Press Room »

2010 White Pine Festival to feature the Miró Quartet in a 40th anniversary performance to George Crumb's Black Angels

Infusions of poetry, jazz and classical music—combined with world premiere composition by Jack Perla—interlace 2010 festival

STILLWATER, Minn. & HUDSON, Wis. — The White Pine Festival is pleased to announce its 2010 artistic lineup, which includes former Minnesota Orchestra concertmaster Jorja Fleezanis, jazz with the Charles Lazarus Group with a world premiere composition by Jack Perla, and two performances by the critically acclaimed Miró Quartet.

Featured is the Miró Quartet’s 40th anniversary performance of Geroge Crumb’s Black Angels: Thirteen Images from the Dark Land, a seminal, Vietnam-era, three-movement piece that explores the resilience of the human spirit as it transcends from desperation to resurrection and hope. Augmenting the festival experience will be a poetry workshop with The Loft Literary Center teaching artist Carol Pearce Bjorlie, focusing on Black Angels and other evocative works of poetry and music.

The 2010 White Pine Festival performance line-up:

Opening Night: violinist Jorja Fleezanis Thursday, June 24, 2010, 7:30 p.m. Trinity Lutheran Church, 115 4th St N, Stillwater, Minn.

A returning festival favorite, the revered former Minnesota Orchestra concertmaster Jorja Fleezanis teams up again with pianist Karl Paulnack for another breathtaking evening of virtuosic music, poetry and reflection. Featuring Guthrie Theater veteran Stephen Yoakam reading poems selected by acclaimed Minnesota author Charles Baxter (The Soul Thief) and the musicians.

Jazz with the Charles Lazarus Group Friday, June 25, 2010, 7:30 p.m. Trinity Lutheran Church, 115 4th St N, Stillwater, Minn.

Minnesota Orchestra trumpeter and returning festival artist Charles Lazarus, hailed by New York Newsday for his “bedazzling technique and a refined sense of musicianship,” will bring his jazz quartet, the Charles Lazarus Group, to Trinity Lutheran Church a unique festival “all-in-one” artist line-up that features a world premiere mash-up of classical-jazz fusion by composer Jack Perla with the Miró Quartet and Jorja Fleezanis performing.

The Miró Quartet and George Crumb’s Black Angels Saturday, June 26, 2010, 7:30 p.m. Trinity Lutheran Church, 115 4th St N, Stillwater, Minn.

One of America’s highest profile chamber groups, the Miró Quartet returns to the White Pine Festival to perform a 40th anniversary tribute to George Crumb’s seminal composition about loss, destruction and resurrection, Black Angels: Thirteen Images From the Dark Land. Crumb’s remarkable quartet requires the musicians to play, in addition to their instruments, various glass, metal and crystal objects. The Miró Quartet will also perform Franz Schubert’s haunting Death and the Maiden, known as one of the most profound string quartets written.

The Miró Quartet: An American Tribute Sunday, June 27, 2010, 2 p.m. Phipps Center for the Arts, 109 Locust St, Hudson, Wis.

The critically acclaimed Miró Quartet returns to the Phipps Center for the Arts to close out the 2010 festival with an all-American program. The Quartet will perform Samuel Barber’s String Quartet, in honor of the 100th anniversary of Barber’s birth, and Antonin Dvořák’s “American” String Quartet. The slow second movement of Barber’s quartet later became his famous Adagio for Strings, well known from the soundtrack of the movie Platoon. Dvořák composed his “American” Quartet when he spent the summer of 1893 in the Midwest, including a brief visit to the Twin Cities.

The Loft Poetry Workshop with Carol Bjorlie Friday, June 25, 2010, 10 a.m. to 4 p.m. Arcola Mills, 12905 Arcola Trail N, Stillwater, Minn.

