Musings

By all accounts, I think I can report that summer 2023, our twenty-second season, was a smashing success.

It was as if I were witnessing the birth of a new composition in real time, not unlike a musical version of watching Harry Potter step out from behind the Cloak of Invisibility. 

For the final concert of Summer 2023 with the world premiere based on Rhina's poem you can pay what you want - one dollar, one hundred dollars.

Arnold Schoenberg’s Second String Quartet is widely considered to be a visionary work.

Shostakovich’s late quartets provide one of the most intimate confessionals of personal feelings ever vouchsafed by a composer in his music.

It is the anticipation of knowing what’s coming that might be classical music’s most sublime pleasure.

Since its inception, NCMF has been brought to life by volunteers. The time has come for more volunteers to help. Perhaps you?

In 1772, the rationalism of the Age of Enlightenment ran head-on into early romanticism.

If the concerto represents the individual against massed forces, unaccompanied works feel like an internalization of this struggle within an individual.

Thanks to an older kid in my orchestra back in 1982, I attended a chamber music camp in Vermont.

 "Looking back," Paul told me, “I would not have lived the same life without all this music because it is so important to me.”

If Mozart drove a car, what kind of car would he have? (One thinks about such things when sitting on a transcontinental flight.)

One of the most original composers of the 20th Century, Janáček had a hot-blooded disposition and a pronounced appetite for the opposite sex.

After traveling through Belgium, Holland, Germany, and Switzerland, we finally crossed the Alps into Italy

Musicians are itinerant; you go where the work is.

Have you ever wondered how exactly we keep this thing running? And...some great news!

Musicians travel - a lot - so I asked this summer’s artists to list a favorite place or two in the world.

This winter, I’ve been heading out on pre-dawn rides to train for what was supposed to be a slightly insane three-day, 400-mile bicycle trip

For 21 years, the Newburyport Chamber Music Festival has worked to fulfill its vision of community-based chamber music concerts and events with world-class artists

I’m delighted to announce we have a new board member, Maryellen Moreland.

The feedback from NCMF Winter Baroque has been rolling in and is overwhelmingly positive.

In January of 2021, I shared the process of how my quartet learned a Beethoven string quartet

Thomas Baltzar’s jewel of a piece, his Prelude, packs more in two minutes than some composers stuff into an entire symphony.

What is the difference between a modern and "historic" cello and why use one over another?

I’ve returned to the tried and true holiday formula of not programming anything composed after 1750.