An elegant preview of the Mendocino Music Festival's July Bachfest will be presented at the historic Berkeley City Club, an architectural masterpiece by Julia Morgan. Susan Waterfall, Jeremy Cohen, Mindy Rosenfeld, and Burke Schuchmann will perform highlights including the Musical Offering, D Minor Violin Chaconne, the Italian Concerto, and selections from suites and sonatas. No ...
Featured wines at this performance J. S. Bach enjoyed life enormously, and this certainly included beer drinking. He was often paid in beer. Find out more interesting and seldom considered facts in a multi-media lecture with historian Bob Winn, noted beer authority Jay R. Brooks, and scholar/pianist Susan Waterfall, covering life in early 18th century Germany, ...
Pianists Susan Waterfall and Carolyn Steinbuck will consider Bach’s role as father and teacher, and will explore the international influences on his music. The concert consists of the Two-Part Inventions, the Italian Concerto, the C minor Partita, and the 6-Voiced Ricercare from the “Musical Offering.” iPad/iPhone/Safari Users Click for Ticketing
Bach’s keyboard works are often played, but there are not so many opportunities to hear the wonderful suites for other instruments, and even more rare, to hear them in the lovely setting and gorgeous acoustics of the sanctuary of the Mendocino Presbyterian Church. Jeremy Cohen will perform the much-beloved Partita for Violin in D minor, ...
Susan Waterfall will describe the history and significance of Bach's Musical Offering. Fascinating canons and the Trio Sonata from that work will be performed by Waterfall, with Jeremy Cohen, violin; Mindy Rosenfeld, flute; Burke Schuchmann, cello. On the second half of the program, the brilliant Bach interpreter Stephen Prutsman will play and conduct the Festival Chamber ...
Two multi-media lectures, a Punch tasting, and music, both ribald and ravishing.
Some of Mozart's most charming and self-revelatory works were written for intimate gatherings with friends and family. Learn about the four fascinating musical families who inspired him: the Mozarts, the Cannabiches, the Webers, and the Jacquins. This concert features the poetic and luminous "Kegelstatt" Trio (K. 498), written for clarinet, viola, and piano, while Mozart ...
Featuring the Festival Chamber Players Many of Mozart’s chamber works were composed for aristocratic salons or outdoor entertainment. The Festival Chamber Players will perform two of Mozart's most serious and introspective masterpieces for these settings. Wind octets usually were light outdoor music for royal parties, but in K. 388 Mozart used the instrumental combination to ...
Increase your musical pleasure by learning to listen to musical form! If you know what the form is going to be, you will have a good chance of following it as the piece unfolds. Susan Waterfall and Allan Pollack will help you to understand the features of sonata, rondo, and variation form with diagrams, audio examples and definitions of terms like tonality, modulation, and counterpoint.
In July, join Susan Waterfall and an array of exceptional Festival musicians for five days of lectures and narrated concerts exploring the life and music of Beethoven, the most influential and consistently popular composer in Western music.
The rapturous music of J. S. Bach opens the 2016 Festival with all six of the rarely heard sonatas for violin and piano. Described as the “Jon Stewart of chamber music,” violin virtuoso Geoff Nuttall redefines what a chamber concert can be, with his creative daring and flair for entertaining. Nuttall is known for his ...
A witty and penetrating multi media lecture by Susan Waterfall, providing an overview of Beethoven’s life, music, family, friends, patrons, fellow musicians, Napoleon, the Viennese cultural milieu, and the ongoing controversy about the immortal beloved.
Join Susan Waterfall and an array of exceptional Festival musicians for five days of lectures and narrated concerts exploring the life and music of Beethoven, the most influential and consistently popular composer in Western music.
Arriving in Vienna from Bonn, the socially awkward Beethoven strives to attain the stature of Haydn and Mozart, mastering all genres before his hearing loss becomes pronounced.
Join Susan Waterfall and an array of exceptional Festival musicians for five days of lectures and narrated concerts exploring the life and music of Beethoven, the most influential and consistently popular composer in Western music. For this concert Waterfall is joined by Eric Kritz, Burke Schuchmann, David McCarroll, Miles Graber, and the Festival Chamber Players.
