At the Cooperstown Summer Music Festival on July 7, we are having a Cornell Lab of Ornithology scientist Ed Scholes come for the pre-concert chat at 7 pm.
The concert is called Birds of Paradise: Music for Winds and Piano, and will be held on July 7 at The Farmers’ Museum in Cooperstown. Scholes, an evolutionary biologist, spent 8 years and 18 expeditions scientifically documenting all 39 species of the birds-of-paradise family with National Geographic photographer Tim Laman. http://www.
At the concert, the Festival will premiere a new multi-media work that integrates a live performance of Robert Sirota’s 2008 composition Birds of Paradise with videos and bird calls from the Cornell Lab of Ornithology’s Birds-of-Paradise Project. At the pre-concert talk at 7 pm Cornell Lab of Ornithology scientist Ed Scholes, composer Robert Sirota and Festival artistic director Linda Chesis will discuss their collaboration. The Cornell Lab of Ornithology will have representatives and a table of information at the concert as well.
Two composers’ musical portraits of Pan and Syrinx will be performed: “Pan” from Britten’s Six Metamorphoses after Ovid, Op. 49 and Syrinx by Debussy. Mozart’s celebrated Quintet for Piano and Winds, the Poulenc Sextet and Francaix Quartet round out the evening’s repertoire.
“The Mozart is the first work of its kind and a cornerstone of the woodwind repertoire. This program shows the woodwind family’s breadth and variety of tonal color,” says Chesis. “It’s just perfect for a summer Sunday evening.”
Tickets are available online, CooperstownMusicFest.org and by phone through Brown Paper Tickets, 800.838.3006. Tickets also will be sold at the door, as available. Tickets are $25 for adults; $15 for students 6-18.
