The National Music Festival returns to Maryland’s Eastern Shore June 2 – 15 with 32 concerts and over 200 free open rehearsals in historic Chestertown.

Now in its ninth season, the Festival brings together world-class professional musicians — from major orchestras, chamber ensembles and conservatory faculties — and gifted student musicians on the verge of launching their careers. Apprentice musicians from throughout the United States and abroad attend tuition-free.

“For our audiences, the Festival enhances Chestertown’s already vibrant arts and entertainment scene,” said Caitlin Patton, the Festival’s executive director. “For our apprentice musicians, it’s a chance to play challenging music and receive expert coaching and career guidance from our top-notch mentors.”

New to the 2019 Festival is a program for apprentice singers — 14 in all — who will be coached by professional concert and opera singers, culminating in a “Heavenly Voices” concert on June 10 at Hotchkiss Recital Hall at Washington College. It will be led by Celine Mogielnicki, soprano, and Adrian Rosas, bass-baritone. Both were last heard locally as soloists in Mozart’s Requiem during last year’s NMF.

“The new vocal program allows us to expand our outreach to tomorrow’s stars and to present many more free performances,” added Richard Rosenberg, artistic director and principal conductor – who co-founded the festival with Patton, his wife. “Though the format for each season is essentially the same, the musical offerings are always fresh and engaging.”

Eight of this year’s events — including three symphony masterworks concerts, vocal recitals and pre-concert talks — will be at Washington College’s Gibson Center for the Arts. Other venues include The Mainstay in Rock Hall, local churches, Adkins Arboretum and Chestertown’s Fountain Park.

This year’s repertoire will include Rimsky-Korsakov’s evocative Scheherazade, Mahler’s mighty Symphony No. 1, “Titan”and Beethoven’s Mass in C featuring the Chester River Chorale and soloists and apprentices from the vocal program. Other highlights include H.K. Gruber’s “Frankenstein!!” Gershwin’s “Cuban Overture” and Brahms’ “Academic Festival Overture.” You can view the full schedule here https://nationalmusic.us/events-and-tickets/concert-schedules/.

For the second year, The New Bassoon Institute, June 1 – 8, will also be a part of the National Music Festival. Five leading American bassoon artists and teachers, members of the pioneering bassoon ensemble Dark in the Song, conduct a week-long workshop for up-and-coming young players on contemporary bassoon literature, performance and teaching techniques.

“It’s all-hands-on-deck when the Festival comes to town,” Patton said. Local residents volunteer to house the apprentices and mentors, civic organizations and churches keep them fueled with free snacks during rehearsal breaks.

“The town is gorgeous, the people are fantastic,” vocal mentor Adrian Rosas said recently in an interview, “the community and the people that were in the Festival…seemed to be having a great time taking part in the Festival as well.”

With programming geared toward all ages, there’s something to suit every musical taste – from a free instrument “petting zoo” where kids can try out different instruments – to impromptu performances nestled in nature among the native fauna at Adkins Arboretum in nearby Caroline County.

A $250 Festival Pass guarantees admission and preferred seating to all ticketed events, as well as special benefits including a souvenir Festival Guide and invitations to an exclusive pass-holders-only reception.

Pre-purchased passes and tickets will be held for pickup at the 2019 Festival. Single-ticket prices for concerts range from $10 to $20. And student tickets are available for all concerts at $5 each (please, bring children under 5 years old to an open rehearsal rather than a concert).

Rehearsal and performance schedules, individual tickets and season’s passes available on the website, www.nationalmusic.us.

Yoshiaki Horiguchi is no stranger to Chestertown. To this day, he fondly remembers it as the place he had his first “slow dance” with a girl while attending summer camp at Washington College as a middle schooler. Fast forward 10 years later, he would spend the next five summers as an apprentice double bass player with the National Music Festival. He’s also performed with the Chester River Chorale.

So when he returns April 28 to play a solo recital as part of NMF’s Resonance series at St. Paul’s Parish, Kent, he’ll feel right at home. Horiguchi – Yoshi to his friends – will be accompanied by pianist Soojeong Oh, a colleague at Peabody Conservatory in Baltimore, where he’s pursuing a Doctor of Musical Arts in bass performance and pedagogy. Their repertoire will range from Bach to jazz composer Chick Corea.

