Newport String Project to perform December 6 & 7 (Newport String Project)

The Newport String Project will present the second weekend of its Newport County Concert Series with performances on Saturday, Dec. 6, and Sunday, Dec. 7, featuring the Newport String Quartet.

The Saturday concert will be held at 2 p.m. at Four Corners Arts Center, 3848 Main Road, Tiverton. The Sunday performance will take place at 2 p.m. at Newport Art Museum, 76 Bellevue Avenue.

The program will showcase works by Felix Mendelssohn, Maddalena Sirmen, Alan Hovhaness and Thomas Oboe Lee, performed by the quartet’s members: violinists Ealaín McMullin and Kenneth Trotter, violist Florrie Marshall and cellist Chelsea Bernstein.

The centerpiece of the program is Mendelssohn’s String Quartet in E minor, Op. 44, No. 2, which the project describes as dramatic and melody-filled, displaying the composer at the height of his powers.

The concert will also feature a rarely heard string quartet by 18th-century composer Maddalena Lombadini Sirmen, alongside Hovhaness’s “Four Bagatelles” and Lee’s “Morango almost a Tango.”

According to the press release, the moody and atmospheric program is designed to enrich the festive season.

Tickets are available at newportstringproject.org.

Ryan Belmore is the owner and publisher of What's Up Newp. He took over the publication in 2012 and has grown it into a three-time Rhode Island Monthly Best Local News Blog (2018, 2019, 2020). He was named LION Publishers Member of the Year in 2020 and received the Dominique Award from the Arts & Cultural Society of Newport County the same year. He has been awarded grants for investigative and community journalism, and continues to coach and mentor new local news publications nationwide. Ryan...