Cooperstown Festival Continues with Bach & Sons Concert on 8/19, and Lute Concert on 8/21

Works by Bach, Bach and Bach are on the program for the next Cooperstown Summer Music Festival concert on Friday, August 19 at Christ Church in Cooperstown. The "Bach & Sons" concert features arias, cantatas, and sonatas by Johann Sebastian Bach and two of his four composer sons: Wilhelm Friedemann (WF) and Carl Phillip Emmanuel (CPE).

"Wilhelm Friedemann was often considered the most brilliant," says Artistic Director and flutist Linda Chesis. "Yet he left relatively few works and died in obscurity. Forward-thinking and unorthodox, Carl Phillip Emmanuel (CPE) was once regarded as the superior musician of the Bach dynasty and the one to fill the huge stylistic gap between the music of his father and that of Haydn and Mozart."

Performing with Ms. Chesis are two artists who have been to the Festival before, cellist Alexis Pia Gerlach, who performed as part of Trio Solisti, and harpsichordist Bradley Brookshire, who has been a part of the festival several times, most recently last season when he gave a solo performance of J.S. Bach's Goldberg Variations.

Winner of numerous prizes including the Walter Naumburg International Competition, Astral Artists National Auditions, Young Performers Career Advancement, and Lili Boulanger awards, Ayano Ninomiya has performed with orchestras across the U.S., and was first violinist of the Ying Quartet from 2010-2015. She gave a TEDx talk on the power of live performances at the University of Tokyo. She is on the violin faculty of the New England Conservatory of Music.

Also new to the Festival, but not to Cooperstown, is tenor Quinn Bernegger. The Cooperstown High School graduate can be seen this summer in the leading role of Gilbert & Sullivan's The Mikado at Chautauqua Opera. This year he was a resident artist with Tri-Cities Opera. He made his operatic debut as Fenton in Verdi's Falstaff at the prestigious Seagle Music Colony.

? ?Festival continues with Hopkinson Smith, Flamenco, and two Sunday afternoon chamber music concerts

On August 21 at Hyde Hall, lutenist Hopkinson Smith will perform works by John Dowland, John Johnson, and Anthony Holborne in the drawing room of historic Hyde Hall. Seating is very limited, and tickets for this concert must be purchased in advance.

On August 28, the Sonia Olla Flamenco Dance Company will perform at the Otesaga Hotel in Cooperstown. Sonia has performed at The John F. Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts, Carnegie Hall, Lincoln Center, Le Poison Rouge, Instituto Cervantes, Birdland, and is featured regularly at Spain's most notable tablaos. Sonia worked as a choreographer for pop-icon Madonna for her 2015-2016 "Rebel Heart Tour." The Festival's extended season continues September 11 with a concert of Debussy, Bax and Ravel featuring Linda Chesis, June Han, harp; and Dimitri Murrath, viola; and on October 2 the Season Finale features works by Mendelssohn, Smetana and Katterburg performed d by Linda Chesis, Ayano Ninomiya, violin; Clancy Newman, cello; and Alexandre Moutouzkine, piano.

Tickets are $25 for adults, $15 for students. Purchase online, cooperstownmusicfest.org; by phone through Brown Paper Tickets, 800/838-3006, or at the door. Please note that tickets for the August 21 Hopkinson Smith concert must be purchased in advance.

Flutist Linda Chesis started the Cooperstown Summer Music Festival with three events in 1999, and since then the Festival has offered the region more than 100 concerts, from classical to contemporary, jazz to bluegrass, cabaret to kids' concerts. The Festival has featured: Midori, Hank Jones, the Tokyo String Quartet, the American String Quartet, the St. Lawrence String Quartet, Kurt Elling, Tim Fain, Bill Charlap, Hilary Kole, Simone Dinnerstein, Mark O'Connor, and many more.

The Cooperstown Summer Music Festival is made possible by the New York State Council on the Arts with the support of Governor Andrew Cuomo and the New York State Legislature.

Photo Credit: Matt Dine

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