Door County’s Midsummer’s Music continues its 29th season with a series of concerts dedicated to the extraordinary quintets of Mozart and Brahms from Sunday, June 23 through Wednesday, July 3. The program includes Mozart’s Quintet for Horn and Strings in E-flat Major, K.407, and Quintet for Clarinet and Strings in A Major, K.581, and Brahms’ Quintet No. 2 for Strings in G Major, Op. 111. Featured Midsummer Music artists for this cycle include Fritz Foss, horn, Daniel Won, clarinet, Jeannie Yu, piano, violinists David Perry and Ann Palen, violists Allyson Fleck and Stephanie Preucil, and cellist Walter Preucil.
Following is the concert schedule:
Sunday, June 23 at 3:00pm at Kress Pavilion with an optional post-concert wine pairing at the Fireside Restaurant
Wednesday, June 26 at 7:00pm at Woodwalk Gallery, with an optional 5:00pm pre-concert picnic
Friday, June 28 at 7:00pm at the Unitarian Universalist Fellowship
Sunday, June 30 at 3:00pm, a Salon Concert in a Sturgeon Bay private home
Wednesday, July 3 at 7:30pm at Björklunden
Tickets are $29 for adults, $10 for students, and children 12 and under are free. Premium prices apply for 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 for this series or the rest of the season which continues through September 2.
The Mozart and Brahms Quintets on this program are among the greatest chamber music masterpieces ever composed, and they are beloved by musicians, audiences, and music lovers around the world. Mozart was the first among many to portray a genre for one solo wind instrument and strings, which was popular in the 18th century. Brahms’ Quintet for Strings is a work from his late period. At the age of 57, Brahms questioned whether he had the energy and inspiration to continue producing compositions at this level, but the magnificence of this quintet proves his concern wrong.
Midsummer’s Music draws on the extraordinary talent of musicians from the Chicago Symphony, Chicago’s Lyric Opera, Milwaukee Symphony, St. Paul Chamber Orchestra, Indianapolis Symphony, Aspen Music Festival, China National Symphony and the Ravinia Festival, among others.
Midsummer’s Music was co-founded in 1990 by Jim and Jean Berkenstock, long-time Door County summer residents and principal orchestral players with the Lyric Opera of Chicago. What began as two concerts among friends has become one of the Midwest’s most anticipated chamber music series, bringing thousands of chamber music enthusiasts from around the globe to the magical Door County Peninsula.