MARLBORO — Marlboro Music closes its 63rd season with concerts on Friday and Saturday, Aug. 9 and 10 at 8:30 p.m., and Sunday, Aug. 11 at 2:30 p.m..
Only 25 percent of the 200 chamber works, suggested by the musicians themselves, are publicly performed each summer, but there was such an outpouring of works that the resident artists wanted to share, that an extra invitational concert has been scheduled for Thursday, Aug. 8 at 8 p.m. in the Marlboro College Dining Hall.
Ticket buyers for the Friday, Aug, 9 concert may request an equivalent number of tickets for the Thursday concert, as long as tickets are still available at www.marlboromusic.org or by calling 802-254-2394.
The Thursday program will include one of chamber music's most beloved works – the Beethoven Septet in E flat, Op. 20 for strings and winds and, in a first Marlboro performance, the wonderfully romantic and rarely-heard piano quintet by Sergei Taneyev, who was a major influence on Scriabin, Medtner and Rachmaninoff.
Richard Goode, Co-Artistic Director with Mitsuko Uchida, will open Friday's 8:30 p.m. concert in Persons Auditorium at Marlboro College playing the Mozart Clarinet Trio with Metropolitan Opera Orchestra Principal Clarinet Anthony McGill and St. Paul Chamber Orchestra violist Maiya Papich.
Also to be heard will be the 15-minute Epilogue for String Quartet by last summer's Resident Composer Lera Auerbach, and the Elgar Quintet in A Minor for Piano and Strings, Op. 84 which seems especially appropriate for Vermont since it was composed in and influenced by the countryside of Sussex, England.
Cleveland Quartet cellist Paul Katz in the Auerbach and Hungarian pianist Dénes Várjon and Mendelssohn Quartet cellist in the Elgar Quintet will be joined in these works by some of this summer's exceptional young professional artists.
The Saturday and Sunday programs wonderfully sum-up the summer's work and discoveries of the whole Marlboro Music community.
The singers will offer the Brahms Neue Liebeslieder Waltzes, Op. 65; 12 woodwinds and a double bass will present Richard Strauss' Serenade, Op. 7; and after seven weeks and more than 55 hours of rehearsal, audiences will hear two of Beethoven's greatest works - the String Quartets in C Sharp Minor, Op. 131 and E Flat, Op. 127.
And, then the whole community comes together, playing in the orchestra or singing in the chorus for the exultant Beethoven Choral Fantasy with Richard Goode as soloist and David Zinman conducting. Vocal soloists will be Sarah Shafer, soprano; Ashley Emerson, soprano; Rebecca Ringle, mezzo-soprano; Spencer Lang, tenor; Karim Sulayman, tenor; and Jarrett Ott, baritone,
Tickets are available for Friday, Aug. 9 (Friday ticket-holders can request complimentary tickets for the Thursday, Aug. 8 concert, as long as available) and a few inside seats remain, as well as canopy area seats, for Saturday, Aug. 10 at 8:30 PM.
Sunday's 2:30 p.m. concert has been sold out for months, but a limited number of canopy area seats at $5 are available.