Reviews
The Times Union
By JOSEPH DALTON
6/30/2011
Most pianists who perform with singers don’t like to be thought of as playing second fiddle, so to speak. That’s why there’s a growing trend to do away with the term “accompanist,” with its tag-along connotations, and instead call the folks at the keyboard “collaborators.” Read More...
Berkshire Arts Almanac
By L. Beck
5/31/11
Saturday evening's concert, the first of Tannery Pond's twenty-first season, was a glorious affair, from the stunning views and perfect summer weather to the superb performances by the Amerigo Trio with guest pianist Alon Goldstein. Read More...
Berkshire Eagle
By Andrew L. Pincus, Special to the Eagle
Updated: 05/31/2011
NEW LEBANON, N.Y. -- There are some compositions that still sound modern a century or more after their origin. Count Debussy's only violin sonata among them.
Composed in 1917, it is Debussy's last work, and one of his most personal. With a little stretch of the imagination, it's possible to hear impending death and world war in the spare textures and strange juxtapositions.
In the opening concert of the Tannery Pond season Saturday night, violinist Glenn Dicterow and pianist Alon Goldstein gave an engrossing performance of this Janus-like work, which recalls the harmonic language of works like "La Mer" but looks forward the later 20th century's explorations of form and irony.
Amerigo Trio: Thoroughly mod Claude Debussy Read More...
Berkshire Eagle
By Andrew L. Pincus, Special to the Eagle
5/31/11
NEW LEBANON, N.Y. - Nobody can accuse these partners of rushing into a marriage. The spark was ignited in 2007 when a cellist in a sextet was injured and a replacement was called in. The replacement and two other members of the group - a violinist and a violist - fell in love musically. Two years later, they took the vows as the Amerigo Trio. Now, two years after that, the Amerigo comes to Tannery Pond to open its concert season.
Rewind to 2007. Glenn Dicterow, concertmaster of the New York Philharmonic, and his wife, Karen Dreyfus, a Philharmonic violist, were performing and teaching at the Bowdoin International Chamber Music Festival in Maine. When one of the two cellists in a Brahms string sextet canceled, the couple recommended their New York neighbor Inbal Segev as a replacement. Read More...
BerkshireReview.Net
By Michael Miller
5/11
For several years now, I've been writing about the Tannery Pond Concert Series with special enthusiasm. No other other summer festival offers the same mix of established musicians of the highest level of accomplishment together with an equally exciting pool of emerging talent. these are young soloists and chamber musicians who have been playing independently long enough Read More...
15 Minutes Magazine
By Raphael Rothstein
1/1011
ROBERT SCHUMANN, we are told by the good people at Tannery Pond Concerts in New Lebanon, New York, liked to use the musical designation "Fantasy." And thus it was that it became the title for his masterpiece "Fantasy in C major, Opus 17, for piano solo." Read More...
Berkshire Eagle
Israeli pianist Alon Goldstein delivered a dazzling performance on Saturday evening, in the fourth concert in this summer's Tannery Pond Concerts series on the campus of the Darrow School in New Lebanon, New York. Read More...
Second concert is a first
By Andrew L. Pincus, Special to The Eagle
Friday July 30, 2010
LENOX - Kirill Gerstein plays classical and jazz piano, loves food and cooking, enjoys books and is addicted to electronic gadgets, travels and teaches - and has $300,000 in prize money he can't decide what to do with.
He's also scoring a Berkshire first. He'll be at Tanglewood tonightas the soloist in a biggie piano concerto and at Tannery Pond Concerts tomorrow for a solo recital.
Gerstein, 30, arrives as the 2010 winner of the $300,000 Gilmore Artist Award. The two Berkshire programs show two of the many sides of this Russian ˆ©migrˆ©, now a naturalized American citizen. Read More...
Paula Robison, Romero Lubambo, Cyro Baptista June 19th, 2010
Music that is somehow outside the accepted parameters of classical music appears at the Tannery Pond Concerts once or twice every season. For example, in 2008, soprano Amy Burton and pianist John Musto presented a program of show tunes from Broadway and the Grands Boulevards. Or mezzo-soprano Vivica Genaux, whose singing of Vivaldi, Handel, and Rossini is so highly regarded in Europe and America, combined German Lieder with zarzuela numbers, an enthusiasm she acquired from her Mexican-born mother. Now, for Tannery's 20th anniversary season, Artistic Director Christian Steiner has asked Paula Robison and her colleagues, Romero Lubambo and Cyro Baptista (both Brazilians who have settled in the United States) to return after a 10-year absence to play the Brazilian music which has attracted a warmly enthusiastic following since the early 90's when they first began playing together. The concert was Saturday, June 19. Read More...
