The Lakes Area Music Festival will present two upcoming concerts featuring musicians and ensembles local to the lakes area and a quartet from Colorado.
A community showcase concert is scheduled at 2 p.m. Sunday, July 28, at Tornstrom Auditorium in Brainerd, featuring community vocal groups of the Legacy Chorale and Consensus Ensemble. Brian Stubbs is the founding member of Consensus and the Brainerd Senior High School vocal music director.
“I think LAMF makes a brighter future for my youth in that they see a future that includes music in a way that they never even knew was possible,” Stubbs stated in a news release.
The community showcase will feature current students and recent graduates of local schools, including Claire Gunsbury, BHS alumna and flute performance major at the University of Colorado-Boulder. Another recent alumnus of BHS, Joseph Loss, will perform a movement of Ferdinand David’s Trombone Concertino with Scott Lykins, the festival’s artistic and executive director, at the piano. The concert will celebrate “some of the many talented musicians who keep music alive in the lakes area all year-round,” Lykins stated.
The second concert will be 7:30 p.m. Wednesday at Tornstrom Auditorium, featuring the Altius Quartet. The quartet was named the inaugural ensemble of a new string quartet fellowship of the LAMF. The LAMF String Quartet Fellowship provides an emerging professional ensemble a paid summer of independent study and performances in central Minnesota, a news release stated. After an intensive rehearsal retreat period where the group builds their repertoire, they embark on a statewide performance tour while expanding their community engagement experience with local outreach and education events. The music festival also provides mentorship, access to marketing advisers, and professional audio and video recordings to propel the quartet to its next professional goals.
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The quartet performed in the festival’s annual Prelude Concert Series, which leads to the annual regular season of the festival, running Aug. 2-25 in Brainerd.
In the upcoming concert, Altius will perform works by Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart, Felix Mendelssohn and Leos Janáček.
The quartet, based in Boulder, Colo., deriving their name from the Olympic motto: Citius, Altius, Fortius, Latin for faster, higher, stronger, strives to communicate art to a more diverse audience through community engagement and innovative repertoire, a news release stated.
Altius has been awarded prizes at many internationally respected events, including the Schoenfeld International String Competition and the Fischoff National Chamber Music Competition. They maintain an active performance schedule with engagements at music festivals, series and universities throughout the United States, including Carnegie Hall, Chamber Music Cincinnati and the Aspen Music Festival.
Altius Quartet is deeply committed to outreach, often performing concerts and teaching master classes in public schools and alternative performing venues including jazz clubs, bars and homeless shelters, a news release stated.
In addition to their statewide concert tour, they have held a dozen interactive programs for underserved communities. Some highlights include providing music for a guided meditation class for victims of domestic abuse at the Mid-Minnesota Women’s Center, a series of concerts and talkbacks at the Crow Wing County Jail, musical storytelling at the Brainerd Public Library and a workshop with local youth at The Shop and PORT group homes.
The festival is an annual summer series attracting leading instrumental and vocal performers from around the world. Concerts are free of charge, with no tickets required. For more information visit www.lakesareamusic.org .
