News

You can’t eat it; it  won’t keep you warm in winter - does music matter? One can spot A.I. generated codswallop such as “Making Lives Richer with Classical Music!!” but what does that really mean?

There are studies about how art can affect you cognitively, how it makes people happy, reduces stress, fires up dormant parts of the brain. A friend played Bach in a cancer ward and the nurse told her that requests for pain meds were halved during her visit. These things are important, but let’s be realistic - any attempt at a quantifiable justification for art’s existence is always going to be a bit of a stretch. An argument can be made (and I’ve made it) that music can take us all sorts of places we don’t go in day-to-day life, helping us to process, even color, major events. Victor Hugo said “Music expresses that which cannot be said and on which it is impossible to be silent.” Yes, yes, fine, but does all this still miss the point?

Maybe what’s important isn’t the music. Maybe it is the action of sitting in a concert or lecture or open rehearsal or Hausmusik with others. Choosing to connect in that joint activity, to participate in something bigger than yourself, a room full of people listening together, synchronizing emotions, no ego invested in your response, no judgement of your reactions. You spontaneously erupted in applause after the second movement of the Ravel quartet this summer - that wouldn’t have happened listening on your phone. The emotional effect of live music is amplified immeasurably by virtue of sharing this with other people.

Has it really been just two weeks since NCMF Summer 2024 wrapped up? It feels like we had two festivals’ worth, so much we crammed into thirteen days. A few moments stood out for me:

Teddy trying to run a rehearsal while his six-year-old daughter, Ginny, gives as good as she gets.
(TITO storytelling and music with puppets)

At the end of the Nachtmusik: sitting together in darkness with the wind sighing through the trees. Ravel’s string quartet: a rare, perfect piece of music. (Ravel String Quartet in F Major)Knocking the Schumann out of the park.(Schumann Piano Quintet in Eb Major, Opus 44)‍

The deep humanity of Schnittke’s journey.(Schnittke Piano Quintet)

The last movement of the Kurtág is a poignant gift to the listener and goes right to the heart. A meditation on loss, by the end we are given a glimpse of a future when we won’t be paralyzed by grief; life goes on.  
(Kurtág's “Officium Breve in Memoriam Andreae Szervánszky” for string quartet)

Lothar’s films and Elizabeth’s music transporting me to an eerie parallel universe.(“A Bookmobile for Dreamers” and “Rural Electrification” by Elizabeth Brown)

Patrick’s ultra-concentrated “Avian Microludes” for string quartet and theremin along with Jane’s irresistible paintings and Alfred’s on-the-money poems encapsulating the very best of what collaboration can be: each work enhancing the other, all while conveying the essence of twelve local birds. (And Alfred/Seagull screaming “More! More!”)
(Castillo's world premiere "Avian Microludes")

After the last concert, a friend said “you did it!” to which I responded “we did it.” And that’s no small thing.

David Yang, Artistic Director