The Brentano String Quartet - May 29th, 2010 by Seth Lachterman
On this desultory weekend, reserved for barbeques, gardening, yard sales, and the occasional superficial gesture to honor our war dead, the green splendor of the Shaker Village at New Lebanon, New York, seemed an unlikely setting for the serious and sometimes stark musical fare offered on Saturday evening. Read More...
BERKSHIRE EAGLE - MAY 2010
By Andrew L. Pincus Special to the Eagle NEW LEBANON, N.Y. -- Christian Steiner answers with an emphatic "no!" No, he certainly never expected his Tannery Pond Concerts to reach their 20th anniversary. But behold! Tomorrow night, the Brentano String Quartet opens the milestone season with a program of Schumann, Britten and Beethoven at 6. Six more concerts will climax in a Sept.25 finale. Read More...
Listen Magazine - Pianist as Photographer Spring 2010 by Damian Fowler
Today, Christian Steiner is working with Cherie Hu, a fourteen-year-old pianist who's studying in the pre-college division of The Juilliard School. Dressed in an elegant pink ball gown, the young musician sits down at Steiner's Bechstein grand piano and rattles off the first movement of Beethoven's Third Piano Concerto. As she plays, Steiner moves around his photography studio capturing her in action. Afterwards, as she poses against the piano, Steiner puts her at ease. Read More...
Tannery Pond 2010, the Twentieth Anniversary Season, with a look back at 2009
Alon Goldstein, a pupil of Leon Fleisher, is a pianist of impressive power and subtlety. Beyond an interest in structure, harmony, and melodic shape, his approach is quite different from Fleisher's, projecting a mercurial quality, even the illusion of impulsiveness, which makes his playing unique. For the complete review, see http://berkshirereview.net/2010/01/tannery-pond-2010-the-twentieth-anniversary-season-concert-schedule
The Brentano Quartet, founded in 1992, is one more bracing reason to be content living in the present. Contemporary string quartets tend to play as a collection of brilliant, highly developed individuals, who happen to be so good at what they do, that they can play with perfect ensemble. I recently observed how this marks a generational difference with older quartets like the Juilliard, who concentrate on ensemble. The Brentano is entirely of its time in this respect. The individual players' virtuosity, strong individualism, and their particular art of ensemble are equally impressive.For the complete review, see The Brentano String Quartet at Tannery Pond Monteverdi, Haydn, and Beethoven
NEW LEBANON -- "Which Christopher O'Riley will it be?" one audience member reportedly asked of Sunday afternoon's concert, the season opener for Tannery Pond. There's the genial radio host ("From the Top"), the imaginative arranger of keyboard versions of pop hits by Radiohead and others, and also the classical pianist. Though all three personas are actually the same fellow, it was the virtuoso who appeared in a recital with Carter Brey, the principal cellist of the New York Philharmonic.
By Joseph Dalton For the complete review, see
Special to the Times Union
Brey and O'Riley, letting go a bit after the formal program. played with an overt passion which seemed to unlock Joycean secrets from the subconscious. O'Riley even added a couple of loud bangs on the piano case to imitate the clacking of heels on the dance floor. This really was a revelation. Piazzolla, revelation or no revelation, is no greater a composer than Chopin, but the audience responded with a wild enthusiasm unleashed by his deeply twentieth-century mythic qualities. The brothel dance in the end projected all its power as a rite of passage even at this polite, but by no means prudish gathering. If the Shakers had only heard it, they wouldn't be extinct today. Posted by Michael Miller May 31, 2009 For the complete review, see
http://berkshirereview.net/2009/05/tannery-pond-concerts-brey-oriley/
Rarely Heard Works, Delivered in a Rustic Space
By VIVIEN SCHWEITZER
Published: May 25, 2009
Mr. Brey, the principal cellist of the New York Philharmonic, and Mr. O'Riley, whose multifaceted career includes hosting the NPR series "From the Top," are longtime collaborators, as was evident from their finely nuanced, impeccable partnership on Sunday. Their rigorous approach and sensitive music-making illuminated the subtleties of infrequently performed works generally not considered highlights of the chamber repertory.