Accepting his deafness and physical infirmities, Beethoven vows to “seize Fate by the throat” and pursue his artistic goals.
Join Susan Waterfall and an array of exceptional Festival musicians for five days of lectures and narrated concerts exploring the life and music of Beethoven, the most influential and consistently popular composer in Western music. For this concert Waterfall is joined by Keisuke Nakagoshi, Alex Boyer, Angela Moser, and Carolyn Steinbuck.
After the renunciation of his “immortal beloved,” in social withdrawal and complete deafness, Beethoven forged a final style.
Join Susan Waterfall and an array of exceptional Festival musicians for five days of lectures and narrated concerts exploring the life and music of Beethoven, the most influential and consistently popular composer in Western music. For this concert she is joined by Brian Thorsett, Miles Graber, Tammie Dyar, Tingting Gu, Alexander Volonts, and Burke Schuchmann.
In Susan Waterfall’s multi-media exploration of Franz Schubert’s life, you will learn how the Vienna of Mozart and Beethoven changed with an increasingly large, restricted and regimented urban middle class. Schubert’s potent settings of Romantic lyric poetry thrived in bourgeois settings where there was a growing need for personal emotional outlet. The inwardness and subjectivity ...
Susan Waterfall will play Moments Musicaux and discuss the significance of Schubert’s “character pieces,” which, like lieder, suited the Romantic goals of intimacy and fantasy. Schubert’s exceptional ability to portray women in lieder will be demonstrated by soprano Julie Kierstine and pianist Daniel Lockert. The Octet, modeled on Beethoven’s popular Septet, is unusually outgoing, but ...
The most domestic of all genres, the four-hand piano piece, attained its pinnacle with Schubert’s Fantasy in F minor, written in the last year of Schubert’s life. It will be performed by Julian Waterfall Pollack and Susan Waterfall. The String Quintet in C Major for quartet and an additional cello is a work of supreme ...
Chopin Series Opening Presentation Susan Waterfall’s multimedia exploration of Frederic Chopin’s life and times (1810-1849) will explore his early years as a musical prodigy in Warsaw, and his last 19 years as a popular composer and piano virtuoso in Paris. Chopin’s dedication to Bach, Mozart, Italian opera, and traditional Polish music and his relationships with ...
Susan Waterfall will discuss and perform a selection of Chopin’s Mazurkas, the dance genre where he refined his mastery of the folk idiom and launched his most daring compositional experiments. Susan will also play Chopin’s Barcarolle, Opus 60, and touch on its special place both in Chopin’s output. and as a source for the future ...
Piano Series, with continued focus on Chopin In his recital for the Piano Series, John Novacek has chosen examples from four important Chopin genres: the etude, the nocturne, the impromptu, and the ballade. Chopin’s Etude in A-flat Major, Nocturne No. 7 in C-sharp minor, Impromptu No. 1 in A-flat Major, and Ballade No. 1 in ...
Piano Series, with continued focus on Chopin In his recital for the Piano Series Spencer Myer will play, among other works, the Four Scherzi of Chopin. Haydn’s Keyboard Sonata in E Major, Hob. XVI: 31; Debussy’s Estampes and L’isle joyeuse; and all four of Chopin’s scherzi: No. 1 in B minor, Op. 20; No. 2 ...
Brahms' momentous meeting with Clara and Robert Schumann when he was only 20 forged a bond of love and familial connection that lasted throughout Brahms’ and Clara’s lifetimes. Susan’s lecture will be supplemented with images and recorded examples. The two chamber concerts divide Brahms’ life roughly in half: before and after 1878, when he grew ...