“I enjoy mixing genres and mixing styles and mixing audiences as well,” Horiguchi said by phone while driving to a recent gig in York, Pa. – a performance of Stravinsky’s “L’histoire du soldat” accompanied by a light show.

Horiguchi’s playing has been praised by The Baltimore Sun for its “dazzling display of dexterity and panache.” While classically trained, he is a self-described champion of “music accessibility.” (Horiguchi replaces cellist Gwen Krosnick, who was originally scheduled to perform but had to withdraw on short notice.)

His engagements have spanned a range of genres and venues, from concert halls with symphony orchestras to hip-hop clubs with the Baltimore Boom Bap Society, dance halls with The Hungry Monks Swing Band, and more. Horiguchi has taught with OrchKids, the Baltimore Symphony Orchestra’s program that works for social change through music. His Chestertown performance will lean more towards classical but also embrace contemporary concert pieces for double bass.

At first blush, the bass might seem an odd choice for a solo instrument. Not a lot of music has been written specifically for the largest of the orchestra’s string instruments (the one played standing up). But Horiguchi will showcase music from concertos written for double bass, music originally written for other instruments and even his own arrangement of a Corea’s “Spain,” a jazz classic.

On “Spain” Horiguchi will build a multi-layered performance using a loop pedal, an electronic device that allows him to lay track upon track recorded live and simultaneously accompany himself.

His program will include “Firesides for Solo Double Bass,” a contemporary work by Ledah Finck, a friend and Peabody colleague; a Bach cello suite and “Ode d’Espagne,” a flamenco guitar-inspired solo by Syrian-French bassist and composer François Rabbath.

Tickets for Horiguchi’s Resonance (formerly Kent Chamber Music) recital, April 28, 3 p.m. at St. Paul’s Parish Hall, 7579 Sandy Bottom Rd., are $20 and may be purchased online at https://nationalmusic.us/events-and-tickets/single-concert-tickets/. The concert is free for holders of 2019 National Music Festival Combination Passes. Student tickets are $5.

“I think music is just music,” Horiguchi said of his eclectic tastes. “Because the communicative power of music and the strength that it holds to bond two people together and bring people together is an incredible potential that music has, and I learned a lot of that from the National Musical Festival. It’s kind of my guiding light so far as how I carry forth in my musical career.”

The 2019 National Music Festival will run June 2 -15, for more information or to purchase tickets, please visit www.nationalmusic.us.

RES·O·NANCE /ˈrezənəns/ Noun: the quality in a sound of being deep, full, and reverberating … a quality of richness or variety.

Marshall and Patton at The Mainstay — sounds like a jam session of World War II generals.

Fear not. When Caitlin Patton and pianist Sammy Marshall join forces on March 29 at the popular Rock Hall venue, The Mainstay, it’ll be to make music, not war. The Chester River Chorale and the National Music Festival will share the proceeds of this benefit concert, which begins at 7:30 p.m.

“The two organizations work together very collaboratively and many music lovers in the community attend and support both,” Patton said. “So, it made sense to me to try to raise money for both of these organizations that I cherish so much.”

Patton’s Mainstay program will include Broadway songs, popular music, and tunes from the Great American Songbook – standards by the likes of Cole Porter, Kurt Weill, Stephen Sondheim, Hoagy Carmichael, and Jerome Kern. She’ll also include music made popular by Adele, Sarah McLachlan, and Reba McEntire, among others.

“It’s a huge honor for me to work with Sammy, and it took me a while to work up the courage to even ask him if he would do this concert with me,” Patton added. “I was beyond thrilled when he said yes!” Marshall, a recently retired U.S. Army Sergeant Major, was pianist for the Soldier’s Chorus for 12 years.

Patton is a woman of many talents: she plays violin and viola, teaches, sings, and raises dairy goats. As an arts administrator, she is cofounder and Executive Director of the National Music Festival here in Kent County.

The duo is a natural pairing because of their intersecting musical lives. For the past nine years, Marshall has been the accompanist for the Chorale, of which Patton is a member and Board President. Marshall is the Collaborative Piano Mentor for the National Music Festival, June 2-15.

“Doing a recital like this — especially with Sammy at the piano — is a bucket list item. I’ve never done anything like it,” Patton said.

