daily festival recaps
- Music@Menlo Wraps Up Spectacular Sixth Season (August 08)
- Voices of Our Time (August 07)
- "without whom we would be mute" (August 06)
- Just Another Day at Music@Menlo (August 05)
- Private Music Made Public (August 04)
- Modernist Marathon (August 03)
- The Musical Imagination (August 03)
- Delicious Dissonance (August 01)
- What Ithaka Means (August 01)
- Romantic Cadence (July 30)
- Brahms the Progressive (July 30)
- "Vissi d'arte..." (July 29)
- "...and all the world is fresh and bright again." (July 27)
- Festive Day, Romantic Evening (July 27)
- Open House (July 25)
- "Origins of Modern String Playing" and Today's Rising Stars (July 25)
- Classical Bookends (July 23)
- Lesser Gives More (July 22)
- Fame is the Spur (July 22)
- Yes! (and Bird! and Bach!) (July 20)
- Baroque Heroics (July 19)
- Towards Bach (July 18)
- A Grand Beginning (July 17)
Fame is the Spur
Posted: July 22
Monday saw the first Cafe Conversation of Music@Menlo’s 2008 season, “Fame is the Spur.” Festival favorites Michael Steinberg and Jorja Fleezanis, joined by cellist Laurence Lesser and pianist and Artistic Director Wu Han, offered an hour of provocative discussion and sage advice for the young artists of the Chamber Music Institute. Laurence leads Tuesday’s master class (12:00 p.m., Stent Family Hall) as well as the season’s next Cafe Conversation, on Thursday, July 24, “Origins of Modern String Playing: Great Artists of the Early Twentieth Century” (12:00 p.m., Martin Family Hall). All master classes and Cafe Conversations are free and open to the public.
With the final cadence of Monday evening’s Brandenburg Concerto no. 4—played to another sold-out house at Stent Family Hall—Music@Menlo 2008 has left the Baroque period and entered the Classical era. At Wednesday evening’s Prelude Performance, the International Program artists will present works by Beethoven and Schubert (6:00 p.m., St. Mark’s Episcopal Church); the season’s “Classical Bookends” program follows, offering a pair of works by the father of the Classical style, Joseph Haydn, and culminating with Franz Schubert’s grand Octet for winds and strings.