Maverick
CHRONICLES 2017 First Edition
World C lass Music in theWoods
The Board of Directors greatly appreciates the Thompson Family Foundation for its loyal, enthusiastic support for our historic preservation, renovation, and improvement initiatives and our famed Chamber Orchestra concerts. We proudly dedicate our 102nd festival season in honor of the Foundation’s Maverick legacy, which has significantly helped to uphold the traditions of yesterday and advance our vision for the future. Susan Rizwani David Gubits Stephen McGrath
Angela P. Schapiro Mark Flannery Marilyn Janow
Sondra Siegel Jane Velez Willetta Warberg David Wiebe
Table of Contents
New Foundations: Toward a Modern Chamber Music Repertoire
Festival 2017 Schedule.....................................................2 A Message from Our Music Director.................................3 Hervey White and the Maverick Art Colony ....................4
A 2017 Maverick mini-festival funded by the National Endowment for the Arts, New Foundations reflects our desire to contribute to building a vigorous new chamber repertoire. In keeping with the Maverick’s signature programming style, Music Director Platt presents what he considers to be some of the greatest American works of chamber music from the last thirty years in conversation with established classics of the Classical and Romantic eras. New Foundations composers are: Anna Clyne, Aaron Jay Kernis, Gabriela Lena Frank, Missy Mazzoli, Guido López Gavilán, Gerard McBurney, Philip Glass, Augusta Read Thomas, Jennifer Higdon, and Julia Wolfe. New Foundations performing artists are: Chiara String Quartet, Jasper String Quartet, ETHEL, Parker Quartet, Harlem Quartet, Spektral Quartet, and Trio Solisti.
Chamber Music 102.........................................................6 The Best Seats in the House........................................... 14 Maverick Legacy............................................................ 18 Harlem Quartet's Vast Palette of Possiblities.................. 20 Prodigies Past and Present............................................. 22 The Artist as Audience................................................... 24 Arturo O'Farrill: An Identity Forged in Music................ 28 Indian Classical Music................................................... 32 Decades of Devotion...................................................... 34 The Maverick Horse...................................................... 36 Young People's Concerts................................................ 37
Contributors
Writers: Miriam Villchur Berg, Debra Bresnan, Steve Gorn, Garry Kvistad, Cornelia Rosenblum, Jamie Uhlenbrock Editors: Miriam Villchur Berg and Kitt Potter Graphic Design & Production: Katie Jellinghaus Official Photographer: Angela P. Shapiro Cover: Photo by Simon Russell. Inside Front Cover: Photo by David Aday. www.david-aday.com The cello by David Wiebe of Woodstock is a copy of an Amati cello made in Cremona, Italy in 1616, 401 years old this year.
ETHEL FRIDAY | JUNE 23 | 8 PM New Foundations I ETHEL's spontaneous musical meditation on Kate McGloughlin's Requiem for Ashokan exhibit. Woodstock Artists Association & Museum SATURDAY | JUNE 24 | 11 AM New Foundations II Young People’s Concert SATURDAY | JUNE 24 | 8 PM New Foundations III The Blue Dress ETHEL’s mini-residency is part of the New York State Presenters Network Presenter-Artist Partnership Project made possible through a regrant from the New York State Council on the Arts, a state agency, with the support of Governor Andrew Cuomo and the New York State Legislature.
Alexander Platt Conducts the Chamber Orchestra by Renee Samuels
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MUSIC DIRECTOR Alexander Platt EXECUTIVE DIRECTOR Kitt Potter
Board of Directors CHAIR Susan Rizwani VICE-CHAIR David Gubits TREASURER Stephen McGrath SECRETARY Angela P. Schapiro Mark Flannery Marilyn Janow Sondra Siegel Jane Velez Willetta Warberg David Wiebe CHAIR EMERITA Cornelia Rosenblum
2017 Schedule Honoring the Thompson Family Foundation FRIDAY, JUNE 23, 8PM—ETHEL Art Exhibit Event. Woodstock Artists Association & Museum, 28 Tinker Street, Woodstock, NY Free and open to the public. SATURDAY, JUNE 24, 11AM YOUNG PEOPLE’S CONCERT ETHEL SATURDAY, JUNE 24, 8 PM ETHEL The Blue Dress SUNDAY, JUNE 25, 4PM MIRÓ QUARTET All-Dvorˇák Program SATURDAY, JULY 1, 11AM YOUNG PEOPLE’S CONCERT ARTURO O’FARRILL QUINTET
SATURDAY, AUGUST 12, 11AM YOUNG PEOPLE’S CONCERT HARLEM QUARTET Kleinert James Center for the Arts, 34 Tinker Street, Woodstock, hosted by the Woodstock Byrdcliffe Guild SATURDAY, AUGUST 12, 6PM NEXUS SUNDAY, AUGUST 13, 4PM HARLEM QUARTET Turina, Frank, Gavilán, Borodin SATURDAY, AUGUST 19, 7PM ACTORS AND WRITERS “Brand New Shorts” – a program of short plays written by company members
SUNDAY, JULY 2, 4PM ESCHER STRING QUARTET Schubert, Bartók, Sibelius
SUNDAY, AUGUST 20, 4PM AMERNET STRING QUARTET with RAN DANK, piano Wolf, Dvorˇák, Zar˛ebski
FRIDAY, JULY 7, 8 PM—THE LADLES Maverick Prodigies Swing, Old-Time, NeoSoul, Chorale
SATURDAY, AUGUST 26, 6PM CHAMBER ORCHESTRA CONCERT REMEMBRANCES ALEXANDER PLATT, conductor; MARIA JETTE, soprano; EMMANUEL FELDMAN, cello; Members of the AUREA ENSEMBLE; MAVERICK CHAMBER PLAYERS Ravel/Renz, Argento, Rorem, Mussorgsky/Renz
SATURDAY, JULY 8, 8PM SPEKTRAL QUARTET (A Maverick Debut) Thomas, McBurney, Glass, Ravel
BUILDING COMMITTEE Sondra Siegel – Chair Neil Larson Lawrence Posner Susan Rizwani Angela P. Schapiro David F. Segal Jay Wenk David Wiebe
SUNDAY, JULY 9, 4PM CHIARA STRING QUARTET (A Maverick Debut) Britten, Kernis, Brahms
The Maverick Concert Hall is listed on the New York State and National Registers of Historic Places as a multi-starred attraction. The hall and grounds have also received an award for Excellence in Historic Preservation from the Preservation League of New York State.
SUNDAY, AUGUST 6, 4PM DOVER QUARTET Schumann, Laks, Tchaikovsky
SATURDAY, JULY 1, 8PM JAZZ AT THE MAVERICK ARTURO O’FARRILL QUINTET Afro-Cuban Jazz
CHAIRMAN EMERITUS David F. Segal
MARKETING COMMITTEE Angela P. Schapiro – Chair Katie Jellinghaus Kitt Potter
SATURDAY, AUGUST 5, 8PM STEVE GORN & FRIENDS—Indian Ragas
SATURDAY, JULY 15, 8 PM JAZZ AT THE MAVERICK BILL CHARLAP TRIO SUNDAY, JULY 16, 4PM PARKER QUARTET Stravinsky, Kernis, Brahms SATURDAY, JULY 22, 7PM ACTORS AND WRITERS A staged reading of the 1938 Paul Osbourne play “Mornings At Seven” SUNDAY, JULY 23, 4PM JASPER STRING QUARTET (A Maverick Debut) Haydn, Kernis, Brahms SATURDAY, JULY 29, 8PM JAZZ AT THE MAVERICK ELDAR DJANGIROV TRIO SUNDAY, JULY 30, 4PM TRIO CON BRIO COPENHAGEN Mozart, Smetana, Shostakovich 2
SUNDAY, AUGUST 27, 4PM TRIO SOLISTI Dvorˇák, Higdon, Schubert SATURDAY, SEPTEMBER 2, 8PM JAZZ AT THE MAVERICK CREATIVE MUSIC STUDIO™ and KARL BERGER In the Spirit of Don Cherry. SUNDAY, SEPTEMBER 3, 4PM CONCERT FOR THE FRIENDS OF MAVERICK—HORSZOWSKI TRIO Schubert, Hagen, Mendelssohn Admission is by contribution only. $50 donor receives one invitation; a donor $100 or more receives two. SATURDAY, SEPTEMBER 9, 8PM HAPPY TRAUM AND FRIENDS SUNDAY, SEPTEMBER 10, 4PM SHANGHAI QUARTET With ORION WEISS, piano Beethoven, Penderecki, Brahms/Busoni, Dvorˇák
A Message from Maverick’s Music Director
Alexander Platt
fine ambassadors of Chicago's incredibly vital new-music scene. It's concert will offer a world premiere by Gerard McBurney, Creative Director of Chicago Symphony Orchestra's renowned and innovative series Beyond the Score.
Welcome to the 2017 season of Maverick Concerts -- our 102nd, to be exact, and the very beginning of the second century of our adventure as America's oldest continuous summer chamber music festival. Following two years of Centennial observances, many of us believe the original Woodstock Festival actually happened in 1916. This was the year that artist, writer, and architect Hervey White hosted a summer concert series in a hall he built by hand, describing it as “a creation of the woods, a suggestion of rising trees and roofing branches.” It is now time for us to once again look forward in our customary fashion to blending the beloved works of the old masters with the finest in the new and the unfamiliar.
Indeed, it is on Saturday nights that the true Maverick musical spirit of diversity pervades our sylvan setting all the more. Offerings will range from our annual Chamber Orchestra Concert, to a genrebending Opening Night with the most adventurous of American quartets, ETHEL. Another mini-series of Jazz at the Maverick will amaze and delight with the return of the Arturo O'Farrill Quintet, Photo by Dion Ogust Grammy Award-winning Bill Charlap and Trio, the young Soviet-American phenom Eldar Djangirov and his Trio, and Woodstock legend Karl Berger and the Creative Music Studio. And speaking of Woodstock legends, Steve Gorn will bring us another fabulous evening of Indian ragas with two of his equally gifted friends from the subcontinent. Garry Kvistad and his NEXUS percussion ensemble will return to the Maverick stage for another amazing evening of contemporary music and Happy Traum and Friends, in Maverick's annual folk-music valentine to Woodstock, will return to another packed house of loving fans. Our popular Young People's Concerts will continue along with an inaugural Maverick Prodigies concert featuring Woodstock’s own Katie Martucci and her new swing, neo-soul chorale trio The Ladles.