Marshall said, “It’s been fun to take pieces that might be recorded with an orchestra, a big band, or a pop electronic band, and translate that to the bare bones of piano and voice. The music becomes more intimate and personal as we figure out how to present our journey to the audience. Perfect for a venue like The Mainstay.”

Patton added, “There will be funny songs, touching songs, sad songs, love songs, and even a couple of rather naughty songs.”

Marshall is comfortable in a wide range of musical styles, from church to swing. He is also the pianist for the Frederick Chorale, Columbia Pro Cantare, University of Maryland Baltimore County, and Music Director of the Halethorpe-Relay United Methodist Church.

“Caitlin and I are going to have such a great time on stage as we unwind and let loose,” Marshall said.

Tickets are $30 per person and are available at https://nationalmusic.us/getinvolved/special-events/. Advance purchase is encouraged, though tickets will also be available at the door. The concert begins at 7:30 p.m. on Friday, March 29.

More information about the National Music Festival can be found at www.nationalmusic.us, and more information about the Chester River Chorale at www.chesterriverchorale.org.

“If you stay ready, you don’t have to get ready,” says Karen Slack. It is wisdom that has served her well in a career as an opera singer. Perhaps never so much so as when she made her Metropolitan Opera debut 13 years ago.

The soprano will be featured in the National Music Festival’s next Resonance concert, Sunday, March 24, 3 p.m., at St. Paul’s Church, 7579 Sandy Bottom Rd., Chestertown. She’ll be accompanied by pianist Joseph Mechavich.

Just two years before Slack’s debut at the storied Metropolitan Opera House in New York, she had been a finalist in the Met’s National Council Auditions but hadn’t won. Still, a New York Times critic described her voice as “warmly expressive, especially in her vibrant top range.”

After she didn’t make the top-three cut, she figured her “career was over.” “But little did I know that God had another plan for me to step in on stage,” she said by phone recently from her home in Philadelphia.

That plan would play out two years later, in March 2006, when —as an understudy — she stepped into the spotlight after one marquee-name soprano failed to show up for rehearsals, and a second veteran singer bowed out due to illness.

Slack made her Met debut singing the title role is Giuseppe Verdi’s opera “Luisa Miller” in a performance that was broadcast live to an international radio audience. It’s an experience she recalls as “stressful” and “challenging, and yet “amazing” and “incredible.” Since then, her roles have included Serena in “Porgy and Bess,” the title role of Puccini’s “Tosca” and Sister Rose in contemporary composer Jake Heggie’s “Dead Man Walking.”

For her Chestertown recital, the soprano will perform songs and arias in English, French, German and Italian as well as traditional spirituals. The first half of her program will include music by Richard Strauss—one of her favorite composers—including “Morgen!” (Tomorrow) set to the words of a German love poem. In French, she’ll sing Maurice Ravel’s “Deux Chansons Hébraïques” (Two Hebrew Songs).

A song in English, by Heggie, has a particular connection to Slack and the tradition of recitals by classically trained singers. “Eleanor Roosevelt: Marian Anderson’s Mink Coat” is from a set of four songs called “Iconic Legacies: First Ladies at the Smithsonian.” Inspired by a museum artifact, it imagines Roosevelt’s reaction upon seeing the mink coat Anderson wore when she sang on the steps of the Lincoln Memorial in 1939, after being barred from performing at a segregated concert hall.

The spirituals Slack will sing at the end of her program are in part a tribute to Anderson —and singers like Leontyne Price after her —and a tradition for African-American opera singers’ recitals.

“I feel that the spiritual is America’s first music,” Slack said.“It’s before jazz; it’s the folk song of America, and I want everyone to know that this is our music as Americans, no matter what the color.

“I think to hear the spiritual in a concert performance with the grandness of the classically trained voice, and also being … of the black experience, I think that I have to share that with as many people as I can,” she added.

Tickets are $20 for adults and $5 for students with ID and children under 14. NMF 2019 Combination Pass holders are guaranteed admission to this and the final Resonance concert of the season, cellist Gwen Krosnick, April 28, at the same venue — and all ticketed events of the 2019 National Music Festival, June 2-15 (including more than 35 concerts ranging from small ensembles to symphony orchestra with chorus, plus 200 free open rehearsals).

