As remarkable and important as the Water’s Edge Museum collection of Ruth Starr Rose paintings and prints may be, its provenance is even more so. Dating back to a time when women had just recently won their right to vote and when Jim Crow laws sought to deny all human rights to African-Americans, Rose – a white woman – created, as she put it, “a record of the life of Negroes of the Eastern Shore. It had never been done,” she wrote, “and is still unique in the annals of art.”

Bernard Moaney as a duck hunter, 1931

While art depicting people of color is no longer “unique” to this collection at the museum located on the Tred Avon’s edge in Oxford, it most likely was the case in 1933 when she wrote about her work. Moreover, it’s hard to imagine that anyone else could have achieved such a legacy. In the early decades of the 20th Century it was rare for black artists or women artists of any color to gain much notice. And her access to an isolated community with every reason to mistrust white strangers is itself remarkable. There were black artists whose success at the time was hard-earned – from Jacob Lawrence in fine art to Paul Robeson in performing arts – they won their notoriety in metropolitan capitals of the United States, principally New York City.

By comparison, Rose, the daughter of staunch Wisconsin abolitionists, won the trust of all-black communities of Talbot County at a time when the Eastern Shore – before any Bay Bridge was even dreamed of – was a geographic backwater. Yet she made friends with residents of The Hill in Easton, the historic neighborhood of free African-Americans dating back before the Civil War, as well as Unionville and Copperville settled by veterans of the war that won their emancipation.

Rose attended their AME churches regularly and developed her appreciation of spirituals performed by people she regarded as friends and neighbors. Among the oil portraits she painted were those of Isaac Copper, namesake of the founding family of the village bearing his surname, and Bernard Moaney, whose descendant, George Moaney, narrates the five-minute video “The Afterglow of Ruth Starr Rose” by Talbot Spy that can be seen on the Water’s Edge website, You Tube or talbotspy.org. He’s also a founding member and genealogical adviser to the museum.

Even in major museums of the world, George Moaney notes, “You don’t see a black person in their paintings except in the background as servants” or, more recently, in portraits of celebrities and political figures, notably Muhammad Ali and President Barack Obama. Before 2015, when the Rose collection surfaced, “Our family didn’t even know these images existed.” The unveiling of the works by Rose (1887-1965) marked, he said, “the first time I had seen on the Eastern Shore black and white people coming together for a cultural event.”

Of her 1933 color serigraph “Jonah and the whale,” featured four years later at the Paris International Exposition, Rose wrote: “Long ago the slaves sang, ‘If the Lord delivered Jonah from the belly of the whale, He will deliver me.’ And these words came too: The Negro race has been delivered from dangers and torments worse than Jonah knew. They have been given a vision of the freedom that can finally be complete.”

But there is much more to see and experience at the Water’s Edge Museum. In its special exhibits gallery, “Black Watermen in the Chesapeake” opens later this month. In the hallway just outside, pause to view “Victoria Park as a Civil Right.” In 1848, about a decade into her 63 years and seven months reign – surpassed only by the 70-year monarchy of Elizabeth II – Queen Victoria granted an “urban botanical garden” for the people of Antigua and Barbuda, part of the British Empire until 1981. The garden, she wrote, serves as open space “for the healthful enjoyment of air and space” for the people of the Caribbean island colony – now a nation.

Be sure, then, to step outside to the Water’s Edge botanical garden. Replete with flowers, plus basil, bell pepper, cucumber and tomato plants, the fruits of which are composted. Besides the staff, the garden is tended, in part, by visiting elementary to middle school children who “learn about environmental justice that is denied to those who live in food desert neighborhoods,” said Sara Park, co-director of Water’s Edge along with Ja’lyn Hicks.

Water’s Edge was awarded a certificate of recognition from the Talbot County Council for the “pictorial history and artifacts on display [portraying] a resilient people who lived their lives, and loved and fought for their country and continued to forge ahead, despite the obstacles and hardships faced.” Council member Keasha Haythe, who had attended the museum’s anniversary celebration earlier in February, commented on the recognition: “Thank you for telling these stories. Having a grandfather who was a waterman, it’s important to tell stories of the heritage, history, and diversity that we have in Talbot County.”

Coincidentally or not, this occurred at the same council session in which a motion to rescind the county’s declaration supporting the goals of diversity, equity and inclusion (DEI) was defeated. However, following Trump administration threats to deny federal funding for expansion of the Easton Airport, the council voted in June to delete all mention of DEI goals in its official statements.

