Musings

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...

Bringing music to the streets: Covid 19, the summer of 2020, and "quartet caroling" in Newburyport neighborhoods .

I asked past artists of NCMF to choose a surprise performance for our audience.

Scott Devereaux (tuba): A conversation with David Yang, Artistic Director NCMF

I asked past artists to choose a surprise performance as a treat for our audience.

Eliana Yang: A conversation with Beth Clary, President of NCMF Board

I asked past artists to choose a surprise performance as a treat for our audience.

I asked past artists to choose a surprise performance as a treat for our audience.

I asked past artists to choose a surprise performance as a treat for our audience.

Eric Ewazen: A conversation with David Yang, Artistic Director NCMF

I asked past artists to choose a surprise performance as a treat for our audience.

I asked past artists to choose a surprise performance as a treat for our audience.

David Yang in conversation with Beth Clary, President of the NCMF Board

I asked past artists to choose a surprise performance as a treat for our audience.

Despite general weirdness everywhere, we’re determined to make NCMF 2020 joyful.

For 19 years, the festival has taken over the town for a week in August.

David chats with Sébastien van Kuijk whose visitwas foiled by COVID-19

I will occasionally post conversations with the artists who were scheduled to come this summer.

The pain started as a dull ache in my abdomen around New Rochelle; by Stamford I was doubled over in agony.

In 1982 I received the best birthday present of all time: a Sony Walkman WM-R2.

Some of you have been wondering what we are going to do this summer.

Recently I’ve noticed the call of a Very Loud Bird I don’t recall hearing outside my window in the morning.

Why can’t I get enough of sad music and why does it feel so good?

When the festival started in 2001, I hoped it would become a kind of second home to my family and me.

If Bach is God, Beethoven is Man, and the meaning of "beklemmt."

While we all sit at home in our pajamas struggling to recall what day of the week it is, let’s look back at an extraordinary solo piano recital.

As we all hunker down indoors, I thought some kind of distraction might be welcome.

David offers some suggestions for music to lessen the coronavirus anxiety.

David reflects on composers, compositions, and the act of composing.

March is coming, spring is not far behind, and that means piano recital.

David reflects on 10 years of performing, recording, and living as a member of a touring string trio.

It seems that around this time of year people are specifically drawn to reassuring music.

Playing baroque music is a kind of going back to the basic ingredients of our art form.

One of the most extraordinary pieces I have ever commissioned.

Reflections on the Newburyport Chamber Music Festival of 2019: A Visual Portrait

Just think what was going in the Roaring '20s in art, literature, science, politics, society.

Artistic Director David Yang's notes on the new piece for 2019.

I’ve wanted to program this incredible, weird, and magical piece for ages.

The complicated personal background to Shostakovich’s 6th String Quartet.

In 1785, Mozart dedicated a new set of six string quartets to his friend, colleague, and mentor, Josef Haydn.

An Introduction to Summer Season #18.