FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE

October 3, 2023

2023 Burning of Kingston Finale to Feature

Bard Conservatory Ensemble

Chamber Music Concert to Close Out Festival

KINGSTON, NY – Mayor Steven T. Noble is pleased to announce that the City of Kingston, with Ulster County, will host a special Burning of Kingston finale Chamber Music of the Revolutionary War Period presented by the Bard Conservatory Ensemble on Sunday, October 15, 2023, at 3:00pm at Old Dutch Church.

“We are thrilled to host the Bard Conservatory Ensemble for the first time as a part of the Burning of Kingston,” said Mayor Noble. “I want to thank Bard for providing us with such am exciting finale, the Old Dutch Church for the beautiful venue, and the planning committee, including the City of Kingston’s Director of Arts & Cultural Affairs Kitt Potter, for helping to including profound and moving new programming to the Burning of Kingston. I love that we can honor the past and view it through a new lens.”

The Bard Conservatory Ensemble will perform String Quartet Opus 1 number 3 in G minor, by Joseph Bologne ‘Chevalier Saint Georges’: String Quartet Opus 76 number 3 in C major, by Franz Joseph Haydn, and Piano Sonata in D major, K. 381, for four-hands by Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart, with a pre-concert talk featuring Classical Music Master Leslie Gerber.  

“The music of this program represents what might have been heard in informal music gatherings on either side of the Atlantic at the time of the American Revolution,” said Classical Music Master Leslie Gerber. “We even know that Thomas Jefferson, an accomplished musician, was particularly fond of the music of Haydn. Moreover, Joseph Bologne Chevalier de Sainte Georges was a revolutionary of his own type-- a descendant of a slave owner and an African slave who was a master musician and swordsman and who gained prominent recognition in an otherwise all-white classical world.”

Musicians from the Bard Conservatory Chamber Music Program String Quartet include Chris Nelson, violin; Joas Erasmus, violin; Marka Gustavsson, viola; Chris Van Zyl, cello. The Piano Duo comprises Yilin Li and Francis Huang.

“The Bard Conservatory musicians are delighted to participate in this year’s Burning of Kingston observances,” said Marka Gustavsson, Associate Director of the Bard Collect Conservatory of Music. “The opportunity to connect our concert program to significant historical events with local roots is very inspiring.”

The concert is free and open to the public. For the full schedule, visit www.burningofkingston.com.