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summer activities

This Monday marks the end of the Oregon Symphony’s 2011-2012 season. It’ll be my 16th season with the orchestra. Hard to believe! Time really does start accelerating at some point along the way, that is for certain! While there is time for R&R during the summer months, we don’t earn a salary during that time, so we subsist upon what we’ve managed to save during the season and we also do summer festivals, which make for a kind of busman’s holiday, since most summer festivals are in places that you actually want to be during the summer, and the change of scenery, both musical and geographical, helps to recharge the artistic batteries from a long season of concentrated performing. Here’s a rundown of what I’ll be doing over the summer months, maybe we’ll cross paths, who knows?

In June, I’ll be performing at a benefit concert for the Old Church’s continuing renovations with a newly-formed string quartet – the Bainbridge Quartet – which consists of myself and my wife, cellist Heather Blackburn, and two old friends on violin – both of whom were in previous string quartets that Heather and I were in – Tim Schwarz and Denise Dillenbeck. We’re playing selections from Dvorak’s Cypresses, Shostakovich’s monumental Piano Quintet with pianist Susan DeWitt Smith, and Beethoven’s great Op. 127 string quartet.

At the end of June and into July, I’ll be playing with the Oregon Bach Festival Orchestra in two concerts: one featuring Joshua Bell playing the Mendelssohn concerto, and the other featuring Tippet’s oratorio “A Child of Our Time”. On August 7th, I’ll be a part fo the Harvey Rosencranz Orchestra augmenting Pink Martini’s appearance at the Bach Festival as well.

July is quiet for a couple of weeks, the I journey up to the far northern reaches of Washington State to play three concerts with the Methow Valley Chamber Music Festival: the rarely performed Grand Sinfonia Concertante for string sextet by Mozart (and an unknown arranger), Beethoven’s String Quintet in C major, and Debussy’s sublime String Quartet in G minor.

A week off, and then it’s off to the Sunriver Music Festival, where there will be 10 days of chamber orchestra concerts (including an augmented ensemble for Beethoven’s Ninth Symphony) with new music director George Hansen.

Then, finally, it’s a couple of weeks free before we do our annual Oregon Symphony Waterfront Concert, and my 17th season is underway. Phew!