Isaac Copper in a suit, 1931

Nevertheless, Kay Brown, the museum’s assistant director, continues her work as manager of the Middle Passage Port Marker Project. Oxford is the only UNESCO-documented Middle Passage port on the Eastern Shore with no sign declaring that this is where slave ships docked to deliver its human-bondage cargo for sale. It’s a distinction shared in part just across the Tred Avon River where the Bellevue Passage Museum is planning and raising funds to build a space to tell the story of one of the country’s oldest African-American waterfront communities, which became self-sufficient following the Civil War abolition of slavery. The goal is to add on to one of the few remaining historic buildings available, located next to the Oxford-Bellevue Ferry dock. For now, the museum is a virtual one where you can view photos, artifacts and documentation of Bellevue’s own water’s edge past. In partnership with the museum in Oxford, the two would comprise a ferry-linked match in presenting an immersive educational and heritage tourism experience.

***
For more on slavery to self-sufficiency and the Eastern Shore’s witness to both, the Harriet Tubman Freedom Center in Cambridge is exhibiting “Harriet: A Taste of Freedom” through Sept. 30. Curated by Larry Poncho Brown, a Baltimore-based artist, through interpretive works by 40 artists whose visions know no bounds as they are both local and international. The art ranges from portraiture to abstract imagery. In that sense, it’s almost as varied as Tubman’s remarkable life’s work – starting as a runaway slave herself who returned time and again to free family and other fellow slaves in Dorchester County to freedom at least as far north as Philadelphia. And she literally fought for freedom in the Civil War, having recently been promoted posthumously to the rank of general.

While you’re at it, and especially if you haven’t already visited, drive a few miles out of town to the Harriet Tubman Underground Railroad National Historical Park. The visitors center there serves both as a stand-alone attraction with exhibits and films changing from time to time with the goal of orientation as a gateway to the multi-state Harriet Tubman Underground Railroad Scenic Byway. Tubman is quoted as saying, “I never ran my train off the track and I never lost a passenger.”

FROM RUTH STARR ROSE TO HARRIET TUBMAN

Water’s Edge Museum, 101 Mill St., Oxford. watersedgemuseum.org; Bellevue Passage Museum, online only bellevuepassage.org
Also, “Harriet: A Taste of Freedom,” Harriet Tubman Freedom Center, 3030 Center Dr., Cambridge, through Sept. 30 (possibly extended through December); harriettubmanfreedomcenter.com; Harriet Tubman Underground Railroad Visitors Center, 4068 Golden Hill Rd., Church Creek, nps.gov/htu

Steve Parks is a retired New York arts critic and editor now living in Easton.

“To the Edge of Your World” is the intriguing title of a new exhibition by Anita Groener at the Academy Art Museum where she was its 2024 artist-in-residence. But in my initial walkthrough at the opening reception on Saturday, Aug. 16, I found the show – consisting of delicate constructs (I hesitate to call them sculptures) and drawings punctuated by a checkerboard gouache on paper – visually underwhelming. But my first impression was devoid of context aside from the brief wall-label introduction, which mentioned another premiere that day – this of an accompanying animated video, “Shelter,” inspired by highly personal narratives of residents at the Talbot Interfaith Shelter homes on Goldsborough Street in Easton. 

Context makes all the difference in this exhibit of works by the Dutch-born and now Ireland-based artist. Here, Groener deploys appropriately common materials – twigs, cardboard and paper – to reflect the edgy themes suggested in the title: the everyday impact on those directly or indirectly affected by conflict, migration and remembrance of what is left behind as well as trepidation about what lies ahead. At the reception, “Shelter,” the stop-motion animation by Groener in collaboration with documentary filmmaker Matt Kresling in partnership with TIS was shown on a wide screen to a full-capacity audience in the museum’s auditorium. During the run of the exhibition through Oct. 26 visitors can view up close on a video screen in the lobby.

One of the themes that instantly came to my mind as I entered the museum’s Lederer Gallery was “Shelter,” a piece by the same name that looked like anything but. Rather, it resembles a series of cages for imprisoned migrants like those in some border-state detention facilities and on Florida’s notorious Alligator Alley. A series of small drawings bookended by a pair of larger gouache images incorporating bits of twine enigmatically titled “At the Still Point of the Turning World” and “I am Here Because You Are There” leands you toward the gallery back wall lined with tiny stick-constructed objects resembling baby cribs or tree houses, some sprouting leafy saplings and others inhabited by human stick figures. Stick objects on a long table seem to be waiting for assembly into something more than the sum of their parts. We can only guess what.  

