VOM Music Festival announces 2018 season

Learn more about the three concerts at Green Music Center and summer festival at Hanna|

Valley of the Moon Music Festival (VMMF) founders Tanya Tomkins and Eric Zivian have announced the program for their fourth season, which kicks off this month with a return to Schroeder Hall at Sonoma State University. In addition to the three concerts at the Green Music Center, highlights this year include a presentation on the Berkeley Festival & Exhibition’s main stage in June and its annual festival in July at the Hanna Center Auditorium in Sonoma.

VMMF showcases an international roster of leaders within the field of historical performance practicing alongside emerging talents and young professionals coached in the festival’s Apprenticeship Program.

In addition to Tomkins on cello and Zivian on fortepiano, featured artists this year include Liana Bérubé, violin; Cynthia Black, viola; Elizabeth Blumenstock, violin; Owen Dalby, violin; Nikki Einfeld, soprano; Sadie Glass, natural horn; Eric Hoeprich, clarinet; Monica Huggett, violin; Kati Kyme, viola; Jeffrey LaDeur, fortepiano; Joseph Maile, violin; Catherine Manson, violin and viola; Carla Moore, violin; Nicholas Phan, tenor; Anna Presler, violin; Marc Schachman, oboe; William Skeen, cello; Kyle Stegall, tenor; and Kate van Orden, bassoon and lecturer.

The festival’s winter and spring concerts, from Jan. 27 to May 12, will feature a range of Classical and Romantic works from Mozart to Brahms, mixing masterworks of chamber music with more rarely performed pieces from the likes of Niels Gade and Johann Nepomuk Hummel.

VMMF’s summer season, July 15 to 29, however, is set to expand the organization’s historical focus, pushing into the modern era but with attention to historical performance practices.

“All the works will be performed on historic instruments, emphasizing the unbroken line that connects these very different composers’ styles,” said Zivian.

The Green Music Center series begins on Saturday, Jan. 27 with a concert featuring returning artist Catherine Manson on violin and viola. Manson will be joined by clarinetist and Festival Faculty Artist Eric Hoeprich, as well as Tomkins and Zivian, in a program including Schumann Fairy Tales for viola, clarinet and piano; works for clarinet and piano by Schumann and Gade; and the Brahms Piano Trio in C Major.

An encore of this program will take place the following Monday, Jan. 29 at 7:30 p.m.. at a house concert in Berkeley. Reservations are limited. A donation of $25 to $100 per person is suggested, and may be made online via a link at valleyofthemoonmusicfestival.org.

VMMF’s Green Music Center series resumes Saturday, March 31 with a trio of performers, Tomkins and Zivian joined by Festival Faculty Artist Monica Huggett on violin. They will play works by Mozart, Haydn, Beethoven and Hummel.

On Saturday, May 12, VMMF’s Green Music Center series comes to a close with a program dedicated to Franz Schubert’s legacy with songs by Robert Schumann, Schubert, as well as Schubert’s Piano Trio in b-flat. Joining Tomkins and Zivian on this date are tenor Kyle Stegall, returning for his third season, and making his debut with VMMF, violinist Joseph Maile.

The musicians of VMMF have been invited to take part in the 15th biennial Berkeley Festival & Exhibition. On Friday, June 9 at 8 p.m., they will perform “a typical 19th-century salon concert” titled “An Die Musik: the Narrative Power of Schubert and Schumann,” featuring Schubert’s “Quartettsatz,” “Lieder” by Schubert and Schumann and Schumann’s Piano Quintet.

Tickets are on sale online at gmc.sonoma.edu/VOTM or by phone at 866-955-6040. Each concert starts at 3 p.m.

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