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News Release

Last modified: Wednesday, May 9, 2012

Pressler, complete Beethoven string quartets highlight IU Jacobs School's Summer Music series

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
May 9, 2012

BLOOMINGTON, Ind. -- As part of Indiana University's second annual Summer Festival of the Arts, the Jacobs School of Music has assembled a Summer Music series of more than 40 free and ticketed events from June 13 through July 27. In all, the series offers an array of world-class concerts featuring orchestra, chamber music, piano, band, percussion, opera, jazz and other special events.

Highlights this year include legendary pianist Distinguished Professor Menahem Pressler, the performance of all 16 string quartets of Ludwig van Beethoven by four internationally renowned string quartets, and three acclaimed guest conductors for the Festival Orchestra. Click here for a list of all Summer Music series performances.

A Pressler and Friends program June 17 and 18 will feature a reunion with cellist Antonio Meneses, a Beaux Arts Trio member from 1998 until the chamber music ensemble disbanded in 2008. They will be joined by violinist Andrés Cárdenes and violist Paul Neubauer. A founding member and pianist of the former Beaux Arts Trio, Pressler has established himself among the world's most distinguished and honored musicians, with a career that spans more than six decades.

The Shanghai, Penderecki, Afiara and Cecilia quartets will tag-team in a six-concert performance of all the Beethoven string quartets, as part of the chamber music series.

Further chamber music highlights include boundary-crossing violinist Gilles Apap in a performance of Vivaldi's "Four Seasons" with the IU String Academy Chamber Orchestra on June 23.

The Festival Orchestra will be led this year by conductors Matthias Pintscher, Roberto Abbado and Carlos Kalmar. Taking place June 15 and 29, and July 13, the concerts will feature a variety of popular works, including Beethoven's Symphony No. 5, Rachmaninoff's "Symphonic Dances" and Brahms' Symphony No. 2. Considered one of the finest ensembles in the region, the Festival Orchestra's musicians include distinguished faculty members, guests from symphony orchestras in Cleveland, Cincinnati, Minneapolis, Pittsburgh and St. Louis and the Metropolitan Opera Orchestra and the National Symphony Orchestra, as well as students at the Jacobs School.

The Weiss-Kaplan-Newman Trio returns, while other solo and chamber recitals feature violinists Kevork Mardirossian, Sarah Kapustin, Clara-Jumi Kang, Erin Aldridge and Peter Vickery; violists Atar Arad and Stephen Wyrczynski; cellists Peter Stumpf, Csaba Onczay and Nathan Vickery; and pianists Evelyne Brancart, Chih-Yi Chen and Lee Phillips, among others.

The festival's piano recital series includes performances by Edmund Battersby, Hans Boepple, Read Gainsford, Quattro Mani (Alice Rybak and Susan Grace) and others.

The jazz component of this year's series includes "Birth of the Cool," featuring Jacobs School of Music faculty and guests, on June 13; the Steve Houghton Trio on July 10, featuring Jacobs faculty members Steve Houghton on drums, Luke Gillespie on piano and Jeremy Allen on bass; and the David Linard Trio, recipient of the 2011 Owl Studios Emerging Jazz Artist Project Award, on July 15.

Additional performances to look forward to include the IU Percussion Academy faculty and the Pipe Organ Encounter faculty recitals and accompanied silent-film presentation, "The Phantom of the Opera."

The Symphony Orchestra, composed of Jacobs students, will perform two free concerts -- June 20 and July 20 -- conducted by Cliff Colnot, principal conductor of the Chicago Symphony Orchestra's contemporary MusicNOW series and of the Civic Orchestra of Chicago.

Opera performances this summer include Summer Opera Workshops directed by faculty members Patricia Stiles on June 20 and Carol Vaness on June 30 and July 25.

The popular Summer Band concerts, featuring the conducting talents of Stephen W. Pratt and David C. Woodley from the IU Department of Bands, will be held on the lawn of the Musical Arts Center. The concerts, featuring marches, popular favorites, solos and light classics, are scheduled for 7 p.m. June 27 and July 11 and 18.

Some events are free and some require tickets. A limited number of discounted Summer Music Passes are offered to the general public, with further reductions for full-time students. Tickets and passes will be available from the Musical Arts Center Box Office beginning May 30. Call 812-855-7433 for ticket information.

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