In that spirit, the great underlying theme of this summer's Sunday concerts will be one in which two of the great Central European voices of the nineteenth century, Johannes Brahms and Antonin Dvorˇák, will be coalesced with that of one of the great living American composers, our good friend the Pulitzer Prize-winner Aaron Jay Kernis. All three of Kernis' masterly string quartets will be performed in succession on three Sundays in July, by three of the finest young American quartets today — the Chiara Quartet, the Parker Quartet, and the Jasper Quartet, in it's Maverick debut, performing Kernis' new Third Quartet, written for them. Dvorˇák's musical spirit will float through the entire summer with the legendary Miró Quartet starting off the Sunday series with an invigorating all- Dvorˇák program, and the festival concluding with pianist Orion Weiss and our beloved Shanghai Quartet, in the first Maverick performance of his Piano Quintet in many years. In addition to a bevy of amazing string quartets, this season at the Maverick will boast three of the finest piano trios from here and abroad - Trio Solisti, the young and fresh Horszowski Trio for the annual Friends' Concert and, after a long absence, the fabulous Trio Con Brio Copenhagen.
None of this treasure trove of live performance would be possible without our dedicated staff, our truly amazing Board, donors, and volunteers, and you -- our audience, who in your presence and your diversity are the final fruit of all our labors over the long winter months, to bring you yet another summer of "Music in the Woods" as Maverick Concerts strides confidently into its second century of existence. As we'll be ever grateful to that uniquely Woodstock spirit that gave birth to the Maverick over a century ago, so are we grateful to you, for your continued support.
Along with some of our new favorite string quartets returning such as the Escher and the Dover, summer 2017 will see some other innovative quartet journeys as well - the Harlem Quartet and the Amernet Quartet, with pianist Ran Dank. And in a rare Saturday-night quartet presentation, the acclaimed young Spektral Quartet, in it's Maverick debut, will prove themselves
Alexander Platt Alexander Platt, Music Director
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Photo by Jennifer Girard
Hervey White and the Maverick Art Colony
Following his graduation from Harvard, White trekked around Europe and found himself increasingly drawn to the movements for social reform that he encountered in his travels. In particular, the settlement house movement made a deep impression on him. This arose in England in the 1880’s in response to the appalling social conditions that accompanied industrial poverty. Educated individuals “settled” in communal houses in impoverished neighborhoods and advocated for social reform through educational programs that included the arts, which were believed to uplift the spirit. Eager to advocate for the underclasses White took a position at Hull House, a settlement house in Chicago founded by the social reformer Jane Addams to educate the struggling immigrant population of Chicago’s West Side. She was the first to appreciate the work of immigrant artisans and musicians, encouraging them to express their ethnicity through the arts.
An Historical Overview by Jamie Uhlenbrock
Reprinted by permission, The Samuel Dorsky Museum of Art, SUNY New Paltz © The Samuel Dorsky Museum of Art
During his four years at Hull House, White wrote prolifically, and his first novel Differences, which reflected his experiences at Hull House, was published in 1899. His second novel Quicksand (1900) was applauded by Theodore Dreiser as one of six great American novels. A book of short stories When Eve Was Not Created and Other Stories was published a year later, and Noll and the Fairies came out in 1902. It was within the environment of Hull House that White became acutely aware of the economic problems that impeded the creative development of talented young people, and he resolved to create an ideal environment that would allow writers, musicians, and artists to freely explore their creative potential without overwhelming financial pressures. It was also at Hull House that he met the Swedish painter and philosopher Eric Lindin, who enthusiastically shared his views. They became life-long friends. While at Hull House, White also enjoyed the friendship of dissident intellectuals and educational and social reformers, such as the feminist Charlotte Perkins Gilman. It was she who introduced White to the Englishman Ralph Radcliffe Whitehead in the late 1890’s Chicago. Whitehead was planning the establishment of a utopian arts and crafts colony in the United States. As a follower of the English philosopher John Ruskin and the painter and socialist William Morris, Whitehead believed that creative manual labor and personal expression through arts and crafts was the most effective way of dispelling the mind-numbing dehumanization of the Machine Age that had gripped the working class. He had already established an arts and crafts school for lower class children on his estate in Santa Barbara, California and was intent on expanding his vision to a larger adult population. Whitehead believed he had found a kindred spirit in Hervey White and invited him and the painter Bolton Brown to join in the venture of founding a utopian arts and crafts colony. It was in fact Brown who convinced Ralph Whitehead and Hervey White that the landscape of the Catskills provided the perfect environment for such a colony. Thus, in 1902, Whitehead purchased 1500 acres below the face of Overlook Mountain in Woodstock and entrusted the management of the colony to Hervey White, Eric Lindin and
Hervey White by Konrad Cramer
Hervey White, writer, socialist, social reformer, and above all idealist, was born on a prairie farm in New London, Iowa in 1866. He worked his way through the University of Kansas for two years and took part in a scientific expedition in the mountains of Mexico. Through connections he was able to transfer to Harvard University where, in spite of crushing poverty, he managed to complete his B.A. degree in 1894. 4
another friend Frits van der Loo. Whitehead called it Byrdcliffe, combining the middle name of his wife Jane Byrd McCall with his middle name Radcliffe. Houses, studios and workshops were built and artists were engaged as teachers to a younger generation. One of these younger artists was Vivian Bevans, a printmaker from Chicago. She and White fell in love and were married in 1903. Shortly after the establishment of Byrdcliffe, Hervey White began to be disillusioned with what he perceived to be an overlystructured environment that hindered rather than fostered free creativity. He left Byrdcliffe in 1905 and, together with Frits van der Loo, purchased a large farm on the south slope of Ohayo Mountain in Hurley’s Patentee Woods. Although at first the farm was merely a summer haven for White, his wife and White’s socialist intellectual friends, it quickly expanded to conform to White’s singular vision of a utopian community where creative freedom could thrive in an environment of rustic simplicity. The farm eventually became known as the Maverick Art Colony. An enduring symbol of the colony was a tall wood sculpture of a wild horse made by John Bernard Flannagan in 1924 that stood at the entrance to the colony, as if to underscore its maverick nature. Bolton Brown later characterized the colony as “a state of mind.” Thus began White’s utopian experiment that outlived Byrdcliffe as it originally was conceived and lasted until White’s death in 1944. Writers, musicians and artists were quick to respond to White’s invitation to pass the summer in a rustic house in the beauty of the Catskills for minimal rent or often, no rent at all. If a house was not available, he would build one. By 1910, for White and some other residents, the Maverick was home year round. The colony had few rules, but under White’s influence, a strong communal spirit was developed. Despite this, White’s wife Vivian Bevans was unhappy and left the colony with their two small sons, never to return.
Hervey White with Maverick friends, John and Inez Carroll, Lucile and Arnold Blanch, Ernest and Reeves Brace, Adolf Dehn, and Ferrell Pelly c. 1930
opened on the grounds and in 1924, the Maverick Theater was built for productions that often were staged by well-known directors. In 1910 White founded the Maverick Press and began publishing the monthly journal The Wild Hawk (1911-1916), superseded by Plowshare (1916-1935), as well as The Hue and Cry (19231929), which described itself as ‘a record of the achievements, artistic and literary, of the Woodstock colony.” In 1928 White turned the press over to James Cooney, who began publication of The Phoenix, a journal of dissident ideas. The annual Maverick Festival was the main source of income for the colony and provided funds for the building and maintenance of the colony’s houses. However, in 1931 White was compelled to suspend the Festival because of forces beyond his control, and a major blow was dealt to the finances of the colony as to his dream of a celebration of unity. However, White continued to struggle to keep the colony vibrant, and artists feeling the effects of the Great Depression found a welcome haven at the Maverick. Projects were begun in an attempt to infuse new life into the colony, but it was as if the creative energies of the colony itself were spent.
Life at the Maverick was very rustic and there were few amenities. Some of the houses were little more than shacks, or even less, as in the case of the Mosquito House, so-called because it consisted of nothing but a rustic framework around which was hung mosquito netting. White believed that simplicity was the main component of a creative environment and he was reluctant to complicate that environment with modern conveniences. Money and physical comforts were always in short supply, but this never dampened the enthusiasm of the residents. In 1915, when a well was needed to supply water to the rapidly growing colony, White instituted the Maverick Festival at the suggestion of resident musicians so that funds could be raised for the digging of the well. White saw this as an opportunity to unify the disparate factions in Woodstock in a grand celebration of pageantry and revel. In 1916, also at the suggestion of musicians, White founded the Maverick Sunday Concert Series and built the Maverick Music Hall that still houses the Sunday Concert Series to the present day. In order to provide food for guests, as well as residents, the Intelligencia Café was 5
With the passing of each year and the decline of his own energies, White found the harsh Catskill winters increasingly difficult to tolerate, although he continued to find great comfort in the Maverick community. In the late 1930’s White bought a small farm in south Georgia, where he spent the winters and where he organized a theatrical production using local black talent. Returning to Maverick every spring, he never tired of welcoming new artists, or of hearing the news from the established residents. On October 20, 1944 Hervey White passed away, it is said in his sleep, in his cabin called “6x8” that he lived in during the summers of the final years of his life. T
Chamber Music 102: The Elements of Music
How did music find its way into human experience? Did we hear birdsong and try to imitate it? Did the steady croaking of a bullfrog, or the relentless tapping of a woodpecker, inspire the first drummed beat? As language developed, did we perhaps notice the pitch changes of our speech, and turn that into melody? Or did we simply feel our own heartbeats and know that our bodies were attuned to the rhythms of the world around us? Anthropologists continue to debate whether rhythm or melody came first, but all agree that music arose early in the evolution of humans. Music serves important social and emotional functions. It sends messages. It promotes a feeling of togetherness. It embodies, expresses, and evokes emotions. It encourages compassion. It provides entertainment and recreation.