New York Times
Wednesday, May 27, 2009 NEW LEBANON, N.Y. -- A spattering of applause broke out after the first movement of Richard Strauss' Sonata for cello and piano when it opened the Tannery Pond Concerts season Sunday afternoon.
The enthusiasts quickly shushed themselves, but this was a case where applause between movements, which so horrifies some concertgoers, was appropriate and even warranted. Cellist Carter Brey and pianist Christopher O'Riley tore into the piece as if they meant to knock walls down. Yet this wasn't just spectacular playing; it was music in the grips of a passionate embrace.
What followed was even better. The slow movement of Strauss' late-romantic effusions is an almost mournful bridge between the bounding joys of the fast outer movements. The performance was, first of all, masterly in its control of tempo, ebbing and flowing with beguiling naturalness. But the mood, ending on a dying away of melody, was the thing. It carried the listener into deep waters of introspection.
Tannery Pond Concerts - Music Review
Brey, O'Riley deliver music with passion
By Andrew L. Pincus, Special to the Berkshire Eagle
Updated: 05/27/2009 11:44:36 AM EDT
Violinist with a Mission Beyond the Stage
No question about it, Joan Kwuon is a superb violinist. This became clear after watching a DVD of her performance of the Brahms Violin concerto under Andre Previn, who first brought her to Tanglewood, and hearing a couple of disks of her treatment of Mozart, Tchaikovsky and Strauss on the 1734 'Spagnoletti' Guarneri del Gesu she uses. The disks, which disclosed her delicate agility and confident manner, were lent to us by Tannery Pond, where Kwuon will appear in recital this month with pianist Teddy Robie in a challenging program of Copland, Ravel and Franck.
But the Los Angeles-born violinist also has another mission equally as serious as her music-making. Kwuon, 32, is a survivor of breast cancer. And, inspired through her recovery she started a foundation to help other victims of the disease-Artists for Breast Cancer Survival. She performed a series of benefit concerts at Carnegie Hall, also enlisting the talents of other well known artists including Kristen Chenoweth, Roberta Flack, Mandy Patinkin and Itzhak Perlman. She's raised more than a million dollars for the cause-her cause.
--Berkshire Homestyle
At Tannery Pond: Joan Kwuon, violin, and Teddy Robie, pianist, in Copland, Ravel, and Franck
In spite of all the excitement over Simone Dinnerstein's Bach recital in Great Barrington, Tannery Pond attracted an impressive crowd for one of the great concerts of the season, an America-French program played by two splendid young musicians, violinist Joan Kwuon and pianist Teddy Robie. The unique, richly varied tone she brought forth from her magnificent 1734 'Spagnoletti' Guarneri del Gesu (lent by Elliott and Mona Golub), her astonishing technique, her mature musicality, and deep feeling give her all the qualities of a truly great musician. For the complete review, see http://berkshirereview.net/2009/10/joan-kwuon-teddy-robie-tannery-pond/
Christian,
This is Will McGreal, the performing arts director at Darrow. I reside in the apartments above the library music rooms next to the Tannery.
A couple of weeks ago I let Cicely into my apartment to give her a space to practice before joining you and her sister in the Tannery to practice the trio. I didn't stay to hear her practice but I heard the three of you practicing a week or so ago in the Tannery. I took some time to sit quietly outside the windows of the Tannery. It is one of the most beautiful music listening experiences I have had in a long, long time. It ranks with my experiences of Jordi Savall, Ton Koopman, and Ashkenazy. The subtle nuance of phrasing at every turn was inspiring and, well, perfect. The connection you each made between the technical aspects of the music and the soul of the work was amazing. I have heard every concert this summer save one at Tannery and your trio playing is head and shoulders above all of them. I cannot wait to attend the concert this weekend. I have been telling everyone they have to come hear the concert.
Best to you and the sisters. Thank you, thank you, thank you for bringing this to our region.
