The Cooperstown Summer Music Festival opens its 28th season on Wednesday, July 15, with a performance by the acclaimed wind quintet WindSync at Fenimore Farm and Country Village.
Making its Cooperstown debut, the ensemble will present a program that traces the influence of legendary French teacher Nadia Boulanger, whose students helped shape the sound of American classical music throughout the twentieth century.
"We're thrilled to be making our debut in Cooperstown and very honored to open the festival's 28th season," said WindSync clarinetist Graeme Steele Johnson. "We hope to delight Cooperstown audiences with a program that's both exciting and timely."
The first half of the concert draws from WindSync's recent recording Nadia, inspired by Boulanger's remarkable legacy as a teacher, conductor, composer, and musical mentor.
"Many of our most beloved American composers traveled to France to study with Nadia Boulanger," Johnson said. "She nurtured each composer's individual voice, and when they returned home they helped define what American music would become."
The program includes Boulanger's Three Pieces, arranged for wind quintet by WindSync bassoonist Kara LaMoure, alongside works by two of Boulanger's students: Elliott Carter's virtuosic Woodwind Quintet and Philip Glass's Étude No. 17, also arranged by LaMoure.
"Just in those three works you hear nearly a century of American music," Johnson said. "From Boulanger's emerging modern style to Elliott Carter's jazz influences and Philip Glass's minimalism, the diversity of those voices is exactly what made Nadia Boulanger such a remarkable teacher."
Johnson said Boulanger's emphasis on individuality makes her especially relevant during this year's America 250 commemorations.
"The unifying thread among her students isn't a single style," he said. "It's stylistic diversity. That's the mark of a great teacher—she didn't impose her own voice, but drew out the individual voice of each composer."
The concert also looks farther back in musical history with one of Mozart's wind serenades.
"Mozart really planted the seeds of wind chamber music," Johnson said. "Before him, wind instruments were mostly used outdoors as background music for social occasions. He was among the first composers to give them music of real emotional depth, and that helped establish wind chamber music as a serious concert genre."
WindSync has grown from a student ensemble at Rice University into one of the country's leading touring chamber groups.
"The group formed at Rice in 2009 as a chamber music class project," Johnson said. "Little by little, what seemed like a pipe dream became a career, helped by some early competition wins. Seventeen years later, we're still touring together."
Festival Artistic Director Linda Chesis said the opening concert sets the tone for a season designed to offer audiences a wide range of musical styles.
"This season is filled with variety—something for everyone," Chesis said.
Following WindSync, the festival welcomes the Caroga Arts Ensemble on July 21, featuring the Casa String Quartet and jazz saxophonist Eddie Barbash. The Sebastians return on July 29 with a program of Italian Baroque virtuosity at Christ Episcopal Church. August brings performances by the brass quartet The Westerlies, bluegrass virtuoso Michael Cleveland and Flamekeeper, and concludes with the Ying Quartet, whose program includes Dvořák's "American" Quartet and a contemporary work by David Ludwig featuring Chesis herself.
The Cooperstown Summer Music Festival opens Wednesday, July 15, at 7 p.m. with WindSync at Fenimore Farm and Country Village in Cooperstown. Additional concerts continue through August 17 at venues including Fenimore Farm and Country Village and Christ Episcopal Church. For tickets, a complete schedule, and more information, visit the Cooperstown Summer Music Festival website at https://www.cooperstownmusicfest.org/.