Sister Bay, Wis. – June 8, 2018 – Door County’s Midsummer’s Music is launching its 2018 season with the Disparate Spirits program, featuring music by Hamza El Din, Bohuslav Martinů, and César Franck.
Brett Bicoy hosts the Opening Night Gala and is joined by Door County Poet Laureate, Sharon Auberle, who will recite a poem written especially for the occasion. The Gala is Friday, June 15, at 7:00 pm in Birch Creek’s Juniper Hall in Egg Harbor. An opening toast of Island Orchard Cider with a wonderful reception following the concert rounds out the performance entitled Disparate Spirits. This program will be offered three more times in June. Works include: El Din’s Escalay (“The Water Wheel”), Martinů’s Oboe Quartet, and Franck’s Piano Quintet.
Starting with the little boy in Hamza El Din’s Escalay, we hear the water wheel start to turn once the youngster has hooked up the oxen to it early in the morning – his daily duty in this sleepy village of rural Egypt. The String Quartet captures the sound of the ancient folk instrument, the Oud, while sketching the water drops and rivulets, the color of sand and hot sun, and the modes and moods of the oriental sounding Oud. This is the first of five works this season “sprinkled” throughout the season that are related to the Celebrate Water initiative.
Far away, another rural village in Martinů’s Czech homeland seems to be awakening to a holiday where cares and the soreness of labor are being danced away via the piping oboe at a festive town gathering.
Finally, the quintessential Piano Quintet by Franck unleashes all the varied emotions from the first half of the program plus many more in this intensely romantic masterpiece, which seems to immediately and inexplicably dissolve all Franck’s inhibitions from his heretofore buttoned-downed 19th century French existence.
Concerts are 7:00 pm June 15 at Birch Creek’s Juniper Hall; 7:00 pm June 16 at St. Luke’s Episcopal Church; 7:00 pm June 20 at Hope United Church of Christ; and 7:00 pm June 22 at the Unitarian Universalist Fellowship.
Most concerts are $29 for adults, $10 for students, and children 12 and under are free. Premium prices apply toward opening night, salon/home concerts, dinner concerts and other special events. Subscriptions consisting of four concert tickets and flex-packs of six or eight tickets are available. Tickets, subscriptions and flex-packs can be ordered online at midsummersmusic.com or by phone at 920-854-7088.