A few folks think the Wister isn’t Philadelphia's foremost chamber music ensemble.  We will speak of those folks no more, for the Wister is more or less the house quartet of the Philadelphia Orchestra, and the core group of Philly’s popular chamber series, 1807 & Friends.  The Wister foursome has also been a MAG regular for years, with visits almost every summer since the early ’90s.

Wister’s Members are our friends Nancy Bean (violin), former assistant concertmaster of the Philadelphia Orchestra and artistic director of “1807 & Friends;” Davyd Booth (violin), violinist and harpsichordist with the Philadelphia Orchestra; Pamela Fay (viola), Chamber Orchestra of Philadelphia violist, and frequent performing guest with the city’s bigger string band; and Lloyd Smith (cello), former Philly Orchestra assistant principal cellist.
 
These great artists will be joined by another Philadelphia Orchestrian, violist Jonathan Chu, and cellist Thomas Kraines, who last visited us in 2006, for an all sextet event, featuring music of Dvorak and Tchaikovsky.  And if you don’t know the latter’s Tuscan “Souvenir,” save your self a trip to Florence and take this in instead.  It’s more convenient, less expensive, just as gorgeous, and despite the name, it’s no mere trinket!

Program
Dvorak, Sextet in A Major, Op. 48
Tchaikovsky, Souvenir de Florence

Presented in cooperation with the Pennsylvania Chautauqua Foundation.

Sponsored by the Shearer Family Fund of The Foundation for Enhancing Communities on behalf of Ms. Patricia Shearer Quarato

With his flamboyant style – flashy clothes, rock star looks, and rebel air – Cameron Carpenter has laid waste to the stuffy, churchy stereotype that’s been attached to the organ since well before the time of pious Bach. Some aficionado s can’t listen past the sequins, and pitch hissy fits. But make no mistake, beneath the glitz is a major talent, a man of profound musical gifts.

Why else would Music at Gretna choose to feature him as the first solo organ recitalist in our 35 years?

Cameron's SiteInterview with Cameron

Program
TBA

One of the wildest moments in 35 years of Gretna Music was the Rodney Mack Philadelphia Big Brass’ insanely virtuosic, audaciously antic 2008 rendition of Tchaikovsky’s 4th Symphony.  If you were there, you remember it.  If you weren’t there but know the piece, you know that brass players just aren’t supposed to be able to play things like it.
 
Rodney and his Big Brass bounce back into town for the first time since that jaw-dropping evening, and this time they’ll be joined by Mt. Gretna’s own audacious one, child prodigy Ryan Brunkhurst, on organ.  What will Rodney, Ryan et al come up with this time?  If 2008 was any hint, it’s sure to be daring, maybe just a little bit foolhardy, and all-out brassy.

Artist Website

Program
TBA

Whenever and wherever this group plays, it's sure to be a momenta occasion. The resident quartet at Temple University, Momenta was described by Time Out New York as a “striking new-music quartet.”  But Momenta is much more than avant-garde tunes and a strange name.  Along with over 40 world premieres by established and up-and-coming composers, the ensemble’s repertoire includes standards by Mozart, Haydn, and Beethoven, 20th-century masterworks, and even consort music of the Renaissance.

 In 2009, their first visit to Gretna Music, Momenta moved effortlessly from a world premiere and Arnold Schoenberg to war horses by Beethoven and Schumann.  This year they stretch every bit as far, from Phillip Glass’ pop-inflected sounds to that beloved chestnut among chestnuts, the Piano Quintet of Brahms.  Pianist Blair McMillen joins them for the latter, and Gretna Music founder, flutist Carl Ellenberger, makes much more than a Beethovenian cameo in a Serenade by good ol’ Ludwig van.

 Momenta's Web Site

Program
Beethoven, Serenade in D Major for flute, violin and viola, Op. 25
Glass, String Quartet No. 5
Brahms, Quintet in f minor for string quartet and piano, Op. 34

If you’re a fan of classical chamber music (and if you aren’t, don’t you think it’s strange you’re reading this?), you probably know that there are certain masterpieces that you can, for lack of a better way of putting it, ‘afford to miss’– not that you want to, but it’s a safe bet they’ll be coming back around in two or three seasons. That great piano quartet, and that trio with the gorgeous slow movement, are fairly easy for us to put on, if not for the musicians to play, and so they appear with some frequency on the Gretna stage.

On the other hand, you know there are those great works that, missed now, won’t be back for who knows how long. It may not be fair, but for whatever complicating reason– instrumental combinations that are hard to find, or maybe daunting production costs – they’re rare treats, and you don’t dare miss them.

Well, this concert’s got two such treats, one might even say extravagancies: Beethoven’s Septet AND Schubert’s Octet. They’re big (i.e. expensive), and instrumentally unusual (what other works are written for the combo of solo clarinet, bassoon, horn, 2 violins, viola, cello and double bass?).

