Bergonzi Quartet to perform in Pine Mountain concerts June 22, 24, 25, 27

HANCOCK -- The Bergonzi String Quartet of Miami, Florida, is returning to the U.P. for the 15th year as part of Pine Mountain Music Festival’s season of classical and jazz music events. They will present a concert at 7:30 p.m. on June 27 at the Rozsa Center in Houghton. Tickets are $20 and are available at the Rozsa Center Box Office and at the door.

Members of the Bergonzi Quartet are, from left, Glenn Basham and Scott Flavin, violins; Ross Harbaugh, cello; and Pamela McConnell, viola. (Photo courtesy Pine Mountain Music Festival)

This year the Bergonzi Quartet will be joined by clarinetist Margaret Donaghue Flavin for the playing of Brahms’s beautiful and haunting Clarinet Quintet in B Minor, Opus 115. They will also perform Schubert’s String Quartet No. 14, called "Death and the Maiden," as well as several arrangements by Scott Flavin.*

The Bergonzi String Quartet hosts a free children’s concert at 1 p.m. on June 27 at Portage Lake District Library. Students of the Copper Country Suzuki Association will attend with their instruments, and audience members are invited to stay after the concert to see and talk about the instruments. The Bergonzi String Quartet will also perform at 7:30 p.m. this week in each of the following locations: on Monday, June 22, at Immaculate Conception Church in Iron Mountain; on Wednesday, June 24, at Reynolds Recital Hall in Marquette; and on Thursday, June 25, at Ely Memorial Church in Land O’Lakes, Wisconsin.

The Festival’s theme for the 2009 season is "Anything Goes," which is a good clue for how to enjoy the Bergonzi concerts. Peter Van Pelt, executive director of the Festival, has referred to "the exciting world of chamber music," and he says that the Bergonzi Quartet is responsible for this unusual characterization of chamber music.

The Bergonzi Quartet is a perennial favorite for many concert-goers, partly for their consummate professionalism and partly for their low-key, relaxed approach. The audience is as likely to get a good laugh as to get a thrill from the lovely music.

The Pine Mountain Music Festival presents a season of opera, classical and jazz music in June-July in the Dickinson County area, the Marquette area, the Keweenaw Peninsula and other towns in the Upper Peninsula and northeastern Wisconsin. Headquartered in Hancock, Michigan, it is supported by donations, ticket sales and grants. Visit the web at pmmf.org, or call 1-877-746-3999 for tickets or 888-309-7861 for more information.

* For more information about the Bergonzi Quartet, visit their Web site.