Rose Mary Harbison, above, and John Harbison have run the Token Creek Chamber Music Festival for nearly 30 years.
Once again, the Token Creek Chamber Music Festival will provide a gentle close to Madison’s classical summer season in a charming barn just outside Madison on Highway 19.
In this bucolic setting, Pulitzer Prize-winning composer John Harbison and violinist Rose Mary Harbison, artistic directors of the festival and husband and wife, have welcomed audiences to listen to nourishing music for nearly three decades. It has also been a meeting place where musicians and audiences share different ways of thinking about music. “That’s the point of the festival,” says Rose Mary.
This summer’s festival, Necessary Music, runs from Aug. 26 to Sept. 3 and will include notable musicians from our community as well as international stars.
Necessary Music will showcase two divergent composers, J.S. Bach and Franz Schubert. While Bach was ultra-disciplined, Schubert wasn’t. “Schubert composed every morning for three or four hours,” says John. “But in the afternoons he socialized with friends and spent the evenings drinking.” Yet both wrote impeccably crafted music.
The first program, Continuo (Aug. 26-27), surveys various Bach sonatas and selections from Art of the Fugue and Musical Offering. John will also discuss basso continuo, the code that Bach used to compose some of these works. Also included will be a Haydn trio and a 2016 work by John Harbison.
The second program, Schubert (Aug. 30), will highlight some of the composer’s piano and vocal works, including the most familiar, “Moments Musicaux” and “Schwanengesang.” The program will feature internationally acclaimed pianist Ya-Fei Chuang and rising stars Charles Blandy (tenor) and Linda Osborn (pianist).
Waltz (Sept. 2-3), will feature selections of the popular dancing genre by Fritz Kreisler, George Crumb and the late Korean American composer, Donald Sur, among others.
The festival concludes with Ya-Fei Chuang in Schumann’s glorious “Piano Quartet in E-flat, Op. 47.”
