Greetings from Tessa Lark

From the Artistic Director

Dear Friends,

I’ve been thinking a lot about circles. They’re everywhere—our Earth is a sphere, careening through space in a circle-ish elliptical orbit around the sun which appears to us Earthlings as a big bright circle in the sky. Even a non-circular object is made of microscopic particles or cells that are circular. And then there are conceptual circles—our circles of friends, family, community; the cycles of life and trends; et cetera.

It’s peculiar, as an artist that dabbles in many musical styles and mediums, when I hear folks refer to that kind of approach as modern or new, it’s really just circling back to classical music tradition. Not so long ago (and beyond), if you were a professional musician you were likely a performer-composer. You were also likely a skilled improviser—like Bach, Mozart, Beethoven—playing from a score that might look in ways like a Jazz chart of today, with melodic and harmonic material meant as guidelines for spontaneity and not as gospel.

I risk spinning (circularly) off topic. So, what do circles have to do with Season 34? This year I wanted to pay homage to how this wonderful organization began: Alden Murphy, our beloved Board President, and her husband, Jamie, called on their musical circle of friends, including John Hargraves and David Dangremond, to create a full-scale production of Gilbert and Sullivan’s comic opera, The Mikado. It was a resounding success, and it was clear that Old Lyme wanted more—the community’s circle further expanded with a parade of vocalists, a renaissance ensemble, and, eventually, that fateful first appearance of pianist and original Musical Masterworks Artistic Director Charles Wadsworth.

This year’s season opener circles back to the operatic seedlings of Musical Masterworks, featuring beloved arias and two of the greatest young vocalists of today: soprano Marquita Richardson and mezzo soprano Sarah Saturnino. After his rousing MMModern performance in March 2024, bassist/vocalist/everythingist Nathan Farrington makes his mainstage debut alongside Marquita, Sarah, and pianist-composer phenom Roman Rabinovich, to present older masterworks and newer favorites that Nathan has arranged specially for our series. Next, in December, I’m thrilled to join a trio of longtime Masterworks favorites for a program of classical works so masterful they’ll never stop making the rounds. It doesn’t get better than pianist Gilles Vonsattel and violinist/violist Arnaud Sussman… except for when you add to the mix Edward Arron, cellist and previous Artistic Director of Musical Masterworks, whom Charles Wadsworth brilliantly brought into the MM family fold years ago.

The piano was an ideal instrument for Wadsworth’s role because it could easily embrace any number or variety of the magnificent instrumental friends he’d invite to the First Congregational Church of Old Lyme (if you’re reading this in said church, I invite you now to look up to, yes, a circular dome). But in March, we will bask in the glory of the piano as a solo instrument, with works by Schubert and Bach as golden-circle-spun by pianist Inon Barnatan who stunned and delighted in Season 32.

We’ll loop back to the Renaissance inklings of MM’s beginnings in February with the resplendent early music band Ruckus, with music ranging all the way from Telemann to Ligeti. Ruckus features flautist Emi Ferguson who charmed our audiences in her series debut last season with Caleb Hudson. Caleb will also astound us once again in the season finale with his new ensemble, Triple Cortado, playing arrangements of standard repertoire in a miraculous trio of trumpet, trombone and piano. It might sound edgy to arrange Mendelssohn’s perfect Piano Trio in D minor, for example, for such an unlikely ensemble; again, we’re just turning the dial back to an old, common practice of arranging great music for whatever ensemble is at hand.

Being the Artistic Director of Musical Masterworks is one of my greatest pleasures in large part because of how great the series has always been. My main goal here is to not fix what ain’t broke, if you will—so there’s no need to reinvent the [circular] wheel. Yes, this season will see many new faces and exciting music never before heard on this stage. But the impetus behind it all is Musical Masterworks’ magical beginnings, and it is celebrating your invaluable continued presence and [circular] embrace of our musical circle here. A full-circle moment.

I’m talking in circles… Welcome, all, to Season 34, and THANK YOU for being here.