By Miriam Villchur Berg Program Annotator
Over the centuries, the goals and purposes of music have evolved. In Western Europe and North America, the forms of music include sacred music, instrumental art music, secular art songs, theatrical works (including opera), and folk or popular music. In Europe, in the tenth century, plainsong or Gregorian chant was the earliest music to have been written down. The purpose of that music was, naturally, to glorify God; its notation served the church’s goal of ecclesiastical uniformity, so that the same music could be used wherever mass was celebrated. Medieval music grew out of this tradition, and that gave way to the prodigious flowering of the Renaissance, with its motets and masses and its equally vast repertoire of madrigals and other secular forms.
Miro Quartet by Angela P. Schapiro
This goal, centered on holiness, continued through the Baroque era. Bach is famous for inserting numerological references to divine concepts into both his sacred and secular works. In the Classical era of Haydn and Mozart, music was written to elevate the spirit in a more secular way, and to engage the intellect with its pleasing intricacies. It was called “Classical� because it was composed using prescribed rules of form, and because it sought to return to the ancient Roman and Greek ideals of simplicity and balance. Beethoven changed all that, declaring that his music expressed his most personal feelings. The era he helped usher in 6
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SUNDAY | JUNE 25 | 4 PM MIRÓ QUARTET All Dvorˇák: Selections from The Cypresses Quartet No. 9 in D Minor, Op. 34 Quartet No. 14 in A-Flat major, Op. 105
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The composer’s chosen meter and tempo add to but do not determine the emotional effect of a passage. Depending on the other elements of the music, a fast tempo can express joyful excitement, busy activity, or fearful anxiety. A slow section might suggest peaceful serenity, nostalgic reverie, or mournful sadness. Duple meters are more common in Western music, and a meter of 3/4 or 6/8 often signals a change in feeling. Most scherzo movements in both chamber music and orchestral music are written in either a triple (3/4) or a compound (6/8) meter. These often give the music a lively or dance-like feeling. Meter usually places a stress on the downbeat, or strong beat, of a measure. Rhythm modifies that, depending on the style of music. Rock and roll has a backbeat: in 4/4 time, you clap along on beats two and four of each measure, not on the first and third beat. Dotted rhythms (long-short or short-long beats within a phrase) add interest and can express many feelings, from joy to pain, from the galloping of a horse to the beating of a heart. Songwriters from the Renaissance madrigalists to the tunesmiths of Tin Pan Alley took pains to follow the word accents of the poetry they were setting, making the musical rhythm parallel the way the line would be spoken. Phrasing is how singers and instrumentalists turn a melody into an emotionally expressive line, but phrasing can only be approximated in the words and symbols on the sheet of music.
Escher Quartet by Angela P. Schapiro
was named “Romantic” partly because it elevated storytelling (the word roman is both French and German for a novel). Much of the music of the nineteenth century combines expressive music with extra-musical associations (stories, feelings, settings of poetry, or entire symphonic works called “tone poems”). Since Beethoven’s time, most composers have, at least in part, agreed that the purpose of music is to portray human emotions. Of course, specific genres of music have had specific purposes throughout time: Those with words include lullabies, love songs, art songs, oratorios, operas, and ballads. Instrumental genres with social functions include dances (for soloists, couples, or small or large groups) and many kinds of marches (such as wedding, ceremonial, military, religious, or funeral). RHYTHM, METER, AND TEMPO Tempo is the speed at which a piece is to be played. The tempo markings used in classical music are generally in Italian. They are, from slowest to fastest, grave, largo, adagio, lento, andante, moderato, allegretto, vivace, allegro, presto, rapido, and veloce. These can be modified with words (molto or assai, meaning “very,” and non molto or non troppo, “not too much”) or with suffixes (-issimo, meaning “extremely”, -ino or -etto, “a little less”). Meter indicates the way musical time is measured. In an introductory music theory class you would learn the time signatures for duple meters (2/4, 4/4, etc.), triple meters (3/4, 3/8, etc.), and compound meters (6/8, 12/8, etc.), each of which indicates the number of beats in a bar or measure of music and the value of the type of note that each beat gets. In an advanced class you learn that Eastern European music uses less familiar meters like 7/8 and 9/8, and that Dave Brubeck’s “Take Five” is in 5/4 time. We hear enough newer music here at Maverick to know that composers have become more innovative over time with concepts of meter.
Trio Solisti by Angela P. Schapiro
Changes in meter and tempo also provide signposts in the course of a musical work. The most obvious is the slowing down (ritard, ritardando or rallentando) that lets us know the final cadence is approaching. Schubert and Beethoven often play with our expectations, writing in ritardandi that slow the music only temporarily before speeding up again, thus delaying the ending— sometimes more than once. Classical instrumental music is typically structured in four movements, and the order of tempo markings is standardized as Fast—Slow—Fast (in triple meter)— Faster. A common form of this sequence is Allegro—Andante— Scherzo —Presto. The last movement is often the fastest, providing a setup for the dramatic ritard at the end of the piece. Rhythm, meter, and tempo are fundamental to the measurement of time and motion in music. Everyone can feel them, but it takes a musician to use them in a way that stirs us. 8
MELODY AND HARMONY As with meter, melody is something we all understand from before we are born (if we were lucky enough to have parents who sang to us while we were still in the womb). Many melodies, from the simplest child’s song to an operatic aria, follow the pattern of ascending pitches to a climax followed by a descending line back to the original note. The rising and falling line is a predictable and satisfying pattern that lets us know that we have completed a cycle. Another important quality of melody is its contour—where it goes up and down, and whether it moves by steps or by leaps. Stepwise motion creates what are called “conjunct” melodies—like many children’s songs (think of “Frère Jacques”). Tunes with larger leaps are called “disjunct” melodies. It has been said that people in general prefer conjunct melodies, and that they are easier to sing and to perform. On the other hand, Photo by Simon Russell much of the iconic and well-loved music of Aaron Copland relies heavily on large melodic leaps— think of “Hoedown” or “Fanfare for the Common Man.”
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Some melodies travel up the notes TIMBRE AND TEXTURE of a chord—think of the “Blue Tone color, also known as Danube Waltz.” Others establish a timbre, is what allows a listener small figure and use it over and over to distinguish a trumpet from a again in different ways. The most xylophone. An orchestra contains famous example is the opening of strings, woodwinds, brass, and Beethoven’s Fifth Symphony, with percussion—each group displaying its da-da-da-DUM theme. That its own tone color, and showing theme also demonstrates the fact more subtle differences between that one cannot talk about melody the tone colors of the various without marking the importance instruments in each group. Even played by rhythm. Beethoven’s within a string quartet, tone color Shanghai Quartet and Ran Dank by Angela P. Schapiro opening notes would not have the plays a part in the composition emotional impact without their particular metrical pattern. The and the performance. The cello has three ranges—a high, melodic theme in this case also establishes a minor key rather than a major line, a middle-range of smooth expressiveness, and the profundity one. Major keys are far more common in music of the classical of the low bass. Sometimes it is difficult to determine (when era. Minor keys are often thought of as communicating sadness, listening to recorded or broadcast string quartet music) which although they can also, as in the case of Beethoven’s Fifth, express instrument is playing which line. That, of course, is one of the other kinds of emotional intensity. great advantages of attending live concerts. For instance, when you see the viola (which can at times be buried in the middle When a composer wants to surprise us, he or she moves the harmonies) featured as a soloist or carrying the melody, you know music into a key that is unrelated, or only remotely related. that the composer’s intention is to focus your attention on that Although most of us did not grow up with music theory as part of viola with its sweet and mellow sound. our elementary education (as children in the eighteenth century did), it often happens that we are surprised by a sudden shift to a Texture denotes how the parts relate to each other in time. remote key. When that happens, and you find yourself surprised, Homophonic texture is what you hear when a hymn is sung: one congratulate yourself. You are hearing what the composer wanted melody and several other lines singing different pitches but at the you to hear. same time and in the same rhythm as the melody line. Polyphonic
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texture means each part plays or sings the primary melody in its own time. It is also called counterpoint or contrapuntal music, and is usually characterized by imitative entries of the melody (although the imitation can happen two beats after the first entry or many measures later). The fugue is the most highly developed form of counterpoint, with the instruments following each other imitatively (as in a round) but with clearly defined rules and parameters. For instance, in a fugue, each new voice that enters must be either higher or lower than any of the voices that are already playing. Polyphony is found in much of Renaissance and Baroque music, and also in Dixieland jazz, in a slightly different form (collective polyphonic improvisation—each part plays its own melody, in its own rhythm, but at the same time as the primary melody).
