GUILFORD — Friends of Music at Guilford's 48th annual Labor Day Weekend Festival presents French organ music in an intimate rural barn, and orchestral works by composers from five countries on the expansive lawn just outside.
The Festival opens on Saturday evening, Aug. 31, at 7:30, with “Vive la France!” on the Guilford Tracker Organ.
Clark Anderson, who has performed recitals of solo and ensemble works by English and German composers on this instrument, has chosen a program of solo works by French composers from Pérotin le Grand (1180-1236) to Jean Langlais (1907-1991), including François Couperin, André Raison, Louis-Claude Daquin, Louis Vierne, Charles-François Gounod, and the ever-intriguing Anonymous.
“The French have written more great music for the organ than any other culture,” said Anderson. “Bach and the other German composers are so prominent today that the French masters often get overlooked. But we have more than 900 years of wonderful organ music from France, and this concert will feature some highlights.”
A particular challenge, Anderson says, has been to choose music for the small tracker instrument in the Organ Barn.
“That organ is American in design and has no reed stops, such as trumpets and oboes, that feature prominently in French organs. So it's been really fun to re-imagine the music for the Organ Barn. I think people will be surprised at the range of sounds and colors that little instrument can produce in the French cause.”
As always, Anderson will set the stage for each work with brief comments and anecdotes about the music and composers.
The next day, Sunday, Sept. 1, at 2 p.m., the Guilford Festival Orchestra, composed of players from the tri-state area and further afield, will be heard outdoors on the lawn.
Ken Olsson serves for a second season as conductor for this event, though he, too, is well known to Friends of Music concert audiences: He has performed twice on the Guilford Tracker Organ and in February 2011 served as piano accompanist for his wife, soprano Julie Johnson Olsson, in a vocal recital of arias and art song.
This year's orchestra program, entitled “Grand Tour: Music of Five Nations” begins with seven Romanian Folk Dances by Bartók. Elgar's Romance for Bassoon then features Tiffany Coolidge in an arrangement including strings, and three Wesendonck Songs by Wagner are performed by Ms. Olsson and the full orchestra.
After intermission, which ends with a little bit of auction entertainment, the concert continues with intermezzo from “Cavalleria Rusticana” by Mascagni.
Next is the première of an overture to “Les noces d'Hippoclide” by Nicholas Humez (b. 1948), a Friends of Music founder now living in Ohio, followed by Ms. Olsson singing O patria mia from Verdi's “Aida.” Carl Philipp Emanuel Bach's Symphony in E flat Major follows.
The festival's traditional finale is a sing-in of Randall Thompson's Alleluia, for which audience members are invited up front to join the orchestra players in forming the chorus.
The Labor Day Weekend Festival is held at the Organ Barn, off Packer Corners Road in Guilford; signs are posted along a nine-mile route from the Guilford Country Store on Route 5, just south of Exit 1 off Interstate 91, and along a five-mile route from the Keets Brook Road turnoff along Route 5 in Bernardston, Mass.
Admission to both events is by donation. For the Sunday concert, the grounds open at noon to picnickers; children are welcome, with parental supervision, but dog owners are asked to keep dogs at home.
A hearty vegetarian lunch, warm chocolate chip cookies, and fresh lemonade are available for sale, as are a variety of Friends of Music retail items such as cards, CDs, T-shirts, sweatshirts, and totes.
In case of rain, or serious threat thereof, the Sunday event - both lunch and concert - is relocated to the Broad Brook Grange, four miles up the Guilford Center Road from the Country Store, on Route 5.