Yellow Barn Presents World Premiere, Open House, and More

PUTNEY – Yellow Barn Music Festival in Putney, Vermont presents works by legendary American composer Leon Kirchner, a favored former student of such musical icons as Arnold Schoenberg, Roger Sessions and Ernest Bloch, this weekend on Thursday, Friday and Saturday, July 23, 24 and 25, along with other contemporary and classical works. Kirchner, who celebrated his 90th birthday in January of this year, is a Pulitzer Prize and Naumburg Award winner, was honored twice by the New York Music Critics’ Circle and has been commissioned by the Fromm, Ford and Koussevirtzky Foundations, the New York Philharmonic, and many others.

In addition to Kirchner’s String Quartet No. 4, Thursday’s program will include the world premiere of “Stchupak, the fish” by Venezuelan composer Paul DeSenne, a work written for festival participants Jennifer Curtis, violin and pianist Vivian Hornick Weilerstein. DeSenne will be present for the performance, to include Curtis and Mendelssohn Quartet violinist Nicholas Mann on viola, along with cellist Sunny Yang and Aaron Wunsch, piano. That concert will conclude with the Schumann Piano Quartet in E Flat Major, Op. 47.

Friday’s 8 p.m. concert will be preceded by a supper (by reservation) at 6 p.m. at The Putney Inn, after which there will be a free pre-concert discussion at 7 p.m. at the Putney Public Library. Concert programming will feature Grammy and Cannes Award-winning soprano Susan Narucki in Osvaldo Golijov’s “Luce”, along with a Kirchner Sonata and the Dvorak String Quartet in C Major, Op 61 with violinist Donald Weilerstein, former leader of the Cleveland String Quartet.

Saturday will start with a public master class at 10:30 a.m., with cellist Steven Doane of the Eastman School of Music, beginning a day-long Festival Open House. Guests may attend open rehearsals, lunch at the Yellow Barn summer campus on the grounds of the Greenwood School in Putney, meet with festival artistic and managing directors, attend a workshop with Feldenkrais practitioner Aliza Stewart, or listen to violin maker Douglas Cox tell about his craft and his recent creation and donation to Yellow Barn of a copy of the famous “Goldberg” violin, to be won at raffle in August.
The day will conclude with an 8 p.m. concert to include Schoenberg’s String Quartet in D Major, “Triptych” by Kirchner, a short piece by George Crumb, and Mozart’s Sonata for Two Pianos, K. 488 with Seth Knopp and Edward Robie, pianos.

Concerts continue in Putney each Tuesday, Thursday, Friday and Saturday through August 8, punctuated by two Wednesday events on July 29 and August 5 at Smith College in Northampton, Massachusetts. Tickets, information and full season programming are available at 802-387-6637 / www.yellowbarn.org. The season is supported in part by the Vermont Arts Council, the National Endowment for the Arts, the Vermont Humanities Council, Vermont Public Radio, WFCR Radio for Western New England, Chittenden Bank, SoVerNet and Douglas Cox Violins.