The University of South Carolina Beaufort Festival Series will open its 34th season on Sunday, Nov. 4. The season will include five early Sunday evening concerts from November through April at the USCB Performing Arts Center. Artistic Director and cellist Edward Arron will welcome new and returning talents for musical programs that will ensure the series’ continued reputation as one of the most distinguished musical offerings in the area.
This season offers great variety of composers, including exquisitely crafted classical period masterworks by Mozart, Beethoven and Haydn. Moving and colorful pieces by Tchaikovsky, Paganini, Stravinsky will energize audiences. And more contemporary composers such as Schnittke, Arvo Part, Bunch, Bolcom, and Chen Yi will introduce new compositions to the series’ history and to many in the audience.
Performing these masterpieces will be internationally acclaimed artists who come to the Performing Arts Center from major concert halls around the world, some returning and some debuting. Great favorites with the Lowcountry audience, violinists Jesse Mills and Jennifer Frautschi, violist Aaron Boyd and pianists Jeremy Denk and Jeewon Park will be returning. The only wind player to win the Grand Prize at the WAMSO Young Artist Competition, flutist Conor Nelson will make his Beaufort debut in the opening concert on November 4.
Pianist Phillip Bush, who joined the University of South Carolina School of Music faculty this fall, will debut at the December program. Another highlight of this year’s performances will be the opportunity to hear string instruments made by some of the world’s finest craftsmen: a Pietro Antonio della Costa viola made in 1750, a Carlo Antonio Testore viola made in 1756, the “ex Alard Matteo Goffriller violin made in 1700, and the “ex-Cadiz” Antonio Stradivarius violin made in 1722.
The USCB Performing Arts Center on Carteret Street is remarkable for its superb acoustics and Steinway concert grand piano. Concert dates are Sundays November 4, December 9, February 10, March 17 and April 28; all concerts are at 5 p.m.
Complete program information is available at www.uscb.e/festivalseries. Subscriptions and individual tickets can be ordered through Staci Breton at 843-208-8246 or sjbreton@uscb.edu.
This year the Friends of the Festival will be holding three receptions with the visiting musicians for Friends at various levels of giving.
From its founding in 1979 by USCB Professor Mary Whisonant, the Festival Series has presented many internationally renowned artists. For several of the early years, performances were held at area banks and churches. In 1983 with the growth of membership and the opening of the USCB Center for the Arts, the venue was moved to the center. After Professor Whisonant’s retirement, Beaufortonian Harriet Keyserling prevailed upon Mr. Wadsworth to assume directorship and bring to Beaufort the chamber music riches he had unearthed for New York’s Lincoln Center and Charleston’s Spoleto.
The quality of the music and the talents of the artists have surprised and delighted audiences throughout the Whisonant and Wadsworth tenures and have continued to do so under the leadership of Edward Arron, the 2012-2013 Series Artistic Director and Host.
