The Park City Chamber Music Festival, formerly the Park City Beethoven Festival, is on the home stretch of its 41st season.
The four remaining performances include a salon concert Saturday, a Sunday performance at the Park City Community Church and two concerts at City Park, said Festival Director Russell Harlow.
“For what I know, there are only a few tickets left for the salon concert, and that’s because it takes place in a smaller, more intimate venue in a resident’s home,” he said.
Tickets for the salon concert can be purchased by visiting simpletix.com/e/salon-evening-tickets-173582.
There are still plenty of tickets available for Sunday’s concert, and the City Park Concerts scheduled for this Monday and on Monday, Aug. 26, are free, according to Harlow.
“The festival has been going very well,” he said. “And for these last few performances, we have the CDK Trio with us.”
CDK stands for Cognet, Delmoni and Kuo, the last names of the musicians in the group, Harlow said.
“We have Matthieu Cognet on piano, Arturo Delmoni on violin and Ken Kuo on cello,” he said. “It’s a group of top-notch musicians who will play some wonderful pieces.”
Cognet is a graduate from the Paris Conservatory and the Royal Conservatory of Brussels, Harlow said.
“He’s played throughout Europe and the United States, and he did work in the prestigious Jacobs School of Music at Indiana University, Bloomington,” he said.
Delmoni studied with the late violinist Jascha Heifetz at University of Southern California Thornton School of Music, according to Harlow.
“Heifetz and cellist Gregor Piatigorsky had a program at USC where they would both teach, and that was a marvelous thing because they were two of the greatest string players of the day,” he said. “Arturo played most of his career as a solo artist before becoming some years ago as the concertmaster of the New York City Ballet.”
Kuo, who hails from Taipei, Taiwan, studied with Aldo Parisot at Yale, Harlow said.
“He is also the founder and president of The Connecticut School of Music, and established the Connecticut Musical Arts Foundation, a nonprofit organization that helps students with musical and financial needs,” he said.
The pieces the trio will perform the following:
- Ludwig van Beethoven Piano Trio in C minor. op. 1 no. 3
- Peter Schickele Quartet for Clarinet, Violin, Cello, Piano
- Felix Mendelssohn Piano Trio No. 1 in D minor, op. 49
Harlow will join the trio in the Schickele piece, and Schickele, known for his Grammy Award-winning satirical character P.D.Q. Bach, a fictional composer, died in January, Harlow said.
“Peter was basically a humorist and loved to make people laugh, but he also wrote some serious works,” he said. “The one we’re playing is beautiful and does have some humor in it. In fact, in the last movement, the music contains an asterisk that says, ‘Pirate music. Put your back into it.’”
As the Park City Chamber Music Festival reaches this year’s finish line, Harlow looks back and is pleased at how it kept the spirit of his late wife and founder, Leslie Blackburn Harlow, alive.
“We’ve had a successful season,” he said. “We’ve had some great musicians, and now I can get ready to take a couple of weeks off.”
After those two weeks of vacation, Harlow will be back in the saddle.
“We have some fundraisers coming up with Live PC Give PC in November, and we have some other events that we’re planning now,” he said.
One of those projects includes working with the area’s music students.
“I had a meeting with all the music teachers in Park City before the festival started in July, and we want to try to enhance the outreach concerts we do in school,” Harlow said. “I want to work really closely with the music teachers of all ilks — band, orchestra and choir — so they can tell us what they need for their students. And then we will try to provide those needs with our professional musicians that come in throughout the year.”
Harlow plans to meet again with the teachers and put together a plan.
“We’re looking toward sometime in November or December to start the program,” he said. “I think it will be an exciting program that will generate a certain excitement in the young people for great music.”
For information, tickets and times for the 2024 Park City Chamber Music Festival performances, visit pccms.org.