Susan Waterfall will play the Four Ballades Op. 10; Miles Graber, Larry Lowe, and Jay Zhong will essay the Horn Trio in E-flat Major Op. 40; and Carolyn Steinbuck, Jay Zhong, Tammie Dyer, Susan Freier, and Stephen Harrison will interpret the F minor Piano Quintet Op. 34. BUY TICKETS
Susan Waterfall and Eric Kritz will play the Clarinet Sonata No. 1 in F minor Op. 120; Christopher Nomura and Daniel Lockert will sing Vier Ernste Gesänge; and Jay Zhong, Tammie Dyer, Susan Freier, Stephen Harrison, and Danny Sheu will play the String Quintet No. 2 in G Major Op. 111, “Prater.” BUY TICKETS
Join us for the exciting premiere of Susan Waterfall’s new film The Life and Art of Claude Debussy. Immerse yourself in the composer’s world, and enhance your experience of the many Debussy offerings in this summer’s Festival: the Festival Orchestra’s Afternoon of a Faun, the Calder’s performance of the String Quartet, Spencer Myer’s Pour le Piano, and the two narrated chamber music concerts Breakfast with Chou-Chou and Sounds and Perfumes of Evening.
Join Debussy at the breakfast table with his wife and beloved daughter, Chou-Chou, as his imagination is stirred by the toys in the nursery, the paintings on the wall, and fantasies of sunlit ancient Greece. Susan Waterfall will play the “Children’s Corner” suite, Eric Kritz will join her on the Rhapsody for Clarinet and Piano, and Daniel Lockert will team up with her on Six Épigraphes Antiques. Two sonatas will round out the petit-déjeuner: the darkly humorous Sonata for Cello and Piano, and the magical Sonata for Flute, Harp and Viola.
Join Debussy at the breakfast table with his wife and beloved daughter, Chou-Chou, as his imagination is stirred by the toys in the nursery, the paintings on the wall, and fantasies of sunlit ancient Greece. Susan Waterfall will play the “Children’s Corner” suite, Eric Kritz will join her on the Rhapsody for Clarinet and Piano, and Daniel Lockert will team up with her on Six Épigraphes Antiques. Two sonatas will round out the petit-déjeuner: the darkly humorous Sonata for Cello and Piano, and the magical Sonata for Flute, Harp and Viola.
Debussy was interested in writing music that evoked feelings in listeners and in himself, and these pieces showcase his ability to conjure the mysterious atmosphere of night, moonlight, and erotic love, as well as the darker emotions of war and conflict. In this elegant soiree, Susan Waterfall will play two preludes and a waltz, Carolyn ...
Debussy was interested in writing music that evoked feelings in listeners and in himself, and these pieces showcase his ability to conjure the mysterious atmosphere of night, moonlight, and erotic love, as well as the darker emotions of war and conflict. In this elegant soiree, Susan Waterfall will play two preludes and a waltz, Carolyn ...
In-person film premier with Susan Waterfall. You’ve heard music by Ravel and probably loved it. You’ve heard random gossip about this secretive composer. Now’s your chance to experience Ravel’s life and music in its historic context. With contemporary art and photographs, and 26 musical excerpts...
Susan Waterfall will play Pavane pour un infante défunte, Oiseaux tristes, and Un barque sur l'ocean. She will be joined by Julian Pollack on “Mother Goose Suite.” Jenny Matteucci, soprano, accompanied by Daniel Lockert on piano, will present Cinq mélodies populaires grecques. The Piano Trio in A minor will close out the concert, with Sam ...
Susan Waterfall will play Pavane pour un infante défunte, Oiseaux tristes, and Un barque sur l'ocean. She will be joined by Julian Pollack on “Mother Goose Suite.” Jenny Matteucci, soprano, accompanied by Daniel Lockert on piano, will present Cinq mélodies populaires grecques. The Piano Trio in A minor will close out the concert, with Sam ...
Susan Waterfall will play Sonatine. Silvie Jensen, mezzo-soprano, will be joined by Daniel Lockert on piano for Deux melodies hébraïques. Harpist Anna Maria Mendieta will be joined by a small group of string and woodwind players to perform the chamber piece, Introduction et Allegro. On Chansons Madécasses, Silvie Jensen, mezzo-soprano, will be joined by Mindy ...
Susan Waterfall will play Sonatine. Silvie Jensen, mezzo-soprano, will be joined by Daniel Lockert on piano for Deux melodies hébraïques. Harpist Anna Maria Mendieta will be joined by a small group of string and woodwind players to perform the chamber piece, Introduction et Allegro. On Chansons Madécasses, Silvie Jensen, mezzo-soprano, will be joined by Mindy ...