Anita Groener

Nearby, you are invited to leave written comments about what you have seen. But before you do, check at least a few segments of the animated “Shelter” video for the context I was lacking at first. You’re not expected to stand through the full half hour in front of the screening of “Shelter,” which runs in loops during museum hours. The imagery constructs and then deconstructs rectangular stands of sticks amid a growing gathering of humans while at other times forming a patch of trees blowing in the wind. Each such scene is accompanied by vocal recordings of TIS residents telling how they became homeless – each very relatable in the sense that – as the saying goes – “there but for the grace of God [or whomever] go I.” Death of a parent or spouse, loss of employment after 22 years, addiction to pain killers after an accident or by self-medication, whether by alcohol or drugs. Each story is separated by photographic images from the artist’s past, usually including a baby or young child and a parent or other relative.

After viewing a few of these vignettes, return to Anita Groener’s exhibit to see what you may have missed at first glance. I missed a lot. But that’s just me.  Maybe you’ll be more intuitive. 

***
While you’re at the museum, walk across the hall to the Healy Gallery for “Fields, Voids, and Translations,” a show of works on paper and textiles by Piper Shepard. A Baltimore-based artist, Shepard specializes in large-scale works – she calls it “architectural scale” – such as weavings that mimic botanical or even celestial imagery. My favorite was “Soft Light Shifting,” a handcut lunar graphic that casts a full-moon shadow on the wall a foot or so behind it, bringing to mind a solar eclipse if you’re at the right place and time for such an event. Three squarish black-and-white prints on paper offer “Textile Translations” from fabric to art on the far wall from the moon. 

In the hallway Atrium between the AAM’s main galleries, stop long enough to take in and contemplate Anne Lindbergh’s commissioned site-specific piece called “seen and unseen.” The most easily “seen” portion are three drawings in parallel lines of complementary colors. These  reflect shades that are largely “unseen” until you stand against the north wall of the natural-light Atrium and look up through an opening toward the second-story ceiling. A luminous sculpture of chromatic threads creates a rainbow effect in earth-and-sky hues that can be seen both above and below. But you’ll  need to climb the stairs to the upper hallway gallery and stroll back to the far wall to discern whether the colors take on a different shade from on high. See for yourself.

ART, ANIMATION, ATRIUM & FIBER IMAGERY

Anita Groener’s “To the Edge of Your World” and “Shelter” video, through Oct. 26; Piper Shepard’s “Fields, Folds, and Translations, through Oct. 12; Anne Lindbergh’s “seen and unseen” installation, through the fall of 2026, all at Academy Art Museum, 106 South St., Easton, Tuesdays-Sundays, free admission, academyartmusuem.org 

Steve Parks is a retired New York arts critic now living in Easton.

“The Greatest Songwriters of the 20th Century” brings to mind – at least to music lovers of a certain age – “The Great American Songbook” of mostly pre-World War II standards by such artists as Irving Berlin, George Gershwin, Cole Porter, Hoagy Carmichael and many other unforgettable composers and performers. But as interpreted in concert by a married duo–vocalist Sharon Sable and guitarist Shawn Qaissaunee – the playlist expands to include Bob Dylan, The Beatles, Stevie Wonder, and Carole King, to name a few. 

But for “First Friday” regulars of The Mainstay in Rock Hall, the name that draws their attention each month is piano accompanist extraordinaire Joe Holt. So to his many Mid-Shore fans, First Friday, Aug. 1, is a must-see calendar date. Thereafter, Holt will be taking a sabbatical from his monthly Kent County gig. 

He won’t, however, be taking time off from performing altogether. “I’ll be taking a break for a while to reset and refresh,” Holt said in a phone interview.  He’s also in demand in upstate Wilmington, home to his Friday night guest stars Sable and Qaissaunee, as well as at nightspots in and around D.C. 

Joe Holt, Sharon Sable and Shawn Qaissaunee

For 10 years, beginning on Memorial Day, 2016, Holt has been a mainstay – forgive the pun – at The Mainstay, which proclaims itself “The Home of Musical Magic.” Some of that magic began with that first holiday Monday night, later  known alliteratively as “Mainstay Mondays.”