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Texture can also mean how many instruments are playing at any given time or how the parts relate to one another. A solo is arresting in a musical ensemble; other instruments joining the soloist one after another convey a sense of building as the texture thickens; when all four instruments in a string quartet are playing together, the feeling is full and round. Composers
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SATURDAY | JULY 8 | 8 PM SPEKTRAL QUARTET New Foundations IV Augusta Read Thomas: Chi, for string quartet (2017) (New York premiere) Gerard McBurney: String Quartet No.1, "Hildegard Quartet" (1996) (World premiere) Philip Glass: String Quartet No. 2, "Company" Ravel: String Quartet in F Major
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instrument such as a piano or a guitar, but unusual for a melody instrument like a violin or cello. The pedal point is a single pitch, usually in the bass, that is repeated or sustained, while other voices play different melodies and harmonies above it. It is named after the technique used by pipe organists where the feet play long notes on the organ pedals as the hands play faster figurations. Harmonics are created by touching the string very lightly with a finger of the left hand while bowing with the right. The resulting sound is thin, clear, and ethereal. Frederic Chiu and Andrew Russo by Angela P. Schapiro
Rhythm, meter, tempo, melody, harmony, timbre, texture, articulation, and special techniques—these are some of the essential elements of music. How fortunate we are to be able to hear world-class musicians demonstrate for us how they combine these elements into their performances as they bring to life the music composed through the centuries.
often write Duets (two voices playing at the same time), dialogues (one instrument answering another in turn), ostinatos (phrases repeated over and over again in one part), and many other kinds of internal structure. ARTICULATION AND SPECIAL TECHNIQUES There are also specific techniques composers and musicians use to change the articulation or the sound quality of their notes. Staccato means the player should play in a detached manner, sounding the note and stopping it immediately. Legato means to make the line smooth and flowing. Sforzando means to accent the note and then back off quickly. Ponticello means to place the bow close to the bridge of the instrument, so that the sound is thinner and more nasal. A notation of pizzicato tells the musician to pluck the string instead of using the bow. Playing double stops means playing two notes at once. This is common practice for a chord
ABOUT THE AUTHOR Miriam Villchur Berg graduated from Barnard College with a degree in Classical Studies and went on to do graduate work at the University of Pennsylvania (Classics) and New York University (Musicology). She also studied classical guitar, Renaissance lute, and voice. She is a free-lance editor and writer in areas ranging from health care Photo by David F. Segal to advocacy to classical music. For more than thirty-five years (1978 to 2015) she was the music director, music historian, alto, and program annotator for Woodstock Renaissance, an a cappella vocal ensemble specializing in music of the Renaissance and Middle Ages. From 2002 to the present, Ms. Berg has been the Program Annotator for Maverick Concerts. As such, she writes original program notes for approximately twenty-four concerts each summer. She researches and writes about composers' lives and works, and provides detailed descriptions of the works to be performed in order to help audiences deepen their understanding of the music. T
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SUNDAY | JULY 9 | 4 PM CHIARA STRING QUARTET New Foundations V Britten: Three Divertimenti (1933) Aaron Jay Kernis: String Quartet No. 1, "Musica Celestis" (winner of the Pulitzer Prize). Brahms: Quartet No. 1 in C Minor, Op. 51
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The Best Seats in the House by Debra Bresnan
Photo by Angela P. Schapiro
Now, the listening experience at our music chapel in the woods is further enhanced with comfortable new benches, produced with generous support of The Thompson Family Foundation. The benches were created by architect/designer Jonathan Walko from Stephen Tilly & Associates and master builder Mark Peritz of The Joy of Building (J.O.B. Construction Company). Susan Ahlgren of J.O.B. expedited the project, including sourcing all materials and parts for the benches. The upholsterer for the project was Chris Rielly & Associates of Kinderhook, and fabrication and assembly occurred with the team at Excelsior Wood Products of Kingston: Ron Sauer, Todd Moxham, Jack Long, Christina Sauer, Ann Quick, Lisbeth Danner and Michelle Peterson. All work was done in keeping with the board’s decision to use locally sourced materials and labor; the only thing not locally sourced was hardware. The benches were crafted from local pine and the design was similar to that of the previous benches, with some notable adjustments. Sondra Siegel, chair of the Maverick Building Committee, says the process of adapting Walko’s design to actual bodies was fascinating. Peritz created a prototype bench and brought it to a committee meeting. “Everyone sat on the bench, one by one,
Photo by Angela P. Schapiro
The Maverick Concert Hall has earned a reputation for its outstanding acoustics, such that music loving audience members and critics agree, “there’s not a bad seat in the house.”
Photo by Angela P. Schapiro
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and gave his or her impression. Mark then took the bench back to his workshop and tweaked it – and then returned to do the same thing again,” she explained. “He kept saying, ‘I really want to get this right.’ We are far from uniform – all different shapes and sizes – and it is our hope that this is the best general incline for back and seat height for most people. It was really interesting and exciting to be so much a part of it all.” “We all learned a lot about the human body,” says Peritz. “Any suggestions I made were for streamlining and structural soundness, and the board members were very open.” The Maverick Building Committee members are Neil Larson, Lawrence Posner, Susan Rizwani, Angela P. Schapiro, David F. Segal and David Wiebe. Jay Wenk was a guest for the bench
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SUNDAY | JULY 16 | 4 PM PARKER QUARTET New Foundations VI
- Sondra Siegel
• Historical Restorations • Expert New Construction • Additions and Renovations • General Contracting • Excavation and Site Work
Stravinsky: Concertino for String Quartet Aaron Jay Kernis: String Quartet No. 2, "Musica Instrumentalis" (1997) Brahms: String Quartet No. 3 B flat major, Op. 67
Mark Jay Peritz THE JOY OF BUILDING
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repairs to the building’s foundation and creation of an all-new drainage system. He has since been involved in ongoing maintenance projects onsite.
project. Siegel adds, “The committee’s commitment to the Maverick and the various areas of expertise each brought to this project made the experience of working together so rich – and we accomplished a lot.”
“The committee was wonderful to collaborate with and very helpful in coming up with solutions,” says Peritz. “They were very sensitive to not changing the nature of the Photo by Angela P. Schapiro hall and since Jonathan Walko and I specialize in historic restoration projects, we were very grateful to work on this building.”
LOCAL WOOD, NATURAL ACOUSTICS The locally sourced pine was aged at the mill and Peritz conferred with Building Committee member and master stringed instrument/violin maker, David Wiebe, to select a Watco finish that will age well, be natural in appearance, and protect the wood from smudging and staining. Peritz, a drummer and percussionist, attends concerts at the hall, so those sensibilities were also in play.
DANCING INTO THE FUTURE Wondering what happened to the old benches? Here’s a little backstory about their origins – and there’s even a happy ending too.
“This is not the first time I’ve had the opportunity to work in buildings where acoustics are very important,” Peritz says, referencing recent projects at high end recording studios and new sound rooms at Radio Woodstock. “The Maverick Concert Hall vibrates with music, and these benches will not make any changes to that acoustically, which is why the board wanted to use local pine.
Photo by Angela P. Schapiro
When long unpadded benches were installed at the opening of the original 1938 Woodstock Playhouse, patrons often carried their own cushions with them to attend performances. In 1960, Edgar Rosenblum acquired the Playhouse and padded the seat backs and had cushions made for the seats. In 1962 – when Rosenblum replaced the Playhouse benches with vintage era seats from a Brooklyn theatre – he donated his theater’s benches to Maverick Concerts and the Maverick’s original rough-hewn benches were moved to an expanded outdoor seating area where they remain today.
Photo by Angela P. Schapiro
The new benches have forest green cushions made from Naugahyde and, says Ahlgren, “they’re thicker than the original ones and a bit different in design. They’re very pretty.” Fabrication and assembly began at the end of March for the May 1 installation date. When the new benches arrived at the concert hall, some leg modifications were needed to accommodate the historic building’s uneven floors. Peritz headed up a Maverick Concerts’ major restoration project about six years ago, including
Photo by Angela P. Schapiro
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Maverick Concerts’ Chair Emerita Cornelia Rosenblum has now carried her late husband Edgar’s generosity forward by donating the ‘old’ Maverick benches to another worthy nonprofit arts organization: Kaatsbaan International Dance Center in Tivoli. Sixteen benches took up residency in the Stanford White Barn at Kaatsbaan this spring. At Maverick Concert Hall, music lovers this season will inaugurate a new era of more comfortable, yet still superbly rustic, listening in our historic music chapel in the woods. The new benches are, says Siegel, “very clunky – purposefully – and should certainly last a hundred years.” T
Photo by Dario Acosta
SUNDAY | JULY 23 | 4 PM JASPER STRING QUARTET New Foundations VII Haydn: String Quartet in G Major, Op. 76, No. 1 Aaron Jay Kernis: String Quartet No. 3, "River" (2015) Brahms: String Quartet No. 2 in A Minor, Op. 51, No. 2 A MAVERICK DEBUT
Maverick in the snow, photographed by Ella Walko, age 12
STEPHEN TILLY, Architect Sustainable Architecture and Landscape Design mindful of the genius of place. www.stillyarchitect.com 17
The Maverick Legacy
St. Maverick, Florence Cramer
The Maverick is thriving today, thanks to the love of its friends. Many of these have honored Maverick’s long history with gifts from their own estates. A gift from you to the future of Maverick comes with a promise from us, that we will continue to honor your love for the best music in the world. Your appreciation will live on, into our second century and beyond. You can contribute to that heritage with a gift to the Maverick in the form of a legacy bequest, which will both honor the past and ensure the future. A gift to the Maverick as part of your estate planning serves a twofold purpose: It endows an ongoing legacy of music that will move and inspire audiences in the generations that follow. And it will help preserve our unique and historic building and surrounding forest for the future. Senior board Member David Gubits can answer any questions you may have, and assist in all matters of gifting.
Photo by Dion Ogust
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David can be reached at dbg@jacobowitz.com or 845-764-4285. “For I realize that what has been, will ever be, that a gift given cannot be taken away.” —Hervey White
SUNDAY | JULY 30 | 4 PM TRIO CON BRIO COPENHAGEN Mozart: Piano Trio in E Major, K. 542 Smetana: Piano Trio in G Minor, Op. 15 Shostakovich: Piano Trio No. 2, in E minor, Op. 67
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Harlem Quartet's Vast Palette of Possibilities
Melissa White grew up in Lansing, Michigan and at age four, saw Izhak Perlman perform on Sesame Street. “I liked the way his chin fit perfectly on the chin rest, and asked my mom for a violin. For two years, I begged everybody – Santa, Easter Bunny, Tooth Fairy – until one day I came home from school and a violin was on the chair.”
By Debra Bresnan
White’s early instinct that the violin was her perfect fit was soon confirmed and in 2001 she captured First Prize (Junior Division) at the national Sphinx Competition in Detroit. At Sphinx, which aims to “transform lives through the power of diversity in the arts,” she met fellow First Prize (Senior Division) violinist, Ilmar Gavilán, a native of Havana, Cuba. The two co-founded Harlem Quartet, which debuted at Carnegie Hall in 2006; performed for President Obama and First Lady Michelle Obama at The White House in 2009; and collaborated with jazz masters Chick Corea and Gary Burton on their Grammy Award-winning Hot House album and ensuing international tour. “Ilmar and I went back to Sphinx for the twentieth anniversary and we saw and felt a difference,” White says. When she first competed at Sphinx in 1997, she says, “My mind was blown. I didn’t know that many black people were doing classical music. The pool has continued to grow and it felt like a family reunion to go back there.”
