FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
Contact:  David Mayhew for Cohn Dutcher Associates
(203) 533-5621     david@davidmayhew.net

CARAMOOR FALL AFTERNOON AND EVENING CONCERTS IN THE MUSIC ROOM OF THE ROSEN HOUSE BEGIN
OCTOBER 19 EXPLORING THE ETERNAL BACH

Indoor performances take place in the majestic 200-seat Music Room of the historic Rosen House at Caramoor, formerly known as the House Museum

Katonah, NY - Caramoor Center for Music and the Arts announces Caramoor Indoors, its fall concert series, beginning Sunday, October 19, 2008 with the first of three Great Artists in the Music Room performances exploring The Eternal Bach. The autumn program also features three less-formal Caramoor Classics events, suitable for families with children ages 8 and up. 

All performances will take place in the magnificent 200-seat Music Room of the newly-named Rosen House at Caramoor. Formerly known as the House Museum, the elegant Mediterranean-style mansion was built by Caramoor's founders, Walter and Lucie Rosen, and was recently named in their honor. The Music Room, where the Rosen's provided musical entertainment for their guests, events that were the genesis for Caramoor's programming today, is described by Michael Barrett, Caramoor's General Director, as "perhaps the most elegant and intimate performance space in the metropolitan area." It is richly decorated with an extraordinary collection of original Renaissance paintings, sculpture and tapestry, and Asian art.

Great Artists in the Music Room
The Eternal Bach, the theme for this autumn's Great Artists in the Music Room series, is devoted to the music of J.S. Bach.  "From his great grandfather to his grandsons, J.S. Bach's family produced a long line of composers," said Michael Barrett.  "Music was in their blood.  Johann Sebastian, however, remains the most revered and exalted of all the Bachs."  Bach lived through the peak of the Baroque era, at a time when Western musical instruments were quite different from what is normally heard on today's concert stage.  Barrett continued, "We've assembled a stellar cast of artists, performing on both modern and period instruments, to help us examine some questions:  For what instruments did Bach actually write his music?  Why have these instruments changed?  How do these changes affect performances and interpretations of these works?"

The concert series begins on Sunday, October 19th at 4:00pm with The Eternal Bach:  Baroque and Modern Insights, a concert-with-commentary featuring Monica Huggett, Baroque violin; Tim Fain, violin; Tanya Tomkins, Baroque cello; Edward Arron, cello; with Michael Barrett moderating a discussion with the artists exploring the nuances of modern and period instruments and of interpretive approaches to Bach's unaccompanied masterpieces.  The program will comprise only pieces by J.S. Bach:  Partita No.1 in B minor, BWV 1002; Partita No. 2 in D minor, BWV 1004; Suite No. 1 in G Major, BWV 1007; Suite No. 4 in E-flat Major, BWV 1010.
 
The series continues on Saturday, November 15th at 8:00pm with The Eternal Bach: Six Keyboard Perspectives featuring six internationally renowned artists sharing their perspectives on J.S. Bach's vast keyboard repertoire:  Bradley Brookshire on harpsichord and pianists Benjamin Hochman, John Musto, Vanessa Perez, Ilya Poletaev, and Gilles Vonsattel. 

The all-J.S. Bach program features Chromatic Fantasy and Fugue (BWV 903); Capriccio in B-flat Major, BWV 992 (On the Departure of his Most Beloved Brother); Art of Fugue, BWV 1080 (Contrapunctus No. 1, Contrapunctus No. 9, Canon alla Ottava); Partita for Keyboard No. 2 in C minor, BWV 826; Partita for Keyboard No. 4 in D Major, BWV 828; English Suite No. 5 in E minor BWV 810; and French Suite No. 5 in G Major, BWV 816.

The final fall 2008 Great Artists in the Music Room concert will be The Eternal Bach: Brandenburg Celebration on Saturday, December 13th at 8:00pm.  The Aulos Ensemble, with Niklas Eklund, trumpet, will play J.S. Bach's Double Concerto for Oboe and Violin in D minor, BWV 1060; Brandenburg Concerto No. 5 in D Major, BWV 1050; Brandenburg Concerto No. 2 in F Major, BWV 1047; and Brandenburg Concerto No. 4 in G Major, BWV 1049.

Tickets for Great Artists in the Music Room are $40 for individual performances or $105 for a "Trio Subscription" to all three performances.

In addition to The Eternal Bach concerts, there will be two related concert/lectures beginning on Sunday, October 12th at 4:00pm with "The Eternal Bach: Paul Hersh explores the Goldberg Variations," in which the fascinating pianist and professor of music at the San Francisco Conservatory shares his insights into Bach's masterpiece.  The second lecture, "The Eternal Bach:  Musical Forms – Bach the Master Craftsman" in which pianist and musical intellect Andrew Rangell delves into Bach's extremely rich body of keyboard works with special attention to the suite form and the prelude and fugue will take place on Sunday, October 26 at 4:00pm. Tickets for concert/lectures are $15.

