Techne Music Festival brings renowned performers to Bethlehem
Seven years ago, a handful of young music students, mostly from the Lehigh Valley area, got together for an ambitious program focusing on innovative instruction for string ensembles. The event was the Techne Music Festival, a five-day program offering master classes with world-renowned soloists, seminars and concerts, all free and open to the public.
The festival, which takes place at Moravian College in Bethlehem, began Wednesday and runs through Sunday, when it culminates in a free concert at Peter Hall. The concert will include works by Beethoven, Bartok, Dvorak and Mendelssohn performed by Techne faculty members, and close with Brahms’ Piano Quintet in F Minor, Op. 34, featuring special guest faculty members Todd Phillips, concertmaster of the Orpheus Chamber Orchestra, and pianist Charles Abramovic, Head of Piano at Temple University.
This year’s faculty includes violinist Timothy Schwarz, Techne founder and director, and violist Sheila Browne and cellist Lawrence Stomberg, both on the faculty of the University of Delaware. Schwarz, head of strings and assistant professor of violin and viola at Rowan University in Glassboro, New Jersey, was formerly an assistant professor at Kutztown University, where he conducted the Kutztown University Orchestra and taught violin and viola.
Of special interest to violinists this week will be a violin master class presented by Todd Phillips 2 p.m. Saturday at Peter Hall. In addition to being the concertmaster for Orpheus, Phillips is a founding member of the Orion String Quartet and professor at the Manhattan School of Music.
Since making his solo debut with the Pittsburgh Symphony at the age of 13, Phillips has appeared with numerous orchestras throughout the United States, Europe and Japan. He made his Carnegie Hall debut in 1982 with the New York String Orchestra and conductor Alexander
Schneider. Return engagements at Carnegie Hall soon followed, as well as solo performances in Avery Fisher Hall, Alice Tully Hall, the Kennedy Center in Washington, D.C., Boston Symphony Hall, and the Frankfurt Opera House.
Charles Abramovic has won critical acclaim for his international performances as a soloist, chamber musician, and collaborator with leading instrumentalists and singers. On the music faculty of Temple University since 1988, Abramovic made his solo orchestral debut at the age of
14, also with the Pittsburgh Symphony. Since then he has appeared as soloist with numerous orchestras, including the Baltimore Symphony, the Colorado Philharmonic, the Florida Philharmonic, and the Nebraska Chamber Orchestra. He has given solo recitals throughout the United States, France and Yugoslavia, and has appeared at major international music festivals.
Students who attend Techne come from top conservatories and music schools throughout the United States, including the Juilliard School, Eastman School of Music, Rowan University, Peabody Conservatory, University of Maryland, and Temple University. This year’s enrollment also includes high school students from Moravian Academy, Exeter High School, North Pocono High School, and Parkland High School.
Techne Music Festival, Wednesday, June 12 through Sunday, June 16, Peter Hall, Moravian College, 1200 Main St., Bethlehem. Closing concert 3 p.m. Sunday, June 16, at Peter Hall. Admission to all events is free and open to the public. 215-880-5869, www.technemusic.com
Met Live in HD presents Gounod’s ‘Roméo et Juliette’
The Metropolitan Opera Summer Encore Series begins at Miller Symphony Hall in Allentown Wednesday, June 19 with “Roméo et Juliette,” Charles Gounod’s setting of Shakespeare’s timeless tale of star-crossed lovers. The performance, originally simulcast Jan. 21, 2017, features Diana Damrau as Juliette, Vittorio Grigolo as Romeo, Virginie Verrez as Stéphano, Elliot Moadore as Mercutio, and Mikhail Petrenko as Friar Laurent. Gianandrea Noseda conducts.
During the Renaissance, Italy was a land of many small city-states in constant warfare with one another, but at the same time, it was the site of an astounding explosion of art and science. Shakespeare set his story in Renaissance Verona, a beautiful but dangerous world where poetry or violence might erupt at any moment. In the Met’s production, Tony Award-winning director
Bartlett Sher updates the action to the 18th century.
When Damrau and Grigolo starred opposite each other in “Manon” at the Met in 2015, the New York Times noted that “the temperature rises nearly to boiling every time Damrau and Grigolo are on stage together.” Now they’re back as opera’s classic lovers in Gounod’s lush Shakespeare adaptation, so that chemistry should sizzle once more.
Over the centuries, Shakespeare’s “Romeo and Juliet” has inspired all kinds of