Cooperstown Summer Music Festival returns for 24th season
Internationally-famed artists perform throughout August
The Cooperstown Summer Music Festival returns this year in full force with a series of five concerts in August that span musical and creative diversity, energy, and spirit and featuring performances from ensembles known around the world for their virtuoso artistic prowess.
In a conversation with The Freeman’s Journal / Hometown Oneonta, Festival founder and Artistic Director Linda Chesis spoke with excitement about the festival’s return for its 24th season – one interrupted for the two-year pandemic hiatus, but one that she said offers “a collection of performances spanning an exceptionally wide range of musical styles and traditions.”
The description is accurate, but static words on paper do little to reflect the music’s originality and vigor.
“The music in this year’s Festival is not about your old band practice,” Ms. Chesis said. “It’s joyful, energetic, spirited. These groups are the hottest things going all around the world and they’re superstars within their fields.”
With four of the five shows in the intimate ballroom of the Otesaga Hotel and the fifth at the Farmers’ Museum, Ms. Chesis said the series gives the local audience a chance to see rising stars in a rare, up-close-and-personal setting.
“You heard them first in Cooperstown!” she laughed as she discussed the lineup. “We had Simone Dinnerstein here a few years ago playing Bach’s Goldberg Variations, and it wasn’t long afterward that she was selling out concert halls all around the world. But we had her here first!”
The Grammy-nominated Imani Winds opens the festival on Tuesday, August 2, with a program of music for wind quintet, Ms. Chesis says the audience “can expect a concert filled with their signature fresh energy and technical expertise.”
“It’s virtually impossible to engage them,” she said. “Their schedule is packed and they sell out everywhere they go. I’ve been following them since they were students in the woodwind lab at the Manhattan School of Music (where she is Flute, Department Chair). They’re amazing and I’m thrilled to bring them to Cooperstown.
“It’s such a different experience to be in a room watching as these brilliant musicians communicate with each other,” she said. “There’s no conductor between them and the audience. They’re signaling with the movement of their bows or with the way they take a breath.”
“The live experience, for the audience, is such a vibrant and exciting moment,” she said. “When you’re watching them play, hearing the music, you can see that you’re experiencing the best of who is out there playing these pieces. Even if you’re not an aficionado of classical or classically-styled music, you come alive when you’re in the room with these musicians.”
Because the series has been a success for nearly 25 years, artists enjoy the opportunity to play for the Cooperstown audience.
“They know Cooperstown to be warm and welcoming,” she said. “Even though we’re playing in a beautiful and elegant space, it’s not formal or fancy. It’s not stuffy. It’s an audience who appreciates the best in music and enjoys a night out in a relaxed atmosphere.”
The Verona Quartet returns to the Cooperstown Summer Music Festival on Monday, August 8, for a 7 p.m. performance that will feature a program of Puccini, Beethoven, and Dvorak’s “American” Quartet. Their career skyrocketed after a 2018 Cooperstown Festival performance of Vivaldi’s “The Four Seasons.”
The Festival continues on Wednesday, August 10, with a 7 p.m. performance, “Musical Kaleidocope,” by the Caroga Arts Ensemble. Cellist Kyle Price leads the ensemble, which will present a program ranging from bluegrass and classical to jazz and pop. The performance is a gift to Cooperstown and tickets will be by a suggested $15 donation.
The ensemble was on its way from Caroga Lake, New York, to Cooperstown for a performance last summer when they had to make a last-minute cancellation because of COVID.
“Caroga does amazing things and brings a whole array of musicians and styles to their performance,” she said. “They select the cream of the crop of players for each show; so many of them are musicians who are vacationing in Caroga Lake and are so happy to be playing in such a relaxing atmosphere. I’m so excited that they’re coming here to perform as a gift to our community. They’re so down-to-earth.”
The violinist Danbi Um and guitarist Jiji will present a duo performance on Monday, August 22, at 7 p.m.; young virtuosos joining forces for a genre-spanning program including works by Corelli, Paganini, Piazzolla, and Ella Fitzgerald.
Closing the season on Monday, August 29, at 7 p.m. – this time at The Farmers’ Museum – is the Brazilian jazz supergroup “Trio da Paz.”
“Have you ever heard them?” Ms. Chesis asked in our conversation. “They’re magnificent and I promise you’ll love them!”
“There’s something for everyone this year,” she said. “Because we’ve been doing this for 24 seasons, I hope people trust my taste enough that they’ll try something they might not have heard before. I’m just so excited to be bringing our Festival back to life and back to Cooperstown!”
