THE BEETHOVEN CYCLE: A Lecture-Presentation Comes to 3 Local Libraries

Music lovers in the tri-state area will receive a major cultural treat this summer. The world-renowned Shanghai String Quartet will perform six concerts featuring the full sixteen Beethoven quartets --"THE BEETHOVEN CYCLE" at Music Mountain in Falls Village. Widely considered as the ultimate challenge for the string quartet, and not performed in this area in decades, Music Mountain's Artistic Director, Oskar Espina-Ruiz has created a FREE special preview lecture/presentation about the cycle which will be hosted at three local libraries. The Salisbury Scoville Memorial Library (38 Main St, Salisbury, Connecticut) will kick off the music-talk tour on Saturday, March 10th at 4PM with additional lectures at the Hotchkiss Library (10 Upper Main St, Sharon, Connecticut) on Saturday March 24th at 4PM and the Pine Plains Free Library (7775 South Main St, Pine Plains, New York) on Friday, April 20th at 7PM.

The presentations are intended for all levels of music enthusiasts and will include short audio samples to describe how Beethoven's 16 string quartets cover a groundbreaking transformation in music, both within the style of the composer himself, as well as within the process that paved the way from the Classical to the Romantic era in music.

Oskar Espina-Ruiz, Doctor of Musical Arts (D.M.A.), serves as artistic director of Music Mountain since the fall of 2016. He is an international concert clarinetist, artist-faculty at the University of North Carolina School of the Arts and artistic director of the Treetops Chamber Music Society, while keeping a busy concert schedule.

Tickets are free to the public and seating is general admission.