Hear the Shanghai String Quartet

FALLS VILLAGE — Music lovers in the tristate area will receive a major cultural treat this summer, according to a release from Music Mountain. The world-renowned Shanghai String Quartet will perform six concerts featuring the full 16 Beethoven quartets — “The Beethoven Cycle” at Music Mountain in Falls Village.

Widely considered as the ultimate challenge for the string quartet, and not performed in this area in decades, Music Mountain’s Artistic Director, Oskar Espina-Ruiz has created a free special preview lecture/presentation about the cycle which will be hosted at two local libraries.

The music talk tour lectures will be at the Hotchkiss Library, 10 Upper Main St, Sharon, on Saturday at 4 p.m., and the Pine Plains Free Library, 7775 South Main St., Pine Plains, N.Y., on April 20 at 7 p.m.

The presentations are intended for all levels of music enthusiasts and will include short audio samples to describe how Beethoven’s 16 string quartets cover a groundbreaking transformation in music, both within the style of the composer himself, as well as within the process that paved the way from the Classical to the Romantic era in music.

Oskar Espina-Ruiz, Doctor of Musical Arts, serves as artistic director of Music Mountain since the fall of 2016. He is an international concert clarinetist, artist-faculty at the University of North Carolina School of the Arts and artistic director of the Treetops Chamber Music Society, while keeping a busy concert schedule.