PRESS RELEASES

JANUARY 27, 2016 -- Close Encounters With Music, celebrates Johann Sebastian Bach and his progeny Saturday, March 19, 6 PM at the Mahaiwe Performing Arts Center with “J.S. Bach and Sons—Legitimate and Otherwise.” The Bach brood boasts an illustrious cluster of great musicians who act as a bridge into the Classical style. Family members represented include Bach’s uncle Heinrich and his sons Johann Christoph Friedrich, Wilhelm Friedemann, and Carl Philipp Emanuel.

OCTOBER 12, 2015 -- Musical instruments serve an intangible and immaterial art that accompanies ritual, battle and work, entertains and expresses emotions; they document technological advancements and societal change. Depictions in the visual arts reveal their functions and portray their performers —accurately or symbolically. Surprisingly, The Metropolitan Museum of Art is the perfect place to explore these connections using its global collection of over 5,000 instruments from the 3rd millennium BCE to the present and their matching depictions found throughout its galleries. On Sunday, November 15, 2 PM, Ken Moore, Frederick P. Rose Curator in Charge of Musical Instruments, will provide an introduction to the collection and reveal new ways of looking and thinking about these extraordinary sounding forms.

SEPTEMBER 2, 2015 -- , Close Encounters With Music, continues to expand its original programming of classical, contemporary and cutting-edge music. The 2015-2016 season will be one of celebration and discovery, featuring world-renowned musicians and extraordinary new faces. Walter Ponce (“Delectable playing with a crackle that Liszt himself would have applauded” – Chicago Tribune) returns after a hiatus, as well as consummate chamber musician Michele Levin and frequent Boston Pops soloist Michael Chertock; violinists Yehonatan Berick, Sarah McElravy and Ara Gregorian; and oboist James Austin Smith, already inducted into Lincoln Center’s Chamber Music Society (“virtuosic” and “brilliant performances—The New York Times—to which we can attest from his past performance!). The Dover Quartet, which has risen meteorically to the highest echelons of the string quartet firmament, makes its CEWM debut; and we introduce tenor Alex Richardson (“A charismatic Richardson triumphed!” – Huffington Post) and duo pianists Kate Soyeon Lee and Ran Dank, who together and apart garner raves (“Stunning command of the keyboard” –Washington Post). The Acronym Baroque Band brings its own brand of Baroque glitter to the Mahaiwe stage for the second consecutive year, and we are delighted to welcome Paul Green, an extraordinary clarinetist equally at home in classical, jazz and Klezmer music. From October through June, it’s a season not to be missed!

APRIL 13, 2015 -- A fixture of New York’s downtown scene, composer and lyricist Phil Kline stands out for his range and unpredictability. He makes music in many genres and contexts, from experimental electronics and sound installations to songs, choral, theater, chamber and orchestral works. Early in his career he co-founded the rock band the Del-Byzanteens with Jim Jarmusch and James Nares, collaborated with Nan Goldin on the soundtrack to The Ballad of Sexual Dependency, and played guitar in the notorious Glenn Branca Ensemble. Some of his early work evolved from performance art and used large numbers of boom boxes, such as the Christmas cult classic Unsilent Night.