Live chamber music festival returns to Kutztown University
The Kutztown Summer Chamber Music Festival returns to the Kutztown University campus July 4 through July 10.
Live and onstage after a year of absence due to the COVID-19 pandemic, the event marks the tenth year the festival has been presented. As in the past, this weeklong program for high school and college-aged musicians of concerts, workshops, and intensive study of the chamber music repertoire is free and open to the public.
“We’re being very careful and keeping it a little smaller than usual, with 30 students participating this year,” says pianist and Steinway Artist Maria Asteriadou, on the music faculty at KU and artistic director of the festival since 2011. “It’s still an international festival, with four students this year from Chile.”
All concerts are performed by festival participants, both students and faculty, which consists of artist/teachers from KU and guest artists from various prestigious institutions.
A native of Greece, Asteriadou’s performances have taken her around the world, where she has appeared in recitals and as a soloist with orchestras in major concert halls throughout the United States, South America, Canada and Europe. An energetic educator, Asteriadou also teaches at the Manhattan School of Music and has been an artist-faculty member at many festivals across the country.
The festival’s focus this year is on strings and piano — not much call for wind instruments, which unfortunately suffered the most during the pandemic. Ensembles will be kept to six musicians or less to keep the performers safely distanced from each other. Asteriadou strongly encourages audience members to wear masks during the four indoor concerts at Schaeffer Auditorium.
Don’t care to wear a mask but still want to hear live music? No problem! Check out the two outdoor concerts, performed by Festival students and faculty, on the North Lawn behind Schaeffer Auditorium. The program at 7:30 p.m. July 6 features works by Hayden, Dvorak, Bruch, and American standards. On 7:30 p.m. July 8 the program features music by Vivaldi, Beethoven, Dvorak, Schullhoff, Gliere, and Piazzolla.
“Even though we want to attract a live audience, we will also be livestreaming the concerts as well,” says Asteriadou. To view the concerts online, visit: youtube.com/user/KutztownUnivMusic/videos?view=57
The opening concert, which kicks off the festival 7:30 p.m. July 5 at Schaeffer Auditorium, is sure to be an exciting affair. Performed by festival faculty, it opens with the Schumann/Busoni “Abendlied” for clarinet and string quartet. Schumann wrote the piece in 1848 for his children so that they may play it, four-hands, at the piano. Thirty-two years later, a teenage Ferruccio Busoni arranged the piece for clarinet and strings as a gift for his clarinetist father. The clarinetist is KU faculty member Aileen Razey.
For Alfredo Casella’s colorful “Sicilienne et Burlesque” for flute and piano, pianist Maria Asteriadou will be joined by flutist and KU faculty member Janet Axelrod. Violinist Kurt Nikkanen, music professor at KU and Concertmaster of the New York City Ballet Orchestra, will join noted Chilean bassist Manuel Figueroa in a lively tango by Astor Piazzolla. Wrapping up the program will be Brahms’ magnificent Piano Quintet in F Minor, Op. 34.
Also featured in the performances are violist Amadi Azikiwe, music director of the Harlem Symphony Orchestra, cellist Patrick Jee of the New York Philharmonic, and violinist Peter Isaacson, director of the Kutztown University Orchestra and assistant professor of violin.
Workshops during the festival, like the concerts, are free and open to the public. Of particular interest to both musicians and non-musicians will be John Thomas Dodson’s sessions on “Releasing the Artist within You” at 1 p.m. July 5 in the Georgian Room of Old Main and July 7.
Dodson, music director of the Lexington Bach Festival and frequent guest conductor of numerous orchestras statewide and abroad, will be speaking about how to conquer anxiety and deal with issues of preparing oneself for the stage. That’s a relevant topic, especially since the COVID pandemic halted live performances for over a year.
Closing the Festival at 7:30 p.m. on July 10 at Schaeffer Auditorium will be a grand finale program featuring festival students performing works by Mozart, Schubert, Mendelssohn, Glinka, Reinecke, Lachner, and Enescu.
A complete listing of concerts, workshops, and events can be found on the Festival website.