Op. 130 string quartet - Friday night's concert presents the premiere performances of works written in response to songs contributed to the Golden Record from Bulgaria and New Guinea, including one composed and performed by Putney-based saxophonist Travis Laplante.
Also on opening night, Yellow Barn offers a performance of Sophia Gubaidulina's "Rejoice!" and soprano Melissa Wimbish returns to the Big Barn stage to perform three songs by Rachmaninoff with pianist Gilbert Kalish.
A beloved Yellow Barn musician for over 25 years, Kalish will celebrate his 90th birthday on Saturday, July 12, giving a masterclass in the morning and performing a festival concert at night. Saturday's program includes a work for soprano and piano based on texts by Heinrich Heine, composed for and performed by Kalish and soprano Lucy Shelton.
Also on Saturday night, Kalish performs Eleven Echoes of Autumn, 1965, by one of his closest colleagues, the late George Crumb. A four-time Grammy Award nominee, Kalish premiered numerous compositions by Crumb, collaborating directly with him on many of Crumb's most acclaimed works.
Other highlights this season include honoring two of Yellow Barn's beloved, longtime faculty members with new works this year: An arrangement of Charles Ives's 2nd Symphony for piano four-hands performed by the Yellow Barn pianists for Kalish, and two new works for soprano Shelton by Stephen Coxe and the 20-year-old Portuguese composer Francisco Lucena Pais.
An educational institution for lifelong learning at heart, Yellow Barn approaches listening in new ways, often leading to unexpected performances. For the first time at Yellow Barn, four young musicians ages 11–15 will join Yellow Barn musicians for the preparation and performance of two works.
"This project is dedicated to the concept of the Beginner's Mind, the openness of 'exploring' rather than the narrowness of 'knowing,'" says Knopp.
Another first for Yellow Barn will be the performance of David Ives's Enigma Variations, a comedy for five actors in which a pair of lookalikes named Bebe W.W. Doppel-gängler solve an identity crisis with the help of Dr. William W. Williams and his nurse, Fifi. Actor-Director Walter Van Dyk will be in residence for three weeks joining four Yellow Barn musicians in the rehearsal and performance of the work.
Yellow Barn values all audience members and will make efforts to accommodate all circumstances. Its "Pay What You Can" program makes a certain number of reduced-priced tickets available for each concert.
Thursday night concerts are free in memory of Putney resident and audience member Eva Mondon. Thursdays are also "side-by-side nights," when audience members are welcome to sit in the musicians' loft, and musicians sit among audience members on the floor.
Full program details are available online at yellowbarn.org. Tickets can be purchased or reserved online or by calling 802-387-6637. Festival concerts are generally 2 to 2 1/2 hours in length, including an intermission with ice cream and blueberries for all to enjoy.
This Arts item was submitted to The Commons.