Music Mountain Presents 'Painting Music At The Mountain'

Children and adults of all ages are welcome to participate in a festive community event on the Music Mountain lawn on Saturday, August 25 at 11:30 am for an individual and a collaborative drawing and painting session that captures diverse responses to live music. Canvas, paints and brushes will be provided free of charge and all participants will be able to take home their work. The outdoors session will be directed by local artist Vincent Inconiglios, with chamber ensembles from the Music Mountain Academy.

A picnic will follow at 12:30 pm. Participants are asked to bring their own food and drinks. In addition, the Music Mountain concessions stand will be open to serve coffee, tea, ice cream and other goodies. Free parking.

At 1 pm, a one-hour-long free concert in Gordon Hall will wrap up the event featuring the Cassatt String Quartet and Music Mountain artistic director, Oskar Espina-Ruiz, clarinet, performing works inspired by art-in essence reversing the "painting music" process into a "playing art" one-and a final work in which Vincent Inconiglios will "paint the music" in real time.

Since space is limited for the hands-on session at 11:30 am, participants are asked to reserve their spot by calling 860-824-7126. Music Mountain is located at 225 Music Mountain Road, Falls Village, Connecticut.

The 1 pm concert program includes three works composed within the last year: Xinyan Li's The Incomplete Journey for string quartet, inspired in an ink painting by Du Li (painting attached); Zach Hicks' Hanging by a Thread for string quartet, inspired by the 1994 painting by Mauro Bordin, "Stanza con scrivania" ("Room with desk") (painting attached); and Gerald Cohen's Voyagers for clarinet and string quartet, written in honor of the 40th Anniversary of the launch of the two Voyager Spacecraft and the Golden Records that were sent with the Voyagers on their journey. Cohen's work was premiered at the Hayden Planetarium of the American Museum of Natural History.

The performance in Gordon Hall, essentially the grand finale of the Painting Music at the Mountain event, will explore a whole different dimension of the music, with the Cassatt String Quartet and Oskar Espina-Ruiz, clarinet, performing live, while Vincent Inconiglios completes his painting of the music in real time.

Acclaimed as one of America's outstanding ensembles, the Manhattan-based all-female Cassatt String Quartet has performed throughout North America, Europe, and the Far East with appearances in London for the Sapphire Jubilee Celebration of Queen Elizabeth II, the Beijing Modern Music Festival, New York's Alice Tully Hall and Weill Recital Hall at Carnegie Hall, the Kennedy Center and Library of Congress in Washington, DC, the Theatre des Champs Elysées in Paris and Maeda Hall in Tokyo. Equally adept at classical masterpieces and contemporary music, the Cassatt has collaborated with a remarkable array of artists/composers including pianist Marc-Andre Hamelin, soprano Susan Narucki, flutist Ransom Wilson, jazz pianist Fred Hersch, didgeridoo player Simon 7, and the Trisha Brown Dance Company. With a deep commitment to nurturing young musicians, the Cassatt Quartet, in residencies at Princeton, Yale, Syracuse University, the University at Buffalo and the University of Pennsylvania, has devoted itself to coaching, teaching and mentoring.

Oskar Espina-Ruiz, clarinet and Music Mountain artistic director, has performed at major concert halls and festivals to high critical acclaim, including concerto performances at the Philharmonic Hall in St. Petersburg, Russia, and recitals in New York City, Washington DC, Moscow, Madrid, Tokyo, Beijing, Shanghai and Hong Kong. During the 2017-2018 season he is appearing in concert in Australia, China and the US, is getting back to the recording studio to record works by Arriaga and Isasi, and works on a new clarinet concerto dedicated to him by composer Alfonso Fuentes, to be premiered in 2019. Oskar Espina Ruiz has appeared as soloist with the St. Petersburg State Academic Symphony (Russia), St. Petersburg Chamber Philharmonic (Russia), Orquesta Sinfónica de la Ciudad de Asunción (Paraguay) and Bilbao Symphony (Spain). His chamber music collaborations include the American, Shanghai, Cassatt, Escher and Daedalus string quartets, the Quintet of the Americas, pianists Victoria Schwartzman, Benjamin Hochman, Ursula Oppens and Anthony Newman, cellist David Geber (founder, American String Quartet) and Metropolitan Opera Orchestra artists. He has been described by the press as a "masterful soloist" and a "highly expressive" clarinetist.

Vincent Inconiglios has been represented in regional and national exhibitions throughout the US and abroad. He had his first one-man exhibition in NYC in SoHo in 1972 and was one of the featured artists of "10 Downtown" at the MoMA PS1. Recently he has had solo exhibitions at the Morrison Gallery in Kent, CT. His work has been noted by Barbara Rose in New York Magazine, reviewed in ARTFORUM, and is in private and public collections including JPMorganChase, The Norton Simon Collection, and AT&T. He splits his time between his loft and studio in the Meatpacking District of Manhattan and his studio in Falls Village, Connecticut.