Caramoor Announces Classical Highlights of the 2014 Summer Music Festival

Nov. 22, 2013 - PRLog -- KATONAH, NY (November 11, 2013) – Jeffrey P. Haydon, Chief Executive Officer of Caramoor Center for Music and the Arts, has announced classical highlights of the 2014 Caramoor Summer Music Festival. The iconic festival, which is held annually at the Center’s beautiful 90-acre garden estate in Katonah, New York, will run from June 21 to August 6.

“Caramoor is the premiere destination to experience music in the summer, featuring today’s leading artists such as Angela Meade, Joshua Bell, and Pablo Heras-Casado,” said Mr. Haydon. “We are particularly excited about our new artist residency featuring Alisa Weilerstein, an alumni of Caramoor’s Evnin Rising Stars mentoring program and 2013 MacArthur Genius Grant winner.”

Tickets: Tickets go on sale January 27, 2014. Donor pre-sales start January 20.

June 21:  Opening Night
The opening night of the festival features celebrated violinist, Joshua Bell and the Orchestra of St. Luke’s, led by conductor, Cristian Macelaru, in a program of Ligeti’s Concert Romanesc, Sibelius’s Violin Concerto andBizet’s Symphony in C.

Cristian Macelaru, who is currently Associate Conductor to Yannick Nézet-Séguin at the Philadelphia Orchestra, will make his Caramoor debut on opening night. Macelaru’s 2013-14 season opened with a subscription week in Philadelphia, and included a debut with the National Symphony Orchestra and a return to the Chicago Symphony. He recently made two successful appearances with the Chicago Symphony as a replacement for Pierre Boulez, which had the Chicago Sun-Times exclaiming: “Macelaru is the real thing, displaying confidence without arrogance and offering expressiveness without excess demonstration.”

July 6:  Orchestra of St. Luke’s and Jeffrey Kahane, pianist/conductor
The Orchestra of St. Luke’s continues its long and storied relationship with Caramoor. Joining with the orchestra for the July 6 performance is famed pianist and conductor, Jeffrey Kahane. According to the Chicago Classical Review, Kahane “has established a reputation as a truly versatile artist, equally sought-after as soloist, conductor and chamber musician.” The concert will feature Copland’s brilliant Appalachian Spring as originally scored for 13 instruments. Shostakovich’s Chamber Symphony in D Major, Op. 83a and Beethoven’s Piano Concerto No. 1 complete the program.

July 11: The Dover Quartet continues its residency at Caramoor
The Dover Quartet, Caramoor’s 2013-14 Ernst Stiefel String Quartet-in-Residence, will delight audiences “with a level of nuance unexpected of musicians so young” (The Wall Street Journal). Considered one of the most remarkably talented string quartets ever to emerge at such a young age, the Dover Quartet swept the 2013 Banff International String Quartet Competition, winning the Grand Prize. The Quartet draws from the musical lineage of both the Vermeer and Guarneri Quartets, but brings a youthful enthusiasm and musical conviction to the repertoire that is truly its own. The Strad recently raved that the Quartet is “already pulling away from their peers with their exceptional interpretative maturity, tonal refinement and taut ensemble.”

Opera/Bel Canto at Caramoor
Saturday, July 12 and Friday, July 18: Donizetti’s Lucrezia Borgia
Saturday, July 19: Verdi’s Rigoletto
The celebrated Bel Canto at Caramoor series, led by Director of Opera Will Crutchfield, is now in its 18th season of presenting distinguished operas at Caramoor. The series opens with Donizetti’s Lucrezia Borgia and features acclaimed soprano Angela Meade, who will return to Caramoor to make her highly-anticipated debut as Lucrezia. In her breakout role as Norma in the 2010 production at Caramoor, the New York Times exclaimed “From the first lines of Norma’s entrance…Ms. Meade sounded in complete control of the role.” The cast also includes mezzo soprano Tamara Mumford, tenor Charles Castronovo and bass Christophoros Stamboglis.

Verdi’s Rigoletto will feature baritone Stephen Powell and tenor John Osborn in the roles of Rigoletto and the Duke. Georgia Jarman will perform the role of Gilda. Lucrezia Borgia and Rigoletto are "sister operas" based on a pair of Victor Hugo plays that Hugo himself called a "duology."  Both semi-staged concert performances will be sung in Italian, with English supertitles.

July 31, August 1 and August 3: Alisa Weilerstein featured in a residency to close the festival Alisa Weilerstein, named “one of the most exciting American cellists of the new generation” by The New York Times, will participate in an artist residency that will include a master class and three performances, Thursday July 31 to August 3.

July 31 –      Ms. Weilerstein will conduct a cello master class.
August 1 –   Ms. Weilerstein will perform with the Ariel String Quartet.
August 3 –   She will join the Orchestra of St. Luke’s and conductor, Pablo Heras-Casado, in closing the festival with Wagner’s Prelude to Act III from Lohengrin, Elgar’s Cello Concerto and Dvorak’s Symphony No.8, in G.