Notes from David Yang

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In a dream world, I'd want to run a blueberry farm or fruit orchard.

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Question: What is better than a string quartet? Answer: Two string quartets

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Tomorrow starts the Big Ride™. Between you and me, I’ll take rain over cook-an-egg-on-the-sidewalk heat. I hope to be on the road by 7:00 am. 

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The rain has stopped and it was glorious today. I wish I could say the same about my legs.

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The exquisite subtlety with which this driver demonstrated nuanced inflections of the F-bomb was deeply moving.

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Looking out your window today, perhaps sipping a steaming mug of hot chocolate, some of you may have noticed that it rained.

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Travelling by bike is so real. How empowering it feels to step from my front door and ride up to Newburyport. The act of motion is exhilarating.

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After donning every single item of clothing we'd brought, we headed out. What else could we do? 

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We waited to depart at 10 am since it was still pissing rain; we didn’t arrive until 8 at night. You do the math.

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The poem is all of three minutes long – perfect for a listen over a cup of coffee (or a scotch).

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And thus concludes our journey. We're already strategizing about another...

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While meandering on a bicycle, looking for a café, you can wind up

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Think of it like an arch – the keystone is the vital piece at the center, but remove any one stone and the entire structure comes crashing down.

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To state the obvious, one person’s definition of “pleasing sounds” can be another’s fingernails against a blackboard.

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Not unlike preparing for a concert, this 571 mile ride has provided a kind of focused structure over the past six months, imposing its own kind of discipline.

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Maybe not everything worthwhile has to involve struggle - per ardua ad astra? Pshaw!

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A few weeks ago when it looked like the world was going up in flames, a beam of light came to me...

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I've done some pretty crazy stuff for NCMF but this might be the wackiest.

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An ancient cathedral emerging from the waves accompanied by the ghostly sound of church bells, chant, even an organ.

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We were one of the last commands to go when President de Gaulle requested the evacuation of American troops.

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At the heart of the preludes is one of Debussy’s most popular and enduring works, “The Girl with the Flaxen Hair.”

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We were discussing Evren’s upcoming recital and he wound up pairing each piece with an appropriate libation.

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To enter the world of Carnaval is to enter the complex world of Robert Schumann’s psyche.

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Listening to this program is to be an intrepid explorer of feelings in music.

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I asked Michael if he knew someone local I could talk to about starting my one in town. That’s how I wound up on the phone with Jane. 

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The winter holidays – Christmas decorations, holiday parties, takeout Chinese food, and a baroque world premiere in Newburyport.

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The best ones are from oil country Pennsylvania where they still fry them in beef tallow.

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No, this does not mean the musicians will be dressed in 18th century costumes.

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Have you ever done something that screwed over your boss but was to your benefit?

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I once heard that the reason god destroyed the Tower of Babel was because he understood that working towards a goal is what makes us human.

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Nowadays, I fantasize about going into marine biology, for the sole reason that I want to play with the otters at the Monterey Bay Aquarium.

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It isn’t every day you can watch someone you know in the last rounds of a major international competition.

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It isn’t that music is a language, but, as it turns out, language is a type of music.

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Like a food you found gross as a kid but now eat with gusto, sometimes one can still “get” why some music seemed radical in its day, even as it has now become mainstream

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Before we look ahead, let's take a look back at last summer with clarinet quintets and new works with jazz soprano

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

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I have fresh parts in front of me of the commissioned work "Beat Chick: Tunes for Hettie Jones" for string quartet, jazz vocalist, and digital beats.

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German has great words, and for angsty terms, it is unsurpassed. Let’s take a look at one of my favorite German words: Weltschmerz.

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As a kid, I resisted practicing and struggled with proper technique.

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The last time we did clarinet quintets there wasn’t time to also prepare the Golijov; this summer we get to do it twice.

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Musicians spend a lot of time on the road burning calories while sawing away on our instruments. After rehearsal we always want to eat…but what?

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Jane's paintings and drawings show a hand that is uniquely her own

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

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A classically-trained soprano who can also mix it up with the best in jazz and R&B? A potent combination, indeed.

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"So I wrote it in one morning, I think, really in a rush, as a little encore so the two musicians could play something together. "

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Classical musicians don’t do “jam” for a reason, if by that you mean sitting down and improvising.

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Mozart's quintet for violin, bamboo flute, erhu, accordion, and glockenspiel?

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NCMF would not exist without the hard work the board does all year round. Please welcome Christopher Kalisch.

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People have such interesting lives – they’ve lived all over, done this, done that; everyone has a story. 

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Baroque composer Nicola Canzano will have a world premiere featured as a most special encore on the upcoming Winter Baroque concert.

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I call every member of my family until somebody picks up and entertains me, and when they get bored, I call the next person.

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What a way to start the year: the largest audience we’ve ever had for a spring concert - not including the bat that strafed the audience.

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Like the big, messy, and complicated country it springs from, American music has a big, messy, and complicated history.

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A degree in music, even from a school like Juilliard, leaves the recent graduate staring into the abyss.

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We have it on record that Beethoven's favorite meal was macaroni and cheese.

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What’s all the fuss about? Don’t take my word for it: here is a live performance you can see.

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Mark your calendar with the Roebling Piano Trio at the NCMF spring recital on Saturday, March 8th at St Paul’s.

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Before we look ahead, let’s look back at this year with my personal favorite moments. And please write me if you have anything to add.

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Never, in 24 years, have we sold out St. Paul’s. For those who can’t make it, here is one of my favorite Vivaldi concertos.

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This week’s post features a chat about being a music student in Vienna with Beth Clary and Alessandra Yang

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Quick, hum a melody! What is the first tune that comes to mind?

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If you think I am going to weigh in on who serves the best lobster roll in Newburyport then you've got another thing coming.

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We need beauty in our lives, now more than ever. Here are three gifts.

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 While I’ve never birthed a baby, I have had a kidney stone. I thought I was dying. And you know what they didn’t have in 1720? Anesthesia!

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Why exactly did they wear wigs in the 17th Century? (Maybe better not to ask.) Set aside Sunday, December 22nd for our annual winter baroque concert.

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This summer, we’ll be performing piano quintets by Schumann (happy!) and Schnittke (maybe not so happy…).

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Unless you’ve been hiding under a rock, you already know that for NCMF this summer, Alfred Nicol has written a poem about local birds

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If I could carve my own personal Mt. Rushmore of music, who would I choose to deface the side of a beautiful mountain? 

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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.

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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.

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

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

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

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‍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.

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

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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.

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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.

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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.

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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.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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