The ever-fascinating and intimate triangle – Robert and Clara Schumann and Johannes Brahms – will be brought to new light with seldom-heard works that highlight the musical cross-references and spiritual bond that united them. Predating accompaniment to silent film by decades, Robert’s melodrama, Schön Hedwig is a forerunner to soap-opera sentimentality with a happy ending. […]
Composed by Tchaikovsky to counter a bout of insomnia and melancholy, Serenade for Strings immediately cheered him up, and he reported “feeling well, invigorated and content” - as gratified listeners have over the years. Few composers have possessed the ability to reflect emotions within their music as well as Tchaikovsky, and the Serenade channels solemnity […]
Two leading Bach interpreters embark on a journey while traversing his Six Suites, the apogee of the cello repertoire. Filled with mystery and beauty, blasted through with rapture, every note is a bold statement. Music that first flowed from the composer’s quill in the early 1700’s, it belongs to no specific time or place. At […]
Two monumental works, two Russian ex-pats of the same aristocratic background - and two divergent extremes. One a master of nostalgia and a formidable pianist, follows in the footsteps of Chopin. The other, a trailblazer, scandalizer and collaborator of Picasso delights in breaking old molds - though harking back to traditional Russian folk material - […]
Alongside Beethoven’s Quartet No. 1 Op. 18 and Mendelssohn’s Op. 80 Quartet, this program is infused with striking Latin repertoire: Sonia Morales-Matos’ Divertimento Caribeño No. 3 (dance suites of Caribbean merengue sandwiched around a Cuban bolero) and Astor Pizzolla’s Tango Ballet, a work that paints pictures through rhythms and melodies. The Dalí Quartet is Chamber […]
Celebrate the Salon in the Gilded Age elegance at a private Berkshires club. The scintillating atmosphere of the 19th century institution helped promote artists, painters and musicians as the intelligentsia gathered to exchange ideas, enhanced by gaiety and ambience. Savor a superb lunch and support Close Encounters With Music. La vie est belle! Reserve the […]
The daughter of sewing machine industrialist Isaac Merritt Singer, Winnaretta Singer, Princess de Polignac, was a force of nature, hosting everyone from Leion Bakst to Jean Cocteau and Jean Giraudoux to Prokofiev, Madame Jean Lanvin, Siegfried Wagner, Arthur Rubenstein, Arnold Schoenberg, and Edith Wharton in her Paris salon. more importantly, she was responsible for developing […]
It’s all about love: A new work for clarinet trio by composer Seth Grosshandler that celebrates young love, courtship and serendipity of meeting one’s intended receives its inaugural performance. Signature love arias from favorite operas and Broadway sung by Metropolitan Opera soprano Danielle Talamantes and Kerry Wilkerson. Schubert’s Shepherd on the Rock (“My sweetheart dwells […]
