Welcome to our August Newsletter!
We hope you have enjoyed a wonderful, relaxing summer, and that you are able to breathe in the scents of the last flowering buds and relish in the bounty of end-of-summer produce. There’s nothing quite like a homegrown tomato, fresh corn-on-the-cob, or yummy summer fruit! The Sarasa team is back hard at work, preparing for a much anticipated return to our public concerts in a show-stopping season that features singers on each program.
Sarasa’s Season opener
We are excited to kick off our 2026-27 Season with a program that weaves a connecting thread of music from the Golden Age of 18th-century Dresden, Germany—performing a treasure trove of Baroque works from a forgotten cabinet with the sublime young tenor, Richard Pittsinger—alongside a newly-commissioned work by Rebecca Scout Nelson, who grew up in the former East Germany in the town of Gera, not far from Dresden. Rebecca’s piece gives a nod to the region’s deep Lutheran roots, as well as some texts from the 20th-century German author Christa Wolf, who lived under the shadows of Nazism and Communism. It is especially profound to realize that 65 years ago on August 13th, the Berlin Wall was erected in order to divide a nation of people. With those events and the current challenges facing the world today resonating in the back of our minds, Schrank II ~ Cabinet II is a powerful start to our concert series, which invites audiences to stand up and raise their voices aloud in our aptly named 2026-27 series, "Singing Allowed!"
Schrank II ~ Cabinet II
Friday, September 18, 2026 at 7pm
at Brattleboro Music Center, Brattleboro VT (tickets at bmcvt.org)
Saturday, September 19, 2026 at 7pm
at Friends Meeting House, Cambridge
Sunday, September 20, 2026
at 3:30pm at Follen Church, Lexington
Music manuscripts from the Dresden Court rediscovered in a cabinet after 100 years of oblivion with star, tenor Richard Pittsinger. Works by Händel, Vivaldi, Lully, Campra, Locatelli, Telemann & J.G. Pisendel. Plus a world premiere by Rebecca Scout Nelson.
With Richard Pittsinger, tenor; Rebecca Scout Nelson, composer/violin, Susanna Ogata, Nelli Jabotinsky, violins; Emily Dahl Irons, violin/viola; Jennifer Morsches, Timothy Merton, cellos; John McKean, harpsichord
There is still plenty of time to get your 2026-27 Subscription!
Becoming a subscriber is a great way to hear more of the music you love while saving some time and money and supporting Sarasa! Packages are available for 4 or 5 concerts, and can be used interchangeably in Massachusetts only (not in Brattleboro).*
In addition to saving up to 25% on tickets, subscribers also get the following benefits:
“Bring a Friend” Promotion: subscribers can bring a friend to one Sarasa concert each season of their choosing for FREE
Access to our back-catalogue of video-recorded performances to watch/listen to Sarasa at home!
Music Unlocked Residencies roundup:
This summer, Sarasa musicians Kristen Watson, soprano, Krista River, mezzo soprano, Kay Patterson, soprano, Fausto Miro, tenor, Timothy Merton, cello & Daniel Padgett, keyboard visited four lock-up facilities to engage with teens through music as part of our annual summer residencies. They took place at Mariposa for girls and Commonwealth Secure Detention for guys in Dorchester, MA, and at Northeast Detention and the Kennedy School for guys in Middleton, MA. With support from you, Sarasa was able to bring music and hope to these young incarcerated teens, encouraging them to find their own innate artistic abilities through poetry and music. The results of the week-long residencies will be featured in our final concert of the season, “Breaking Free!” in May 2027 with audio samples of the pieces and poetry composed during these visits. Not to be missed!
Below is a moving recording of a personal poem written by one of the Residency participants at the Mariposa girls’ program:
Locked up in the unit, staring at the window,
Pain, days, moving slow,
Every night I feel the same.
I got my mind on someone. Yeah, I wonder how she’ll be.
Counting every single sunrise, ‘til they fianlly set me free.
Writing letters in my notebook, filling page after page.
Trying not to let the loneliness turn into rage.
Learning from my mistakes, putting pride on my shelf,
Trying to come home stronger, to be the best version of myself.
Phone calls, minutes short, I got a lot I wanna say,
Thinking about my little ship, every single day.
When the lights go down, and the halls get quiet,
It’s her voice in my head, helping me get by it.
Staff say “keep focused,” put my future in sight,
So I’m grinding through the struggles, trying to do things right.
Every class that I finish, every goal that I meet,
One step closer, ‘til the day we finally meet.
DYS got me thinking about the roads that I chose;
All the highs and the lows, all the friends and all the foes.
She’s on my mind while I’m making these plans,
So when I get home again, I ain’t the same girl that walked through these doors before.
I found some strength inside myself I never knew I wore.
Seen a lot of girls come and go through these halls.
Everybody got a story, everybody got scars.
Me, I’m missing someone, that’s the truth of it all.
Listening Corner:
Get ready for an exciting Sarasa 2026-27 Season! Here is a piece we will be performing: Vivaldi's Sinfonia for strings and basso continuo, La verità in cimento ("Truth put to the test"), RV 739, which was found in the cabinet archive in Dresden.
And here is Richard Pittsinger performing a work of Rebecca’s two years ago. We can't wait to hear what she has concocted for Sarasa and Richard!
Reading corner:
Recommended: One Day A Year is a memoir by the prominent East German novelist and essayist, Christa Wolf. At the request of a Moscow newspaper in 1960, Wolf kept a diary on the same calendar date of September 27th each year from 1960-2000 (adding a companion volume to this from 2000-2011), describing in detail her life as a wife, mother, and as an author against the backdrop of political and intellectual perspectives of living in the German Democratic Republic during the Cold War and its immediate aftermath. It captures a unique testimony of the many facets of existence, giving “meaning to the small units of time in which we live."
Standing up for freedom: citizens of the former German Democratic Republic standing up to have their voices heard shortly before the Berlin Wall came down.
(Image from BBC archives, 1989)
Recipe corner:
Summer simplicity: there’s nothing quite like a mouth-watering cantaloupe! Why not add prosciutto, fresh mint, and lime juice for a zesty affair!
Still Life and Stork (Leon Morrocco, 1995)
It’s bonanza peach summer for some in the Northeast! Try out this Peach Sorbet (No Ice Cream Maker Necessary)
Ingredients:
800 g peeled and sliced ripe peaches
200 g caster sugar
1 T lemon juice to taste
Optional: freshly chopped mint and/or lemon verbena
(Note: fruit to sugar is 4:1 ratio)
Instructions:
• Peel the peaches and slice into 8-12 pieces
• Place peach slices in the bowl of a food processor, along with sugar and fresh herbs (if desired) and process until smooth, scraping down the sides as you go.
• Once smooth, add lemon juice to taste.
• Freeze for 6-7 hours, or until firm.
Serve and enjoy!
There’s still time ~ get your last swim in before going back to school!
Children’s Swimming Pool, 11 o’clock, Saturday Morning, August (Leon Kossoff, 1969)