“I thought I’d lost my hearing,” Holt recalls, when he was offered a regular slot for 15 weeks that stretched into five years. As an accompanist by his own preference, he often invited young local artists a chance to showcase their work enhanced by Holt’s piano versatility. No matter the genre, tempo, or style – he could play it.

Holt became so popular that Mainstay’s new (at the time) artistic director Matt Mielnick suggested moving from Mondays to a first-of-the-month Friday night series, which has now rounded out Holt’s tenure at Mainstay to a full decade. The move to a TGIF weekend-opener slot also gave him the opportunity to spotlight broader regional headliners and, in some cases, recording artists with a national following.

His series has run the musical gamut from jazz to soul and classical to country. And rock ’n’ roll too. (Rap, not so much.) His guest artists have included, for instance, Kevin Short, a Morgan State University graduate and a Metropolitan Opera bass-baritone; Paula Johns, a jazz chanteuse and cabaret singer specializing in Great American Songbook favorites; Billy West, a voice actor (“Bugs Bunny,” “Ren & Stimpy” to name a few credits) and singer-songwriter/guitarist who ranges from soul to rockabilly with a dose of comic relief; plus The Midiri Brothers, a couple of Holt’s high school buddies from New Jersey who form a clarinet-and-xylophone jazz duo.

Yes, we told you Joe Holt’s guest stars run the gamut – including locally. Songwriter and pianist Stephanie LaMotte, besides touring globally and performing in “33 Variations,” a play about Beethoven’s life and music, performs for the Chester River Choir and is music director and choirmaster for Emmanuel Episcopal Church in Chestertown, where she now lives. 

To hear Holt talk about himself and his career is more like listening to rave reviews on the virtuosity of each invited guest he accompanies. “If I could do just one thing in my life in music,” he says earnestly, “it’s to be the best accompanist I can be. The stage belongs to my guest artists when I invite them to play up front. And that’s what I’m best at. I can pull it off.”

Holt leaves it to others to speak about what he brings to the stage behind the performers he accompanies:

Beth McDonald, a singer-songwriter who co-wrote and performed in a tribute to Peggy Lee show and appears in jazz festivals and concert tours of American standards and some of her own songs, calls Holt her longtime accompanist and collaborator. They have performed together at The Mainstay, the Stoltz Room in Easton’s Avalon Theater and other venues. 

“He’s the most in-tune accompanist I have ever encountered,” McDonald says, “and not just because he hits the right notes – ha-ha – but because he is able to meet those who share the stage with him exactly where they are. He isn’t thrown off by switching genres or trying new arrangements. Musically speaking, he takes the hand of the one he’s accompanying and together they find that sacred place of connection with their audience. It’s a beautiful thing.”

Whether or not you can make it to the “First Friday” concert (Aug. 1) before he takes a break, you can catch him here and there in the next few months, including the “Blossom Dearie Project” tour promoting “Once Upon a Summertime,” an album of the late singer’s music performed by Sharon Sable and Joe Holt. The upcoming concerts, besides Friday’s at The Mainstay, are the Elana Byrd’s Jazz Series in Annapolis, Sept. 28, and “Broadway’s Jazz Gems of the Great American Songbook” in Lewes, Delaware, Nov. 2. (Elana is the widow of jazz bassist Joe Byrd, the younger brother of guitarist Charlie Byrd.)

Meanwhile, you can keep up with Holt’s appearances hither and yon in Delaware and D.C. and anywhere else he may pop up on joeholtsnotes.com.

The Last Joe Holt ‘First Friday’ (For Now)

8 p.m. Aug. 1, The Mainstay, 5753 N. Main St., Rock Hall. Upcoming concerts with singer Sharon Sable, Sept. 28, Elana Byrd’s Jazz Series, Annapolis. (Call 410-626-9796); and in Lewes, Delaware, Nov. 2. (Also check joeholtsnotes.com for details on any of these shows.)

Steve Parks is a retired arts critic and editor now living in Easton.

Opening night of the 21st Plein Air Easton Festival on Friday, July 11, marks a holiday on the calendar for local art galleries. Much like the Waterfowl Festival in November, it will be a working holiday to accommodate all the fine-art browsers who will be checking them out during Plein Air week.

