A Cornucopia of Classical Music
Lovers of classical music have a lot to choose from this season, starting on June 7 at 4:30 p.m. with a kick-off chamber music workshop concert at the Perlman Music Program’s Clark Arts Center on Shelter Island.
Merry Peckham, an acclaimed cellist, will direct the workshop, which will present extraordinary young instrumentalists chosen for the summer program from around the world. The offerings will include master classes, “Classical Collaborations,” instrumental and and chorus concerts at various East End locations, and conclude in mid-August with a weekend of masterworks.
The first concerts in the Classical Collaborations series will take place on June 13 at 8 p.m. at the Jewish Center of the Hamptons and June 14 at 4:30 p.m. at the Levitas Center for the Arts at the Southampton Cultural Center. In both concerts, Merry Peckham, Paul Katz, Roger Tapping, Don Weilerstein, and Vivian Hornik-Weilerstein, along with Itzhak Perlman, the famed violinist who with his wife, Toby Perlman, founded the summer institution, will be joined by young artists.
Among other key events is an alumni recital featuring SuJin Lee, a cellist and recent graduate of the New England Conservatory, on June 26 at 7:30 p.m. Ms. Lee has performed throughout the United States and Europe.
The program’s master teachers will present a free concert on July 3 at 7:30 p.m., and its family concert, a community favorite, will occur on July 12 at 11:30 a.m.
Pianofest, another longtime institution here, is run by the classical pianist and teacher Paul Schenly and offers concentrated study to a select group of future stars who are selected by audition. During two four-week sessions 14 students will present 14 concerts in East Hampton, Southampton, and Brookhaven, starting on June 22 with a 5:30 program at the Levitas Center for the Arts. The concerts will run through Aug. 10.
The Choral Society of the Hamptons will present its summer concert on June 27 at 7 p.m. at the Parish Hall of Most Holy Trinity Catholic Church in East Hampton. Mark Mangini will conduct “The Creation,” Franz Joseph Haydn’s musical representation of the creation of the world as described in the Book of Genesis and Milton’s “Paradise Lost.”
A work dominated by arias as well as choruses, “The Creation” contains some of the most experimental music of its time. The Greenwich Village Chamber Singers will join the choral society, creating a chorus of some 100 voices who will be accompanied by a 30-piece orchestra.
The choral society’s summer benefit will follow at the new branch of Bridgehampton’s Osteria Salina in East Hampton. Benefit tickets, which include reserved seating at the concert, start at $300.
The Bridgehampton Chamber Music Festival will open its 32nd season on July 29 with “Enchanté,” a free outdoor concert of French music on the grounds of the Bridgehampton Museum. Guests can bring blankets and picnics along for the concert, which will begin at 6:30 p.m. and include compositions by Roussel, Saint-Saens, Debussy, Ravel, and Fauré.
Noteworthy components of this summer’s program are a new work by Mohammed Fairouz, which commemorates the 50th anniversary of the Selma-to-Montgomery marches, the world premiere of “Rounds for Robin,” a new piece by the Pulitzer Prize-winning composer Kevin Puts, inspired by Robin Williams, and Stravinsky’s “A Soldier’s Tale,” which will be narrated by Roger Waters, the co-founder of Pink Floyd.
The festival’s annual benefit will occur on Aug. 1 at the Atlantic Golf Club in Bridgehampton. “A Night That Will Move You” will celebrate “music that dances” with pieces by Diego Ortiz, Corelli, Leclair, Matteis, Pixinguinha, Bach, and Piazzolla. Tickets for the evening, which the festival promises will include “great music, food, wine, and good cheer,” start at $1,500.
Most of the festival’s programs will take place at the Bridgehampton Presbyterian Church, which is renowned for its acoustics, but “Deep Rivers,” which will include the Fairouz work as well as music by Bernstein, Copland, and Gershwin, will be at the Parrish Art Museum in Water Mill on Aug. 10, and the William Brian Little Concert, featuring “A Soldier’s Tale,” will take place at a benefit performance in the sculpture garden at Channing Daughters Winery in Bridgehampton on Aug. 14.
Music for Montauk, which ran from 1991 until the death of Ruth Widder, who founded the free series with William Akin, was without a new guiding force until Lilah Gosman, a Montauk native and vocalist, and her husband, Milos Repicky, a conductor and pianist, took it over 18 months ago.
With a new board of directors, the latest incarnation took its first step on May 9 with a spring concert at the Montauk School. The organization has now announced its summer series, five concerts that will take place from Aug. 11 through Aug. 15 at several Montauk locations.
The first program will be a chamber music concert at the Montauk Lighthouse. The Aug. 12 program is billed as a garden concert, with music for strings, guitar, and voice. A tango concert featuring a piano, bass, and bandoneon trio, will take place on Aug. 13. Venues for the latter two programs were not set by press time.
Third House, in Montauk County Park, will be the site of a circus-themed concert on Aug. 14, with classical music interpreted in a Big Top setting. The music will include Copland and Dvorak. An Aug. 15 program will also take place at Third House.
For those who like ferries, the Shelter Island Friends of Music has three concerts planned, starting on June 6 with an acclaimed violinist and continuing on July 5 with a pianist and on Sept. 6 with the Lark Quartet.
In addition, the Eroica Trio will take the stage at the John Drew Theater of Guild Hall on July 24, presenting a new work by Bruce Wolosoff of Shelter Isand. And the Montauk and Rogers Memorial Libraries also offer recitals by classical musicians.
More information on all programs is available on the organizations’ websites.