Music Mountain Welcomes Classical Lovers Home

“This season is staying true to the origins of Music Mountain,” Oskar Espina Ruiz, the summer concert series’s artistic director, told me while we sat in the back of Gordon Hall. Named after Jacques Gordan, the Russian child prodigy violinist and Music Mountain founder, classical enthusiasts have traveled to sit in the wooden pews of this intimate concert space housed in a quintessential Connecticut white clapboard since 1930 — when Gordan started inviting prominent musicians to sleepy Falls Village.

“Once again we’re offering a combination of masterworks and a well-known repertoire paired with some new, discovery pieces. That was the framework established by Gordon in 1930, and it’s a recipe that continues to work very well.”

The 2023 Music Mountain Summer Festival, which is already in full swing, offers live jazz selections on Saturdays and chamber music on Sundays and is tied together with the theme “Home and Belonging.”

“Composers would bring ‘home’ into their music,” Espina Ruiz said. “Immediately one can think of Dvorák or the Eastern European composers. We can think of The Russian Five in the 1850s [that’s Mily Balakirev, Cesar Cui, Modest Mussorgsky, Nikolai Rimsky-Korsakov, and Alexander Borodin], and in the early 20th century with my fellow countrymen, Manuel de Falla and Enrique Granados, you can hear their home in their music.”

A musician himself, Espina Ruiz will play the clarinet with members of the New York City-based Ulysses Quartet on Sunday, Aug. 6, in a special concert event that will include a pre-performance talk with traditional Native American storytelling by Darlene Kascak, a member of the Schaghticoke Tribal Nation and the education director of The Institute for American Indian Studies Museum and Research Center in Washington, Conn.

This weekend on Sunday, June 25, at 2 p.m., Music Mountain’s Gordan Hall is opening its doors for a free family concert that Espina Ruiz sees as a gateway for younger audience members to be introduced to classical pieces. A concession stand is planned to open with ice cream and lemonade, and bringing a family picnic before the concert is encouraged. The Horszowski Trio, a New York City-based group, consisting of pianist Rieko Aizawa, cellist Ole Akahoshi, and violinist Jesse Mills, will be joined for this special concert by Jessica Thompson playing the viola, and Gregg August playing double bass as they perform Franz Shubert’s Piano Quintet in A Major — better known as “The Trout Quintet.” The five movements, fittingly written by Shubert at the height of his youth, have bright, animated flourishes to capture the attention of children, and a levity suitable for the start of summer. Breaking from the theme of "home," it is said Shubert was traveling when he wrote the quintet, on holiday in the picturesque statuary city of Steyr in Upper Austria, where two rivers meet. As the audience listens they will have to imagine the tension of the fisherman reeling in his line, and the trout riggling and wiggling in the water, dancing and full of life.

For a full list of performances and to purchase tickets go to www.musicmountain.org

Oskar Espina Ruiz Photo by Alexander Wilburn

This summer Music Mountain is offering 50 editions of exclusive signed posters by Laurie Simmons to benefit the concert series. A resident of Cornwall, Conn, Simmons has challenged gender roles and redefined expectations of feminism in the New York art world for decades through her signature photography of miniatures, mannequins and dolls.

Oskar Espina Ruiz Photo by Alexander Wilburn

Latest News

Fallen trees injure man, destroy fences at dog shelter

Two uprooted locust trees still lie in the yard in front of Animal Farm Foundation’s original kennels where they fell on a fence during a storm on Thursday, June 19.

Nathan Miller

AMENIA — Fallen trees, uprooted and splintered during a thunderstorm, injured a man, destroyed fences and damaged a dog kennel at the Animal Farm Foundation facilities in Bangall.

Isaias Nunez was cleaning along a road on the property with Marco Ortiz, another employee of the dog shelter, when the storm rolled in on the afternoon of Thursday, June 19.

Keep ReadingShow less
Siglio Press: Uncommon books at the intersection of art and literature

Uncommon books at the intersection of art and literature.

Richard Kraft

Siglio Press is a small, independent publishing house based in Egremont, Massachusetts, known for producing “uncommon books at the intersection of art and literature.” Founded and run by editor and publisher Lisa Pearson, Siglio has, since 2008, designed books that challenge conventions of both form and content.

A visit to Pearson’s airy studio suggests uncommon work, to be sure. Each of four very large tables were covered with what looked to be thousands of miniature squares of inkjet-printed, kaleidoscopically colored pieces of paper. Another table was covered with dozens of book/illustration-size, abstracted images of deer, made up of colored dots. For the enchanted and the mystified, Pearson kindly explained that these pieces were to be collaged together as artworks by the artist Richard Kraft (a frequent contributor to the Siglio Press and Pearson’s husband). The works would be accompanied by writings by two poets, Elizabeth Zuba and Monica Torre, in an as-yet-to-be-named book, inspired by a found copy of a worn French children’s book from the 1930s called “Robin de Bois” (Robin Hood).

Keep ReadingShow less
Cycling season: A roundup of our region’s rentals and where to ride them

Cyclists head south on the rail trail from Copake Falls.

Alec Linden

After a shaky start, summer has well and truly descended upon the Litchfield, Berkshire and Taconic hills, and there is no better way to get out and enjoy long-awaited good weather than on two wheels. Below, find a brief guide for those who feel the pull of the rail trail, but have yet to purchase their own ten-speed. Temporary rides are available in the tri-corner region, and their purveyors are eager to get residents of all ages, abilities and inclinations out into the open road (or bike path).

For those lucky enough to already possess their own bike, perhaps the routes described will inspire a new way to spend a Sunday afternoon. For more, visit millertonnews.com/tag/bike-route to check out two ride-guides from local cyclists that will appeal to enthusiasts of many levels looking for a varied trip through the region’s stunning summer scenery.

Keep ReadingShow less