There was a time, not so long ago, when Easton had just a couple of framing shops for photographs and copies of paintings, but not a single art gallery until one opened in 1997. You could say the Troika Art Gallery – named for its trio of founders – belongs to the Millennial generation among galleries. Now, in 2025, it is no exaggeration to say that Easton has become an art destination. There are now seven art galleries downtown and another inside a marketplace a few blocks east on Dover Road.

All of them have been gearing up for Plein Air 21. 

The Troika is observing the occasion with its sixth annual “Fabulous Forgeries” exhibit. Member artists of the Troika paint replications of venerable masterpieces with tiny photo copies of the originals next to the “forgeries.” Cash awards go to the top three artists and an honorable mention chosen by a Troika-selected jurist. There’s also a popular-choice prize. But most prominent as you enter the gallery are the large- to medium-scale oils by featured artist Louis Escobedo, ranging from a wintry “Glider,” a bird in flight over a gleaming stream, to what almost qualifies as a “Fabulous Forgery” of a Degas ballerina. Escobedo calls his version “Some Paint and Blue.” 

Jill Basham’s “Under the Tuscan Moon” at Trippe Gallery

Further along Harrison Street, past the Tidewater Inn on the right, is the next oldest downtown art gallery, celebrating Plein Air 21 with two popular opening-night features of the past four years. One is “Variations 4.0: 1 Photograph, 14 Paintings” with 14 Trippe Gallery member artists painting their interpretation of a black-and-white image of an Eastern Shore scene. Cash prizes go to the winning entries. There’s also a challenge for Trippe visitors on opening night: Match the artist – several of whom are entered in the Plein Air competition – to the unsigned painting. 

Carole Boggemann Peirson’s “A Gorgeous Glimpse” at Zebra Gallery

Heading back toward the Avalon Theater – the Foundation sponsors Plein Air Easton – the Zebra Gallery features paintings by Carole Boggemann Peirson, a Dutch-born artist known for her East Coast landscapes, including “A Gorgeous Glimpse,” an oil depicting snow-swept beach dunes with a distant water view. There’s also a flight of fancy with kids riding an airborne turtle in Gabriel Lehman’s “What If?” acrylic, guarded by a pair of basswood giraffes sculpted by Joseph Cotler. 

Just around the corner on Dover, stop by Spiralis Gallery, which formerly cohabited the space that is now the Zebra’s alone. It was an amicable “divorce,” apparently, as both appear to be succeeding separately. The current “Lost and Found” exhibit of “bricolage recuperative art” features brightly colored and imaginative acrylic abstracts by Alma Roberts. On your way to the Spiralis, don’t overlook the TRA Gallery of Talbot resident artists who are not represented by any local gallery. The July show displays paintings by Nancy Lee Davis, Kathy Kopec and Mary Yancey evoking emotional memory scenes, contemporary impressionism and such representational land- and seascapes as “At the River’s Edge.”

Two more galleries beckon in opposite directions – artistically and geographically. Turn right or left on Washington Street. Turning right toward Goldsborough, you’ll encounter some Asian-influenced art at Studio B, where its owner, Betty Huang, was far away – painting in Taiwan when we visited last week. Works on view during Plein Air range from Hiu Lai Chong’s “St. Michaels Harbor” oil painting of sailboats docked at sunset, to “Room With a View,” painted with a sense of humor by Charles Newman in his depiction of a cluttered room with a distant “view”out a tiny window. There might also be a new painting by Huang upon her return from Taiwan.

Joanne Prager’s Archival Giclee print No. 15 at Zach Gallery

Taking a left on Washington, you’ll wind up your downtown tour with the most recently opened  Easton gallery. The Zach of the Prager Family Center for the Arts has extended its current gallery exhibit through July 19, which takes it through Plein Air 21. “Eastern Shore Light” marks the first show by Joanne Prager of her photographic prints of captivating landscape and waterview scenes through the year-round seasons between 2021 and 2024. Some would qualify as plein air except that they are not painted. (And, yes, Joanne Prager is married to Paul.)

For one final gallery stop, you might prefer to drive – unless you’re not thoroughly exhausted by that time. (The Market at Dover Street has free parking.) Inside, you can just browse the market or ask for directions to the gallery now filled with color drawings by members of the Botanical Art League of the Eastern Shore. Works on paper by five botanical artists are featured – most of them by the league coordinator Anne Harding. As with most, if not all galleries mentioned above, there’s a meet-the-artists reception – 5 to 7 or 8 p.m. Friday evening, opening night of Plein Air 21 – with light refreshments, including wine and cheese or whatever.