Fortunately for us, Baltimore Symphony principal, and Gretna’s favorite bassoonist, Phil Kolker, has taken on the Beethoven/Schubert Septet/Octet challenge and created the Baltimore Classical Octet just for this occasion. So mark your calendar in pen, because August 15 will be a grand occasion, after which it’ll probably be a prodigious sum of time before we hear these two masterworks again.

Program
Beethoven, Septet in E-flat Major, Op. 20
Schubert, Octet in F Major, D. 803

From her first visit to the Playhouse in 2004, when she joined our unofficial house band, the Audubon Quartet, for Dvorak’s Piano Quintet, pianist Anna Polonsky has been a Gretna favorite.  Her 2006 solo recital (Mozart, Schumann, Mendelssohn) is still talked about, and now she’s back and bringing friends.

Violinist Erin Keefe is an Avery Fisher Career Grant winner and Chamber Music Society of Lincoln Center member.  Cellist husband Alexey Tchekmazov has been hailed by the Washington Post as “an extraordinary musician.”  But we didn’t need to know that stuff about either one of them, because if they hang with Anna, they must be something special.

As an added bonus to this “only in Mt. Gretna” concert, the Polonsky-Keefe-Tchekmazov Trio will air works by Schumann and Mendelssohn, two of the same composers Anna featured in her triumphant solo turn three years ago.

Anna's Website Erin's Website Andrey on YouTube

Program
Schumann, Gesänge der Frühe, Op. 133
Kodaly, Duo for violin and cello, Op. 7
Mendelssohn, Piano Trio in d minor, Op. 49
(program updated May 1, 2010)

18 months ago longtime Gretna favorite and mad genius, guitarist and composer Allen Krantz, cooked up a program for our Elizabethtown College series with friends and fellow strummer-authors David Cullen and Ernesto Tamayo.   With duo and trio music interpreted by three world-class guitarists, as well as soulful solo works performed by the individual twang maestros who wrote them, the original “Guitarnival,” was an absolutely one-of-a-kind event. 

At least that’s what we thought.  And we were right, kind of.   What we hadn’t bargained on was being fortunate enough to land David, Allen and Ernesto again.  But now they’re getting back together to cook up another program just for lucky us.  “Son of Guitarnival”?  “Pluck Redux”?  How about just “Guitarnival” again – only this time it’s at Gretna, and it’s going to be Awesome!  Listen to Allen Listen to Ernesto Listen to David

Program
TBA

LeBron James. The Rock and Roll Hall of Fame. The Cuyahoga River catching fire.

Sure, Cleveland has all these famous things. And oh by the way it also has some of the world’s greatest classical musicians, among whom rank Franklin Cohen and his daughter Diana. Frank is the principal clarinet of the Cleveland Orchestra; Diana has played with the Orpheus Chamber Orchestra and New York Philharmonic. Now she’s returning to the city of her roots to join forces with her dad in forming the Cleveland Classical Players.

Also teaming with the Cohens in Cleveland Classical are violinist and Concert Artist Guild International Competition winner Hye-Jin Kim; violist Dimitri “Dima” Murrath, the New England Conservatory’s youngest professor; and the Biava Quartet’s Jacob Braun on cello. (updated May 11, 2010)

For their debut Gretna program, Cleveland Classical puts elder statesman Franklin Cohen center stage for a pair of great clarinet quintets: Mozart’s supreme masterwork in the fivesome form, and Weber’s rarely heard, delightfully operatic turn, where the clarinet is treated more like a prima donna than a lonely woodwind. And Cleveland Classical’s string contingent gets the spotlight in Dvorak’s Terzetto, a charmingly Bohemian work that’s the perfect compliment to Weber’s coloratura clarinet flights, and to the soaring eloquence of Mozart.

Program
Weber, Quintet in B-flat Major for clarinet and strings, Op. 34
Dvorak, Terzetto
Mozart, Quintet in A Major for clarinet and strings, K. 581

No summer in Mt. Gretna is complete without an Audubon Quartet visit. This year, the group that built our festival is back from wintering at Virginia’s Shenandoah Conservatory for their thirty-fourth consecutive Gretna call, and quartet members, our good friends Ellen, Akemi, Doris and Tom, have brought along no mere modicum of Beethoven for their yearly migration.

The biggest of LvB’s beloved Razumovsky Quartets – the grand F Major – anchors the Audubon’s
all-Beethoven evening, which also features hands down the most difficult work for string quartet Herr Louis ever wrote, the terrifyingly tricky Große Fuge. It’s a major feat making it through, let alone making music out of the Great Fugue, but we bet that by the time the Audubon reaches the finish line they’ll have given us something transcendent.
 
The Audubon Quartet is the resident string quartet at Shenandoah Conservatory in Winchester, Virginia. Audubon Site Listen to the Audubon

Program
(all Beethoven)
Quartet in A Major, Op. 18, No. 5
Grosse Fuge
Quartet in F Major, Op. 59, No. 1