Summerfest Concerts

Chamber Music Festival

July 2007 Program
Please join us on any of the following weekends. All Saturday performances begin at 7 p.m. at White Recital Hall, 4949 Cherry, Kansas City, MO, and all Sunday performances begin at 5 p.m. at St. Mary's Episcopal Church., 1307 Holmes, Kansas City, MO.

PROGRAM 1: July 7-8, 2007
Songs America Loves to Sing
Summerfest opens with an all-American evening of dances and songs. Kansas City’s favorite soprano, Rebecca Lloyd, celebrates spring in Copland’s As it fell upon a Day and Argento’s lively Elizabethan Songs, settings of poems of Shakespeare and his contemporaries. John Harbison’s nostalgically quirky arrangements of Songs America Loves to Sing weave a musical quilt of Americana from blues to hymns, fiddling to Foster.

On this program:

Dominick Argento: Six Elizabethan Songs for soprano, flute, oboe, violin, cello and harpsichord
John Harbison: Songs American Loves to Sing for flute, clarinet, violin, cello and piano
William Grant Still: Panamanian Dances for string quartet
Arthur Foote: Saraband and Rigaudon for oboe, viola, and piano
Aaron Copland: “As it Fell upon a Day” for soprano, clarinet, and flute

PROGRAM 2: July 14-15, 20077
Couperin & Mahler
Couperin’s L’Apothéose de Lully tells an amusing story of musical détente as two Baroque masters, Lully and Corelli, must resolve their stylistic differences when they meet in the afterlife. The Piano Quartet in A minor composed by a youthful Gustav Mahler evokes a lushly romantic world of stirring pathos. The excitement continues in newcomer John Mackey’s driving, virtuosic Breakdown Tango.

On this program:

François Couperin: L’Apothéose de Lully for flute, oboe, two violins, viola, and continuo (cello and bassoon)
John Mackey: Breakdown Tango for clarinet, violin, cello, and piano
Jean Françaix: Five Piccoli Duetti for flute and harp
Phillipe Friedrich Boeddecker: Sonata Sopra la Monica for bassoon, violin and harpsichord
Gustav Mahler: Piano Quartet in A minor

PROGRAM 3: July 21-22, 2007
Tempest Fantasy
The dazzling, Pulitzer-prize winning Tempest Fantasy by Paul Moravec depicts Shakespeare’s timeless characters: the melancholy sorcerer Prospero, the fleeting sprite Ariel, and the monstrous Caliban. Always popular with Summerfest audiences, Georg Philipp Telemann’s freshly melodious style is heard again in his Quartet in G major.

On this program:

Paul Moravec: Tempest Fantasy for clarinet, violin, cello, and piano
Bruce Broughton: Tyvec Wood for flute, viola, and harp
G. P. Telemann: Quartet in G major for flute, oboe, violin, and continuo (bassoon)

PROGRAM 4: July 28-29, 2007
Beethoven's Quintet for Piano & Winds
From profound to playful, Beethoven’s Quintet for Piano and Winds is still a classic over two hundred years after its premiere. Summerfest’s final concert also features Kansas City’s premiere of the bold, dynamic sounds of Michael Gandolfi’s Plain Song, Fantastic Dances, inspired by both medieval chant and contemporary photographic collages.

On this program:

Michael Gandolfi: Plain Song, Fantastic Dances for clarinet, violin, viola, cello, bass, horn, and bassoon
Hector Villa-Lobos: Quintet for flute, violin, viola, cello, and harp
Ludwig van Beethoven: Quintet for piano and winds in E-flat Major, Opus. 16

* Programs and artists are subject to change without notice.

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