Written by James Carder
The 2022 Chesapeake Chamber Music Festival will be held at the Ebenezer Theater (17 S. Washington St., Easton, MD) from June 10th to June 18th. The Festival’s six concerts will feature 18 performances, each conceived around “artful dialogues” among the musicians and composers over the centuries. As Chesapeake Music Executive Director Don Buxton stated, “Given the stresses of the ongoing pandemic, the Festival’s program hopes to offer the calm, beauty, and humanity that especially chamber music can communicate between musicians and audiences.”
Long-time Festival participants will be back – including Festival Artistic Directors, cellist Marcy Rosen, and violinist Catherine Cho, as well as clarinetist J. Lawrie Bloom, pianist Ieva Jokubaviciute, flutist Tara Helen O’Connor, oboist Peggy Pearson, and violinist/violist brothers Todd and Daniel Phillips. Completing the roster will be cellist Peter Stumpf, violinist Carmit Zori, violinist Jennifer Liu, and violist Maiya Papach. Of special note is the appearance of Metropolitan Opera star, mezzo-soprano Jennifer Johnson Cano, who will open the first week’s three concerts performing arias from Johann Sebastian Bach cantatas. Cano will also present two songs by Johannes Brahms (for voice, viola, and piano), Ernest Chausson’s poignant Chanson Perpétuelle, and Maurice Ravel’s three exotic Chansons madécasses (“Songs of Madagascar”).
As is customary, the Chesapeake Chamber Music Festival program will feature several well-loved chamber ensemble pieces, including a trio for flute, cello, and piano by Franz Joseph Haydn, four works by Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart, a string quintet by Johannes Brahms, and a string sextet by Antonín Dvořák. Several early modern tonal pieces are on the program. Samuel Coleridge-Taylor and Amy Beach, two outstanding American composers, are represented with a clarinet quintet and a piano quintet respectively. The French composer Édouard Destenay’s extremely virtuosic trio for oboe, clarinet, and piano will also be featured. A brilliant contemporary work, John Harbison’s Six American Painters, will help bring the Festival to a dazzling conclusion. Based on six paintings that Harbison viewed at the Metropolitan Museum in New York, the work was originally written for flute and strings. Harbison recast the work for oboe and strings for his long-time student and friend, oboist Peggy Pearson.
As in past years, the winners of the 10th International Chesapeake Chamber Music Competition for Young Professionals will perform on June 17th.
Program selections are subject to change. For further details on the 2022 Chesapeake Chamber Music Festival and to purchase tickets, visit https://chesapeakemusic.org/.
2022 Chesapeake Chamber Music Festival Schedule – Ebenezer Theater, Easton, MD
June 10, 7:30 p.m. Opening Extravaganza!
June 11, 7:30 p.m. From Bach to Brahms
June 12, 5:30 p.m. Artful Dialogues
June 16, 5:30 p.m. Mozart and More
June 17, 7:30 p.m. Chesapeake Chamber Music Competition Winners
June 18, 7:30 p.m. Festival Finale
June 8 and 15, 10 a.m. Free! Open Rehearsals
