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![Photographs of the Performing Artists](https://cewm.org/wp-content/uploads/2021/02/press-1-8-2020-artists-press.png)
![Photograph of the Borromeo Quartet](https://cewm.org/wp-content/uploads/2021/02/borromeo-pr.jpg)
Close Encounters with Music Presents: Great Strings – The Borromeo Quartet
Press ReleasesNOVEMBER 20, 2019 -- Anton Arensky’s Quartet in A Minor for two cellos, a personal tribute to his beloved friend Tchaikovsky, is considered one of the finest Russian string quartets ever written, with the second movement being a set of variations on a Tchaikovsky theme. Meanwhile, in conversations across time, melodies ricochet from Beethoven to Arensky (as well as Mussorgsky, Rachmaninoff and Stravinsky) as Arensky paraphrases a celebratory Russian folk song associated with the coronation of the Tsar—used by Beethoven in his Quartet Op. 59 No. 2, one of the famous works commissioned by Count Razumovsky.
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Close Encounters with Music Presents the American Premiere of Andre Hajdu’s Masterwork “Kohelet” Featuring Sam Waterson as Narrator
Press ReleasesSEPTEMBER 9, 2020 -- Embarking on its 28th year of presenting outstanding chamber music with lively commentary, the Berkshires’ premier chamber music organization Close Encounters With Music, launches 2019-20 with the much anticipated North American premiere of Kohelet (Ecclesiastes) for four cellos, narrated by star of film, stage and television Sam Waterston on Sunday, October 27 at 5 PM.
![Photograph of Tamar Muskal](https://cewm.org/wp-content/uploads/2021/02/tamar-muskal-press.png)
Close Encounters with Music Presents “Tamar Muskal – Composer, Songwriter, Fashionista” the Second Installment of its Conversations with… Series of Intimate and Stimulating Afternoons on Music and Ideas
Press ReleasesAPRIL 15, 2019 -- Undaunted by new forms or new frontiers, Tamar Muskal has written everything from pop songs to symphonies to her new opera-in-progress, set in the world of high fashion, that tells the story of Diana Vreeland and Andre Leon Talley and examines the constant rises and falls of the industry.
![Photograph of the Escher String Quartet](https://cewm.org/wp-content/uploads/2021/02/escher-quartet-press.jpg)
The Art of the Quartet: The Escher String Quartet Presented by Close Encounters with Music
Press ReleasesAPRIL 15, 2019 -- Acclaimed for musical insights and rare tonal beauty, and championed by the Emerson String Quartet, the Escher has toured extensively throughout the U.S., Europe, Australia and Asia. They served as BBC New Generation Artists and gave debuts at the BBC Proms, are winners of the prestigious Avery Fisher Career Grant and perform as Artists of The Chamber Music Society of Lincoln Center.
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Close Encounters with Music Presents its Season Finale Gala: Like Father-in-Law, Like Son-in-Law: Antonin Dvorak and Josef Suk
Press ReleasesAPRIL 15, 2019 -- Czech nationalist composer Antonin Dvořák rose to fame in Prague, paving the way for his favorite student and later son-in-law Josef Suk. There was great closeness and spiritual kinship between them, and both were championed by Brahms (who confessed to envying Dvořák’s melodic gifts!) Dvořák’s Rondo and Suk’s Balada and Pisen Lasky love song are rarely performed gems, and the more familiar Piano Quintet No. 2 in A Major by Dvořák is acknowledged as one of the masterpieces in the form, along with those of Schumann and Brahms. In fact, Dvořák assimilated Brahms’ techniques and methods, while his exuberance, earthiness and the warmth of his melodies ennoble Bohemian folklore.
![Photographs of Inna Faliks and Yehuda Hanani](https://cewm.org/wp-content/uploads/2021/02/2019-02-23_press-release.png)
“Troika A La Russe” Presented by Close Encounters with Music
Press ReleasesFEBRUARY 22, 2019 -- Ukrainian-born pianist Inna Faliks (“adventurous and passionate”— The New Yorker) and Yehuda Hanani present a program rich in Russian lore, Slavic emotionalism, Soviet-era sarcasm, and dazzling virtuosity: the cello/piano sonatas by Rachmaninoff, Prokofiev, and Scriabin’s Sonata No. 5, which pianist Sviatoslav Richter considered the most difficult piece in the entire piano repertory. Rachmaninoff’s sonata is passionate and emotionally torrential, a survivor from the 19th century. Prokofiev, on the other hand, dubbed “bad boy of Russian music” by the establishment for his earlier avant-garde style, has written here a work that is mellow and reflective.
![Photographs of the Performing Artists](https://cewm.org/wp-content/uploads/2021/02/press-release-jan-2019-495x104.jpg)
“Humor in the String Quartets of Papa Haydn” Presented by Close Encounters with Music
Press ReleasesJANUARY 7, 2019 -- What constitutes a musical—or any other kind of—joke? Humor explodes our expectations and takes us by surprise. Three Haydn string quartets, including his “Joke” Quartet, provide an evening of ambiguous beginnings and fake-out endings; mismatched dialogues between instruments, misunderstandings, musical pratfalls and pretend memory lapses and digressions. What about those embarrassing long pauses, that daring modulation, that unexpected excursion into strange tonalities….? It’s all intentional and part of the fun! From the composer of the “Surprise” Symphony who wrote a cat’s meow into another comes a slightly tipsy “high” as well as “low” program of subversive humor.
Close Encounters With Music, Inc.
PO Box 34
Great Barrington, MA 01230
Tel: 1-800-843-0778
A 501(c)(3) Non-Profit Organization
TEIN: 14-1783014
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