Premiere of Gregory W. Brown's Rural Hours
Ft. Tenor James Reese and Apple Hill String Quartet
Saturday, April 18
$18 Members / $20 General Admission
Doors 6:30 pm / Show 7pm
Seated / All Ages
Join us for the premiere of Gregory W. Brown's 'Rural Hours,' a multi-movement work for tenor and string quartet featuring texts by Susan Fenimore Cooper. Her amazing and under-appreciated nature diary (also titled 'Rural Hours') gives a delightful first-hand account of living in rural New York state in the mid 19th century. Her witty and insightful writings are here excerpted into a song-cycle for tenor. The composer will give a brief introduction to the piece, including background information on the author and the publication of her works.
About composer Gregory W. Brown:
Composer Gregory W. Brown’s works have been performed across the United States and Europe — most notably in Weill Hall at Carnegie Hall in New York City, Cadogan Hall in London, and the Kleine Zaal of the Concertgebouw in Amsterdam. His commissions for vocal ensemble New York Polyphony have been heard on American Public Media’s Performance Today, BBC Radio, Minnesota Public Radio, Kansas Public Radio, and Danish National Radio; his Missa Charles Darwin received its European debut in March 2013 at the Dinosaur Hall of Berlin’s Museum für Naturkunde.
Brown’s cantata — un/bodying/s — was premiered by two-time Grammy-winning Philadelphia choir The Crossing in June 2017 and released on Innova Records in 2018. This 35-minute cantata for 24 voices uses new texts by poet Todd Hearon and focuses on issues of displacement and ecology around the creation of the Quabbin Reservoir. Gramophone’s review of un/bodying/s remarked that “[Brown's] writing is lively and affecting, full of exhilarating lines amid pungent details.”
Voces Tallin’s recent disc A Black Birch in Winter features three pieces by Brown; This disc won the Annual Music Award of the Estonian Culture Endowment for 2019. Other recordings include releases on the Innova, Parma/Navona, Acis, and Albany labels.
For the 400th anniversary of the city’s founding, The Music Hall and Portsmouth (NH) Symphony Orchestra commissioned Brown to write a major cantata for orchestra, chorus, soprano soloist, and narrator. The piece, titled At This Point, utilized new texts by Todd Hearon and premiered in November 2023. Art song has become a big part of Brown’s output, with performances at Lyric Fest, Philadelphia Chamber Music Society, andCalliope’s Call.
About Apple Hill String Quartet:
Called “dashing and extraordinary” by The Strad Magazine, the Apple Hill String Quartet are the Artistic Directors and resident musicians at the Apple Hill Center for Chamber Music, winner of the CMAcclaim award from Chamber Music America. The Quartet serves as the Music Directors for Apple Hill’s Summer Chamber Music Workshop in Nelson, New Hampshire, known for cultivating connection among people of diverse backgrounds, cultures, and ages through its guiding philosophy, Playing for Peace.
During the regular concert season, the Quartet performs concerts and conducts educational residencies locally in New Hampshire, nationally in major U.S. cities, and internationally around the globe—in venues as diverse as the Curtis Institute of Music, Oberlin Conservatory, the Hopkins Center for the Arts at Dartmouth College, the University of Iowa String Quartet Residency Program, ChatterABQ, Burncoat High School in Worcester, Project STEP in Boston, Cedarcrest Center for Children with Disabilities in Keene, NH, the Ketermaya refugee camp outside Beirut, Lebanon, the Moscow Conservatory, the Conservatorio National de Musica in Lima, Peru, the Gitameit Music School in Yangon, Myanmar, and the Harrisville General Store.
The Quartet’s eclectic and dynamic concert programs reflect the diversity of Apple Hill: pieces amplifying new voices in classical music; compositions from places representing the Quartet’s global travels and the summer workshop community; and music from the historic canon and new commissions, especially from renowned alumni.
The Quartet has collaborated with members of the Brentano and Attacca String Quartets, Silk Road Ensemble, Dorian Wind Quintet, Warp Trio, and Hirsch-Pinkas Duo. Members of the Quartet have received degrees from Oberlin Conservatory, the Juilliard School, New England Conservatory of Music, Manhattan School of Music, Brandeis University, the Shepherd School of Music at Rice University, and a Fulbright Fellowship to London, England.
About James Reese:
With a voice the Washington Post calls “bright, agile, and full of heart,” James Reese delivers dynamic, thoughtful performances that facilitate intimate connections between audiences and the art. An emerging specialist in early repertoire and a champion of new works, Reese's rare ability to impart emotional immediacy on music from Bach to the present day has earned him overwhelming critical acclaim over the course of a burgeoning and multifaceted career.
He brings his "shining tenor and forthright delivery” (New York Classical Review) to a wide range of projects in the 2025-26 season. Of particular note: Messiah with the Kansas City and Baltimore Symphonies and St. Thomas Fifth Avenue (NYC); a featured recital with soprano Maya Kherani at Opera Lafayette; A Bach Celebration with Tafelmusik alongside soprano Myriam LeBlanc; a re-staging of Concert Theatre Works’ Markus Passion with storied actor Joseph Marcell; and a series of recitals with his collaborator, lutenist Brandon Acker. He also looks forward to collaborating with the Apple Hill String Quartet, recording and giving the world premiere of Gregory W. Brown’s Rural Hours.
3S Artspace is supported in part by grants from the New Hampshire Charitable Foundation and NHCF's Geoffrey E. Clark and Martha Fuller Clark Fund; and Little Bay Fund.
Thank you to our lead sponsors: AC Hotel Portsmouth, The Brook, The Kane Company/Tidemark, Katzman Contemporary Projects, MacEdge, Raka, Sheraton Portsmouth Harborside Hotel and Stirling Brandworks.
