Welcome to our August Newsletter!
Sarasa Ensemble’s 2021-2022 Season is on its way!
Sarasa is very excited to welcome our 23rd concert season in 2021-22 with live performances at the Brattleboro Music Center in Brattleboro, VT (tickets: bmcvt.org), Harvard-Epworth United Methodist Church in Cambridge, and Follen Community Church in Lexington (tickets: http://www.sarasamusic.org/concerts). Please note our new venue in Lexington this year, due to important building renovations taking place at our usual home, First Parish. Please subscribe & save today, bring your friends and family, and spread the word! All of our concerts will continue to be filmed and streamed on our website one week later for a limited time to ensure everyone has the opportunity to celebrate music together, be it live or virtual.
As we slowly return to a more “normal” setting in our daily lives, our opening concert evokes these Points of Transition. Sarasa will perform stunning string music by Arvo Pärt, Luigi Boccherini, little known David Pohle (17th century), and Ludwig van Beethoven—chamber music that is both transformative and inspirational. This is especially the case when we are able to share music with a live audience.
Points of Transition
September 17, 2021 Brattleboro Music Center, VT* at 7.30pm [tickets: www.bmcvt.org]
September 18, 2021 Harvard-Epworth United Methodist Church, Cambridge* at 7.30pm
September 19, 2021 Follen Community Church, Lexington* at 3.30pm
Program:
Arvo Pärt Summa for strings (1977/1991)
Luigi Boccherini String Quintet Op. 42 No. 4 in G minor, G351 (1789)
David Pohle Sonata à 5 in C major (1671)
Intermission
Ludwig van Beethoven String Quintet in C major, Op. 29 “Der Storm” (1801)
Sarasa Ensemble: Christina Day Martinson, Jesse Irons, violins; Jessica Troy, Jenny Stirling violas; Timothy Merton, Jennifer Morsches, cellos
Subscriptions & Tickets for Cambridge and Lexington concerts: www.sarasamusic.org Information: (978) 766-9408
*facial masks required
Welcome our new General Manager, Sarah Vandewalle!
Sarasa is pleased to introduce to our friends and family our new General Manager, Sarah Vandewalle. She will be the person to contact for all up-to-date information regarding concerts, tickets, subscriptions, special deals, and all other Sarasa news.
Sarah (she/her) hails from the North Shore; after graduating from Tufts University in 2016 with a Bachelor’s degree in Drama, Sarah spent several years wearing different hats at arts organizations in the Boston area. Her previous roles include Company Manager at Gloucester Stage Company, Patron Services Associate at New Repertory Theatre, and Concert Series Manager with the North End Music & Performing Arts Center. Alongside her Sarasa position, Sarah serves as the Department Coordinator for Wellesley College Theatre Studies and Wellesley Repertory Theatre. She lives in the Metro Boston area with her partner Jeramey, and cat Phoebe, and spends her free time baking, painting, and singing with Boston’s Chorus Pro Musica. Sarah looks forward to meeting the Sarasa community!
From the Inside Out:
Following the unprecedented shutdown and isolation we each experienced during the pandemic, David Stern, a Sarasa concert-goer, Boston-area composer and pianist, hatched a creative plan to engage young composers in the area. Stern and Sarasa Ensemble have teamed up in the search for emerging composers to be considered for this project: a short theme and variations piece based on a theme Stern has written, and which Sarasa will be perform on our November concert-set, Kaleidoscope. After receiving multiple submissions, we are pleased to announce the finalists are Li Qi and Mariel Mayz, both graduate students at Brandeis University. We are grateful to composer Scott Wheeler for his invaluable expertise and assistance with promoting this project. We think it will be extremely fascinating to hear the results. More details to follow! Please mark your calendars and join us for this special event on the weekend of November 19, 20, 21.
OUTREACH:
Sarasa is eager to return in person to the incarcerated teenage presentations in collaboration with the Department of Youth Services for the upcoming September concert-set. We will perform excerpts of the music for some of the programs in Dorchester. We look forward to seeing and hearing the teens respond and react to our selections, and share their own kind of music with us. Be sure to visit our Outreach Booth display at our live concerts in Cambridge and Lexington, where we will feature the exceptional poetry and rap written by the residents we have met. Here is one moving sample:
This first page of lyrics was written by an incarcerated teenager who participated in Sarasa’s outreach programs.
