Tom Aldridge reporting on the Baltimore Consort at the Early Music Festival in the Indiana History Center for the Newsweekly in Indianapolis said, “Their program and concert were a roaring success, getting a standing ovation and an encore. This six-performer group delivered the pizzazz in spades that Seattle’s Baroque Northwest lacked two weeks ago in the first Early Music Festival weekend. —The Baltimore Consort provided a great variety of moods, instrumental textures and the dominating voice of countertenor José Lemos. The instruments the five other players used included treble, tenor and bass viols (held between the knees), guitars, recorders, crumhorns, percussion, flutes and one lute. From wistful and pensive to fleet and dance-like, variety and stylistic excellence marked the Baltimore Consort’s playing.”

“Over the past half-century, jazz guitarist Gene Bertoncini has played with Wayne Shorter, Buddy Rich, Tony Bennett, and the Metropolitan Opera House Orchestra. On his recent CD, “Concerti,” Bertoncini is joined by a string quartet and bass, playing arrangements written by Eastman School of Music colleagues. Needless to say, he excels in any setting, but Bertoncini is perhaps best known for his extraordinary solo work. No small part of any Bertoncini performance is his sense of humor. If he weren’t such a great guitarist, I might be writing about his upcoming comedy show at Kilbourn Hall.” –Ron Netsky in the Rochester City Newspaper.

Richard Scheinin, with the San Jose Mercury News, writes of the Prism Quartet release, “Breath Beneath” (New Dynamic). “Classical saxophone performance has long roots in France, where the instrument has been played with salon-like refinement and fragrance. It’s safe to say that the 25 year-old PRISM Quartet represents the flowering of an American school of classical saxophone performance. The group plays with the balance and precision of a great string quartet, but the colors and textures are like nothing you’ve ever heard. The compositions here range from Zack Browning’s ‘Funk Assault’ to Kati Agocs’ ‘Coloratura.’ Their very titles say a lot about this amazing band’s versatility.”

The Times Record, Brunswick, ME reports on the Bowdoin Music Festival at Studzinski Recital Hall: Violinist Sergiu Schwartz performs Georges Enesco’s Violin Sonata No. 2 in F minor, Op. 6 with pianist Peter Basquin on July 19th. Schwartz has been compared to his fellow countrymen Itzhak Perlman and Pinchas Zuckerman.
On July 21st Bedrich Smetana’s Piano Trio in G minor, Op. 15 will feature festival faculty Sergiu Schwartz on violin, Yehuda Hanani on cello and Peter Basquin on piano. Schwartz has performed as a soloist on four continents with orchestras including London Symphony, Dresden Staatskapelle, Jerusalem Symphony, Bern Symphony, Slovak Philharmonic, and Mexico National Symphony and in major concert halls including Lincoln Center, Carnegie Recital Hall, Kennedy Center; London’s Barbican Hall, Queen Elizabeth Hall and Wigmore Hall

From Reference Recordings’ July 14, 2010 release about Chris Brubeck: “An award-winning composer, he is clearly tuned into the pulse of contemporary music…The respected music critic for The Chicago Tribune, John von Rhein, calls Chris: ‘a composer with a real flair for lyrical melody–a 21st Century Lenny Bernstein’…In the last decade, Chris has created an impressive body of symphonic work while maintaining a demanding touring and recording schedule. Chris continues to perform and record with Triple Play, an acoustic blues/jazz/folk trio that includes guitarist Joel Brown and harmonica virtuoso Peter Madcat Ruth…In July, 2006, Chris  performed his  Prague Concerto (for Trombone and Orchestra) with the Henry Mancini Institute Symphony. The L.A. Times reviewed that performance writing it was ‘a powerful showcase…from dark-toned intimacy to tear-down-the house exuberance.’”

For three summer days, the delightful seaside town of Yachats on the Oregon coast hosts a classical music festival that offers both vocal and instrumental music performed by a wide range of young and experienced musicians. Audiences and performers, enjoy the intimate Yachats Community Presbyterian Church for music by Mozart, Debussy, Verdi, Schubert, Villa Lobos and Paganini. This year’s performers include the noted pianist Leon Bates who is shown here. Performances will be 8 p.m. Friday, July 9 and Saturday, July 10 and at 2 and 8 p.m. Sunday, July 11. This has been reported by David Stabler, correspondent for  The Oregonian.

Kutztown University has announced educational matinees for students by Nai-Ni Chen Dance Company beginning in January of 2011: “Drawing on elements from the flowing lines of Chinese calligraphy to the thundering motion of the martial arts, Nai-Ni Chen’s works have been presented at over 200 art centers in the United States and internationally in Mexico, Germany, Poland, Russia, Lithuania, Korea and China. Ms. Chen takes her audiences beyond cultural boundaries.”

In an article for Packet Publications, Anthony Stoeckert wrote, “Similar groups may have a designated ‘guitar 1′ player, who takes on the hardest part of a piece and carries the melodies. The other players follow suit with their individual roles, with the guitar 4 player often playing bass parts.”
”That gets kind of boring for us, personally, and for the audience, because you’re just watching the melody most of the time and it’s just on guitar 1,” says Phil Snyder, a member of the more democratic Georgia Guitar Quartet. “A lot of the arrangements and compositions that we do, we like to pass around the interesting parts. So we all practice a lot to make sure that we can handle those, and then it makes sense to pass the melody off at certain points so we can have musical conversations between the four of us.”
That makes things more interesting, like the one the Georgia Guitar Quartet will play at Richardson Auditorium on the campus of Princeton University July 19. It is part of the Princeton University Summer Chamber Concerts series, which will kick off July 1 with a performance by the Ahn Trio.

Chris Waddington reports in the New Orleans Times-Picayune “…it’s partly because so many recent concerts seem emblematic of positive changes on the music scene both here and nationally. Topping the list is the way that new music–long thought to be box-office poison–has been drawing new audiences while winning applause from folks weaned on the standard repertoire.
“This spring, the best example came from the Ahn Trio, which used familiar instruments–piano, cello and violin–to unleash a folk- and pop-powered concert of commissioned works by Pat Metheny, Kenji Bunch, David Balakrishnan and other notable contemporaries.”

Chamber Music America announced this on 06/07/10: “CMA congratulates composer/conductor Tania León, a member of CMA’s board of directors, on her election to the American Academy of Arts and Letters this spring. Classically trained as a pianist at Cuba’s Havana Conservatory, León has been based in the U.S. since 1957. She served on the planning committee for CMA’s 2009 Conference and was appointed to the board the same year.”