Get the latest on our spring planning.
Music programs are added to this schedule throughout the year. Please continue to check back for updated information.
Masks are required for vaccinated and unvaccinated persons inside all college buildings.
Sunday, May 8 at 4 p.m. in the Great Hall Admission is FREE
This concert will begin with Beethoven’s Sonata for Piano and Cello, op. 69 (1808). It dates from Beethoven’s middle period, during which he also composed the Choral Fantasy and the Fifth and Sixth Symphonies. The first Sonata to give equal weight to the cello and piano parts, it is a true collaboration, and an expression of pure joy. The concert ends with the Flute Sonata of Serge Prokofieff (1943), written during one of the most harrowing periods of WWII. It is kaleidoscopic in its emotional range—biting, sarcastic, violent, lyrical, icy, austere, exuberant … a tour de force for both instruments. Between these two works, we will present an encore performance of the great Schubert Fantasy for Piano, 4-hands. Like Great Books, it bears repetition! Thanks so much to all who came to the last concert; we hope to see you at this one!
James Siranovich (A22) will be joined once again by tutors Eric Stoltzfus (cellist) and Chester Burke (flutist), and by Gavin Laur (pianist, GI22).
Friday, March 25 at 8 p.m. in the Great Hall Dashon Burton website Dashon Burton bio, press, and videos
As the college returns from spring break, attendees will hear Dashon Burton, who has established a vibrant career appearing regularly through the US and Europe in favorite pieces, including Bach’s St. Matthew and St. John Passions, Mass in B Minor, Mendelssohn’s Elijah, Beethoven’s Symphony No. 9, Brahms’ Requiem, Handel’s Messiah, and Mozart’s German Requiem.
“Dashon Burton sang with nobility and rich tone.” —The New York Times
The vocal concert includes songs of Brahms, Fauré, and Margaret Bonds. Mr. Burton will also sing Cantata No. 82 by J.S. Bach, “Ich habe genug.”
Friday, April 8 at 8 p.m. in the Great Hall The Parker Quartet website
The St. John’s College Concert Series continues with a performance by the Grammy award winning Parker Quartet.
There is no human relationship that cultivates a dynamic quite like the one between two human beings. Intimacy, volatility, profundity, and abandon appear and disappear from moment to moment and evolve at a pace that can be difficult to trace. Centered around two of the most dramatic stories of human-to-human contact, this program reflects on how effortless it is to be elevated by our passions yet how far we can deteriorate emotionally. With Bach, there is order in this realm of the irrational - a two-voice canon in augmentation and contrary motion like two dancers in perfect synchronization moving together in a separate world. The framework of “Intimate Letters” is Janáček, 63, who is obsessed with a married woman named Kamila 37 years his junior. He wrote over 700 letters to her that went virtually unanswered. It is a work that forces us to grapple with the urgency of feelings that have been dismissed and those that we cannot control. Kurtág speaks to us briefly from Aus der Ferne (From afar). As George Eliot once said, “I like not only to be loved but also to be told I am loved.” Schumann’s quartet was written soon after his long awaited marriage to concert pianist Clara Wieck.
