Chamber Music

Yale Summer School of Music celebrates the Centennial of the Festival’s home, the famed Music Shed in 2006. Dedicated in 1906, the Music Shed still serves as the venue for Festival concerts. The Shed is described as “a beautiful long and narrow, cedar and redwood marvel which projects the most delicate pianissimo to the room’s farthest corner with living clarity.” Some of the greatest musicians of the 20th century graced the stage of the Music Shed, including Fritz Kreisler, Sergei Rachmaninoff, Maude owell, Efrem Zimbalist, Alma Gluck, Jan Ignace Paderewski, and Jean Sibelious. More recent years have seen great chamber ensembles on the stge, such as the Guarneri, Jullianr, Tokyo, Emerson and Vermeer Quartets along with guest artists and faculty members of the Summer school such as Ranson Wilson, David Shifrin, and Boris Berman.

Each year the Festival features more than 40 performances by man of the world’s most acclaimed musical artists, as well as forty or more up and coming musicians who are selected to participate as Fellows of the Yale Summer School of Music. Over the years, the Norfolk Chamber Music Festival has become renowned as a center for chamber music performance and professional study, unusual programming, and innovative offerings. Alumni of the Yale Summer School of Music at Norfolk include members of many of the world’s greatest orchestras, chamber ensembles and soloists. The School and Festival is proud to name among its alumni distinguished artists and ensembles such as Jan de Gaetani, Amela Frank, Claude Frank, Richard Stoltzman, Allen Vogel, Frederica von Stade, eighth blackbird, the Miro, St. Lawrence and Calder Quartets, and the Claremont and Eroica Trios.

Music lovers from all over the Northeast have celebrated summer in Norfolk with exhilarating concerts, accompanied by a streamside picnic or an evening stroll around the grounds. Located on the Ellen Battell Stoeckel Estate’s 70 acres of rolling lawns, glorious gardens and historic buildings in the rural town of Norfolk, in Northwestern Connecticut, the festival shares a strong tradition of music dating back more than a century. Norfolk’s pastoral setting alone - lush gardens and gentle streams - make this quiet spot in Connecticut an ideal weekend getaway.

Now in its 65th year, the 2006 Festival will feature ensemble performances by the Tokyo String Quartet, the Vermeer Quartet, the Yale Brass Trio, and So Percussion. Individual artists include pianists Boris Berman, Claude Frank, Joan Panetti and Peter Frankl, violinist Syoko Aki, flutists Ransomm Wilson and Patti Monson, and among others. Returning to Norfolk ar flutist Patti Monson and Grammy-winning soprano Susan Narucki. Making their Norfolk debut are the Keller Quartet from Hungary, the Leschitizky Trio from Vienna, and soprano Judith Malafronte. The 206 season opens on June 10 with a Gala performance by the legendary Dave Brubeck Quartet and continues through July to August 19th when Simon Carrington will present a program of Renaissance and Baroque works for Chamber Choir, along with the premiere of a work commissioned by the Festival from Joan Panetti.

The Festival is located on the grounds of the Ellen Battell Stoeckel Estate located at the junction of routes 272 and 44 in Norfolk, CT

Contact P.O. Box 545, Norfolk, CT 06058, 860-542-3000 or email Norfolk@yale.edu / website: www.yale.edu/norfolk

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