Small and charming: Such could be said of the southeastern Minnesota city of Winona. Ensconced amid tall bluffs lining the Mississippi River Valley, it's an antique college town that gets considerably smaller in the summer.
Winona's Minnesota Beethoven Festival draws some of the hottest artists in the genre
Featured performers include Joshua Bell and the Academy of St. Martin in the Fields, Jasmine Choi, Sphinx Virtuosi, Johannes Moser and more.
June 23, 2023 at 11:00AM
The description also fits Winona's Minnesota Beethoven Festival, which annually attracts some magnificent musicians to the little city by the river. Unlike such massive summer music hubs as Colorado's Aspen Music Festival or Illinois' Ravinia Festival, it's more about having an intimate audience with remarkable instrumentalists.
The three-week festival starts Sunday with a concert by the Sphinx Virtuosi, a Detroit-based string orchestra made up of Black and Latinx musicians. Its 3 p.m. concert will feature music mostly by contemporary African American composers. The Page Theatre at St. Mary's University is the venue, (700 Terrace Heights, Winona), as it is for six of the festival's nine concerts.
Here's who else is coming to Winona this summer, with other venues noted. Everybody's performing at least one work by Beethoven, save for the Minnesota Orchestra's July 8 pops program.
Joshua Bell and the Academy of St. Martin in the Fields: Long regarded as the cream of the chamber orchestra crop, this London-based ensemble has reached new heights since superstar American violinist Bell became its music director in 2011. Bell's had a relationship with the festival since soon after its 2007 founding, but this is the first time he's brought his orchestra along. For this unsurprisingly sold-out concert, he'll solo on a Niccolo Paganini violin concerto and lead a Robert Schumann symphony from the concertmaster's seat. (7:30 p.m. Tue., Winona Middle School Auditorium, 1570 Homer Road, Winona)
Jasmine Choi: At a festival best known for performances by pianists, violinists and string quartets, South Korea's Choi will take her place alongside the legendary James Galway as the only flutists to play recitals there. Regarded as one of the great virtuosos on her instrument, Choi will lend her pure, transporting tones to French music, including works by Claude Debussy and Francis Poulenc. (3 p.m. July 2).
Johannes Moser: Speaking of elite soloists, Moser has emerged in recent years as one of the world's most brilliant cellists, twice receiving Instrumentalist of the Year from his native Germany's premier classical music awards, the Echo Klassik (now the Opus Klassik). Pianist Anna Polonsky will join him for a recital of sonatas by Beethoven, Sergei Prokofiev and Johannes Brahms. (7:30 p.m. July 6).
The Viano Quartet: If you're looking for young talent on the rise, check out the winners of Canada's 2019 Banff International String Quartet Competition. Currently in residence at Philadelphia's Curtis Institute of Music, the foursome will play music by Astor Piazzolla, Béla Bartók, Kevin Lau and Beethoven's daunting "Grosse Fuge" Quartet. (7:30 p.m. July 11.)
Anna Geniushene: Texas' quadrennial Van Cliburn International Piano Competition is America's elite contest for keyboardists. And this year's festival boasts recitals by not only 2022's bronze medalist (Dmytro Choni, 7:30 p.m. June 29), but the silver medalist, Moscow-born Geniushene, who will display her much heralded interpretive skills on two sonatas by Prokofiev and works by Maurice Ravel and Frédéric Chopin. (7:30 p.m. July 13).
Minnesota Orchestra: When the festival was founded in 2007, the first call that went out was to the Minnesota Orchestra, which has made almost annual appearances since. The tradition continues with a free patriotic pops program led by Chia-Hsuan Lin at Winona's lovely old Lake Park Bandshell, Lake Park Drive, Winona, (8 p.m. July 8) and a festival-capping concert featuring pianist Jon Kimura Parker soloing on Felix Mendelssohn's First Piano Concerto. Lee Mills also conducts a work by Clarice Assad before the orchestra wraps things up with Beethoven's Eighth Symphony. The festival's namesake called that one his favorite. (4 p.m. July 16, Winona Middle School Auditorium.)
Minnesota Beethoven Festival
When: June 25-July 16.
Where: Three venues in Winona.
Tickets: $25-$42.50, available at mnbeethovenfestival.org
Rob Hubbard is a Twin Cities classical music writer. Reach him at wordhub@yahoo.com.
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