The Martha’s Vineyard Chamber Music concerts on Monday at the Whaling Church in Edgartown and at the Chilmark Community Center on Tuesday will feature Stephanie Chase and Joanne Kurkowicz, violins, violist Lila Brown, cellist Matthias Naegele and pianist Delores Stevens.
In celebration of Robert Schumann’s 200th anniversary, the ensemble will play Schumann’s Piano Quintet in E-flat, opus 44. Also on the program are Ludwig van Beethoven’s familiar String Trio in G, opus 9, #1, and Joaquin Turina’s Quator, opus 67.
There are many iconic Vineyard lifestyles available for the dreaming, but Kevin Keady is living what might be the most romantic of them all: he is a singer-songwriter (his band, the Cattle Drivers, has a cult following here) whose dayjob is a farmhand on Chappaquidick. Yes, really.
Dropping two octaves, world class opera singer Renée Fleming sings Oxygen, the anthem of Island troubadour Willy Mason, on a new album that is a collection of popular songs sung in a range that she describes as that of her talking voice.
Twelve years ago, Marsha Winsyrg staged a small-scale effort to help a small group of Zambian artisans make a profit from their work. While in Africa visiting her daughter, Ms. Winsyrg saw the effects of poverty and AIDS “wrecking the fabric of the whole culture.” Upon her return to the States, she hauled back the handmade crafts to sell on the Island. The proceeds would go back to the struggling artisans.
For a week during the holidays this winter, Michelle Jasny left the Island for a camp in the Catskills. Armed with her accordion, she joined some 300 people at KlezKamp, a weeklong retreat for klezmer musicians. Though she’d been playing for nearly a year, and also has a background in piano and guitar, Ms. Jasny was blown away by the intensity of the repertoire, and the music. “Some of this is very fast,” she said of the traditional Yiddish music. “We were playing like nine, 10 hours a day, so it was very intense.”
Genre-blending folkster Martin Sexton will play his only Vineyard concert this summer on Wednesday, August 4, at 7:30 p.m. at the waterfront East Chop Beach Club, to benefit, Friends of mvyradio.
Vineyard old boy Danny Kortchmar produced Mr. Sexton’s 1998 major label debut on Atlantic Records, The American. Mr. Sexton formed his own label shortly after, releasing many awardwinning records including the original live album, Solo, which won last year’s Independent Music Award for Best Live Performance Album.
World musician Krishna Das will perform on the Vineyard on Thursday, August 26 as part of his new Heart as Wide as the World tour. Krishna Das is the rock star of Kirtan, an ancient call-and-response spiritual practice that has roots in Indian traditions, including Buddhism, Hinduism and Sikhism. He will perform at the Union Chapel in Oak Bluffs from 7 to 10 p.m.
In Performance at the White House: A Celebration of Music From the Civil Rights Movement in honor of black history month will be live-streamed on Feb. 11 at 8 p.m. at the Martha’s Vineyard Hebrew Center, courtesy of the social action committee and the program committee.
Tisbury becomes Dublin on Wednesday night as Arts and Society — which organizes what is apparently the oldest continuous celebration of Bloomsday on the planet — presents its 32nd annual Bloomsday Celebration of Music and Drama based on the texts of James Joyce.
The program is on June 16, at 8 p.m. at Katharine Cornell Theatre in Vineyard Haven. All tickets are $15 and may be purchased at the door.
