Musings

Thinking about concerts – not ones I’ve played, but ones I have attended. Here are the top five that jumped out at me, in no particular order.

Maybe it is the action of sitting in a concert or lecture or open rehearsal or Hausmusik with others.

We’re somewhere around the mid-point of the festival which began with a talk last Monday on Kurtág and ends with our final concert this Sunday.

The first Storytelling and Music and Puppet show outside today at 11:00 at Maudslay has been cancelled due to weather

The couple’s performances on stage were legendary, literal embraces at the piano, their hands interlocking over the keys.

Transplanted to a different continent, these sold-out concerts feel like a vindication of the vision I call “community-oriented” chamber music.

‍Musicians are modern-day itinerant minstrels. Stephanie, one of our festival artists this summer (violin) and I have been trying to find a time to record a conversation.

When rural Americans finally got electricity in the 1930’s and 40’s, decades after the cities, many went outside just to look back at their illuminated houses.

Hungarian composer György Ligeti was born into a Jewish family in 1923 and grew up under the vile reigns of both the Nazi and Soviet regimes.

He then had the idea of adding to the four instruments a piano part for his wife Clara, and the resulting piano quintet was written in less than three weeks.

This summer marks another joyful collaboration with the actor, director, impresario, and his band of merry puppeteers. 

Long-time NCMF audience members are aware that I am an ardent fan of 98-year-old composer György Kurtág

Composers are a curious lot, interested in everything and anything. 

This was decided upon in a highly scientific manner. Take a look and let me know which favorite bird I left out...

Sometimes I’d buy a book, often I’d just browse, open up a volume, read the first paragraph. 

Twelve iconic birds of Newburyport for string quartet and...theremin? 

Ravel was an ardent collector of Art Nouveau and Art Deco with its stylized and stylish ideals

Brahms, Schumann, Kurtag, Schnittke, Ligeti, Liszt, a world premiere by Castillo with theremin, puppet shows, oh my!

Haydn's music reflects a time of great political and social upheaval.

This summer we’ll feature two piano quintets that are a study in contrast.

Our roster of artists for this summer along with some of their favorite meals. Is there a better way to get to know someone?

Some of you may know that I took a gap year after graduating from high school in 2022.

I’ve said about all I can about the Mozart and Schoenberg trios and how great they are.

A thoughtful reader challenged my observation that the Mozart is more difficult than the Schoenberg.

Most of us have had kind and generous teachers that left a lasting impression.

On Tuesday, I had the privilege to discuss the composer Arnold Schoenberg with his son, Larry.

Buckle your seat belts! The program consists of the Schoenberg String Trio and Mozart’s Divertimento in Eb.

Sometimes the process of figuring out the right question is as important as the answer. 

How does one come up with a name for a new ensemble? There are composers, artists, Institutions, violin makers, myth-related names,, or sometimes a group is named after a member of the ensemble, but oddly, architects haven’t yet made the cut.

For composers, it is often easier to get a first performance of a new piece than a second.

It is a weird thing, writing down music, if you think about it.

A peek into the mind of a musician embarking upon her career.

Cynthia and I overlapped in New York in the 90s and she came to NCMF in the early years

Recently I’ve been chewing over the joy I take in this profession due to my love of music vs. the satisfaction I take in the process

Thank you so much for all your emails flagellating my beloved instrument.

Art expresses our deepest emotions. Ecstasy and grief, tranquility, bustle, anger, even frustration

When you were thirteen, what did you dream about doing when you grew up?

Life is like that sometimes – everything can be fine one minute and then suddenly go all topsy-turvy.

I enjoy when instruments employ artifice to imitate non-instruments:

Musicians strive to play expressively, whereas actors can communicate directly with expression.

I’m still coming down from the summer– Schoenberg, Shostakovich, “The Jury,” everything and everyone who turned up

By all accounts, I think I can report that summer 2023, our twenty-second season, was a smashing success.

It was as if I were witnessing the birth of a new composition in real time, not unlike a musical version of watching Harry Potter step out from behind the Cloak of Invisibility. 

For the final concert of Summer 2023 with the world premiere based on Rhina's poem you can pay what you want - one dollar, one hundred dollars.

Arnold Schoenberg’s Second String Quartet is widely considered to be a visionary work.

Shostakovich’s late quartets provide one of the most intimate confessionals of personal feelings ever vouchsafed by a composer in his music.

It is the anticipation of knowing what’s coming that might be classical music’s most sublime pleasure.