The Eternal Bach is made possible, in part, through funding from the Rudyard and Emanuella Reimss Memorial Fund of the Westchester Community Foundation.

Caramoor Classics
The first two fall Caramoor Classics concerts feature Caramoor's acclaimed Rising Stars.  Now in its seventeenth year, the Rising Stars program is led by Co-Directors Peter Oundjian and Pamela Frank, who search for young musicians with the talent, personality, and musicality to best benefit from this program and place them in ensembles for an intense week of rehearsals and coaching sessions, culminating in two public performances.  This year, the Co-Directors are assisted by Distinguished Artists Atar Arad, viola, and Ronald Thomas, cello, who mentor and coach the musicians and perform with them in the ensembles.  This year's Rising Stars performers are Tessa Lark, Laura Lutzke, David McCarroll, and Arnaud Sussmann, violins; Emily Deans and Dimitri Murrath, violas; and Dmitry Kouzov and Yu-Wen Wang, cellos.

On Saturday, November 1st at 7:30pm the Rising Stars will perform Bach's Brandenburg Concerto No. 3 in G Major, BWV 1048; Schoenberg's Verklärte Nacht, Op. 4; and Schubert's Quintet in C Major for Two Violins, Viola, and Two Cellos, Op. 163, D. 956.

On Sunday, November 2nd at 4:00pm the program will include Haydn's Quartet No. 23 in F minor, Op. 20, No. 5, Hob. III:35; Beethoven's Quartet No. 9 in C Major, Op. 59, No. 3 (Razumovsky); and Mendelssohn's Quintet No. 1 in A Major, Op. 18.

The final autumn Caramoor Classics performance will feature the Ariel Quartet, Caramoor's 2008-09 Ernst Stiefel Quartet-in-Residence, on Saturday, November 22, at 7:30 pm.  The Quartet - Alexandra Kazovsky and Gershon Gerchikov, violins; Sergey Tarashchansky, viola; and Amit Even-Tov, cello -will play Beethoven's Quartet No. 11 in F minor, Op. 95  (Serioso); Menachem Wiesenberg's "Between the Sacred and the Profane" for String Quartet, 1991; and Schubert's Quartet No. 13 in A minor, D.804 (Rosamunde).

As Caramoor's 2008-09 Ernst Stiefel Quartet-in-Residence, the Ariel Quartet also participates in Caramoor's "Student Strings" program of in-school educational programs and musical "clinics" at Caramoor for selected students.  Participating students and their families are invited to attend the Quartet's performances at reduced rates.
 
Caramoor Classics performances are less formal than other concerts in the Music Room, include comments from the artists about the programs, and are appropriate for families including children ages 8 and up.  Tickets for Caramoor Classics are $25 for an individual performance or a "Trio Subscription" to all three performances for $60.

Tickets
For tickets to all concerts call the Caramoor Box Office at 914.232.1252 or visit www.caramoor.org. 

About Caramoor
Caramoor is the legacy of Walter and Lucie Rosen, who built the great house and filled it with their treasures.  Walter Rosen was the master planner for the Caramoor estate, bringing to reality his dream of creating a place to entertain friends from around the world.  Their musical evenings were the seeds of today's summertime Caramoor International Music Festival as well as the Fall and Spring musical program held in their former home, now known as the historic Rosen House a Caramoor.  Realizing the pleasure their friends took in the beauty of Caramoor – the house with its art collection, the gardens, and the musical programs – the Rosens established a public charity to open Caramoor to the community.

Caramoor Center for Music and the Arts is located at 149 Girdle Ridge Road, Katonah, New York.

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ALL PROGRAMS AND ARTISTS ARE SUBJECT TO CHANGE

CREDITS     
Performances are made possible, in part, by Westchester Arts Council, with funds from Westchester County Government
Performances are made possible with public funds from the New York State Council on the Arts, a state agency.
 
Caramoor's Fall 2008 Indoors season is made possible, in part, through generous funding from Floy and Amos Kaminski.

The Eternal Bach is made possible, in part, through funding from the Rudyard and Emanuella Reimss Memorial Fund of the Westchester Community Foundation.

The Westchester Community Foundation (WCF) is a non-profit community endowment for the benefit of Westchester Country.  Its mission is to develop and manage philanthropic resources, and to distribute them in a way that is responsive to donor interests and community needs.  The Foundation actively promotes charitable giving on behalf of the area's non-profit organizations.  WCF is a division of The New York Community Trust, one of the largest community foundations in the country with assets of over $2.2 billion.

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