Photo by Amy Schroeder
Today, Harlem Quartet members – White, Gavilán, violist Jaime Amador, and cellist Felix Umansky – are artistic ambassadors wherever they perform and teach, building on the foundation inspired by Sphinx.
SATURDAY | AUGUST 12 | 11 AM HARLEM QUARTET YOUNG PEOPLE'S CONCERT New Foundations VIII
INCLUSIVE ART, DESIGNED TO INFLUENCE CHANGE “Our mission has not changed so much as grown over the last few years,” says White. “Diversifying – audiences, repertoire, composers, performers on stage – was never really our mission. We want all to be exposed to this magnificent art form, which simply allows you to find art and the beauty of art all around you, and to experience the discipline of it. Art is important to become a well-rounded and wholesome human being,” she says. “We will continue to influence society from the vantage point of art as a creative, imaginative experience. Using discipline – and how you use it, your art, and your imagination to be unique – can unlock a vast palette of possibilities.”
This concert will take place at the Kleinert James Center for the Arts, 36 Tinker Street in downtown Woodstock. Special thanks to the hospitality of the Woodstock Byrdcliffe Guild.
SUNDAY | AUGUST 13 | 4 PM HARLEM QUARTET New Foundations IX Turina: La Oracion del Torero (The Bullfighter’s Prayer). Gabriela Lena Frank: Milagros, for string quartet (2010) Guido López Gavilán: Cuarteto en Guaguancó Borodin: Quartet No. 2 in D Major
“Art is important because no one wants to grow up in a world of robots,” she laughs, and the quartet enjoys creating fun and adventurous programs, even incorporating language and ideas from the core curriculum. For instance, placing a bow at a right angle to the strings reinforces math concepts and, says White, “If the child thinks ‘I’m using knowledge I already have, I’m smart enough to do this,’ then the light goes on. And the sooner the light goes on, the better.” “We go off the energy we receive from the audience,” she says. The programs also convey how composers work creatively with 20
team members from different backgrounds. “We travel around the world doing this, (illustrating) the freedom of what it’s like to create a story that’s completely your own, so they have takeaways.” Since each community is unique, Harlem Quartet may offer free concerts beyond the concert hall walls at libraries, churches, or museums. When people feel welcomed, ticket affordability, transportation, or even just initial exposure can be resolved. “Sometimes, people just don’t know what they’re missing,” White says. “Mobile (Alabama) Symphony Orchestra does a great job of engaging community members with their ‘Beethoven in Blue Jeans’ concert where everyone onstage is wearing blue jeans so people in the audience don’t feel out of place. You’ve got to be about inclusion, top to bottom … change takes a long time and it continues to happen.” This summer, Harlem Quartet embarks upon their eleventh season as an ensemble and begins an ongoing residency at Royal College of Music in London. Harkening back to her first experiences at Sphinx – and subsequent performances, competitions, and symposia offered around the world – White says, “Sphinx was a pioneer. It was bigger than us and it opened our eyes. Now that Harlem Quartet is embedding jazz, Latin, and other influences into our work, we are able to present ourselves to an even wider audience, some whom have never seen a string quartet. It’s a fun world.”
SUNDAY | AUGUST 6 | 4 PM DOVER QUARTET Schumann: Quartet No. 2 in F, Op.41, No. 2 Szymon Laks: Quartet No. 3 (1945) Tchaikovsky: Quartet No. 1 in D Major, Op.11
Photo by Juan-Miguel Hernandez
MUSIC + YOGA Being a professional musician can take its toll on a body – literally – and White’s new venture, Intermission Sessions with fellow violinist and yoga practitioner, Elena Urioste, mindfully addresses it. They offer Retreats (think artist colony meets yoga retreat) and Sessions (targeting exceptional string players aged 15-22) for musicians who want to explore and celebrate the symbiosis between music and yoga. T
B • H H • D
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Prodigies Past & Present
By Miriam Villchur Berg
George Frederic Handel at age 22
George Frederic Handel’s father was determined that his son should study and practice law, and was alarmed (not unlike some contemporary parents) when the boy showed an interest in music. He forbade his child from touching any instruments. Little George, determined to play, had a small clavichord secretly brought to the top floor of the family house, and snuck up to the attic to practice when everyone was asleep.
At the age of three, Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart watched as his sister Nannerl received keyboard lessons from their father, and started sounding out major thirds with delight. His first compositions came when he was four or five. At six, he played for the imperial courts in Vienna and Prague. In 1770, when he was fourteen, Mozart heard Gregorio Allegri’s polychoral masterpiece Miserere in the Sistine Chapel. The Vatican had forbidden publication of this special sacred music, but fourteenyear-old Mozart transcribed it from memory after hearing it twice, thus creating history’s first pirated edition. Felix Mendelssohn started piano lessons at age six, and would perhaps have been overshadowed by his talented sister Fanny had it not been considered improper for a girl to pursue a musical career. Felix made his first public appearance at age nine, by which time he was already composing. He wrote the incidental music for A Midsummer Night’s Dream when he was seventeen, and presented his famous revival of J. S. Bach’s St. Matthew Passion when he was twenty years old. His comment at the time was, “To think that it took an actor and a Jew’s son to revive the greatest Christian music for the world!” The actor in question, Eduard Devrient, was also a baritone, and sang the role of Felix Mendelsson at age 20 Christ in the premiere.
Photo by Alex Keller
FRIDAY | JULY 7 | 8 PM Maverick Prodigies THE LADLES Original compositions plus tributes to Betty MacDonald, Levon Helm, and more. Katie Martucci, protégé of Betty MacDonald, vocals, fiddle and guitar; Caroline Kuhn, tenor, banjo and vocals; Lucia Pontoniere, fiddle and vocals.
The list of wunderkinder goes on—Camille Saint-Saëns, Franz Liszt, George Enesco, Daniel Barenboim, Yo Yo Ma, and many others. Some had the encouragement and support of their families, while others had to fight their way into a musical education and career. Mozart nearly died from illness and exhaustion during the rigorous touring schedule his father subjected him to. Mendelssohn and Saint-Saëns were sheltered and protected by their mothers specifically in order to avoid those difficulties. But in most cases—or at least in the case of most male musical prodigies—the spark of genius shone through, and the promise of youth blossomed into mature musical genius. This year, music director Alexander Platt and our new executive director Kitt Potter have launched a new project called “Maverick 22
Prodigies.” Talented young people from the local area and beyond are being invited to perform at the Maverick Concert Hall. The first concert in this project will feature The Ladles, singing songs they have written, and accompanying themselves on acoustic instruments. The Ladles consists of Katie Martucci on fiddle and guitar, Caroline Kuhn on banjo, and Lucia Pontoniere on fiddle. All three girls sing in perfect three-part harmony as well. Katie is the local girl, growing up in a musical family here in the Catskills. Her father, Vinnie Martucci, is well known to area audiences as a jazz pianist. When Katie was eight, he brought her to a gig and she played the violin with him. His comment on playing with his musical daughter: “This is more fun that anyone should be allowed to have.”
SUNDAY | AUGUST 20 | 4 PM AMERNET STRING QUARTET with RAN DANK, PIANO Hugo Wolf: Italian Serenade. Dvorˇák: Piano Quartet No. 2 in E-Flat Major, Op. 87. Juliusz Zar˛ebski (18541885): Piano Quintet in G Minor, Op. 34 (1885) (Maverick Concerts Premiere) Photo by Alex Keller
Katie is one of the two songwriters in The Ladles. She attended the Ashokan Western+Swing Week Fiddle & Dance Camp, took violin lessons with Woodstock’s beloved Betty MacDonald, studied voice with Laurel Massé of Manhattan Transfer, and ended up at the New England Conservatory of Music, where she met Caroline and Lucia. Caroline Kuhn grew up on the Upper West Side of Manhattan. She began her singing career at age four, recording for jingles and television. She joined the Young People’s Chorus of New York City, and attended LaGuardia High School of Music and Art, where she began learning tenor banjo to accompany her songwriting before heading to the New England Conservatory for advanced studies. Lucia Pontoniere grew up in the San Francisco Bay area. She began competing in fiddle competitions at the age of six, and at nine she was accepted to the Young Musicians Program at the University of California, Berkeley. There, she studied with violinist Virginia Baker of the San Francisco Symphony. She decided on a musical career, and entered the New England Conservatory’s Contemporary Improvisation Department. Realizing she wanted to delve deeper into fiddle music, however, she transferred to the Berklee College of Music, where she is currently pursuing a bachelor’s degree in professional music with a concentration in violin performance. The tradition of child prodigies lives on. Here at Maverick we will have the opportunity to hear and enjoy these fine young artists on Friday, July 7, at 8 pm. T
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The Artist as Audience & Angel
There are few organizations in America that can claim focused support for the arts for as long or as successfully as the treasured Maverick Concerts. It has thrived for over one hundred years by the love of those responsible for programming, preservation, and renovation efforts which have always been done in good taste and with great respect for the soul of the place. Luckily, Maverick’s “good vibe” was deeply rooted in its original design and maintained by people like the late, beloved acoustician Edgar Villchur (1954 inventor of the acoustic suspension loudspeaker), who served on the Maverick board and was involved in some of the renovation projects.
by Garry Kvistad
My wife Diane and I moved to the Hudson Valley in 1979 because of the beautiful environment, access to New York City, and the Hudson-Catskill region’s sterling reputation as an arts mecca. We have since been to hundreds of Maverick’s world-class performances and I have had the honor to perform in dozens of them. Thus, I have sat on both sides of the Maverick stage, as an artist and an audience member. Both experiences have been magnificent.
