Dear Friend,
 
Summer's here and Opening Night at the Festival is just 18 days away.

Opening Night features classical guitarist Jason Vieaux, Festival artistic director and flutist Linda Chesis, violinist Nadir Khashimov, violist Daniel Lee, and cellist Eric Han.  

 

The program includes an early 19th century quartet for guitar and string trio by the French classical guitarist and composer Francois de Fossa, and two works by Astor Piazzolla, who created tango nuevo, a fusion of traditional tango, classical music and jazz.      

 

You can listen to a recording  of Piazzolla's Oblivion by Jason, Nadir and Eric on the music player on the Festival's web site, CooperstownMusicFest.org 

 

The concert also features works by contemporary composers.  Zhou Tian wrote Red Trees, Wrinkled Cliffs in 2011. His works have been performed at Carnegie Hall, the Kennedy Center, Lincoln Center and the National Centre for the Performing Arts (Beijing). Mr. Zhou is an assistant professor of music at Colgate University.  

 

Jason and Linda also will perform the Grammy-nominated Mountain Songs by Robert Beaser. Mr. Beaser's opera The Food of Love was performed at Glimmerglass Opera in 1999. He is currently artistic director of the American Composers Orchestra.

 

"It's quite an honor to play the opening concert for the Cooperstown Music Festival," says Jason Vieaux. "It will be great to revisit the Beaser Mountain Songs in public, this time with the festival organizer, flutist Linda Chesis. I'm also bringing a very talented string trio from Curtis to perform some of the pieces we did last March, including the very new Zhou Tian quartet Red Trees, Wrinkled Cliffs."


About Jason Vieaux

Jason Vieaux is expanding the definition of what it means to be a classical guitarist and changing the face of guitar repertoire. Recent highlights include solo performances at Lincoln Center, Spivey Hall, the Chautauqua Festival, and a return to Music@Menlo. In 2011, Jason Vieaux co-founded The Curtis Institute of Music Guitar Department with guitarist David Starobin, and this month launched an online music school, Classical Guitar with Jason Vieaux, through ArtistWorks. He has 12 commercially successful CDs, with more to come.

 

Find out more about Jason Vieaux--including why he doesn't have an Ipod, what he would be if he wasn't playing guitar ( a baseball player, among other things)--in this casual interview with the Chamber Music Society of Lincoln Center, where he performed in February.  

 

 

 

OPENING NIGHT
Jason Vieaux, guitar; Linda Chesis, flute; & String Trio 

Piazzolla Oblivion (arr. Labro) 

 

The Festival runs through August 24. Full schedule is on our website.