Notes from David Yang

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David chats with Sébastien van Kuijk, a Festival Artist in August 2019 whose 2020 visit here was foiled by COVID-19

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

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In preparation for his March 30th solo piano recital, I asked Michael to share some of his favorite performances by other artists of works on his upcoming concert program.

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With Michael Brown performance and discussion coming up, David Yang reflects on composers and the act of composing.

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David Yang reflects on 10 years with a string trio.

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Michael Brown's March 2020 performances are postponed. David conveys the sad news but offers some suggestions for music to lessen the coronavirus anxiety.

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I'm proud of the work we did to make August 2020 a success in the midst of COVID-19 with events both live and virtual. The highlight was undoubtedly the "quartet caroling" around town.

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An Introduction to Summer Season #18.

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In advance of this summer’s festival, Artistic Director David Yang is sending out some of the program notes he has written on the repertoire, in this instance Mozart’s String Quartet in D Minor, K. 421.

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After another successful Book Salon on Tuesday, June 18th focusing on Shostakovich and the book "The Noise of Time" (by Julian Barnes), David Yang offered the program note for Shostakovich’s 6th String Quartet featured on the festival this summer.

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I’ve wanted to program this incredible, weird, and magical piece for ages. Written in 1976, French composer Henri Dutilleux’s “Ainsi la nuit” (Thus the Night) has become a modern classic.

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In advance of this summer’s festival, Artistic Director David Yang offers some of his program notes on the repertoire: Robert Bradshaw Commission

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Just think what was going in the Roaring '20s in art, literature, science, politics, society. The rule book had been thrown out the window following the war to end all wars. Art Deco and Surrealism swept the Continent as the automobile and radio transformed American society. Lindbergh flew across the Atlantic making the world smaller as astronomer Edwin Hubble turned his telescope to the night sky, discovering other galaxies and changing our perception of the cosmos.

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With Jay Reise’s retirement concert at the University of Pennsylvania coming up in a few days, I thought this would be a good time to look back at one of the most extraordinary pieces I have ever commissioned.

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

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As we all hunker down indoors, “socially distanced” and grimly tracking the progress of COVID-19 across our communities, I thought some kind of distraction might be welcome.

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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 at St. Paul’s in 2016 when friend of the festival, Amy Yang, brought the house down with “Pictures at an Exhibition.”

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If Bach is God, Beethoven is Man. Where Bach speaks of eternal truths and the mysteries of the universe. Beethoven defines the essence of what it is to be human.

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Recently I’ve noticed the call of a Very Loud Bird I don’t recall hearing outside my window in the morning. It is entirely likely it’s been there all along, I just never had the space to listen pre-lockdown.

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Some of you have been wondering what we are going to do this summer with COVID-19 followed by the foundation-rocking and (hopefully) transformative events of the last few weeks.

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David talks with composer Ania Vu about her background and new composition for the Winter Baroque concert.

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Last year the great Italian composer Ennio Morricone passed away at the age of 91. You might not recognize the name but I’ll wager you know his music.

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You may have seen me around Newburyport or playing viola in the summer concert: my name is Alessandra, and I am David's younger daughter.

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Architecture runs in my family: my parents met in architecture school and both worked in the profession before going on to other fields ...

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With Winter Baroque squarely behind us, I thought I’d take off my Artistic Director hat and put on another.

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Decades ago I read “A Brief History of Time” by Stephen Hawking and dimly remember a passage where he said the concept of infinity is beyond the capacity of the human brain to conceptualize.

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Distant echoes, the vast roof overhead - 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 Bach’s sixth cello suite, a work the great Russian cellist Mstislav Rostropovich called “a symphony for solo cello.”

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I love winter: the low afternoon sun, footsteps crunching on new snow, huddling in bed under a comforter, that unusual pink night sky that signals snow.

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Despite general weirdness everywhere, we’re determined to make NCMF 2020 joyful with many festival-related events - some live, some virtual.

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For the last nineteen years, Newburyport Chamber Music Festival has taken over the town for a week or two every August.As we experience a summer unlike any other, I wanted to revisit 2019, one of the best seasons we’ve had.

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

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In 1982 I received the best birthday present of all time: a Sony Walkman WM-R2. Oh man, putting those earphones on….You know those stories about the audience reaction in 1895 at the screening of the first motion picture?

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

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You’re going to have to indulge me in this week’s post just a bit. You see, when we started the festival in 2001 I hoped Newburyport would become a kind of second home for my family and me.

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Why can’t I get enough of sad music? My daughters hate to sit near me at the opera because I have been known to cry uncontrollably and it feels so good.

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REFLECTIONS ON NCMF SUMMER 2019: A Visual Portrait

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March is coming, spring is not far behind, and that means piano recital. I’m pleased to report that Michael Brown will be returning for a concert (Saturday, March 28) and, the next day, a demonstration on musical interpretation (Sunday morning, March 29).

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The good news -- but also bad news -- is that there's only one ticket left to Michael Brown’s upcoming piano recital in Newbury.

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2019: Our 18th Season begins with Michael Brown, pianist and composer.