Music@Menlo 2012 Begins!

Celebrating its 10th anniversary of innovative chamber-music performances, the Music@Menlo festival and institute begins July 20 and runs until August 11. Founded by cellist David Finckel and pianist Wu Han, co-directors of the Chamber Music Society at Lincoln Center, the San Francisco Bay Area event has quickly become an institution in the chamber-music community. This year’s festival, titled “Resonance,” focuses on music’s relationship with humanity and will feature violinists Benjamin Beilman, Jorja Fleezanis, Ani Kavafian, Erin Keefe, Kristin Lee, Sean Lee, Arnaud Sussmann, and Ian Swensen; violists Paul Neubauer, Richard O’Neill, and Geraldine Walther; cellists Dmitri Atapine, David Finckel, and Laurence Lesser; and bassist Scott Pingel.

Centered on a school campus in Silicon Valley, Music@Menlo brings a lineup of the world’s most accomplished musicians and scholars to four venues in Atherton, Palo Alto, and Menlo Park, California. Adding to this mix is a roster of promising young artists attending the chamber-music institute, under co-directors and pianists Gloria Chien and Gilbert Kalish, making for a unique, immersive three-week chamber-music experience. Training the next generation of outstanding chamber musicians is a significant component of the event’s mission, and the program offers an intensive three-week workshop that runs concurrently with the festival, and offers master classes, concerts,and a chamber-music open house, all of which are free and open to the public.

Thanks to an ongoing partnership with American Public Media, live performances from Music@Menlo will be heard by radio and online listeners worldwide in the 2012–2013 season, presented as part of APM’s broadcasts.