The Johnstone Fund for New Music, in partnership with Sunday at Central and Short North Stage, recently joined forces to create “New Music Salon at Short North Stage,” a free contemporary classical music series at the Garden Theater in the Short North.
For the opening performance on October 23 at 7:30 p.m., violinist David Niwa (Artistic Director, Sunday at Central); violinist Olev Viro @Columbus Symphony); violist Ken Matsuda (Columbus Symphony); violist Belinda Reuning Burge (Cincinnati Symphony Orchestra); cellist Luis Biava (Columbus Symphony); and cellist Michael Carrera (Professor of Cello, Ohio University) will perform Arnold Schoenberg’s Transfigured Night (Verklärte Nacht, 1899). The musicians also will perform Pulitzer-Prize-winning American composer Charles Wuorinen’s String Sextet (1989).
“As we look into the uncertainty of a new century, these two great 20th century works for string sextet show how connected we are to the past,” said Zoe Johnstone, co-founder of the Johnstone Fund for New Music.
The October 23 concert coincides with Short North Stage’s production of the Stephen Sondheim/James Lapine Pulitzer-Prize-winning musical Sunday in the Park with George, which is based on Georges Seurat’s painting “Sunday on the Island of the Grande Jatte.” Both Transfigured Night and “Sunday on the Island of the Grande Jatte” were completed at the end of the 19th century as romanticism in the arts gave way to the modern era.
“The Garden Theater was built in 1920 specifically for live music performance,” said Short North Stage board president Peter Yockel. “These concerts help bring the theater back to its original purpose.”
The series continues in 2014 with free concerts on February 19 and June 4.
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