“It’s About Time”

By Ruth Melville

After two quiet years, live chamber music returns to Norfolk this summer.

The theme for the Norfolk Chamber Music Festival’s 2022 season, “It’s About Time,” should resonate with both artists and audience members alike. The festival is back in full force this year, with a complete roster of Friday and Saturday night concerts. Paul Berry, joined by other professors from the Yale School of Music, will continue to give his pre-concert lectures on Friday nights. New this season will be festival director Melvin Chen’s conversations with festival artists before the Saturday night concerts.

The popular free Emerging Artists Series, with performances by the Norfolk Fellows, as the students are called, will also return on Thursday evenings and Saturday mornings. Jim Nelson, general manager of the festival, said that the caliber of this year’s Fellows is “better than outstanding, edging into amazing.” 

The season starts with two free events. On July 1 there is the New Music Recital, under the direction of composer Martin Bresnick. On July 6, Musical Bridges features a world premiere by Angel Lam, a Norfolk alumna, with Chen on piano and the renowned soloist Wu Man, a founding member of the Silk Road Ensemble, playing the Chinese pipa, a traditional, plucked-string instrument. This concert is the second in a series of commissions designed to bridge the music of different cultures with traditional Western classical music.

Notable highlights of the season include:

In a belated celebration of his 250th birthday, there is an all-Beethoven concert scheduled for July 8. The following night, the Brentano Quartet will play the music of Haydn, Bartók and Dvorák.

The Aug. 5 Music for Peace concert features Ukrainian composer Valentin Silvestrov’s “Epitaph LB.” In March of this year, Silvestrov, who is 84 years old, was forced to flee his native Kyiv for Berlin. 

The annual gala on Aug. 13, a fundraiser to support the training of young musicians, should be quite an event, with four pianos on the Shed stage at once. Chen, Robert Blocker, dean of the Yale School of Music, and two Norfolk Fellows will play Bach’s concerto for four keyboards. The Philharmonia Baroque Orchestra performs on Aug. 18.

As always, the summer festival concludes with the Norfolk Choral Festival, on Aug. 20.

Not only does this summer see the return of tradition at the chamber music festival, there are also changes afoot. After 20 years as general manager of the festival, Jim Nelson will be stepping back from his duties and handing the reins over to Robert Whipple. For this season, Nelson and Whipple will be working in tandem, with Nelson staying on in an advisory role next year.

Whipple comes to Norfolk from the Lake Champlain Chamber Music Festival, in Burlington, Vt., and has previously worked with the Chamber Music Northwest summer festival in Portland, Ore., and the Chamber Music Society of Lincoln Center, in New York City. “I’m excited to be part of this festival, it’s one of the oldest chamber music festivals in the country,” Whipple said in a recent interview. “There is no other venue like the Shed . . . no other experience like this for students, . . . and I know that the quality has only been increasing.” He and Nelson added that five of the 13 winners at the prestigious Banff International String Quartet Competition came directly from Norfolk.

There are also major improvements being made to the Battell Stoeckel Estate’s physical plant: both the renovation of the Eldridge Barn to provide much-needed housing for faculty and, more immediately pertinent to concertgoers, the replacement of the 1970s-era annex at the back of the Music Shed.

Nelson said that all the necessary approvals—from the Town of Norfolk and the state’s Historical Preservation Council— have been obtained, and the final drawings are being completed. The same architect and contractor who carried out the award-winning restoration of the Art Barn have been hired to work on the barn and the Shed. Work is expected to start Sept. 1 and finish by May 2023, in readiness for next year’s summer schools of art and music.

The changes to Music Shed—including more rehearsal space, better restrooms and the addition of air conditioning—will be, in Nelson’s word, “transformative.” “I’m so grateful to the [Ellen Battell Stoeckel] Trust, the School of Music and patrons who have stepped up to make this happen,” he said.

He is also very happy to be back to live in-person concerts. Until they streamed the first concert last year, he said, “I didn’t realize what a profound impact it would have on me not to have an audience in the Shed.” A full schedule of this summer’s events is available on the festival’s website, music.yale.edu/norfolk. Covid restrictions will apply. Patrons are required to wear masks (ASTM or N-95 equivalent) in the building and show proof of vaccination and a photo ID. Tickets must be purchased in advance, and registration is required for all free events, including the pre-concert conversations and the Emerging Artists Series. Concerts will also be live streamed on the festival’s website.