Sincerely,
Will McGreal
110 Darrow Road
New Lebanon, NY 12125
518-755-0649
Tannery Pond 2010, the Twentieth Anniversary Season, with a look back at 2009
Another revelation of last season was the splendid concert the Parnas sisters played with Christian Steiner. I heard them play at Music Mountain earlier in the summer with their mentor Peter Serkin. As fine as his playing and interpretation were, he dominated them to such an extent that I couldn't get much of an idea of their personalities as musicians. Christian Steiner did his best to allow them to express themselves, and the result was a terrific success. In Shostakovich's Sonata in D minor, Opus 40, for cello and piano, Cicely, the younger of the sisters (15 at the time), played with fine articulation and tone, as well as with a passion which thrilled the audience. Seventeen-year-old Madalyn is a more conceptual sort of musician: she seems to form an idea of her goals and strives wilfully to achieve it, as she indicated in her performance of Beethoven's "Spring" Sonata for Violin. In Anton Arensky's Piano Trio No. 1 in D minor, Opus 32, they played sympathetically together, in spite of their very different personalities, and this made the performance all the more interesting. Cicely's warmth, however, provided the sine qua non in this late romantic work. Mr. Steiner not only provided solid support, but a vivid and insightful interpretation of the music. For the complete review, see http://berkshirereview.net/2010/01/tannery-pond-2010-the-twentieth-anniversary-season-concert-schedule/
Clarinetist Todd Palmer and Friends @ Tannery Pond 9/10/09
September 13, 2009 at 12:57 am by Joseph Dalton
By JOSEPH DALTON
Special to the Times Union
NEW LEBANON - Clarinetist Todd Palmer received top billing Saturday night at Tannery Pond Concerts, but he performed as soloist in only one piece, Debussy's Premiere Rhapsodie, which was less than 10 minutes long. That was enough, though, to show off plenty of gorgeous playing.
Most appealing were the smooth trills that showed up in every register and dynamic level. But Palmer also made his instrument whisper and buzz, rumble and chirp, and even cut through the chamber ensemble like a trumpet. There was even a touch of jazz inflection in the long lift of the piece's final phrase.
Palmer also planned the whole event, made the arrangements for three of the five pieces including the Debussy, and hand picked the seven other players. In between some of the numbers, he even rearranged the chairs and music stands onstage. Lowly work perhaps, but those duties were shared by Christian Steiner, the series' hard working artistic director.
Most of the program was French. All of it was elegant and beautifully played. The presence of Bridgette Kibby's harp in nearly every piece was especially welcome.
First up was Debussy's Sonata II for flute, viola and harp, a lean yet gentle distillation of his familiar impressionistic devices. After that came Britten's Phantasy Quartet for oboe and strings, an early but hardly juvenile work. James Austin Smith's oboe often floated above layers of intense repeating figures in the strings.
The evening ended when the full ensemble came together -- and without aid of a conductor -- in a suite of pieces from Andre Messager's 1886 ballet "The Two Pigeons." The writing was insistently charming and Palmer's scoring clear and bright as a spring morning. It wasn't hard to imagine a choreographer placing the action in a Parisian park.
Yet after the promenade-like theme of the opening, nothing lasted in memory. The weightlessness of it all was made particularly obvious by having earlier heard the Act II pas de deux from Tchaikovsky's "Swan Lake," with violinist Jesse Mills as soloist.
Messager's own pas de deux bore many of the same gestures as Tchaikovsky's, namely crisp chords in the harp and a rising melody in a solo string instrument. But it doesn't come close to matching the precision and weight of the Tchaikovsky, which was a pleasure to hear in a concert setting without dancers hogging all the attention.
Joseph Dalton is a local freelance writer who contributes regularly to the Times Union.
MUSIC REVIEW
Clarinetist Todd Palmer and Friends
When: 8 p.m. Saturday
Where: Tannery Pond, New Lebanon
Duration: Two hours, 10 minutes with one intermission
Stephen Dankner - Todd Palmer
Recap
The Tannery Pond Concerts program last Saturday evening, "Todd Palmer Among Friends," gets my vote as the most enjoyable concert I've heard this summer. The program of seldom-heard works by Debussy, Britten, Tchaikovsky and Andre Messager was delectable and was distinguished by truly elegant playing by each "friend," as well as by the charming, sensitive and ingenious arrangements by clarinetist Palmer of works by Debussy, Tchaikovsky and Messager.
It's a fact that we don't get to hear enough French chamber music, compared to the dominion on the concert stage by composers within the Austro-German/Eastern European orbit. When we do encounter some unjustly neglected late Debussy, for example, one happily recalls there's a parallel universe of wonderful Gallic music out there, characterized by effervescence, wit, humor and understatement - a palliative that's a far cry from the often deeply troubled, deadly serious and angst-obsessed music of contemporaries Mahler, Strauss, Schoenberg and, yes, Bartok.
