Marrowstone festival begins today on campus
The Marrowstone Summer Music Festival begins its six-concert series tonight in the Performing Arts Center at Western Washington University.
Western Associate Professor of Music and internationally-acclaimed cellist John Friesen will be the featured soloist at Saturday’s chamber orchestra concert. Friesen will perform Tchaikovsky’s Variations on a Rococo Theme on a program that also includes masterworks by Beethoven, Prokofiev and Brahms.
The festival also features a world-premiere chamber opera in partnership with Seattle Opera on Aug. 1. Other repertoire selections include Bernstein's Symphonic Dances from West Side Story, Berlioz's Symphonie Fantastique, Smetana's The Moldau, Grieg's Peer Gynt and Prokofiev's Classical Symphony and Love for Three Oranges.
The Festival runs from July 25 to Aug. 4.
Many of the country's top classical musicians come to Bellingham to serve as faculty in the Marrowstone Summer Music Program. They work intensively all week with the students to prepare for the performances as well as perform themselves in the faculty chamber music concerts. Returning faculty include Dale Clevenger, Diana Gannett, Ron Patterson and Walter Grey. Marrowstone also welcomes several new artists: Hal Grossman, violin, of the University of Oklahoma; John Friesen, cello, of Western Washington University; Roger Cole, oboe, of the University of British Columbia; and Jeffrey Zook, flute, of the Detroit Symphony Orchestra.
Week One:
Thursday, July 25 at 7:30 pm - Faculty Chamber Music
Selections from the classical, romantic and contemporary repertoires, including Haydn's Divertimento in C and Bartok's Contrasts for Clarinet, Violin and Piano
Performed by Marrowstone's internationally acclaimed artist-faculty
Saturday, July 27 at 7:30 pm - Chamber Orchestra
Beethoven: Overture to Egmont
Prokofiev: Classical Symphony
Brahms: Variations on a Theme by Haydn
Tchaikovsky: Variations on a Rococo Theme
John Friesen, cello soloist
Sunday, July 28 at 3:00 pm - Festival Orchestras
Márquez: Danzón. No. 2
Prokofiev: The Love for Three Oranges Symphonic Suite
Liszt: Les Preludes
Bernstein: Symphonic Dances to West Side Story
Strauss: Suite from Der Rosenkavalier
Week Two:
Thursday, August 1 at 7:30 pm - Seattle Opera @ Marrowstone
The Seattle Youth Symphony Orchestras has partnered with the Seattle Opera throughout 2013 to premiere a cycle of three original environmentally-themed operas by Eric Banks (composer) and Irene Keliher (librettist). The operas include: The Heron and the Salmon Girl, Rushing Upriver and the world premiere of Every River Has Its People.
Saturday, August 3 at 7:30 pm - Faculty Chamber Music
Marrowstone's distinguished artist-faculty come together for a virtuoso performance featuring Maurice Duruflé's evocative Prelude Recitatif e Variations and Alexander Borodin's lushly romantic String Quintet in F minor.
Sunday, August 4 at 3:00 pm - Festival Orchestras
Grieg: Suite from Peer Gynt
Smetana: The Moldau
Bizet: Suite from Carmen
Berlioz: Symphonie Fantastique
Tickets are available at Village Books in Fairhaven, Holly Street Community Food Co-op and the WWU Box Office. Call (360) 650-6146 or go online to www.tickets.wwu.edu.
Since 1943, the Marrowstone Music Festival has been the premiere orchestral training program of the Pacific Northwest. Internationally acclaimed faculty artists work directly with talented students from all over the United States to present outstanding performances of orchestral and chamber music in the city of Bellingham each summer. The Marrowstone Music Festival is operated by Seattle Youth Symphony Orchestras.
Founded in 1942, is the United States' largest youth orchestra training program, providing high quality, long-term, direct involvement in the study and performance of music to almost 1700 students annually. One of Seattle's oldest and most respected cultural institutions, SYSO provides life changing musical experiences for talented students in the Pacific Northwest, regardless of their financial resources. SYSO helps students develop their relationship to great music, expand their capacity for self discipline and focus, learn the value of community and teamwork, and continuously acquire new musical skills with professional artist teachers. SYSO alumni play in every major orchestra in the United States and hold leadership positions in the major orchestras and opera companies of Seattle, San Francisco, Los Angeles, Houston, Chicago, Cleveland, Boston, Minneapolis, Philadelphia, and New York. They also perform in the leading ensembles of London, Paris, Amsterdam, Berlin, Milan, Hong Kong and Tokyo.
For information about Marrowstone, please email marrowstone@syso.org or visit our website at www.marrowstone.org or call (206) 362-2300.
