Midsummer’s Music Festival Resumes Aug. 23

Midsummer’s Music Festival resumes concerts Aug. 23 with the French Inflections program featuring three piano trios written by French composers.

Charles-Édouard Lefebvre’s Ballade unites flute, cello and piano in a fairly short piece that exemplifies the Romantic Movement. Maurice Ravel, who is best known for Boléro, wrote his Basque-inspired Piano Trio in A Minor in five weeks – rather than the typical five months – so that he could enlist in the Army for World War I. Édouard Lalo’s piece, Piano Trio No. 3, Op. 26, is among the first works considered as uniquely French-sounding instrumental music. Performances begin Aug. 23 with a sold-out home concert in Sturgeon Bay; concerts follow on: Aug. 24, 7 pm, Björklunden; Aug. 25, 3 pm, St. Luke’s Episcopal Church; and Aug. 31, 7 pm, Birch Creek.

As part of an ongoing and very popular music/poetry collaboration with Write On, Door County, poet Jitendra Suman will read a poem he has written in response to the music being performed at the Aug. 24 concert. Attendees can take a copy of Suman’s poem home with their program book.

The Aug. 25 concert has an optional dinner component for $75, where attendees can join Midsummer’s musicians for a meal at Chop following the concert. Advanced dinner/concert tickets are required. Seating is limited.

Midsummer’s pays tribute to the memory of John Wilson, Sr., at the Aug. 31 concert. Wilson was instrumental in introducing the music of Édouard Lalo to Midsummer’s repertoire.

Tickets are $29 for adults, $10 for students and free for youth 12 and under. For more information visit midsummersmusic.com.