Where to Listen This Summer

See my round-up of classical music attractions this summer at Washingtonian.com:

Ways to Get Your Summer Classical-Music Fix (Washingtonian, May 31):

Now that Memorial Day weekend has come and gone, we are officially in the summer classical-music season. After mid-June, many concert venues around town will be shuttered or mostly dark until September. There is still music to be heard, but it may mean taking a short (or long) drive to another destination. Here are some of the best options.

GO TO LORIN MAAZEL'S HOUSE
Lorin Maazel, the 81-year-old star conductor and former music director of the New York Philharmonic, has a country house in Rappahannock County. Several years ago, he built a concert hall in his house and started to host performances there, in a bucolic landscape complete with farm animals, a tranquil pond, and views of the Shenandoah mountains. In 2009, he made these semiregular performances at his property, Castleton Farms, into a summer festival, modeled after Glyndebourne in Great Britain. Rechristened the Castleton Festival the program features young instrumentalists and singers who are given training and a major résumé-building boost. Now in its third year, the event has drawn widespread media attention, including from international publications such as the Financial Times and Opernwelt. The opera productions this year include Puccini’s ever-popular La Bohème, a double-bill of Stravinsky’s A Soldier’s Tale and Falla’s Master Pedro’s Puppet Show, and a double-bill of Kurt Weill’s The Seven Deadly Sins and Ravel’s L’Enfant et les Sortilèges.

Other one-off performances include recitals with mezzo-soprano Denyce Graves, concerts by the Festival Orchestra, and a few performances in other venues, including the Hylton Performing Arts Center in Manassas, the Music Center at Strathmore (a Shakespeare extravaganza including recitations by Helen Mirren and Jeremy Irons on June 30), and the Inn at Little Washington. The festival runs June 25 through July 24. [Continue reading]