The Stillwater Music Festival

Dear Friends of The Stillwater Music Festival,

We’re gearing up for the 6^th Annual Stillwater Music Festival and wanted to let you know ahead of time what’s in the works! We're going back to our roots and focusing on the diverse, intimate world of the string quartet. With transcendent works by Beethoven and Philip Glass as program pillars, we also will be premiering excerpts of a new Brooklyn Rider group composition and fresh arrangements of traditional tunes ranging from Brazil to Rajasthan. This year’s Festival is planned for August 26^th to September 1^st and will feature two main concerts and outreach activities.

The festival opener on August 28th, 2011, is a co-presentation between the Stillwater Music Festival and Kate Nordstrum Projects at the Cedar Cultural Center in Minneapolis. We plan to explore the luminescent world of Philip Glass in depth. If you've never heard his quartets live, now's the time! Each piece is its own amazing emotional journey through time, using the string quartet to weave tapestries of sound. Our most recent recording, Brooklyn Rider Plays Philip Glass,(released in 2011 on the composer's label, Orange Mountain Music), includes the 5 string quartets of Philip Glass plus the world premiere recording of Suite for String Quartet from "Bent."

Our annual free family concert will take place at the Stillwater Public Library on August 30th, 2011. Come join us on the roof of the Library at sunset as "Brooklyn Rider Meets Mr. Beethoven..."! This will be a presentation of the music of Beethoven and beyond in a relaxed and informal setting that the whole family will enjoy.

The 6th season Festival finale will take place on September 1st, 2011, at the Washington County Historic Courthouse. This concert will present a different facet of the string quartet, centered in the emotionally complex world of late Beethoven. We've been wanting to play a late Beethoven quartet for years, and can't wait to share one of our first performances of this incredible music with you! Alongside Beethoven will be the premiere of a new group composition by Brooklyn Rider, an early string quartet by Mozart, plus new arrangements of a Joao Gilberto tune and music of the Roma ("gypsy music").

Other events including open rehearsals and other informal events will be announced in the coming weeks at www.stillwatermusicfestival.com, so please continue to check the website and reserve your tickets early. We can’t wait to see all of you again soon!

Yours truly,

Nick, Johnny, Eric and Colin