Pianist Heng-Jin Park, founder/artistic director of the Halcyon Music Festival, which runs June 15 through 24 at St. John’s Episcopal Church in Portsmouth, NH. Kate Lemmon photograph
This summer’s ninth Halcyon Music Festival should be its tenth. But like any presenter who survived the pandemic years, pianist, artistic director and festival founder Heng-Jin Park appreciates just being here. And her audiences in Portsmouth, NH are equally appreciative.
Halcyon missed the entire 2020 season, then performed virtually in 2021. Last year saw a return to the live stage—“I didn’t know what to expect,” Park says. “People were still concerned, but by the end it was very good. It took a couple concerts.”
Good attendance brings about a hundred listeners to St. Johns’ Episcopal Church in downtown Portsmouth. “The church is huge,” she says. “It has quite a good piano, and the acoustic is great. We have a small percentage of people who come up from Boston, but mostly it’s the Seacoast area, and southern Maine.
“Portsmouth has a European feeling, vibrant with interesting activity,” she says. “I love it here, and there’s nothing really close to us.”
The festival opens June 15, with a chamber ensemble performing Bach’s third Brandenburg, Walker’s brief and magnificent Lyric for Strings, a quartet by Mozart and quintet by Brahms. Distinguished guests dot each of the programs, including cellists Peter Stumpf and Jonah Ellsworth; violinists Grace Park, Gabriela Diaz and Emma Frucht; violists Marcus Thompson and Danny Kim. There are four concerts each weekend through June 24.
Baritone Thomas Meglioranza sings Barber’s Dover Beach June 24 at the Halcyon Music Festival. Laura Rose photograph
“We do have a singer for the first time,” Park says, “mostly to program Dover Beach.” Baritone Thomas Meglioranza will sing Barber’s memorable setting of Matthew Arnold’s poem in the June 24 program, along with songs by Beethoven and Brahms’s Zwei Gesänge—“so beautiful,” Park says—the previous evening.
“We are still in the building phase,” she says. “I have to walk a fine line in wanting to program a little more adventurous things, and also to keep the audience happy. Mostly I chose pieces that I love myself, and think would make an interesting program. And that won’t overwork or underwork the musicians.”
Live-streaming kept the festival going during the pandemic, and Park has decided to continue the offering. It’s a modest virtual audience, “but in 2021 they loved being able to tune in,” she says.
Live streams are just that—tickets to the real-time event, not archived. Destination chamber music, if you will.
“We always did video recording, for YouTube and our web site (which features a number of nice performances),” she says. “Now it makes sense to offer it to everyone.”
The Halcyon Music Festival runs June 15 through 24 at St. John’s Episcopal Church in Portsmouth, NH.
ELSEWHERE IN NEW ENGLAND
Meeting House Chamber Music Festival opens June 18 in Orleans, its 49th season. Violinist Irina Muresanu joins cellist Sergey Antonov and festival director Donald Enos for the opening concert—teased by only announcing the Mendelssohn D minor trio. Gotta go there to find out the rest. Meeting House performs mostly Mondays through July 24 at the Church of the Holy Spirit, Episcopal in Orleans.
Rockport Chamber Music Festival’s composer-in-residence Mark Applebaum takes part in a cabaret performance June 16 and other programs throughout the festival.
The Escher Quartet highlights several programs during this weekend’s Rockport Chamber Music Festival. Additionally, violinist Chad Hoopes joins pianist Anne-Marie McDermott for an inviting program June 15, and cabaret presentations begin June 16.
There are “middle of nowhere” places in Connecticut, and Music Mountain is one of them. Find Falls Village and you’ll be happy. Pianist Misha Dichter joins clarinetist Oskar Espina Ruiz for music of Debussy, Brahms and Liszt June 18. Paul Winter performs June 24. Concerts there through mid-July on Sundays. The list of ensembles and collaborators is bountiful: Cassatt, Borromeo, Ulysses, Parker, Dalì, Lydian, Balourdet and lots more. Glad to see that old friend to Boston Judith Gordon will appear there on July 2, with the Arianna String Quartet.
Cellist Rafael Popper-Keizer is a familiar face on Boston stages. He directs Monadnock Music, opening June 15 and presenting a couple concerts a week through August. Violinist Charles Dimmick and flutist Rachel Braude join Popper-Keizer for lunch June 15 in Peterborough, then guitarist David William Ross joins them all June 18 in Jaffrey for the official opening. Happy to see two works by the late Kaija Saariaho on the July 27th program: “Aure” for violin and cello, and the mesmerizing Nocturne for solo violin. Tons of interesting rep all summer. Concerts in various south New Hampshire spots.
Green Mountain Chamber Music has both faculty and student recitals from June 25 through July 23, if you’re near Colchester. Landmarks Orchestra begins its summer series June 17. Now much broader than just Wednesday picnics at the Hatch Shell, concerts run through Aug. 23. The estimable Christopher Wilkins leads the orchestra.