Cactus Pear
Music Festival to
Celebrate 10th
Anniversary in Style

By RENEE DAVIS


Cactus Pear Music Festival celebrates its 10th anniversary season July 6-16 with FOUR exceptional programs and 19 world-class musicians from the United States and abroad.

Moving the San Antonio concerts downtown to Travis Park United Methodist Church, 230 E. Travis, artistic director Stephanie Sant’Ambrogio has relocated the festival to a venue that accommodates an audience of just over 800 while still maintaining the intimacy, acoustical brilliance and unimpeded sight lines that have been a hallmark of this festival’s summer chamber music experience.

Repertoire gems such as the Brahms and Schumann Piano Quintets, Shostakovich’s Piano Trio and  Dvorák’s “American” String Quartet will be performed for the first time in CPMF’s 10 years. Rare chamber music jewels, including Gismonti’s Aqua e Vinho and Piazzolla’s Bordel, both for guitar and violin, open the festival’s “Picked to Perfection … Guitar, Flute & Strings.”

The second program, “Bosom Buddies: Brahms & Friends,” includes works by Clara Schumann and Dvorák plus Brahms’ romantic Piano Quintet in F minor. Program three, “The Best Odds,” features two of the greatest piano trios — by Mozart and Shostakovich — along with Schumann’s stunning Piano Quintet. “Made in the USA” rounds out the festival and underscores why composers such as Dvorák, Prokofiev, Copland and Schoenfield are considered masters of their art.

Ms. Sant’Ambrogio, who is also the concertmaster of the San Antonio Symphony, has invited her usual complement of exceptional musician friends. Among those joining the two-week festival are Martin Chalifour, principal concertmaster of the Los Angeles Symphony; young Polish guitar phenomenon Lukasz Kuropaczewski; Canadian recording artist and violinist Nancy Dahn; and internationally renowned Taiwanese pianist Wei-Yi Yang.

In conjunction with Cactus Pear’s 10th anniversary celebration, CPMF collaborated with 11 area visual artists, giving them violins “in the white”, i.e., unvarnished violins of various sizes, to do with creatively what they envisioned. A stunning collection resulted. The bidding has begun — and the art auction can be found online at www.cpmf.us. Bids can also be placed at each concert up until Friday midnight, July 14, with winners announced at the last concert in San Antonio on Saturday,
July 15. All proceeds from this art auction will benefit CPMF’s educational programs.

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