Aaron Copland
Maverick Concerts continues its centennial season of Music in the Woods on Saturday, August 22 at 6 p.m. with a concert for chamber orchestra led by Maverick’s music director, Alexander Platt. Mezzo-soprano Maria Todaro, pianist Stephen Gosling and cellist Emmanuel Feldman join the Maverick Chamber Players to present a program of 20th-century music with connections to Woodstock. The evening includes a suite from the ballet Appalachian Spring by Aaron Copland (shown above) and his rarely heard original version of El Amór Brujo, the ballet by Spanish composer Manuel de Falla. El Amór Brujo is also 100 years old this year.
The program emphasizes the connections that the different composers had with Woodstock. Benjamin Britten, with his companion Peter Pears, spent the summer of 1939 with Aaron Copland in Woodstock. While he was here, he composed Young Apollo, a fanfare for piano and strings, for which the British pianist Stephen Gosling will be the soloist in this concert.
Henry Cowell spent the last 20 years of his life in Woodstock, and Gosling will also perform Cowell’s The Banshee, which is played entirely on the strings of the piano. Also on the program is the grave and haunting Song of Solitude for solo cello by the late Robert Starer, who made his home in Woodstock for many years.
Tickets cost $40 and $25. Maverick concerts are held in the historic concert hall at 120 Maverick Road in Woodstock. For more information, visit https://maverickconcerts.org