Hats off to Tannery Pond Artistic Director Christian Steiner for offering this brilliant and delightful change of pace, and to the young corps of stellar performers assembled by Palmer: Tara Helen O'Connor, flutist; James Austin Smith, oboist; Bridget Kibbey, harpist; David Bowlin and Jesse Mills, violinists; Hsin-Yun Huang, violist; Edward Arron, cellist; and Kurt Murocki, contrabassist. Please bring them back next season!
Stephen Dankner lives in Williamstown. Send your comments to him at sdankner@earthlink.net. His Web site is stephendankner.com.
Michael Miller - Todd Palmer
The Tannery Pond Concerts program last Saturday evening, "Todd Palmer Among Friends," gets my vote as the most enjoyable concert I've heard this summer. The program of seldom-heard works by Debussy, Britten, Tchaikovsky and Andre Messager was delectable and was distinguished by truly elegant playing by each "friend," as well as by the charming, sensitive and ingenious arrangements by clarinetist Palmer of works by Debussy, Tchaikovsky and Messager.
The summer season began for this concert goer Sunday afternoon on a very high level in a very good place, Tannery Pond... There is no more comely place to gather for music; the acoustics are intimate, clear, and warm in this converted tannery...The concert began with an absolutely superb reading of Haydn's Trio in C Major (Hoboken XV:27). Everything was right here... Next, the remarkable young tenor Nicholas Phan addressed Faure's La Bonne Chanson... Mr. Phan is a singer's singer in every way... This was truly masterful singing... After the interval Mr. Phan continued with an equally idiomatic rendering of five of Benjamin Britten's folk song arrangements, exploiting all the variety and color Peter Pears himself might have reached for and then some. The final work was Schumann's great first piano trio in D Minor... This was as deeply satisfying a chamber concert as any I've heard. Mr. Steiner is to be warmly thanked for bringing this superb musicianship to such a beautiful location. What could possibly be missing here?
(For the complete review, see http://www.berkshirereview.net/music/tannerytrio.html)
-- Michael Miller, The Berkshire Review for the Arts, 28 May 2008
Letter to the Editor
Nancy Nirenberg
Stockbridge, MA
Tannery Pond is up there with my favorite concert venues. Tucked away at the Darrow School in New Lebanon in what had been the tannery for a Shaker community. Always fascinating programs with the best artists. An intelligent and appreciative audience (space holds maybe 250- 300). Glorious sunsets in the summer. Christian Steiner, Tannery Pond director made the important announcement that the last concert was on October 3rd at six o'clock -- not eight p.m. Mark that down.
A chamber music idyll
By Clarence Fanto, Special to The Eagle
Thursday, May 29
NEW LEBANON, N.Y. -- It was one of those rare days when the stars were perfectly aligned for first-class chamber music in an idyllic setting on a perfect spring day.
The Tannery Pond series opened its 18th season Sunday on the remarkably scenic grounds of the Darrow School at Mount Lebanon Shaker Village with an eclectic program by artists hand-picked by artistic director Christian Steiner.
Steiner's on-stage persona is that of a self-effacing host and impresario, confining his opening remarks to the usual cell-phone shutoff reminder (a chorus of ringtones followed, as if on cue) and expressions of gratitude to the crowd for venturing inside on such a sparkling afternoon.
Familiar, estimable piano trios by Haydn and Schumann, and less frequently-encountered song cycles by Faure and Britten, made for a compelling program, especially in these performances marked by sensitivity, interpretive nuance and panache.
Pianist Pedja Muzijevic, violinist Soovin Kim and cellist Edward Arron are rising young professionals, though not well-known in these parts. Their collaboration was especially felicitous in Haydn's graceful Piano Trio in C major, a valentine for one of his many female admirers during the composer's successful second and final visit to London in 1794.
Basking in the adulation of an adoring public there, he composed a trio trilogy that could be performed in the parlor or salon by advanced amateurs. But these virtuoso players infused the work with extra measures of warmth, grace and blend, especially in the jaunty and more challenging finale.
Faure's "La Bonne Chanson" ("The Beautiful Song"), based on the lyrical, highly romanticized poetry of Paul Verlaine, was composed for his mistress, Emma Bardac (who eventually married Debussy). It's considered a landmark in the French vocal repertoire, originally for tenor with piano (there's also a soprano version and a reworking for tenor, piano and string quintet). Refined Gallic sensuality is enhanced by an impressionistic compositional style described as "positively intoxicating" by Marcel Proust, a great admirer of the composer.
