One Last Look at Summer 2011

It’s hard to believe it, but the layer-worthy temperatures outside don’t lie: summer is finally coming to an end.  While we’re eagerly looking forward to a jam-packed fall of events for ourselves, it’s worth another look back at a few more of our artists’ exploits in these recent months.

Guidonian Hand trombonist Sebastian Vera recently returned from a trip to Haiti to lend his talents to the wonderful Jean Baptiste Dessaix Music School (“Ecole de Musique Dessaix-Baptiste”).  It’s a year-round program backed by international supporters that includes a big summer camp element with teachers and volunteers from all over North America teaching students aged 6 to 25.  The program took a hit with the earthquake in 2010, but is bouncing back in incredible ways!

Meanwhile, the Bryant Park Quartet just finished running a week-long summer chamber music camp at Stony Brook University.  The BPQ has helped spearhead the Stony Brook University Community Music Program as its first ever Ensemble-In-Residence, and the summer camp is a major element of the program’s initiative to work with young musicians at Stony Brook and in nearby public schools. They’ll be headed back for a concert at the end of the month (September 25)!

Meanwhile, Stephen Drury spent the summer with two big projects in Boston — the first being Boston University’s Spectral music workshop with composer Joshua Fineberg (Spectral Summer), which included a world premiere of Fineberg’s “Counterfactual.” Second was of course Drury and his Callithumpian Consort’s annual Summer Institute for Contemporary Performance Practice (SICPP), which this year featured composer-in-residence Tristan Murail and a world premiere of John Luther Adams‘s “4000 Holes.”

Outside of a handful of New England performances, Duo Orfeo have been busy preparing material for an electric guitars album, which they’ve just announced they’ll be recording this fall. They promise pieces by Arvo Part, John Cage, Erik Satie and Valentin Silvestrov, and those in attendance at this spring’s “Machines” concerts have already had a taste of some of these sounds.  Needless to say, we can’t wait to hear this record.

And of course, don’t forget the bevy of new talent that joined our ranks this summer: the West Shore Piano Trio, Rhonda Sider Edgington, and janus trio!

May you have a great weekend and check back often for updates as this extremely exciting concert season gets underway…

“This listener cannot imagine more persuasive performances than the ones Drury played…”

–The New York Times

“Drury’s performances were magisterial, and each note was a sounding point of light…”

–The Boston Globe

“The most scintillating, honest and pianistically impressive performance of Ravel’s demanding ‘Miroirs’ suite I have ever heard…”

–Boston Review

“Drury is a true original whose supremely disciplined fingers are at the service of a rigorous, questing, imaginative mind. It is unlikely that the season will hold a piano event more astonishing than Drury’s performance…”

–The Boston Globe

“Drury’s Ives remains a serious contender for the year’s most extraordinary keyboard achievement…”

–The Phoenix

“A sensitive, highly intelligent musician with fire in his soul…Pianism of tremendous intensity…”

–The Boston Globe

“Astonishing!…none of our important pianists is more exploratory and versatile. Drury’s magnificent performance left nothing to chance…”

–The Boston Globe

“[Last night] the increasingly stupendous Stephen Drury played Ravel’s Piano Concerto in G,…It’s not possible that anyone has played the solo part more flawlessly or with more beautiful tone. The harder the technical challenges, the more subtle the colorations Drury creates. You can hear each note, no matter how many of them are coming at you per second, yet the sense of continuity leaves you gasping.”

–Lloyd Schwartz, The Boston Phoenix

“Drury’s playing masterfully combines a virtuoso technique, intellectual thoughtfulness, and a commanding sense of the piano’s tone colors.”

–Travis Rivers, Spokane Spokesman-Review