Norfolk Chamber Music Festival teams up with Norfolk Artists and Friends

By Lindsey Pizzica Rotolo

Concert goers at Yale Summer School of Music and Art this summer will have the unique opportunity to purchase a chair in the music shed. A $250 donation ensures your name engraved on a metal plaque affixed to an actual chair. Artists throughout Litchfield County have also turned some of the chairs into works of art in hopes of raising even more money for the Music Shed Restoration Campaign.

These one-of-a-kind chairs will be part of an ongoing silent auction this summer and on display at the shed until the August 3 concert featuring the Emerson String Quartet. That evening, the silent auction will come to a close. Just one part of the Music Shed Restoration Campaign, Norfolk Chamber Music Festival hopes to raise $100,000 through the effort.

Artists involved with the chair project include: Sally Briggs, Natalie Burke, Adela Hubers, Wayne Jenkins, Karen Linden, West Lowe, Samuel Messer, Ken Musselman, Ruthann Olsson, Robert Andrew Parker, Karen Rossi, Ronald Sloan, Joseph Stannard and John Thew. Their works range from a chair wrapped in copper & leather to a white-tailed deer fashioned from two chairs.

The project partners the festival and Norfolk Artists and Friends yet again. The Norfolk Chamber Music Festival has hosted Norfolk Artists and Friends annual art show the past few years, and will do so again this summer. Coinciding with the festival’s final show of the season, the large art show will take place August 9-12.

The restoration of the renowned concert hall will be a prolonged project, taking place over several years. John G. Waite Associates, an architecture firm specializing in historic architecture preservation projects is overseeing the work, which will only take place in the fall and spring so as not to interrupt the summer music festival. The firm has worked on a variety of projects including the restoration of Mount Vernon, the Statue of Liberty and the Lincoln Memorial. Renovations of the music shed will involve exterior restoration as well as the construction of a new music studio space. The work is expected to cost around five million dollars.

There are 200 students from conservatories around the world who audition each year in hopes of participating in the chamber music festival. Just 40 musicians are accepted, and they receive fellowships to cover the cost of tuition, room and board. Fellows are coached by each of the visiting quartets featured throughout the festival, and some are given the opportunity to perform with their mentors at the faculty concerts on weekends. The renovated shed and new studio space will enhance this already coveted opportunity.

For tickets and more information, call 542-3000, email Norfolk@yale.edu or visit www.norfolkmusic.org.