For more information about the National Music Festival and Resonance, visit www.nationalmusic.us.

RES·O·NANCE /ˈrezənəns/ Noun: the quality in a sound of being deep, full, and reverberating … a quality of richness or variety.

The viola will emerge from the shadow of the violin, its smaller, higher-voiced sibling, when Miles Hoffman performs in Chestertown on Feb. 17 at 3 p.m. at St. Paul’s Church, Kent County.

Hoffman is the founder and violist of the American Chamber Players, with whom he regularly tours the United States. However, he is equally — if not more — well known to radio listeners as the classical music commentator for National Public Radio’s Morning Edition news program. He is also the author of The NPR Classical Music Companion, a listening guide.

Pianist Reiko Uchida will accompany Hoffman in a program including works by Robert Schumann, Bach, Brahms and Chopin as part of the National Music Festival’s Resonance music series. Uchida has appeared often as a guest artist with Hoffman’s chamber group and has also collaborated with the Borromeo and the Tokyo String Quartets.

Several of the pieces on the program, such as Schumann’s “Adagio and Allegro Op. 70,” were originally written for other instruments, in this case for the valved horn. “It’s a wonderful nine minutes of music, and everybody who can has borrowed it from the horn repertoire,” he said. “It’s quite brilliant and flashy and fun — fun for the player and fun for the audience.”

Music written expressly for the viola will also figure into his program:“Two Pieces for Viola and Piano” by English composer Frank Bridge. Its slow movement has been described as “restrained and elegiac” while the second is “exuberant and expansive.”

Pronounced “vee-OH-lah,” the instrument is one inch to four inches longer than the violin. Compared to the human voice, the violin performs in the soprano range while the viola is more of an alto.

If the viola has been eclipsed by the violin as a solo instrument, Hoffman says blame it on musical trends of the Baroque period, from roughly the year 1600 to 1750.

In instrumental music and opera of the era, “high voices” were favored causing the viola to become“essentially devalued as a solo instrument,” he said. In the later Classical period, Haydn, Mozart and Beethoven started writing “very interesting, very difficult viola parts in their chamber music,” Hoffman added,“but it wasn’t until … the late 19th and into the 20th that the viola came back into its own as a solo instrument.” The Frank Bridge pieces, for example, were written in 1906.

“Reiko and I are really looking forward to coming to Chestertown for the recital,” said Hoffman, who played a concert here “many, many years ago” at Washington College. “I’ve been looking forward to coming back to town ever since; it’s such a beautiful town and this is a wonderful series, and Reiko and are just delighted to have been asked to play on this series.”

Tickets are $20 for adults and $5 for students with ID and children under 14. NMF 2019 Combination Pass holders are guaranteed admission to all of this season’s Resonance performances — and all ticketed events of the 2019 National Music Festival, June 2-15, which will include more than 35 concerts ranging from small ensembles to symphony orchestra with chorus, plus 200 free open rehearsals.

Following the Feb. 17 performance, the Resonance series, formerly known as Kent Chamber Music, will continue with the following two Sunday concerts, also at 3 p.m. at St. Paul’s, 7579 Sandy Bottom Rd., Chestertown:

March 24 – Karen Slack, soprano, international opera singer

April 28 – Gwen Krosnick, cello, NMF mentor

For more information about the National Music Festival and Resonance, visit www.nationalmusic.us.

RES·O·NANCE /ˈrezənəns/ Noun: the quality in a sound of being deep, full, and reverberating … a quality of richness or variety.

Easy listening and classical aren’t words always found together. But music that’s easy on the ears is the goal of Kassia Music, an ensemble that will perform in the National Music Festival’s RESONANCE series in Chestertown Sunday afternoon, Jan. 13, at St. Paul’s Church, Kent, 7579 Sandy Bottom Rd.

“The idea is to play music that everyone can grasp and enjoy from the start. But we’ll put in a few bits of subtlety or complexity for the connoisseur,” said Sam Post, pianist and a founder.

Kassia Music can be sure to add those bits because much of their program will be their original and recent compositions. And here Post clears up another misconception.

“For many people, modern classical means really difficult stuff — experimental, dissonant and atonal,” he said.  Not so with Kassia Music, six instrumentalists based in the Washington, D.C. area.