The White Pine Festival and The Loft Literary Center team up to present a one-day poetry workshop with UW-River Falls professor and Loft teaching artist Carol Pearce Bjorlie. In keeping with the festival’s theme of exploring ideas through music and poetry, the workshop will explore the resilience of the human spirit as it transcends from dark to light, from loss to hope. The session will focus on Black Angels: Thirteen Images from the Dark Land by George Crumb, which the Miró Quartet will perform in a special 40th anniversary tribute on Saturday, June 26 (7:30 p.m. at Trinity Lutheran Church, Stillwater). The workshop will include a listening session to Miró’s recording of Black Angels, plus readings and reflections on other poets and classical music works. Light snacks and bottled water provided. To register, contact The Loft at 612-379-8999.

Tickets

Tickets can be purchased online at www.whitepinefestival.org, or over the phone at 1-800-838-3006. Individual concert tickets will be available starting Friday, May 14 at $15 for each performance ($10 for students) or $45 for all four. A complete listing of festival activities is available on the Web site. Beginning the week of May 17, tickets will be available for purchase at ArtReach St. Croix in Stillwater and The Phipps Center for the Arts in Hudson.

About the artists

[High-resolution photographs and extended biographies are available at www.whitepinefestival.org.]

JORJA FLEEZANIS was concertmaster of the Minnesota Orchestra for 20 years, the longest tenured concertmaster in the orchestra’s history. She has just completed her first year as professor of music with Indiana University’s Jacobs School of Music.

KARL PAULNACK has been described by the Boston Globe as "a firecracker of a pianist" and "master of his instrument." Paulnack has partnered vocal and instrumental soloists, chamber groups, symphony orchestras, conductors and opera companies in nearly a thousand concerts throughout North America and Europe. Paulnack has served as director of the Boston Conservatory’s music division since 2002.

STEPHEN YOAKAM is very familiar to Twin Cities audiences due to numerous roles over many years as a veteran actor at the Guthrie Theater, as well as roles at Mixed Blood, Eye of the Storm and Pillsbury House theaters. He has also performed in a number of films and television roles, including Older than America, Sweet Land, Heaven on Earth and “Star Trek: Deep Space Nine.”

CAROL PEARCE BJORLIE teaches music at the University of Wisconsin-River Falls and is a teaching artist with The Loft Literary Center in Minneapolis. Her works of poetry have been published in several distinguished magazines and publications.

CHARLES LAZARUS has played trumpet with the Minnesota Orchestra since 2000. An avid proponent of original music and is active as a soloist and composer, his eclectic career includes performances ranging from pop and rap to jazz and classical ensembles and beyond.

JACK PERLA was a student of Academy Award®-winning composer John Corigliano (The Red Violin) at the Manhattan School of Music. He also studied with Pulitzer prizewinner Jacob Druckman and renowned composer Lukas Foss at the Yale School of Music, where he earned his doctorate in music composition. His works have been performed worldwide, including the Oakland Symphony, New Music Chicago and the Royal Liverpool Philharmonic.

The MIRÓ QUARTET, founded in 1995 at the Oberlin Conservatory and a returning White Pine Festival favorite, is one of America’s highest-profile chamber groups. This dynamic ensemble has quickly earned a reputation as one of the nation’s foremost string quartets, known equally well for their mature interpretations of traditional repertoire and their enthusiastic support of contemporary composers.

About the White Pine Festival

THE WHITE PINE FESTIVAL is an annual series of world-class artistic and intellectual events set amid the natural beauty of Stillwater, Minn., and Hudson, Wis. The fourth annual festival will take place June 24–27, 2010.

The White Pine Festival explores challenging ideas from a wide range of artistic and intellectual perspectives, including music, literature, visual art, history, poetry, nature, science and philosophy. Festival participants are encouraged to view art and the world in new ways, and to approach the task with the vitality, humor and candor one finds in conversations among close friends.

This activity is made possible, in part, by funds provided by the Metropolitan Regional Arts Council from an appropriation by the Minnesota Legislature.

For more information, visit www.whitepinefestival.org.

MEDIA CONTACT

Jennifer Haugh
Public Relations Consultant, White Pine Festival
jennifer.haugh@whitepinefestival.org
612-240-4641 (mobile)

White Pine Festival P.O. Box 928 Stillwater, Minn., 55082 651-439-6777 (administration) 800-838-3006 (box office)

Media Contact