In these nine songs, Faure alternates subtlety with passion-filled outbursts, but tenor Nicholas Phan offered a cautious interpretation that was nonetheless well-suited to his light, delicate voice. Diction was near-perfect, but his relatively narrow expressive range tended to suppress the intensity that lurked just below the surface but occasionally exploded into outright abandon. At those moments, Phan sounded slightly harsh and constricted at full volume.
Five of Britten's "Folk Songs from the British Isles," from a set of 24 composed in two volumes during his visit to the U.S. in 1941 and 1942 with his partner in music and life, Peter Pears, fared better. Phan's animated, often poignant interpretations were most effective in "Little Sir William" and "The Plough Boy."
Deep in despair and depression over the outbreak of war and a prolonged absence from his beloved homeland, Britten re-composed these songs in his own unmistakable, angular style, adding layers of complexity to these simple, familiar tunes. Muzijevic's accompaniment emphasized the vivid contrast to the melodic line.
Schumann's Piano Trio No. 1, Op. 63, reunited the three instrumentalists for one of the composer's great small-ensemble achievements. Despite a slow movement imbued with the melancholy that seemed a precursor to his descent into the mental abyss, most of the work is fiery, joyful and life-affirming, a fitting birthday tribute to his beloved wife Clara.
A couple of minutes into the exuberant fourth movement, Arron's C string snapped ("the expensive one," he noted) and the audience was entertained during his backstage repair by good-natured ribbing from Muzijevic ("I told him during rehearsal not to play so loud"). Upon his return, Kim quipped that "it's ironic that the person who breaks the string gets extra applause." The finale was restarted and, without further incident, concluded on the triumphant note that Schumann intended.
The highly attentive audience of about 210 (no program-rustling or pin-dropping here) rewarded the performers with a well-deserved ovation.
There are six more concerts to come, all in the evening. The next, on Friday, June 20, at 8, features three Beethoven piano trios -- his Op. 1, No. 1, and the famous "Ghost" and "Archduke."
With resplendent acoustics in the restored, all-wood 19th-century Shaker tannery (later, a chapel) amid a bucolic scene that would have inspired Thomas Cole and other Hudson River School landscape painters, the Tannery Pond concerts are on a par with Pittsfield's South Mountain Concerts and Tanglewood's Ozawa Hall chamber-music recitals for high artistic merit in a salubrious setting.
-- Clarence Fanto, The Berkshire Eagle, 29 May 2008
Andrew L. Pincus, BERKSHIRE EAGLE, Tuesday, May 24, 2005
Tannery Pond was the place to be when the concert series opened its season Saturday night with a freshly imagined and beautifully played program. Nine musicians…took the stage in an assortment of compositions that looked like a grab bag but would up making a long but satisfying meal…And an attractive gathering they were, all or most of them apparently on the comfortable side of 40, and all performing with style, spirit and skill. Some of the playing, as in the sugar-coated but seductive Saint Saens piece for piano and winds, was so finely attuned that it sounded as if the instruments - no, not the players - were making love. - Andrew L. Pincus, BERKSHIRE EAGLE, Tuesday, May 24, 2005
A Bucolic Setting Beckons: Virtuosos Perform Update
For Susan Graham, today's leading American mezzo-soprano, and Ben Heppner, the reigning lyric heldentenor, the usual performance stops include Vienna, Salzburg, Berlin, Paris, London, New York, Chicago, San Francisco and the few other international cities prestigious enough to warrant their lighting down for a day or two. Within the past couple of weeks, however, I heard them sing not in Covent Garden or on West 57th Street, but in the upstate hamlet of New Lebanon, in a 290-seat barn that until recently was home to a colony of bats. The concert hall was an old post-and-beam tannery, built by the Shakers in the 1830's on what are now the grounds of the Darrow School…In two weekend concerts, two world-class artists gave unstintingly of themselves in an unexpected, bucolic setting. I count these among the most rewarding musical encounters of my life. - Charles Michener, The New York Observer, 6/9/2003.
Some people give champagne or flowers for an anniversary. The St. Lawrence String Quartet gave Mozart's Ave Verum Corpus'. There is nothing more beautiful on earth…The stunning floral arrangements were by Sue Nunley, the eminently readable program notes by Clair W. Van Ausdall. The distant hills were aflame with color. Tannery Pond is 10. - Andrew L. Pincus, The Berkshire Eagle, 10 October 2000.