PUTNEY — Yellow Barn’s 57th summer season continues July 16-18 with three performances and violinist Donald Weilerstein’s annual masterclass in the Big Barn. This week also brings the first pre-concert talks of the season on Thursday and Saturday, led by Artistic Director Seth Knopp.
On Thursday, Yellow Barn celebrates founder David Wells’s birthday with a program that includes tributes to him as a cellist, including a performance of Bach’s third suite for solo cello shared by four Yellow Barn cellists and Ana Sokolovic’s Concerto for Bassoon and Low Strings. The program also includes Lei Liang’s “Gobi Canticle” for violin and cello. “Gobi Canticle alludes to various genres of Mongolian music that include the long-chant, as well as the music of dance and shaman rituals,” Liang says in the announcement. Love for words is integral to the program, which begins with Rzewski’s “To The Earth” for speaking percussionist and “Forever & Sunsmell” by John Cage, based on poetry by e.e. cummings.
Thursday Festival Concerts, which are free in memory of Putney resident and audience member Eva Mondon, are Yellow Barn’s “side-by-side” nights. In the Big Barn, musicians have their own loft seating for concerts, but on Thursdays a portion sit among audience members on the floor, and in turn, a portion of audience members share the loft side by side with musicians, giving everyone an opportunity to listen from a different perspective, with different listening companions.
Folk songs and literary texts reappear on Friday, with Leoš Janácek’s “Pohadka” (“Fairy Tales”), a work based on Shakespeare’s “The Tempest” by Thomas Adès, and Dvořák’s “Cypresses,” based on Czech love songs. The program also includes Akira Miyoshi’s work for flute, clarinet, percussion, marimba and double bass.
Following Donald Weilerstein’s morning masterclass, Week Two concludes on Saturday night with a sonata by J.S. Bach for violin and piano, Haydn’s String Quartet in B Minor, Op.64 No.2, and Mozart’s Viola Quintet. The Bach sonata and Mozart viola quintet are part of a festival-long exploration of period playing, in which the musicians experiment with strings and bows typical of the time. As one violinist explained, “These old tools make a softer, clearer sound. It feels like using a classic wooden tennis racket instead of a modern one.”
Performances start at 7:30 p.m. at the Big Barn on Main Street. Pre-concert talks on Thursday and Saturday take place at 6:30 p.m. outside the Big Barn. Nicknamed “Patio Noise” for the boisterous conversations that take place between audience members and musicians during intermission at Yellow Barn concerts, pre-concert talks are led by Artistic Director Seth Knopp and musicians from the evening’s performance.
Yellow Barn’s 57th summer festival continues through Aug. 8, with over 20 concerts and other events. Its “Pay What You Can” program makes a certain number of reduced-priced tickets available for each concert. Full program details are available online at www.yellowbarn.org.
Tickets can be purchased or reserved online or by calling 802-387-6637. Festival Concerts are generally two to two and a half hours in length, including an intermission with ice cream and blueberries for all to enjoy.
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