Following its record-breaking 55th summer festival, this month Newport Classical opens its fourth full-season Chamber Series, featuring twelve concerts held on select Fridays at 7:30 pm at the organization’s home venue Newport Classical Recital Hall (42 Dearborn St.).
On September 13, the “entrancing” (BBC Music Magazine) Merz Trio performs the music of Schumann and Brahms, and on September 27, the fiery Ariel Quartet performs music by Mendelssohn and Britten.
Newport Classical’s Chamber Series takes place at Newport Classical Recital Hall in downtown Newport, known for its striking architecture and excellent acoustics. The Chamber Series, newly expanded to twelve concerts held between September and June, reaffirms Newport Classical’s commitment to year-round classical music programming. Audiences are invited to enjoy performances by world-class classical musicians in a relaxed setting, with a complimentary glass of wine from Greenvale Vineyards and homemade treats by Newport Classical volunteers.
On September 13, the Merz Trio (Brigid Coleridge, violin; Julia Yang, cello; Amy Yang, piano) opens the Chamber Series with a concert exploring melody sung into and for the night. Beginning with the 12th-century chants spun by Hildegard von Bingen in her solitary monastic cell, the piano trio weaves together a musical conversation that joins the voices of Purcell, Schumann, Alma Mahler, Brahms, and Zemlinsky in works large and small and brings audiences into the twentieth century with Thelonious Monk’s poignantly lonely ode to a dark hour, ‘Round Midnight. The Trio has made a sweep of recent US chamber music awards, taking top prizes at the 2021 Naumburg, 2019 Concert Artists Guild, and 2019 Fischoff competitions, and are 2023 Salon De Virtuosi Career Grant recipients. They have been described as “artists in the deepest sense of the word” (CutCommon).
Distinguished by its virtuosity, probing musical insight, and impassioned, fiery performances, the Ariel Quartet (Gershon Gerchikov, violin; Alexandra (Sasha) Kazovsky, violin; Jan Grüning, viola; Amit Even-Tov, cello) has garnered critical praise worldwide for more than 25 years. On September 27, they perform a concert of catharsis featuring music by composers Mendelssohn, Lera Auerbach, and Britten. Filled to the brim with contrast and expressivity, this program traces three dramatically different composers’ responses to loss, be it personal or collective, explicit or implicit. The resulting experience is a riveting and emotionally stirring Aristotelian Catharsis. The Washington Post recently described one of the Ariel Quartet’s performances as “setting ear-melting tenderness against seething passion with a deft and precise touch.”
As part of Newport Classical’s desire to create connections between classical music, the artists who perform it, and the Newport community, all musicians performing on the Chamber Series also go into the Newport-area public schools to perform for and speak with students, through Newport Classical’s Music Education and Engagement Initiative.
Up next, Newport Classical presents the Fulton Chamber Players (Paul Hauer, violin; Amy Hess, viola; Addison Teng, violin) in a free Community Concert on September 8, 2024 at 2:30pm at Newport Craft Brewing, bringing a sweeping selection of classical music from Bach and Dvořák to Scott Joplin and George Gershwin to Newport Craft’s expansive lawn overlooking the Pell Bridge.
On October 8 and 9, Newport Classical presents GRAMMY® Award-winning pianist Emanuel Ax in two special concerts at the Newport Classical Recital Hall. Hailed for his “thoughtful, lyrical, lustrous” playing by The Washington Post, the acclaimed American pianist will make his Newport Classical debut in a solo recital program of Beethoven and Schumann, entitled Fantasies.
The Newport Classical Chamber Series continues with Finnish-Cuban pianist Anton Mejias in the US premiere of composer Philip Lasser’s response to Bach’s Well-Tempered Clavier on October 18. On November 1, baritone Markel Reed, known for his appearances at the Metropolitan Opera, sings the music of Brahms, Margaret Bonds, Terence Blanchard, and more. Cellist Seth Parker Woods, celebrated by The Guardian as “a cellist of power and grace,” explores three centuries of music with Bach’s contemplative Sarabandes as a point of departure and return in his solo cello concert on November 15. The Chamber Series continues in 2025 with the Telegraph Quartet, described as “powerfully adept, with a combination of brilliance and subtlety” by the San Francisco Chronicle, presenting music rarely experienced by its creators, the composers Rebecca Clarke, Beethoven, and Smetana, on January 24. Boyd Meets Girl comes to Newport for a performance on Valentine’s Day, February 14 – the impressive husband-and-wife guitar and cello duo has toured the world sharing their eclectic mix of music from Debussy and Bach to Radiohead and Beyoncé. On February 28, the acclaimed Trio Karénine, which has established itself in recent years as a key group on the French and international stage, pairs Schubert’s second piano trio with Dvořák’s rarely programmed second piano trio, filled with color, warmth, lively dance, and Slavic folk elements. Oboist James Austin Smith, hailed by The New York Times as “virtuosic,” and for his “dazzling” and “brilliant” performances, joins forces with acclaimed pianist Gloria Chien in music by William Grant Still, Clara Schumann, Camille Saint-Saëns, and more, on March 21. On April 25, Bulgarian-American violinist Bella Hristova, who has won international acclaim for her “expressive nuance and rich tone” (The New York Times) presents the music of Bach and Messiaen, alongside works by Grieg and Indian-American composer Reena Esmail, with pianist Anna Polonsky. Pianist Orion Weiss, known for his “powerful technique and exceptional insight” (The Washington Post) returns to Newport for a solo recital of Bach’s beloved Goldberg Variations on May 16. On June 13, the GRAMMY-nominated Norwegian Trio Mediaeval, who captivate audiences with their crystalline voices, closes the 2024-2025 Newport Classical Chamber Series with an enchanting evening of Norwegian and Swedish traditional songs, hymns, fiddle tunes, and ballads.
During the 2024-2025 season, Newport Classical will also present two holiday programs, which will be announced later this year. The 2025 Newport Classical Music Festival will take place from July 4-22, 2025.
Single tickets for Chamber Series concerts start at $45 and packages are available starting at $200 for five concerts. AARP members and their guests receive discounts on fall Chamber Series tickets and packages, and thanks to a generous grant from the Gruben Charitable Foundation, a limited number of free student tickets are available on a first-come, first-served basis.