Some of Post’s works, and those of co-leader Bernard Vallandingham, include piano ragtime and simple, folk-like melodies. “Listeners have said our slower sections remind them of traditional English tunes like Scarborough Fair.” There is also a clear preference for happy rhythms in the group’s faster choices.

(l-r) Sam Post, Susanna Mendlow, Bernard Vallandingham, Adina Vallandingham, and Elizabeth Adams. Not pictured, Lauren Geist.

The concert will take place near a warming fireplace, and complimentary light refreshments will be served at intermission.

January’s performance will lead off with a work by Prokofiev that’s recognizable to many, “Overture on Hebrew Themes,”and the composer’s “String Quartet No. 2.” British critic Alan Coady has called the overture “the pinnacle of Klezmer music highlighted by a charming bittersweet theme.”

Next comes Post’s “Clarinet Quintet on Hebrew-ish Themes.” That doesn’t mean five clarinets but indicates that clarinetist Lauren Geist plays a major role in this number along with the strings of Elizabeth Adams, a National Music Festival violin mentor; Suzanna Mendlow, cello; Adina Vallandingham, violin; Bernard Vallandingham, viola, and Post on piano.

The final works are by Bernard Vallandingham: “Suite for Violin, Viola, Clarinet & Piano” with a tarantella as its third movement, followed by his “Sextet for Clarinet, Strings and Piano.”

Members of the group have played nationally, including at the Kennedy Center and Capitol Hill in Washington, in Chicago, The Cape Cod Ragtime Festival, and at a Bach-themed event in New York City.  A Post composition performed last summer at the NMF was recently adapted for and performed by the San Francisco Symphony.  Though organized less than three years ago, Kassia Music will soon release its first CD.

Tickets are $20 for adults and $5 for students with ID and children under 14. NMF 2019 Combination Pass holders are guaranteed admission to all of this season’s RESONANCE performances — and all ticketed events of the 2019 National Music Festival, June 2-15, which will include more than 35 concerts ranging from small ensembles to symphony orchestra with chorus, plus 200 free open rehearsals.

Following the Jan. 13 performance, the RESONANCE series, formerly known as Kent Chamber Music, will continue with the following three Sunday concerts, all at 3 p.m. at St. Paul’s:

• 17 – Miles Hoffman, viola, American Chamber Players, music commentator for NPR’s Morning Edition
• March 24 – Karen Slack, soprano, international opera singer
• April 28 – Gwen Krosnick, cello, NMF mentor

For more information about the National Music Festival and RESONANCE, visit nationalmusic.us.

RES·O·NANCE /ˈrezənəns/ Noun: the quality in a sound of being deep, full, and reverberating … a quality of richness or variety.

The National Music Festival will launch its 2018 – 2019 Resonance concert series Oct. 28 with a performance by Trio Sefardi. The six-concert season will run through April 2019 on Sunday afternoons at 3 p.m. at St. Paul’s Church, 7579 Sandy Bottom Rd., Chestertown, Md.

Trio Sefardi performs songs of the Sephardic Jews, who inhabited Spain and Portugal for centuries before being expelled in 1492. In exile this Jewish minority maintained their Ladino language, oral culture and folkloric music. Usually the women of the community passed down the traditional songs, as new songs were added, dealing with history, daily life, love and loss.

Formed in 2010, Trio Sefardi’s members are Howard Bass, lute, guitar, bass; Tina Chancey, bowed string, percussion, vocals; and Susan Gaeta, solo vocals, guitar and percussion. (Pictured l-r: Bass, Gaeta and Chancey)

RES·O·NANCE /ˈrezənəns/ Noun: the quality in a sound of being deep, full, and reverberating … a quality of richness or variety.

The concerts feature intimate, solo and small ensemble performances, presented by the National Music Festival.

“Resonance keeps the energy of our summer National Music Festival going year-round with high-quality performances by nationally known and regional artists,” said Caitlin Patton, NMF executive director. Now in its third season, Resonance was formerly known as Kent Chamber Music.

