I’ve been having health issues in recent months; thus the few-and-far-between postings and absence of reviews over the summer. I’m especially sorry to have missed the Richmond Chamber Players’ Interlude concerts this month, which I’m told were experiences to savor.
I hope to be up and running – or at least reasonably mobile – in time for the new season.
Diana Cohen, concertmaster of the Kalamazoo (MI) Symphony and one of several violinists sharing the concertmaster’s post in the Iris Orchestra of Memphis, 
will join the Richmond Symphony as its new concertmaster when its 2011-12 season commences in September.
Cohen also has served as concertmaster of the Charleston (SC) Symphony, American Repertory Orchestra and Red (an orchestra), and as principal second violin of the New York String Orchestra. She has performed with the Orpheus Chamber Orchestra and International Sejong Soloists.
She is a member of the piano trio Trio Terzetto, and has played at a number of chamber-music festivals, including the Marlboro, Aspen and Taos festivals.
The violinist is a graduate of the Cleveland Institute of Music. Her father, Franklin Cohen, is principal clarinetist of the Cleveland Orchestra. Her late mother, Lynette Diers Cohen, was a noted bassoonist, and her brother, Alexander, is a timpanist.
Cohen’s stand-mate also will be a new face in Richmond. The symphony appointed violinist Jeanine Wynton, a Yale University alumna most recently playing in the Grant Park Orchestra in Chicago, as its assistant concertmaster earlier in the summer.
The Richmond Chamber Players’ Interlude 2011, this year’s edition of the popular and long-running late-summer chamber-music series, opens on Aug. 7 with 
a program of Mozart, Haydn and Beethoven.
On the following three Sundays in August, the soundscape shifts mostly onto less familiar terrain, with works by Bela Bartók, Louis Spohr, Jean Françaix, Leo Smit, Erwin Schulhoff, William Grant Still, Gareth Farr and the Richmond-based Allan Blank. (Schubert’s “Trout” Quintet, to be played on Aug. 21, is the sole 19th-century warhorse on the program schedule.)
The Chamber Players, directed by pianist John Walter, are composed of present and former members of the Richmond Symphony: violinists Catherine Cary and Susy Yim, violist Stephen Schmidt, cellist Neal Cary, flutist Mary Boodell, oboist Gustav Highstein, clarinetist David Niethamer, bassoonist Jonathan Friedman, French horn player Rachel Velvikis and a harpist to be announced.
Performances will begin at 3 p.m. at Bon Air Presbyterian Church, 9201 W. Huguenot Road.
Series tickets are $64 for adults and $56 for seniors and students. Single tickets are $18 for adults and $16 for seniors and students. Admission is free for those 18 and younger.
For more information or to reserve tickets, call (804) 272-7514, ext. 312.
Interlude 2011 dates and programs:
* Aug. 7 – Haydn: String Quartet in E flat major, Op. 76, No. 6; Mozart: Oboe Quartet in F major, K. 370; Mozart: Adagio and Fugue, K. 546, for string quartet; Beethoven: Piano Trio in C minor, Op. 1, No. 3.
* Aug. 14 – Leo Smit: Trio for flute, viola and harp; Allan Blank: Trio for clarinet, cello and piano; Bartók: String Quartet No. 1.
* Aug. 21 – Schubert: String Trio in B flat major, D. 471; Spohr: Quintet in C minor, Op. 52, for piano and winds; Schubert: Piano Quintet in A major, D. 667 (“Trout”).
* Aug. 28 – Still: “Miniatures” for flute, oboe and piano; Farr: “Kembang Suling, three musical snapshots of Asia;” Schulhoff: “Five Pieces for String Quartet;” Françaix: “L’Heure du Berger.”
A Richmond date has been added to this year’s Castleton Festival: A concert program of excerpts from The Gershwins’ “Porgy and Bess” and Bizet’s “Carmen,” conducted by Lorin 
Maazel and featuring mezzo-soprano Denyce Graves.
The performance will be at 7:30 p.m. July 22 at the Carpenter Theatre of Richmond CenterStage, Sixth and Grace streets.
