{"id":76796,"date":"2021-07-08T16:00:17","date_gmt":"2021-07-08T16:00:17","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.uri.edu\/news\/?p=76796"},"modified":"2021-07-08T16:00:19","modified_gmt":"2021-07-08T16:00:19","slug":"kingston-chamber-music-festival-returns-with-in-person-series-of-concerts","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.uri.edu\/news\/2021\/07\/kingston-chamber-music-festival-returns-with-in-person-series-of-concerts\/","title":{"rendered":"Kingston Chamber Music Festival returns with in-person series of concerts"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

Sold-out festival will be available to view free online<\/em><\/h2>\n\n\n\n

KINGSTON, R.I. \u2013 July 8, 2021 \u2013 After a year away, Kingston Chamber Music Festival artistic director Natalie Zhu is overjoyed to be bringing the popular festival back to its home in the 溏心vlog免费B站\u2019s Concert Hall in the Fine Arts Center.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Last year\u2019s series of concerts, a celebration of Beethoven\u2019s 250th<\/sup> birthday, were recorded in Philadelphia at the German Society\u2019s Barthelme Hall because of the pandemic and only available to festival fans online through the festival\u2019s website.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

This summer, the festival<\/a> marks its 33rd<\/sup> season with five concerts over nine days that will finally reunite musicians and fans. The festival opens Saturday, July 24, at 7:30 p.m. with a concert featuring the works of Debussy, Rota, Schubert and Korngold.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cThe feeling is a mixture of relief, joy and excitement, tempered with just a hint of caution,\u201d said Zhu in an email interview. \u201cNo matter how many times you listen to a piece of music, nothing could ever compare to hearing it live. Live concerts are a whole different experience than watching on a screen. There are feelings that go along with each phase of a concert: the before, the during and the after. There\u2019s a connection that happens between the musicians and the audience. They are sharing a moment, and that\u2019s at the heart of any live musical performance. To witness the ecosystem of live music start to reemerge would be deeply powerful and very moving.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The excitement is matched by Kingston Chamber fans. The five concerts, with limited seating of 150 per show, sold out quickly after tickets went on sale June 14. (If you missed out, don\u2019t worry\u2014the entire festival will be available free online between Sept. 6 and Oct. 6 at the festival\u2019s website<\/a>.)<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\"Kingston
Musicians perform during the 2019 Kingston Chamber Music Festival in the 溏心vlog免费B站\u2019s Concert Hall.
(Courtesy of the Kingston Chamber Music Festival)<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n

While the concerts are in-person, COVID-19 safety precautions will be closely followed. Musicians have been vaccinated and will be tested prior to the concert dates. Audience members will have to physically distance and wear face coverings; seats have been assigned to make contact tracing easier, if necessary.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The festival\u2019s featured musicians will include about a dozen world-class performers, many of whom have made Kingston a regular stop each summer: violinists Ayano Ninomiya, Zach DePue, and Noah Geller; cellists Clancy Newman and Raman Ramakrishnan; and pianists Stewart Goodyear and Zhu, who has performed annually at the festival since 2004. Newcomers this summer are Beomjae Kim, a flutist who has performed with the New York Philharmonic and Korean Symphony Orchestra, and Christine Grossman, the former principal violist with the Kansas City Symphony.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

In arranging the festival\u2019s programming, Zhu, who is in her 13th<\/sup> year as artistic director, chose to start with fun themes, building to more serious and emotional works, and finishing with \u201ca spirited and more festive\u201d feel in the final night.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cMusic is a core part of the human experience,\u201d said Zhu. \u201cAfter all the things that happened in the year of 2020, I simply wanted to find programs which could reflect our feelings and comfort our souls.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The festival\u2019s second concert on Sunday, July 25, at 4 p.m. will focus on equality and representation, showcasing the works of female composers, who are frequently underrepresented. The night will feature the works of Amy Beach, the first successful American woman composer; Florence B. Price, the first African-American woman to have a composition performed by a major orchestra; and contemporary composer Tina Davidson.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Davidson\u2019s \u201cLEAP,\u201d which was composed for Zhu and the festival through a commission from Shoko Nioka, opens the night. \u201cTina started writing \u2018LEAP\u2019 in March 2020, just before the world shut down,\u201d Zhu said. \u201cShe adapted her concept to the reality of the time. In the first movement, the world is \u2018tipping\u2019 and gravity is not holding. In the second movement, we have been in the pandemic for some time and there is a return of energy and a leap of faith, but also a leap into the unknown.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

On Wednesday, July 28, at 7:30 p.m., \u201cThe Nightingale\u2019s Sonata,\u201d a narrated concert of music, words and photographs based on the book by Thomas Wolf, will take the stage, with Zhu on piano and Ninomiya on violin. \u201cSonata\u201d tells the story of Wolf\u2019s famous grandmother, legendary violinist Lea Luboshutz.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Coincidentally, Zhu has a connection to the work. A character in the book is Wolf\u2019s brother Andrew, a pianist who died of a brain tumor at age 42. Colleagues, family and friends honored him by endowing the Andrew Wolf Chamber Music Award.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cI am delighted to be the pianist for this program as I was the 2003 winner of the award,\u201d Zhu said. \u201cAyano Ninomiya and I have only performed in larger ensembles and this will mark our first duo performance together. I am a big fan of Ayano\u2019s playing, which is deeply communicative and compelling.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

On Saturday, July 31, at 7:30 p.m., the festival will present a night of all-time favorites\u2014works by Mozart, Beethoven, and Borodin. And on Sunday, Aug. 1, the series wraps up with \u201cSpirit of Hungary,\u201d including Bartok\u2019s \u201cRomanian Folk Dances for Violin and Piano\u201d and compositions by Kodaly and Brahms.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cAfter the long and challenging year that we have experienced, I am really looking forward to encountering familiar and new faces and to hearing music resounding again at 溏心vlog免费B站\u2019s  Fine Art Center,\u201d said Zhu. \u201cOur musicians can return to what they love the most\u2014sharing great music with one another and with all of us.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Sold-out festival will be available to view free online KINGSTON, R.I. \u2013 July 8, 2021 \u2013 After a year away, Kingston Chamber Music Festival artistic director Natalie Zhu is overjoyed to be bringing the popular festival back to its home in the 溏心vlog免费B站\u2019s Concert Hall in the Fine Arts Center. Last year\u2019s […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":20,"featured_media":76799,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":"","_links_to":"","_links_to_target":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-76796","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-archives"],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.uri.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/76796","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.uri.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.uri.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.uri.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/20"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.uri.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=76796"}],"version-history":[{"count":9,"href":"https:\/\/www.uri.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/76796\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":76911,"href":"https:\/\/www.uri.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/76796\/revisions\/76911"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.uri.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/76799"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.uri.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=76796"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.uri.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=76796"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.uri.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=76796"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}