All of that should whet your appetite for the festival to come, including a nocturne paint-in by Plein Air artists following a free opening-night block party on Friday with a live performance of  a radio-style play, “Picture This,” on cordoned-off block Harrison Street. 

THE GALLERIES OF EASTON

Troika Art Gallery, 9 S. Harrison St., troikagallery.com; The Trippe Gallery, 23 N. Harrison St., thetrippegallery.com; The Zebra Gallery, 9 N. Harrison St., thezebragallery.com; Spiralis Gallery, 35 W. Dover St. spiralisgallery.com; TRA Gallery, 41 W. Dover St., talbotarts.org/resources-1; Studio B Fine Art Gallery,  7-B Goldsborough St., stuidiobartgallery.com; Zach Gallery, 17 S. Washington St., zachgalleryeaston.com; The Market at Dover Station Le Galleria, 500 Dover Rd., doverstation.com

Steve Parks is a retired New York arts critic and editor now living in Easton.

Ordinarily, the closest you can get to world-class opera in Easton – or anywhere on the Eastern Shore – is taking in a Metropolitan Opera live simulcast Saturday matinee at the Avalon Theater. But on this Independence Day weekend, one of the hottest young American tenors will be in concert, solo at the Ebenezer Theater as part of the Gabriela Montero at Prager concert season. 

Michael Fabiano

Michael Fabiano, sometimes referred to as the high-flying tenor superstar, is not just because he’s performed in leading roles at opera houses all over the world. In his free time, Fabiano chills by flying small aircraft in or around New York City, near his native Montclair, New Jersey. 

Among the many classic arias he has performed in his more mature post-2016 career – Fabiano turned 41 in May – are from his debut with the Royal Danish Opera in Verdi’s “Requiem” and the title role of Faust with the Houston Grand Opera. He’s also performed several roles with the Metropolitan Opera, including Rodolfo in “La Boheme” and Alfredo in “La Traviata,” as well as his highly acclaimed interpretation of Lensky in Tchaikovsky’s “Eugene Onegin” at the Royal  Opera Covent Garden. 

  These are among many pieces he may perform in his solo debut at the Ebenezer on Saturday night. Or he might polish up on the role of the Duke in Verdi’s “Rigoletto” from his 2018 Los Angeles Opera debut. 

  In a recent interview with Opera World, Fabiano reserved his highest praise for Verdi as, perhaps, his favorite composer. Responding to a recent review that called him a “True Verdi Tenor,” Fabiano said that Verdi’s operas are “medicine for the voice.” Speaking as if Verdiwas still alive and writing music, he added: “He’s a centralizing composer for a large-voiced tenor” – implicitly referring to himself. 

Earlier in his career, Fabiano won both the prestigious Beverly Sills and Richard Tucker awards, the first singer to have achieved that double feat in the same year, 2014.

Pianist Bryan Wagorn will accompany Fabiano for the Easton recital. Gabriela Montero, a Venezuelan-born keyboardist, is the namesake host of the series.

***

Coming up later this month on the classical music calendar, The Birch Trio’s “Time Travels” will take you as far back as Haydn – with 100-plus symphonies to his credit as well as myriad chamber concertos – on up to contemporary composers James Cohn, Valerie Coleman and others, with a nod in between toward Romantic classical pieces.

The Birch Trio

The trio of music professionals – all residing on the Easton Shore – comprises Ashley Watkins on flute, Nevin Dawson on violin and viola, and Denise Nathanson on cello. Together, they’ll perform in concert on July 19 at the Dorchester Center for the Arts in Cambridge and on the 20th at Easton’s Christ Church.

TENOR MICHAEL FABIANO & A SHORE TRIO

Solo performance in the Gabriela Montero at Prager concert series, 7:30 p.m. Saturday, Ebenezer Theater of the Prager Family Center for the Arts, Easton. Piano accompaniment by Bryan Wagorn. bluepoint.hospitality.com 

The Birch Trio, 7 p.m. Saturday, July 19, Dorchester Center for the Arts, Cambridge, and 4 p.m. Sunday, Christ Church, Easton. dorcchesterarts.org, eventbrite.com

Steve Parks is a retired New York arts critic now living in Easton.

