Cooperstown Summer Music Festival Opens with Classical Guitarist Jason Vieaux and Flutist Linda Chesis, 7/8

The Cooperstown Summer Music Festival opens its 14th season on July 8 with classical guitarist Jason Vieaux, flutist Linda Chesis, and a string trio with Nadir Khashimov, Daniel Lee, and Eric Han. The 7:30 pm concert will be held in the Louis C. Jones Center at The Farmers' Museum.

Jason Vieaux is expanding the definition of what it means to be a classical guitarist and changing the face of guitar repertoire. Recent highlights include solo performances at Lincoln Center, Spivey Hall, the Chautauqua Festival, and a return to Music@Menlo. In 2011, Jason Vieaux co-founded The Curtis Institute of Music Guitar Department with guitarist David Starobin, and this month launched an online music school, Classical Guitar with Jason Vieaux, through ArtistWorks. He has 12 commercially successful CDs, with more to come.

Ms. Chesis has been hailed by critics on three continents as one of the most exciting and dynamic flutists of her generation. "This program has lots of variety and virtuosity," says Chesis, who is also founder and artistic director of the Festival.

The program features an early 19th century quartet for guitar and string trio by the French classical guitarist and composer Francois de Fossa, and two works (L'Histoire du Tango and Oblivion) by Astor Piazzolla, an Argentinian composer best known for creating tango nuevo, a fusion of traditional tango, classical music and jazz.

The concert also features works by contemporary composers. Red Trees, Wrinkled Cliffs, was composed in 2011 by Zhou Tian, whose works have been performed at Carnegie Hall, the Kennedy Center, Lincoln Center and the National Centre for the Performing Arts (Beijing). Mr. Zhou is an assistant professor of music at Colgate University. Mr. Vieaux and Ms. Chesis will perform the Grammy-nominated Mountain Songs by Robert Beaser. Mr. Beaser's opera The Food of Love was performed at Glimmerglass Opera in 1999. He is currently artistic director of the American Composers Orchestra.
The Festival continues July 29 at 7:30 pm with the prize-winning Jupiter String Quartet performing works by Haydn, Bartók and Mendelssohn at The Farmers' Museum. The Jupiters have won first prize in the Banff International String Quartet Competition, grand prize in the Fischoff National Chamber Music Competition, and membership in Lincoln Center's Chamber Music Society Two. Most recently, they were honored to receive an Avery Fisher Career Grant.