ClassicFest

ClassicFest

Wilhelmina Smith, artistic director
Kenneth Karadin, festival director

ClassicFest "Moment", August 27.  Clarinetist Burt Hara, principal with the Minnesota Orchestra, is in rehearsal today for concerts Friday night and Saturday night at the BBC Proms in Royal Albert Hall in London.The tour continues to the Edinburgh Music Festival and concerts in Amsterdam's Concertgebouw before the orchestra returns August 31. At Classicfest, Burt will be performing the great Brahms Clarinet Quintet on September 10, and the Schumann "Fantasy Pieces" on September 12.

August 30. Violinist Jennifer Koh, cellist Wilhelmina Smith, and pianist Benjamin Hochman have spent the last month "prepping" the great Chopin Piano Trio for Pensacola audiences, performing the work at the Boston Chamber Music Festival in Cambridge, and at the Salt Bay Chamberfest in Damariscotta, midcoast Maine. Jennifer Koh has made two solo appearances with the PSO; Mina Smith is the ClassicFest artistic director; and the Israeli-born Hochman makes his first ClassicFest appearance this year. The Chopin Piano Trio closes the event on September 12.

August 31.  Violinist Sheryl Staples, new to ClassicFest audiences this year, played a concert August 14 for the Boston Chamber Music Society summer series, which this year observes the 200th anniversary of the births of Chopin and Schumann. Sheryl is the principal associate concertmaster of the New York Philharmonic Orchestra, a position she won in 1998 after several years as associate concertmaster of the Cleveland Orchestra. Sheryl performs at ClassicFest on September 10.

September 1. Violist Hsin-you Huang's summer festival schedule speaks to the great demand she's in as an artist. June included chamber music performances in Tokyo, Rome, and Telluride; July found Hsin-Yun at the great Santa Fe festival; and August found her closer to home at Damariscotta and Mount Desert in Maine, and Bridgehampton, Long Island. Just last week Hsin-Yun adjudicated a string quartet competition in Banff. She's heard at ClassicFest on September 10 and September 12.

. 10 & 12 September, 2010.

In 1985, a whole new dimension of concert-presenting at Christ Church began with the first Pensacola Chamber Music Festival, now “ClassicFest,” a multi-concert summer event that brought to Pensacola a vertiable host of fine young string players, many students and recent grads of schools like Curtis in Philadelphia and Juilliard in New York City. Over several years the event found its “balance,” and for many years two weekends of six or eight concerts took place in June. More recently tropical weather issues (including the catastrophic damage to Christ Church from Hurricane Ivan in 2004) and the economy have caused the event to seek a new equilibrium, for the past several years in September.

Music

• Choirs
• ClassicFest
• Music at Christ Church
• The Kney Organ

Wilhelmina Smith. director / cello

Sheryl Staples, violin


Jennifer Koh, violin


Hsin-Yun Huang, viola

Benjamin Hochman, piano

Burt Hara, clarinet