Music and Art Exhibit in Kinderhook at The School on February 16th

Concerts in the Village continues its 10th Anniversary Season at 3:00pm on Sunday, February 16th, at The School | Jack Shainman Gallery in Kinderhook: “Glorious Strings in a Glorious Space – Celebrating 20th Century American Music.” This will be CITV’s 42nd concert. The strings of the Broad Street Orchestra, one of CITV’s two resident ensembles and the region’s premiere professional chamber orchestra, will be joined by four outstanding instrumental soloists in a program of American orchestral masterpieces written between 1928 and 1955. Artistic Director David Smith will conduct, along with Assistant Conductor Noah Palmer.

Included will be Aaron Copland’s Clarinet Concerto, composed for Benny Goodman in the late 1940’s. For this well-known work virtuoso clarinetist Paul Green will be joined by harpist Kathryn Sloat and pianist Noah Palmer. Copland’s concerto, a dazzling marriage of jazz and classical idioms, takes full advantage of the clarinet’s extremes of range and character. Samuel Barber’s imaginative Serenade of 1928 opens the concert with an engaging mix of lush string writing and dance-like rhythmic energy.

Also included will be Walter Piston’s tranquil Fantasy for English Horn and Harp of 1952. Featuring Nathaniel Fossner, English horn, and Kathryn Sloat, harp, the Fantasy is an impressionistic work suggestive of Ravel and including ravishing duets for the two solo instruments. Irving Fine’s “Serious Song: A Lament” of 1955 has been described by its composer as “an extended aria,” and by Leonard Bernstein, Fine’s close friend and colleague, as “rich, sensitive, emotional music.”

For the conclusion of the program, the demands of George Antheil’s whirlwind Serenade of 1948 reveal the stunning brilliance of the Broad Street Orchestra strings. Antheil was a composer whose creative genius seemed to know no limits, extending to the writing of mystery novels and remarkably even to the development of a sophisticated technology used in radio-controlled torpedoes, a patent for which he shared with none other than the famous actress Hedy Lamarr, his fellow designer.

Says CITV Artistic Director David Smith, “I am particularly grateful for this opportunity to present works so richly representative of mid-20th century American music, including the important, but now largely neglected ‘neo-classical’ repertory. Our program for February 16^th promises to be both enjoyable and ‘ear-opening.’ As CITV followers already know, performing such virtuosic works for strings guarantees richness and a real sense of urgency. I promise that our journey ‘all the way back to the 20^th century’ will be memorable, each work having been carefully chosen to highlight the unique visual and acoustical characteristics of the main galley at The School in Kinderhook. CITV is grateful to be in this space once again.”

From 2:00pm concertgoers will have the opportunity to view the current exhibition at The School | Jack Shainman Gallery: “Meleko Mokgosi: Democratic Intuition”. For additional information about the gallery and this exhibition please visit here.

Contribution $20. Students and children free. This location is not handicapped accessible.

For further information and assured seating: www.concertsinthevillage.org, or 518-758-6869.