The Midsummer’s Music resident string quartet plays three free spring concerts.
Sister Bay, Wis. (March 7, 2022) – Hailed for their “superb playing, palpable chemistry, spirit, and emotional connection,” Midsummer’s Music’s quartet in residence, the Griffon String Quartet, announces three mid-March community outreach concerts in Northeast Wisconsin. The pay-what-you-can programs feature Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart’s String Quartet No. 19 in C Major and Paul Hindemith’s String Quartet No. 1 in C Major.
Mozart’s piece, nicknamed “Dissonance” due to its unusually slow introduction and daring harmonies, is the last of the “Haydn Quartets,” a set of six quartets honoring Joseph Haydn, who is generally viewed as the father of the string quartet form and a good friend to Mozart. Hindemith’s first string quartet—composed in 1914-1915—was not recognized until the mid-1990s, because it had not been published with his six other string quartets and was thought to have been lost. The technically challenging piece is very Romantic in nature, evoking thoughts of Dvořák and Brahms, oozing melody and lyricism.
The concerts begin March 18 at 5:00pm at St. Luke’s Episcopal Church in Sister Bay, followed by March 19 at 2:00pm at the Brown County Library’s Pine St. Branch in Green Bay, and ending with a 3:00pm performance on March 20 at 3:00pm at the Kress Pavilion in Egg Harbor.
Concert reservations are recommended. Free tickets are available through the Midsummer’s Music website—midsummersmusic.com—or by calling 920-854-7088 during business hours.
One of the most vibrant and engaging quartets of their generation, the Griffon String Quartet was formed in the fall of 2018 as a collaboration led by Midsummer’s Music. The quartet is a groundbreaking project to enrich the lives of children and adults throughout Northeast Wisconsin through concerts, workshops, and music education outreach. Members of the Quartet include violinists Ji-Yeon Lee and Vinicius Sant’Ana, violist Blakeley Menghini, and cellist Ryan Louie. Extraordinary musicians who have performed with orchestras and ensembles around the globe in the finest halls from Carnegie Hall and Brazil’s Teatro Municipal de São Paulo to Ukraine’s Lviv Philharmonic Hall, and won prestigious music competitions and awards, they are equally dedicated to music education and inspiring the next generation of music lovers. Each member of the Griffon String Quartet has advanced degrees and significant professional experience, both as educators and performers, and the ensemble has been recognized for “their youthful vigor, which is absolutely infectious!”
Midsummer’s Music was co-founded in 1990 by Jim and Jean Berkenstock, long-time Door County summer residents and principal orchestral players with the Lyric Opera of Chicago. What began as two concerts among friends has become one of the Midwest’s most anticipated chamber music series, bringing thousands of chamber music enthusiasts from around the globe to the magical Door County Peninsula.