Carl Lindin
Photo by Angela P. Schapiro
As a Maverick audience member, you feel like you are in someone’s living room. As a performer, you feel like you are part of the audience. The pristine acoustics are enjoyed by the audience and performers alike and seem to enhance all types of music. Amplification is usually not needed and the rich sounds reach even those sitting outside the back doors. The shape of the space, the materials used, and the openness contribute to that. Performers often speak to the audience during performances like family and share personal connections with compositions being presented.
SATURDAY | AUGUST 12 | 6 PM NEXUS “The high priests of percussion” —The New York Times This concert is made possible with support from Garry & Diane Kvistad and the Woodstock Chimes Fund.
Having produced over twenty “Woodstock Beat” musical events, many of which took place at the Maverick to benefit the Woodstock Byrdcliffe Guild, I feel that my fantasy concerts have been fulfilled. “The Beats,” which started in the early 1990s, were actually the beginning of Maverick’s Saturday night concert series. Several included premieres of works commissioned by Diane and me as well as NEXUS featuring the multi-Grammy award winning composer Peter Schickele. We opened the centennial Maverick Concerts celebration with one of Peter’s commissions called Percussion Sonata No. 3, “Maverick.” Other featured works included compositions by his fictitious composer “PDQ Bach,” 24
a parody of the three-part names given to members of Johann Sebastian Bach’s family, commonly reduced to initials such as CPE for Carl Philipp Emanuel Bach. PDQ is Peter’s initialism for “pretty damned quick.” Other great performances I produced and performed in at the Maverick included seven-time Grammy winning saxophonist Paul Winter, Minimal music pioneer Steve Reich, So Percussion - co-directors of the Bard Conservatory Percussion program, and more.
Maverick is a sacred place and deserves the name “music chapel,” as founder and architect Hervey White often called it. The intimacy of this great concert hall is unique among America’s traditional classical concert venues. And the name Maverick is most fitting. I still can’t believe David Tutor premiered John Cage’s seminal work, 4'33' (pronounced “Four minutes, thirty-three seconds” or just “Four thirty-three”), way back in 1952. I was two years old, otherwise I would have attended. This work by Cage is often
I have performed in several Saturday morning Young People’s Concerts as well. Diane chaired this popular series for several years and I enjoyed hosting at times. I have also had the pleasure of performing with the amazing Maverick Chamber Players, led by Maverick’s distinguished Music Director, Alexander Platt. One of the most memorable performances I have ever heard as an audience member was Alexander’s interpretation of Aaron Copland’s Appalachian Spring Suite. It was ethereal! In addition to being a Maverick artist and audience member, my third hat has been that of a sponsor. All of the “Woodstock Beat” concerts, as well as dozens of other Maverick Concerts, have been sponsored by our Woodstock Chimes Fund. Vince Wagner, former artistic director of Maverick, told us we were the first company to sponsor concerts, which led to a new relationship with the business community. The people of the Maverick really know how to show their appreciation, which is always heartening for people giving their support.
Photo by Angela P. Schapiro
SATURDAY | AUGUST 26 | 6 PM CHAMBER ORCHESTRA CONCERT Remembrances Remembering the great American composers Dominick Argento and Ned Rorem, as they approach their 90th and 95th birthdays. Alexander Platt, conductor; Maria Jette, soprano; Emmanuel Feldman, cello; Members of the Aurea Ensemble; Maverick Chamber Players
THE PERSONAL TOUCH FOR YOUR PERSONAL TASTES
Ravel/Wolfgang Renz: Le Tombeau de Couperin. Dominick Argento: Six Elizabethan Songs, for soprano and ensemble (1958). Ned Rorem: After Reading Shakespeare, for solo cello (1980). Mussorgsky/Wolfgang Renz: Pictures at an Exhibition This concert is made possible through generous support from the Thompson Family Foundation
WOODSTOCK MEATS 57 MILL HILL ROAD WOODSTOCK , N.Y. 679-7917
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called the “silent piece” because the performer doesn’t make any sounds. His point was to illustrate that there is no such thing as total silence and we should all be aware of the symphony around us. What better venue than Maverick, tucked away in the woods where the sounds of nature are abundant, to fill the void created by “silence.” I have heard some wonderful concerts while the roof was pummeled by a tremendous downpour. It was almost as though the composer had intended the interplay.
methods, the means will exist for group improvisations of unwritten but culturally important music. This has already taken place in Oriental cultures and in hot jazz.” (Courtesy of the John Cage Trust) Modern works mingle with classics on the Maverick stage. Beethoven’s quartets were considered modern music at one time and if they hadn’t been accepted, we would be without some of the greatest music ever. Those who have programmed music at Maverick know that music is a living art and new works must be presented to further enrich the repertoire. Composer Edgard Varese once said, “Contrary to general belief, an artist is never ahead of his time but most people are far behind theirs.” Maverick was and still is ahead of its time in many ways and yet timeless in the important sense of the word.
Walter Garshagen
NEXUS returns to Maverick this season on Saturday, August 13, filling the stage and the air with exotic instruments and music. Our mission has always been to entertain and advance the cause of percussion. And among our most memorable musical experiences to date was with the late John Cage, lauded as one of the most influential American composers of the 20th century, performing some of his greatest percussion works at the Maverick. In his Future of Music – Credo (first delivered as a lecture in ABOUT THE AUTHOR 1937), Cage wrote: Garry Kvistad holds a BM from the Oberlin “Percussion music is a contemporary transition from Conservatory of Music and an MM from Northern keyboard influenced music to the all-sound music of Illinois University where he studied music, art and the future. Any sound is acceptable to the composer physics in the pursuit of musical instrument building of percussion music; he explores the academically and received the Distinguished Alumni Award. Garry forbidden ‘nonmusical’ field of sound insofar as is has served as the timpanist and percussionist with the Garry Kvistad manually possible. Methods of writing percussion music have as Chicago Grant Park Symphony, was a summer Tanglewood Fellow, their goal the rhythmic structure of a composition. As soon as and a percussionist with the Cabrillo Music Festival Orchestra, these methods are crystallized into one or several widely accepted California. He joined the NEXUS percussion ensemble in 2002
VA S S A R & N E W YO R K S TAG E A N D F I L M P R E S E N T
POWERHOUSE THEATER
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and is one of the members to win a Grammy award for the 1998 recording of Steve Reich's Music for 18 Musicians. He has been featured in performances with the Chicago Symphony Orchestra, the Cleveland Orchestra, the Israel Philharmonic, and more. The Balinese Gong Kebyar Gamelan ensemble, Giri Mekar, which he formed in 1987, is currently in residence at Bard College. Garry is the founder and CEO of Woodstock Percussion, Inc., makers of Woodstock Chimes® and musical instruments for children. He is a 1995 winner of Ernst & Young, Inc. Magazine's Entrepreneur of the Year Award for the Southern New England Region and served as a New York state delegate to the 1995 White House Conference on Small Business. Websites: www.nexuspercussion. com/members/garry-kvistad/ www.chimes.com/MeetTheChimemaker.aspx ABOUT THE WOODSTOCK CHIMES FUND The Woodstock Chimes Fund was established in 1986 by Diane and Garry Kvistad, owners of Woodstock Percussion, Inc., to support the community in the arts, and in food and shelter Programs. We believe that a community can be judged by how it values the arts and the way in which its members respond to those in need. We believe that we have a responsibility as a corporate citizen to give back to the community which has helped make our success possible. T Diane and Garry Kvistad
Photo by Lisa-Marie Mazzucco
SUNDAY | AUGUST 27 | 4 PM TRIO SOLISTI New Foundations X Dvorˇák: Piano Trio No. 2 in G Minor Jennifer Higdon: Piano Trio No. 2 (2017) (commissioned for Trio Solisti) Schubert: Piano Trio No. 1 in B-Flat, Op. 99
A LOT OF GOOD THINGS UNDER ONE ROOF 845.679.2115 PROJECT POINTS
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Arturo O'Farrill: An Identity Forged in Music
Arturo O’Farrill hasn’t exactly followed in his iconic father’s footsteps. Though he cherishes Chico O’Farrill’s musical and cultural legacy, he’s extended it in his own distinctive ways as pianist, educator, composer and activist.
By Debra Bresnan
He is founder and artistic director of the nonprofit organization, Afro Latin Jazz Alliance (ALJA); Chico O’Farrill band leader and composer for his own ensembles, including the Afro Latin Jazz Orchestra, his octet, and smaller ensembles; and he has released several discs celebrating Afro Latin Jazz music. Most recently, the music of his father’s native country featured seventy-five musicians from Cuba and the United States in “Cuba: The Conversation Continues.” It was awarded a 2016 Grammy for Best Instrumental Composition. On a personal level, however, O’Farrill’s formative years with his father offered perspective when it came time to parent his own children. “My father was very awkward as a parent, as a human being, even though he was a lovely man, super smart and a brilliant musician,” says O’Farrill, born in Mexico in 1960 and raised in NYC. “He loved us but he wasn’t the kind of dad who would tussle with us or take us to the ball park: He was busy composing, and trying to make a living doing that was damn near impossible, especially writing for a big band.” His mother, he continues, was the “emotional, touchy-feely-huggy one. She sang for my father’s orchestra but not for long. It was a macho Latin American household – I recognized that even when I was little – and she invested her energy in my father.”
Photo by John Abbott
By contrast, O’Farrill became the kind of dad who joshes and jokes with his kids and, since they were nine or ten years old, they’ve jammed together too. “Unlike other families, who were always shooting hoops in the driveway, we were too busy playing music together, and there was a lot of slapstick humor, joking and sarcasm. That gave them more confidence than I had as a young musician and they’re pretty precocious. Now,” he laughs, “I have to pay them if I want to play with them.”
SATURDAY | JULY 1 | 11 AM YOUNG PEOPLE'S CONCERT ARTURO O’FARRILL QUINTET
SATURDAY | JULY 1 | 8 PM ARTURO O’FARRILL QUINTET Beloved Grammy award winning Afro Latin Jazz great returns to the Maverick.