Since its inception, NCMF has been brought to life by volunteers. The time has come for more volunteers to help. Perhaps you?

In 1772, the rationalism of the Age of Enlightenment ran head-on into early romanticism.

If the concerto represents the individual against massed forces, unaccompanied works feel like an internalization of this struggle within an individual.

Thanks to an older kid in my orchestra back in 1982, I attended a chamber music camp in Vermont.

 "Looking back," Paul told me, “I would not have lived the same life without all this music because it is so important to me.”

If Mozart drove a car, what kind of car would he have? (One thinks about such things when sitting on a transcontinental flight.)

One of the most original composers of the 20th Century, Janáček had a hot-blooded disposition and a pronounced appetite for the opposite sex.

After traveling through Belgium, Holland, Germany, and Switzerland, we finally crossed the Alps into Italy

Musicians are itinerant; you go where the work is.

Have you ever wondered how exactly we keep this thing running? And...some great news!

Musicians travel - a lot - so I asked this summer’s artists to list a favorite place or two in the world.

This winter, I’ve been heading out on pre-dawn rides to train for what was supposed to be a slightly insane three-day, 400-mile bicycle trip

For 21 years, the Newburyport Chamber Music Festival has worked to fulfill its vision of community-based chamber music concerts and events with world-class artists

I’m delighted to announce we have a new board member, Maryellen Moreland.

The feedback from NCMF Winter Baroque has been rolling in and is overwhelmingly positive.

In January of 2021, I shared the process of how my quartet learned a Beethoven string quartet

Thomas Baltzar’s jewel of a piece, his Prelude, packs more in two minutes than some composers stuff into an entire symphony.

What is the difference between a modern and "historic" cello and why use one over another?

I’ve returned to the tried and true holiday formula of not programming anything composed after 1750.

There is a new look for Winter Baroque this year (tickets go on sale today!).

There are certain very specific and individualized sounds we associate with childhood.

After the call informing me that one of the artists had tested positive...

It seems that Covid 19 had one last surprise in store for us for the summer.

There were a few weeks when Jon Deak emailed me a page of the manuscript every day.

I love playing with Clancy and also just hanging with this terrific musician and human being.

"Even if they cut off both my hands and I have to hold my pen in my teeth I shall go on writing music."

There is a transcendent moment near the beginning of this quartet that makes my heart leap in my chest.

Running a music festival is very much a group effort. Please welcome our newest board member.

Summer 2022 features arguably the most perfect of Mozart’s perfect quartets, the C Major.

Does anyone in Newburyport really need an introduction to the National Treasure that is Rhina?

I met Jon about twenty years ago over breakfast on the Upper West Side.

‍‍I started cooking in grad school when I procured a copy of Marcella Hazan’s “Classic Italian Cookbook.”

"...suddenly the memory revealed itself. The taste was that of the little piece of madeleine which on Sunday mornings at Combray..."

Kneisel Hall is a chamber music festival in Blue Hill, Maine, founded in 1902.

Tickets for the 2021 NCMF Winter Baroque concert have gone live and, as promised, the concert will be a doozy.

After marinating indoors for the better part of a year and a half, we’ve all been desperate for live music.

When I was a teenager, I got a job one summer working as a bike messenger in New York.

This summer we’ll be performing Shostakovich’s String Quartet in Eb Major, No. 9.

This summer, Becky Anderson will be playing the third  violin sonata by Eugène Ysaÿe.

This summer, Scott Devereaux will be playing Capriccio for solo tuba by Krzysztof Penderecki.

Set aside August 4 to August 15 because NCMF is on for summer 2021 with six concerts in six days.

Is there such a thing as a perfect piece of music, something that never gets old?

Sunday, June 6 the Newburyport Chamber Music Festival is back in action.

The first LP I ever owned was a collection of marches by John Philip Sousa.

Last year the great Italian composer Ennio Morricone passed away at the age of 91.

Goethe said "music is liquid architecture; architecture is frozen music." That sounds good but what does it really mean?

You may have seen me around Newburyport or playing viola in the summer concert.

For the holidays, I thought I’d take off my Artistic Director hat and put on another.

The concept of infinity is beyond the capacity of the human brain to conceptualize.

I feel a slight chill and sense of awe when I walk into a cathedral. I get the same feeling of immensity when I listen to the sixth suite.

David talks with composer Ania Vu about her new work written for the NCMF Winter Baroque concert.

I love winter: the low afternoon sun, footsteps crunching on new snow, huddling in bed under a comforter...