Music Mountain season opens with jazz, classical

FALLS VILLAGE — Music Mountain begins its 82nd season Sunday, June 19, 3 p.m. with pianist Misha Dichter and the Harlem String Quartet.The program includes two pieces performed by the string quartet — Mozart’s String Quartet No.15 in D minor and Borodin’s String Quartet No. 2 in D major — and two with the quartet and Dichter — Schumann’s Piano Quintet in E Flat major, and Billy Strayhorn’s “Take the ‘A’Train” (arranged by Paul Chihara).Of the Strayhorn piece, which was Duke Ellington’s signature song, Dichter said “the Harlem String Quartet has been doing it as an encore for years. I’m very glad we got this arrangement.”Dichter is a jazz fan, especially of pianist Art Tatum. “I love to imagine a time, when Rachmaninoff and Horowitz were going to clubs in New York to hear Tatum.”Asked how he makes classical music relevant in the modern world, Dichter said he rejects the notion of musical boundaries.“It’s all wonderful.”And asked how much he practices, he said that practicing music “keeps my mind agile.” He begins around 7 a.m. “and somewhere in the afternoon I just stop.”Dichter won the silver medal at the 1966 International Tchaikovsky Competition in Moscow, while still a student at Juilliard, but unlike “my friend Van Cliburn,” who won at the first competition in 1958, Dichter didn’t get a ticker-tape parade.“That was the height of the Cold War,” he said. “It was a very intense time.”Dichter has worked with the Harlem String Quartet already this year, in Arizona and the Caribbean, and they will perform in Chicago later this summer.All tickets to the concert and reception are $75. For more information call 860-824-7126 or visit www.musicmountain.org

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