And he does. The ensemble performing with him at the Maverick Concert Hall, features Zack on drums and Adam on trumpet. A JOURNEY COMPLETED O’Farrill came to the United States with his family right after the Cuban Revolution which, he says, “My father supported at first. But after he realized that Communism would be the governing principle for Cuba, he did not support it.”
This performance is made possible with support from Sally Grossman
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“I’ve lost track of how many times I’ve been to Cuba since 2002 – maybe twenty or twenty-five times – but earlier this year, my family went there with me. We completed a spiritual journey,” he says. O’Farrill and his family took Chico’s ashes with them to leave at the National Cemetery. “It was an incredible event. We performed in the Basilica at St. Francis with a chamber orchestra and big band, and in Santiago too. Though my father didn’t get to return to his homeland while he was alive, he did get to go back. His journey is complete now, and I don’t sense his discontent any more.”
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He tells visitors to Havana to do the standards – visit the museum, opera house, ballet, theater, all the cultural high points – and to venture into the neighborhoods to “find a rumba, an informal gathering of percussionists. There’s a famous one, Callejón de Hamel, on a hillside street where you can hang with artists, visit galleries, and be a part of the Cuba experience that few know about. Get as far away as possible if you can,” he urges. “Walk the quiet side streets of Old Havana.”
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Rick Whelan: Designer Debra Bresnan: Writer
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5/5/17 9:29 AM
Open to the Public!!!
Arturo O’Farrill
Cuba is one of the last places on earth with no corporate culture, and the lack of advertising blitz is noticeable. Community slogans abound, but rather than scantily clad models on Times Square billboards, you’ll see messages like “A community with consciousness is a good community” or “Taking care of one another is the good Cuba.” “It’s a beautiful thing,” he says. “What’s different – the thing people notice when they ask ‘why does this feel so different?’ – is the lack of manufactured identity.”
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THE ARTS CAN SAVE HUMANITY On this note, he avers that our current climate in America is a direct result of de-emphasizing arts education and literature. “Some of the vestiges of the first generation that lost arts education are now in their 30s and 40s. These people didn’t take humanities courses; they took business (classes). They’ve never read The Old Man and The Sea, looked at Picasso’s “Guernica” or had a Haydn string quartet hit them upside the head,” he says. “The single most important thing we can use to save humanity is the arts … that’s honestly what I believe.”
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O’Farrill injects his belief into purposeful actions not only fueling his own performances and recordings, but empowering the next generation of young artists. His Afro-Latin Jazz Alliance (ALJA) collaborates with the NYC Mission Society to provide free musical instruction to youth in Harlem and surrounding neighborhoods through Global Rhythms in Our Tribe (G.R.I.O.T.). ALJA’s Afro Latin Jazz Academy of Music (ALJAM) is celebrating its tenth anniversary as an annual residency program for dedicated NYC music students, and its pre-professional youth orchestra, the Fat Afro Latin Jazz Cats, is now in its fourth year. New York City’s finest young players perform classic works from the Latin jazz repertory and their own new compositions, and rehearse weekly at Fat Cat club in Greenwich Village. ALJA alumni have pursued professional music studies at some of America’s most prestigious music conservatories. “At one of our high school band gigs at Birdland, I told the audience, ‘this keeps kids off the street – off Wall Street – and it prevents them from becoming drug company executives’,” he relates. “Kids will choose right, choose love, and choose art because it’s more entertaining than number crunching and regurgitative teaching.”
Photo by Katie Jellinghaus
“I’m glad to see Maverick Concerts opening up to jazz in a hip, forward and progressive way, one that’s not American centric and conservative,” O’Farrill adds. “It’s a really special place, an incredible institution; very intimate … it almost doesn’t feel like performing because the audience is so close. Working with kids is fascinating. Maybe it’s because my brain operates on the same wave length,” he laughs, “but their senses really trigger states of consciousness, visceral responses. When you become an adult, the colors get drabbier, things are either annoying or happy, you’re influenced by good or bad intentions. But being with and working with kids is a real chance to rediscover a sense of awe – and we’re the recipients of that awe.” T
ACTIVISM AND AWE He serves on several boards, including Betances Health Center in the Lower East Side, which offers services to an aging Hispanic and Chinese population, and Musicians for Musicians, which upholds making music as a profession. “I’m highly politicized. I work on what some may consider offensive causes like Refuse Fascism. I read revolutionary books. I’m not a communist because I’m a faith person, but we are rapidly becoming a nation that’s morally adrift,” he says. He believes that a global musical perspective is a way of embracing friends and family around the world. “That is the American way.”
More Jazz at Maverick
SATURDAY | JULY 15 | 8 PM | BILL CHARLAP TRIO
SATURDAY | JULY 29 | 8 PM | ELDAR DJANGIROV TRIO
Grammy award winning jazz great returns to the Maverick by popular demand.
"Eldar’s command of his instrument is beyond staggering." —Downbeat Magazine 30
IF IT WASN’T FOR JAZZ BY PENNY BRODIE Host on "Mingus Moments" WVKR 91.3FM If it wasn’t for jazz, I’d be a totally insane woman. If it wasn’t for jazz, I wouldn’t have had my first love affair With a big, strong, handsome man. If it wasn’t for jazz, I wouldn’t know the depth of the blues Or the height of the spirit feel. I wouldn’t know how to make it real, Compared to what. If it wasn’t for jazz, I couldn’t scat my way out of a depression, Obtain salvation, Or be swept clean of all my life’s concessions. If it wasn’t for jazz, My spirit wouldn’t roam. If it wasn’t for jazz, I couldn’t recognize Gabriel’s sweet swinging horn when, It’s time to call me home. If it wasn’t for jazz, I wouldn’t get hit in my Jelly Roll soul, Like Mingus told, Again and again, again and again. If it wasn’t for jazz, I wouldn’t know about Africa. African rhythms, African art, African life, African glories.
ARTS THEATRE
If it wasn’t for jazz, I wouldn’t be on the search of my own story.
ULSTER COUNTY’S OWN
If it wasn’t for jazz.
M A I N
S T R E E T ,
R O S E N D A L E
INDEPENDENT FILMS MAJOR Motion PICTURES LIVE THEATRE | DANCE YOUTH ARTS | NATIONAL THEATRE LIVE | COMMUNITY EVENTS
Photo by Christopher Drukker
SATURDAY | SEPTEMBER 2 | 8 PM CREATIVE MUSIC STUDIO™ and KARL BERGER In the Spirit of Don Cherry Woodstock “Free Jazz” legend returns
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rosendaletheatre.org
Indian Classical Music
The classical music of North India is highly improvisational and most of the songs are devotional in nature. Ragas are the tones and phrases, or melodies with which the musicians work. Each raga is an emotional being with its own range of moods. Within the framework of raga, the musician or the group works to create a new piece at each performance. Yet the framework of the music is specific enough that the performers can easily coordinate their ideas in a flowing exchange as the performance builds. The success and appeal of this music lies in its versatility. The audience and the performers interact in dynamic encounter guided by the structures of the music.
By Steve Gorn
Unlike western classical music, the repertoire of Indian music is conceived vocally. The instruments are designed as an extension of the voice. In our August 5, 2017 program at Maverick Concerts, you will hear the blend and interaction between the voice and the bansuri flute, accompanied by Samir Chatterjee’s mastery of the tabla. The vocal tradition is especially strong in Indian music. Song is probably the most ancient form of music. Vedic chant is the oldest musical text/song in India and has influenced contemporary musical forms which are built up around the structure of a raga. Primary theme, a secondary theme, and other elements form the framework in which a largely improvised system of music can work. The bansuri bamboo flute is the simplest of all Indian melody instruments in construction, though it is one of the most difficult on which to master the complexity of classical Indian music. The body of the instrument is a straight tube of bamboo with a mouth and seven finger holes. The subtle intonation of Indian music is achieved by partially covering the finger holes. To Indian people, the bansuri is a celestial instrument that immediately conjures up images of Lord Krishna. Tabla is the most popular percussion instrument in North India and is commonly used to accompany classical ragas. Actually two drums, the tabla provides the tala, or rhythmic structure, for the music. Each stroke has a particular sound which, when combined, forms rhythmic patterns that define the tala and are elaborated in either fixed compositions or improvisation. Photo by Lucy Lu
SATURDAY | AUGUST 5 | 8 PM STEVE GORN, Bansuri Flute SANJOY BANERJEE, Vocals SAMIR CHATTERJEE, Tabla Indian Ragas
Photo by Julian Lines
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The tamboura is a long-necked lute that provides the ever present drone ostinato, which is the basis of tuning for the musicians and the ground from which the notes of each particular raga arises. In this program, the tamboura will be produced electronically. For our program, we will perform classical and folk music from North India. This music is passed from generation to generation, from master to disciple, as a living oral tradition. It combines the classicism of traditional repertoire, fixed melodic forms, and precise intonation with improvisation and spontaneous creation. Indian classical music is a meeting of Raga (melody) and Tala (rhythm). Raga means “to color the mind,” and traditionally, each raga, or melodic landscape, is associated with a time of day, a season or a quality of light. Tala is rhythm…time, defined and elaborated in rhythmic cycles. Evolved over centuries from music performed in temples and courts, present day Indian classical music is a true “chamber music”.
Photo by Lisa-Marie Mazzucco
SUNDAY | SEPTEMBER 3 | 4 PM HORSZOWSKI TRIO CONCERT FOR THE FRIENDS OF MAVERICK Schubert: Notturno in E-Flat Major, D. 897 Daron Hagen: Piano Trio No. 2, "J'entends" (1986) Mendelssohn: Piano Trio No. 1 in D Minor, Op. 49
ABOUT THE AUTHOR Grammy winner, and five time Grammy nominee, Steve Gorn is creating a new idiom, a music that combines the essence of classical Indian tradition with a contemporary world music sensibility. The strength of this music arises from a virtuoso mastery, generating a vibrant fusion, alive and accessible to western ears. From Indian classical music to world music and jazz projects with Paul Simon, Jack DeJohnette, Paul Winter, and others, Steve infuses great mastery with a haunting, lyrical sweetness to bring the healing breath of the sacred to our demanding contemporary lives.