It’s hard to say whether the current musicians who play under the celebrated banner of the Juilliard String Quartet are more in demand as virtuoso ensemble players or as elite teachers on the strings and chamber music faculties of their namesake Juilliard School.

Violinist/violist Catherine Cho, co-artistic director of the Chesapeake Chamber Music Festival along with cellist Marcy Rosen, has been a member of Juilliard’s faculty since 1996, currently teaching in the school’s Chamber Music Community Engagement Seminar. So it was no stretch for her to recruit the Juilliard Fab Four – violinists Areta Zhulla and Ronald Copes, violist Molly Carr and cellist Astrid Schween – as guest artists for the 40th anniversary Chesapeake festival, concluding this week at the Ebenezer Theater.

Week 2 of the festival opened Thursday night with Mendelssohn’s String Quintet No. 1 in A Major performed with Cho on violin with a fellow Chesapeake Music regular, violist Daniel Phillips, along with three of the four Juilliard players – violinist Zhulla, violist Carr and cellist Scheen. If the five-string piece strikes you as exuberantly youthful, consider that Mendelssohn was not quite 20 when he composed it and completed a revision at 24. (His prolific career was cut short by premature death at age 38.)

Even with a melancholic opening, a quintet of strings can establish a vigorous chamber presence, which this one did with relish. A solo theme lyrically played by violinist Zhulla surrenders to a contrapuntal conversation involving all five strings punctuated by an energetically impatient staccato motif. The second movement, an intermezzo, suggests a hymn-like awakening that leads to a restless range of melodies ending with a lone pluck. The third movement scherzo introduces busy viola turns of phrasing by Carr and Phillips overtaken at a mercurial pace by all strings on hand and Schween’s declarative cello statement that sounds like authority or maybe a bit of rebellion. The final movement solves all that with confident notes by all five players, each striving for attention like a youngster eager to grow up.

Tara Helen O’Connor

Next up was Louise Farrenc’s Trio in E Minor for Flute, Cello and Piano with longtime Chesapeake Music regular Tara Helen O’Connor and festival co-artistic director Rosen, on flute and cello respectively, accompanied by pianist Wynona Wang.

Farrenc was quite the exception among female 19th-century musicians or composers who gained any attention at all. In 1843, she won the position of professor of piano at the Paris Conservatory, the only woman to do so in all that century – in part because she held the position for 30 years. She also, perhaps an even greater achievement, was to be recognized as a celebrated composer. Only American Amy Beach a few generations later came close to matching Farrenc’s success as a woman in classical music. Perhaps that’s why her 1861-62 trio is so ebulliently cheerful. Farenc was particularly prolific as a composer of chamber music. Her final piece – the one for flute, cello and piano – had very few precedents back then and even now.

An assertive series of chords, principally played by flutist O’Connor, launches the first movement before introducing the minor-key theme shared by flute and cello, the latter played by Rosen, both with the aplomb of musicians who have performed together for decades. Together the three instruments play multiple roles as the cello doubles the piano’s bass line while Wang skillfully accompanies the flute in its upper register with her right-hand on the keyboard, leading to a sweepingly lyrical first movement denouement. The second movement feels as if someone in the trio would break out in song at any moment amid harmonic turns from dark to light, while the third movement scherzo offers with its return to the opening theme a chance for the players and audience alike to relax and sort of dance to the music in their seats. In the finale, Farenc’s lyricism sparkles with bright tones and light-hearted flavors that close out with an E-major boom of celebratory musical fireworks.

Following intermission, the Juilliard guest ensemble performed Bedrich Smetana’s concert headliner “From My Life,” also known as the String Quartet No. 1 in E-Minor. Molly Carr, in previewing for the audience the four movements of “From My Life,” said her instrument has been described as the “heart-renderer of doom.” Perhaps. But in this case it is Smetana’s own life story as represented in his famous string quartet that is heart-rending. Smetana himself called the first movement of his autobiographical piece a romantically inspired portrait of his youthful dream to be a great artist along with a darker foreboding of the then-unknown future.

