HCSF Chamber Music Series Special Event | Music at Menlo
5:30 Concert; 6:30 Picnic with the artists; 7:30 Lecture
"Keyboard Evolution: How Bach's Instruments Became the Modern Piano," led by Stuart Isacoff
The Menlo School
50 Valparaiso Ave
Atherton, CA 94027
Friday, July 26, 2013
Concert:
Begin the evening with a live chamber music concert in an intimate and extraordinary concert venue: the early 20th century ballroom Music@Menlo calls home. With only 148 seats, this is how chamber music was meant to be heard. Music@Menlo Preludes feature the rising stars of the International Program of the Chamber Music Institute. Representing a cornerstone of the festival's educational mission, these concerts offer both veteran concertgoers and new listeners of all ages an unparalleled opportunity to discover great music. San Francisco Classical Voice has hailed the artists of the Chamber Music Institute as "musicians you will want to hear repeatedly in the coming years." This concert will feature: BEETHOVEN String Quartet in F major, op. 135 HINDEMITH Sonata for Viola and Piano, op. 11 no. 4 (subject to change)
Picnic:
In between the two main-stage events, enjoy a picnic hosted by Harvard Club member and Music@Menlo board member, Kathy Henschel.
Lecture:
Encounters, Music@Menlo's signature series of evening-length lectures led by an elite group of today's renowned musical authorities, illuminate the essence of the festival's music through insightful discussion. The scope of the Encounter series encompasses not only the historical context in which music is created but also the sweeping social, cultural, and technological trends that have shaped classical music at large.
Following the concert and the picnic, you will enjoy an Encounter led by Stuart Isacoff, pianist, composer, writer and regular contributor to the Wall Street Journal. Isacoff will discuss the evolution of the keyboard. The keyboards prominent in J. S. Bach's time—clavichords, harpsichords, and organs— slowly gave way in popularity to the piano, which was virtually unknown until Mozart brought it to the forefront in the 1780s. As composers, yet under the spell of Bach, were drawn to the possibilities afforded by the warmth and nuanced dynamics of this new instrument, they discovered it to be the perfect vehicle for an emerging Classical style.
Bio: Stuart Isacoff, a pianist, composer, and writer, is the author of A Natural History of the Piano: The Instrument, the Music, the Musicians—from Mozart to Modern Jazz and Everything in Between. A winner of the prestigious ASCAPDeems Taylor Award for excellence in writing about music, he is a regular contributor to the Wall Street Journal as well as to many music periodicals. Founder of Piano Today magazine, he is on the faculty of the Purchase College Conservatory of Music.
Ticket Prices: $45 (picnic sponsored by Kathy Henschel, Board Member, Music @ Menlo)
password: HARVARD (case sensitive)