Admission to this concert and reception is by contribution only. For a donation of $50, you receive an invitation for one unreserved seat to this concert. For a donation of $100 or more, you receive two invitations. Regular Maverick tickets are not valid for this concert, and there is no “Rock Bottom” seating.
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Decades of Devotion
Alan, a painter, print media artist, and retired attorney, is a Maverick Concerts trustee who also serves on the board of the Woodstock School of Art. He previously served on the board of the Center for Photography. “Maverick Concerts is tremendously important in Woodstock, both for its place in our cultural history and for its role in contemporary cultural life. Sandy and I are both serious music lovers. The opportunity to hear phenomenal musicians at Maverick Concert Hall is a very important part of why we’ve been part-time residents of Woodstock for so many years,” he says.
By Debra Bresnan
Sandy was elected to the Maverick Concerts’ board of directors in 2006, and joined the committee raising funds for the restoration of the hall. The initial funding for the restoration was a $150,000 Save America’s Treasures matching grant from the National Park Service, Department of the Interior. This grant was secured through the office of former US Congressman Maurice Hinchey. Hundreds of individual donors and foundations, joined by the New York State Council on the Arts, provided the necessary matching funds. Meanwhile, Alan, following the death in 2009 of his friend and business associate, Wade Thompson, became the director of the Thompson Family Foundation (TFF), one of New York’s largest family foundations. Wade Thompson, his family, and the TFF are renowned for their major gifts to revive the Park Avenue Armory in New York. This support allowed the Armory to preserve and renovate the space, and provided an endowment for artistic programming and educational initiatives. Photo by Dion Ogust
Alan Siegel and his wife Sandy rented houses in the area and began coming to the Maverick in the 1960s. After buying a Woodstock home in 1978, they started to attend concerts regularly.
Bust of Wade Thompson (Leonid Lehrman artist) with Angela Thompson, Amanda Riegel, Charles Thompson.
More recently, the Foundation gave a major donation to New York City’s Central Park Conservancy/Forever Green for renovation of the historic Belvedere Castle and Children’s District in Central Park. Another focus of the Thompson Family Foundation is cancer research and treatment programs. The foundation’s work in collaboration with the Weizmann Institute/Memorial Sloan Kettering, has resulted in innovative therapies that are now undergoing clinical trials. 34
multiple sources of support in order to flourish and to cover cash flow deficiencies. A directed program does not just ask ‘please give us money,’ but also provides recognition of those who do put up funds,” he says.
PASSIONATE COMMITMENT After succeeding Susan Rizwani as chair of the board’s building committee, Sandy, together with the dedicated people on the building committee, soon took on the challenge of supervising renovation of the hall. “Sandy and the committee worked very hard,” Alan says, “and Sandy discovered she had an amazing amount of transferable skills– dealing with contractors, compliance with town building codes, and site preservation requirements. It was really quite remarkable.”
The members of the current Board of Directors are all seriously involved and familiar with the organization, which is a bond that’s very much like a family. “All of us who enjoy the Maverick Concerts are very grateful to its Board of Directors. They are immensely involved and hard working, and are motivated by a pure love for the place and for the music. It would not exist without people like them. It’s a remarkable thing, this energy,” says Alan.
Renovations – including stateof-the-art restroom facilities, a groundwater drainage system, major structural work to shore up the north wall, re-glazing of all 300 original windows in the hall– were completed 2012 and 2013. In 2015, a major electrical upgrade was completed with support from the Villchur Foundation and NYSCA which introduced LED lighting and Reconstruction by Stephen Tilly the new fans which have added so much comfort for audience and musicians alike.
Hervey White, the founder of Maverick Concerts, and his cohorts were all “young, renegade artists” and, Alan says, “One of the things to be proud of at my age is that we did personally support Maverick through these many years. I look around now and 95% of the people attending concerts are people I’ve never seen before, which is a good thing. It was the wish of others who have now passed on that new people would stand up and say, ‘How can I help Maverick?’ and we need that energy.”
Are you interested in making a financial contribution, or would you like to offer your skills and energies to Maverick Concerts’ ongoing efforts? Please contact: Susan.Rizwani@maverickconcerts.org.
Alan’s dual passions – for Maverick Concerts and for the mission of TFF – dovetailed with the need to renovate and improve the Maverick Concert Hall and site. With their keen interest in preservation and renovation and the arts, the directors at the TFF found Maverick a natural fit and became the major funder of the new restrooms and the new benches. In May 2016, the project to preserve and upgrade the historic Maverick Concert hall received a highly coveted award for Excellence in Historic Preservation from the Preservation League of New York State. The TFF also underwrites the annual Chamber Orchestra Concerts (conceived by Music Director, Alexander Platt), which Alan champions for their uniqueness. “I encourage Alexander to continue to do it, in part because I like it, which may be a good enough reason,” he says. “But, more than that, it’s a significant event for a small not-for-profit in the mountains. It’s very important to Alexander, who is a wonderful guy with a tremendous amount of talent. He pulls it off every year, but needs financial support to get there. In 2015, the Chamber Orchestra Concert during our hundredth anniversary season was spectacular. As in years past, we had outstanding, internationally renowned musicians. It was just wonderful.”
SATURDAY | SEPTEMBER 9 | 8 PM HAPPY TRAUM AND FRIENDS
MAVERICK’S FUTURE Alan believes that Maverick Concerts needs to put in place a professionally directed program to ensure its continued success. “Although The Thompson Family Foundation, and other groups and individuals, have contributed gifts to the Maverick Concerts’ endowment fund, small non-profit organizations must secure
Iconic Woodstock folk singer and guitarist Returns with Special Guests
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The Maverick Horse By Cornelia Rosenblum The name "Maverick" came to be used over the years for the collaborative colony for artists that Hervey White established on the outskirts of Woodstock. In Colorado in the 1890s, while visiting his sister, he had been told of a white stallion living in freedom in the wild known locally as the "Maverick Horse." In 1911 the Maverick Horse appeared as the hero of a poem Hervey wrote, "The Adventures of a Young Maverick." It was a fitting symbol for everything that Hervey held dear—freedom and spirit and individuality.
at the Maverick during the carving, remembers: "Everyone on the Maverick was watching. They were fascinated. We loved everything that Flannagan did and we were terribly excited about it. I remember seeing him working; he was working John Flannagan and young Linda Sweeney frantically and he was doing the whole thing with an ax. It was the fastest work I'd ever seen. When it was finished he went off and had another drink."
John Flannagan, a brilliantly talented, iconoclastic (and penniless) sculptor, came to join the artists who spent summers in the Maverick. In the summer of 1924 Hervey White commissioned Flannagan to carve the Maverick Horse. Believing that all useful work was of value and the work of an artist no more to be rewarded than any other, he paid the prevailing wage of fifty cents an hour. Using an
The heroic sculpture standing eighteen feet high marked the entrance of the road to the concert hall (and the now-vanished theatre) for thirty-six years. For a while the sculpture had a little roof over it as protection from the elements but it began to weather alarmingly and artist Emmet Edwards, a painter who knew Flannagan well, moved it into his nearby studio to protect it. It remained there, hidden from view, for twenty years. In 1979 through the generosity and cooperation of Edwards, the horse was moved on large wooden skids from Edwards' studio to the stage of the Maverick Concert Hall. Woodstock sculptor Maury Colow undertook to stabilize the sculpture and mount it on a stone base. It is most appropriate that this mysterious and magical sculpture presides over the last and most enduring expression of Hervey White's original Maverick.
Photo by Simon Russell
ax as the major tool, the entire monumental piece was carved from the trunk of a chestnut tree in only a few days. The sculpture depicts the horse emerging from the outstretched hands of a man who appears in turn to be emerging from the earth. Hannah Small, who lived
DION OGUST photography
845-679-4135
dionphoto.com 36
FREE Young People’s Concerts
Saturdays 11AM. Admission is free for all young people under 16. These wonderful concerts, long a Maverick tradition, are designed for children in grades K-6. Adults pay only $5 SATURDAY, JUNE 24 ETHEL New Foundations II Acclaimed contemporary music quartet.
SATURDAY, JULY 1 ARTURO O'FARRILL QUINTET Latin-Jazz for young people!
A little child looked wonderingly SATURDAY, AUGUST 12 HARLEM QUARTET New Foundations VIII This concert will take place at the Kleinert James Center for the Arts, 36 Tinker Street in downtown Woodstock. Special thanks to the hospitality of the Woodstock Byrdcliffe Guild.
Within the magic of the sea. The sea looked back, and softly smiled. Watching the wonder of the child. And what the child saw, deep and far, Was all the mysteries that are: All things that have been, and will be. He saw there hovering in the sea. And what the ocean saw as well. Was all the secrets he could tell: What had been, and what will be, smiled Within that little wondering child. — From A Ship of Souls by Hervey White
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Hervey White by Robert Chanler
Maverick Concerts is supported in part by an award from the National Endowment for the Arts.
Painting by Alan Siegel
Maverick Concerts is made possible in part with funds from the New York State Council on the Arts, a state agency, with the support of Gov. Andrew Cuomo and the New York State Legislature.
Yamaha is the official piano of Maverick Concerts. The Yamaha Disklavier C7X grand piano appears through the generosity of Yamaha Artist Services.
SUNDAY | SEPTEMBER 10 | 4 PM SHANGHAI QUARTET with ORION WEISS, piano Beethoven: String Quartet No. 11 in F Minor, Op. 95, “Serioso” Krzysztof Penderecki: String Quartet No. 3, "Leaves of an Unwritten Diary" (2008, Shanghai Quartet commission) Brahms/Busoni: Three Chorale Preludes, Op. 122 Dvorˇák: Piano Quintet No. 2 in A Major, Op. 81
Call 845-679-8217 for concert information or visit Maverick Concerts online at maverickconcerts.org. Email: info@maverickconcerts.org Mailing Address: P.O. Box 9 Street Address: 120 Maverick Road Woodstock, N.Y. 12498