Celebrating Everything Prokofiev

The 19th Annual Bard Summer Music Festival, celebrating principally one composer (this year Prokofiev), as well as the composer’s friends and contemporaries, gets under way Aug. 8 at Bard College, in Red Hook, NY.

 

Since the Frank Gehry-designed arts complex, known as the Fisher Center for the Performing Arts, was opened in 2005, the festival has been greatly expanded and is now called Bard SummerScape.

Eleven programs are scheduled for the next two weekends. Friday, Aug. 8, the program includes panel discussions and symposiums; concerts by the American Symphony Orchestra, conducted by Leon Botstein; the Chiara String Quartet, pianist Jeremy Denk; and Irina Mishura, mezzo-soprano at the Sosnoff Theater.The program will include Prokofiev’s Symphony No. 1, "The Classical," Op. 25; the Piano Sonata No. 7, in B Flat Major, Op. 83; and the String Quartet No. 1, in B-minor, Op. 50.

Saturday, Aug. 9, a panel discussion on Prokofiev, "The Man and His Music," begins at 10 a.m. Admission is free: it takes place at Bard’s Olin auditorium. At 1 p.m., also at the Olin auditorium, a program titled "Before Emigration: Teachers and Influences" is scheduled with David Nice (preconcert talk), Michael Abramowich and Jeremy Denk, pianists; Sophie Shao, cello; and the Bard Festival Chamber Players.

Saturday, Aug. 9, in the Sosnoff Theater, a preconcert talk begins at 7 p.m., "The Silver Age of Mystic Symbols." Among the works on the program, Prokofiev’s Piano Concerto No. 1, Op. 10; Symphony No. 3, Op. 44; and Alexander Scriabin’s "Le poème de l’exstase," Op. 54. Participating artists include the American Symphony Orchestra, Leon Botstein, conducting; and the Bard Festival Choral, James Bagwell, director. Sunday, Aug. 10, at 10 a.m. in Olin Hall a free lecture on "Prokofiev and Composing for Film" is on the program, followed at 1 p.m. by "The Paris Years" in Olin Hall. The program will include works by Prokofiev, Satie, Honegger, Poulenc, Ravel, Stravinsky and Milhaud.

Sunday, Aug. 10, at 5 p.m. in the Sosnoff Theater a program titled "The Cult of the Child" is scheduled. Music by Prokofiev, Ravel, Poulenc and Satie is to be performed by pianists Allessio Bax and Lucille Chung; soprano Dina Kutznetsova; Michael York, narrator; and the Bard Festival Ensemble, Eckart Preu, conductor.

For information and tickets, call the box office at 845-758-7900 or go to www.fishercenter.bard.edu.

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The Berkshire Opera Company

will present five live performances of Mozart’s comedy, "Le Nozze di Figaro," (The Marriage of Figaro) at its home, the Colonial Theatre, on North Street in Pittsfield, MA, Aug. 15, 20 and 22 at 8 p.m., and Aug. 18 and 24 at 2 p.m. For tickets, call the box office at 413-997-4444. Student pricing is available.

 

Music Mountain

in Falls Village, CT, has scheduled a concert for Aug. 10, at 3 p.m. with the Rosetti String Quartet and flutist Eugenia Zuckerman, to benefit the program’s operating fund. All tickets are $50, children 5 to 11 free. Call 860-824-7126 or go to www.musicmountain.org for tickets and information. The benefit program includes Gluck’s "Dance of the Blessed Spirits," arranged for flute and string quartet, from "Orpheus and Eurydice"; Dvorak’s String Quartet No. 14, in A Flat, Op. 105; Piazzola’s "Tango Ballet" for String Quartet; and Ginastera’s "Impressiones de La Puna" for Flute and String Quartet.