PUTNEY — This weekend marks the finale of Yellow Barn's 50th anniversary season.
The penultimate concert of the season takes place on Friday, Aug. 2, and begins with Philippe Schoeller's Isis I, Brett Dean's Eclipse (String Quartet No. 1), and Edward Elgar's beloved Introduction and Allegro for Strings, Op. 47 - a piece that David and Janet Wells often programmed to bring Yellow Barn seasons to a close with musicians filling every corner of the original barn.
Arnold Schoenberg's lighthearted Suite, Op. 29, Mark Applebaum's improvisatory Control Freak, and Frédéric Chopin's glittering Rondo in C Major for Two Pianos round out the evening.
Saturday brings a close to Yellow Barn's 50th anniversary with a great finale in the Big Barn. First on the program is Dean's Some birthday..., followed by Beethoven's treasured Piano Trio in B-Flat Major, Op. 97 “Archduke.”
Shakespeare's Hamlet comes back into the foreground again with Mendelssohn's Nocturne and Scherzo from A Midsummer Night's Dream. Then, Dean's Winter Songs captures the sheer fascination of an expat Australian with the unfamiliar extremes of a Berlin winter - a snowy scene that is familiar to any native New Englander.
Lei Liang's Listening for Blossoms follows, inspired by the Taoist and Buddhist belief that, if one contemplates in complete stillness, one can hear the blossoms.
The final piece on the program is John Cage's Dream, originally used as music for the eponymous choreographed piece by Merce Cunningham.