Music Mountain to Conclude Season with Bard Festival String Quartet, 9/8

America's oldest continuing summer chamber music festival, Music Mountain, will conclude its 84th Anniversary Season on Sunday, September 8th, with an afternoon of chamber music performed by Bard Festival String Quartet; guest artist Xak Bjerken, piano. For the past 12-weeks, Music Mountain audiences have been treated to sixteen Chamber Music concerts, a twilight series of, Jazz, Big Band and Country Music concerts, a unique evening devoted to Gilbert & Sullivan and the first ever Folk Music Jamboree. Over 80 celebrated musicians have played at Music Mountain this summer in the chamber music series, alone, joined by over 50 talented students!

The final Sunday afternoon brings Bard Festival String Quartet to the stage performing Haydn: String Quartet in E Flat Major, Opus 33 # 2, The Joke, a piece seldom heard at Music Mountain; Casella: Five Pieces for String Quartet, Opus 34 (a Music Mountain premier!); and Brahms: Piano Quartet in G Minor, Opus 25. Guest artist Xak Bjerken, piano.

Bard Festival String Quartet features Laurie Smukler as first violinist A faculty member of the New School, she is married to fellow New School faculty member AndIra Weller, viola. Patricia Sunwoo, violin a faculty member at Binghamton University along with Robert L. Martin, cello and Director of the Bard College Conservatory of Music complete the quartet.

As a solo and chamber musician, Xak Bjerken has performed throughout the US and Europe, including appearances at Alice Tully Hall, Weill Hall, and the Kennedy Center, and has given recitals in Germany, Switzerland, Spain and Hungary. Mr. Bjerken is a member of the Los Angeles Piano Quartet, and, with his wife, pianist Miri Yampolsky, is director of MAYFEST, an annual chamber music festival in Ithaca, New York. Mr. Bjerken is currently Associate Professor of Piano at Cornell University Department of Music.

Located in Falls Village, Connecticut, Music Mountain is located on Music Mountain Road, where a short scenic drive will bring music lovers to Gordon Hall with ample & free parking. Beer and wine are available and, as is the Music Mountain custom, audience members are invited to picnic before the concerts on the scenic grounds.

Tickets: Sunday: $35 at the door, $30 in advance. Children ages 5-18 are admitted FREE for all concerts when accompanied by a ticket holder (Music Mountain gratefully acknowledges children admission support by the Hellen Plummer Foundation for a gift in memory of James Merrill, Connecticut's first Poet Laureate). All concerts begin at 6:30pm on Saturday evenings and 3pm on Sunday afternoons. Group rates and pre season ticket vouchers are available. Discounts apply through participating organizations. For a complete summer schedule, special ticket prices, and to download a ticket order form visit www.musicmountain.org or call860-824-7126.

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