The Juilliard violist who introduced the piece also opens it with a prominent solo soon supported as the other three players join in before a dramatic solo by Areta Zhulla in the first violin chair. The second movement, recalling his love of dance, is sketched out as a Czech polka that moves from the innocence of a 6-year-old to a party animal followed by a bit of swooning undercurrent on cello by Astrid Schween and concluding with hints of a troubled future, played on viola, of course. A romantic cello solo ushers in the third movement ode to the love of Smetana’s life, his wife. Sweepingly off-their-feet expressions of endearment are portrayed instrumentally, especially in the perfect syncopation of violinists Zhulla and Ronald Copes. The final movement opens with a joyful remembrance of his sheer joy for dance. But it all comes to a literally screeching halt as the sudden high-pitch E note reminds him of his loss of hearing two years before composing this masterpiece. The note reminded Smetana of his tinnitus, a ringing of the ears, that presaged his deterioration. Other somber viola notes of loss and regrets – syphilis ultimately caused his deafness – ends the piece with a single pluck of a single string.

There’s still more to come, with two nights of Chesapeake chamber concerts, Friday and Saturday, including more from the Juilliard String Quartet.

A sylvan serenade including actual songbirds tweeting, unrehearsed, with the human players who led a “Forest Music” concert spread out along a trail at Ridgely’s Adkins Arboretum. The musicians, participants in the National Music Festival in Chestertown through Saturday night, performed in a multi-disciplinary artistic event that also introduced 12 new outdoor sculptures by mid-Atlantic artists. Together they created a “Sensory Sensation” matinee on Thursday.

Melissa Burley’s “Optimistic Dwellings”

Crossing a pedestrian bridge near the start of a woodland trail, we were greeted by a pair of string solos performed by Peijun Xu and Harmony Grace, both “apprentices” – student performers in the annual festival based at Washington College. Xu played the Bach Suite No. 3 written for cello but played here on viola. A complex and demanding piece but easy to listen to with its vibrantly shifting tempos and key signatures, the suite was performed with a confident rigor by this accomplished apprentice. Grace followed with her violin solo interpretation of a Meditation from the opera Thais by Massenet. More subdued in tempo than the Bach suite, as you would expect for a meditation, Grace played it with a dignified solemnity in an operatically tragic and romantic vein.

We next encountered a set of familiar duets performed by mentors to the festival apprentices: Jennifer Parker Harley on flute and Jared Hauser, delivering lively selections from Mozart’s “The Magic Flute,” deftly rearranged for oboe instead of the clarinet as originally composed. Taking a left off the main trail, we heard the unmistakable percussive notes of a xylophone thumped by an apprentice, Matthew Kerlach. He played new improvisations by a contemporary composer, Tyler Klein, a friend of the performer.

It was a long walk between musicians on the trails – and for good reason. The players were stationed at sufficient distances that you could barely, if at all, hear music emanating from one station to the next. In between, you could, and still can through September, 12 site-specific sculptures under the heading of “Artists in Dialogue with Landscape.” Among those we took in along the way was Melissa Burley’s “Optimistic Dwellings,” comprised of rocks covered on top with moss and pine twigs. Further on we puzzled over the title of Chris Combs’ “Board/Bits,” a series of bars on a wooden slab marking time incrementally in seconds, minutes, hours, days, weeks and years. Another puzzler, mostly because it’s hard to distinguish one type of object from another, is Mark Robarge’s “Memory Returned Like Spring,” which challenges you to identify manmade objects apart from ones created by nature.

Meanwhile, you still have a couple of days to enjoy live music by mentors and apprentices alike in the final two days of the National Music Festival.

Chesapeake and National Music Fests
Week 2 opener: “From My Life” concert featuring the Juilliard String Quartet, Thursday night, Ebenezer Theater in Easton.
Upcoming: “Quartets Old and New,” Friday, June 13, and “Festival Finale,” Saturday, June 14, both at 7:30 p.m. chesapeakemusic.org

“Forest Music”: National Music Festival musicians, Thursday, Adkins Arboretum, Ridgely.
Upcoming: 3:30 p.m., Friday, June 13, Festival Brass Ensemble, Sacred Heart Catholic Church, Chestertown; 7:30 p.m. Friday, Festival Symphony Orchestra, Brahms Symphony No. 1 and more. “My Harps Will Go On,” Eric Sabatino, and “Friends of Camilo Carrara,” 2 p.m. Saturday, June 14, Hotchkiss Recital Hall, and 7:30 p.m. Saturday, Festival Symphony Orchestra finale, Stravinsky’s “Consecration of Spring,” a Mahler allegro and more, Washington College. nationalmusic.us

Steve Parks is a retired New York arts critic now living in Easton.