Other highlights of the season include a performance by violist Miles Hoffman, founder and artistic director of the American Chamber Players, on Feb. 17. Hoffman is also author of The NPR Classical Music Companion: An Essential Guide for Enlightened Listening, and a popular, long-time music commentator for NPR’s Morning Edition. After Trio Sefardi, the series will continue with:

Nov. 18 — Mallets Towards None, Michelle Humphreys and the Towson University Percussion Ensemble

Jan. 13 — Kassia Music Collective! string quartet, including violinist Elizabeth Adams, a NMF mentor, plus clarinet

Feb. 17 — Miles Hoffman, viola, American Chamber Players

March 24 — Karen Slack, soprano, international opera singer

April 28 — Gwen Krosnick, cello

Humphreys and Krosnick are also NMF mentors.

Tickets are $20 for each of the six performances (https://nationalmusic.us/events-and-tickets/single-concert-tickets/), or purchase a Resonance Season Pass online for $100 and get one concert free (https://nationalmusic.us/product/resonance-pass/). Tickets for students with ID and children under 14 are only $5.

Best Value: A National Music Festival Combination Pass (https://nationalmusic.us/product/combination-pass/) ensures admission to all six Resonance concerts and all ticketed events of the two-week, 2019 National Music Festival, June 2 – 15, 2019.

For more information about the National Music Festival and Resonance, please visit nationalmusic.us.

It’s early June, and as Richard Rosenberg and the National Music Festival fill the air with top-flight classical music (and our restaurants with hungry musicians) from Chestertown to Rock Hall and from church sanctuaries to Adkins Arboretum, the Festival itself is welcoming new board members and getting ready to install a new board chair.

Charles Taylor, Shelby Strudwick  and Jeff Weber are Chestertown residents who bring a range of expertise and experience in key areas to the NMF board, according to Caitlin Patton, the Festival’s executive director.

Taylor was a journalist and media relations professional in Washington, DC, and in Virginia for more than 37 years before retiring and moving to Chestertown in 2017.  Weber spent most of his career in the field of investment banking in Central Pennsylvania, providing investment management services to institutional funds such as endowments, pension plans, trusts, charities and mutual funds.  Since moving to Chestertown last year, he also has been sharing his considerable talent and skill as a photographer and videographer.

Strudwick was a successful fundraiser in San Francisco, where she lived for 35 years.  After raising money for her children’s schools, she spent years as a volunteer, helping to raise money for the San Francisco Ballet.  In 2015, Strudwick chaired a sold-out black tie gala that included a sit-down dinner for 1,200 and a post-performance party for 3,500.

As the National Music Festival board welcomes the three new members, there will also be new leadership at the helm.  Sandy Ryon will complete her third year as chair and step down soon after this year’s Festival, and NMF vice chair Robert Johnson will become the new chair.  Ryon will stay on as a board member forthree more years.

“This has been an absolute labor of love,” Ryon said, calling the music that the NMF musicians make each year, “the biggest miracle.”

“I just came from a rehearsal,” Ryon said, “two days after the musicians arrived in Chestertown, and the orchestra was playing as if they’ve been playing together all of their lives.  It’s just amazing.”

Ryon said she loves that the orchestra and ensembles will rehearse and perform this season in venues they’ve never used before, including First United Methodist Church and Bethel AME Church, we all as venues they’ve enjoyed before, such as Sumner Hall, the Chester River Yacht and Country Club, and many more.

“We were hoping that being in those venues will draw the attention of people who’ve never heard the music we play,” Ryon said, “and it’s obvious that that’s already happening.”

Johnson, who became active with NMF several years ago when he was invited to develop a strategic plan, said he was so impressed with the Festival’s educational mission and leadership that he accepted a bid to join the board.

“Most people don’t stop to think about what NMF does for Kent County,” he said.  “It is so much more than a two-week summer festival.  It’s also the fall-to-spring Resonance concert series and the wonderful Fiddlesticks! Program for young string instrument students.  As we grow, we enhance the economic base of the county, and that’s all good.”

During the two-week festival, the National Music Festival’s 120 musicians and staff,from 35 states and 11 countries, as well as out-of-town members of the Frederick and Annapolis chorales, stay as guests in Chestertown and area homes.  All in all, the 2018 Festival includes about 200 free and open rehearsals, and more than 30 concerts.

For information about programs, dates, venues and ticket prices (several concerts are free), go to www.nationalmusic.us.