The festival is staged each summer by Lorin and Deitlinde Turban Maazel at Castleton Farms, their estate in Rappahannock County. The Maazels bring young professional singers and instrumentalists to Castleton for an intensive month of rehearsals and performances of music theater and concert repertory. This year’s festival also has featured performances in Manassas, Washington, VA, and Strathmore in North Bethesda, MD.
The July 22 concert, the festival’s first Richmond venture, is presented in partnership with Richmond CenterStage and the Richmond Symphony. Maazel will conduct the Castleton Festival Orchestra; singers, in addition to Graves, include bass-baritone Patrick Blackwell, soprano Reyna Carguill, baritone John Fulton and tenor Chauncey Packer.
Tickets are $20-$40, with $10 discount tickets offered for seniors 55 and older, students, active-duty military and veterans, and police, fire and emergency service personnel. Tickets may be purchased at the Carpenter Theatre box office or via ETix at (800) 514-3849 or http://www.etix.com/
The Richmond Symphony has exceeded its goal of raising $5 million in endowment funds in its “Fanfare – Funding the Power of Music” campaign.
By the conclusion of the five-year campaign on July 
31, the symphony expects to have received contributions and pledges of more than $5.6 million. “It is a major accomplishment for the organization . . . particularly in this economic climate,” said David Fisk, the orchestra’s executive director.
The endowment, overseen by the Richmond Symphony Foundation, is expected to reach $12 million in 2012, said Bucci Zeugner, incoming treasurer of the foundation.
Endowment earnings currently cover about 10 percent of the orchestra’s operating budget. Long-term, Fisk said, earnings from the enlarged endowment should cover about 15 percent of operating costs.
Sing-along “Messiahs” at Christmastime have been around for decades; lately, community choruses have been venturing further into audience-participation performances of other choral classics. The Richmond Choral Society joins their ranks this month with “Summersings” of the Requiems of John Rutter and Gabriel Fauré.
The Rutter will be performed on June 21 with the Choral Society’s artistic director, Markus Compton, directing and pianist Keith Tan accompanying. On June 28, Erin R. Freeman, associate conductor of the Richmond Symphony and director of the Richmond Symphony Chorus, will lead the Fauré, with Compton accompanying on piano.
Both performances begin at 7:30 p.m. at St. Mark’s Episcopal Church, 520 N. Boulevard. Doors open at 6:45 p.m. Admission is $10, with scores available for rent at $2.
For more information, call (804) 353-9582, or visit http://www.richmondchoralsociety.org/
The Takács Quartet, one of the world’s premier string quartets, and Dawn Upshaw, the acclaimed American soprano and contemporary music proponent, head the list of classical artists 
performing in the 2011-12 Modlin Arts season of the University of Richmond’s Modlin Arts Center.
The coming season’s attractions also include Stile Antico, a widely praised early music vocal ensemble from Britain; the veteran American pianist Garrick Ohlsson; pianist Christopher O’Riley and cellist Matt Haimovitz, two leading proponents of classical performance in untraditional formats and spaces; and the American pianist and composer Stephen Prutsman, performing with the Shanghai Quartet.
The contemporary music sextet eighth blackbird will return for its eighth season in residence at UR with two programs, 
including several premieres. Other new-music attractions include “Rappahannock County,” a Civil War-themed theatrical song cycle by composer Ricky Ian Gordon and librettist Mark Campbell, commissioned by Virginia Opera and the Modlin Center (among others), being reprised at UR after its premiere this spring in Norfolk at the Virginia Arts Festival; Upshaw, with the Australian Chamber Orchestra, performing “Winter Morning Walks,” a song cycle by the jazz composer-bandleader Maria Schneider; the premiere of Prutsman’s Piano Quintet in his performance with the Shanghai; and the 11th annual edition of UR’s Third Practice Electroacoustic Music Festival.
Non-classical music attractions include appearances by three of the greats of 1960s folk and folk-rock – Joan 
Baez, Arlo Guthrie and Roger McGuinn, former leader of The Byrds; singer-songwriter Josh Ritter; acoustic and string-band music from banjoist Béla Fleck, the Red Clay Ramblers, the Carolina Chocolate Drops and The Grascals; jazz from singer (and former Richmonder) René Marie, singer-instrumentalist Esperanza Spalding, singer Gretchen Parlato, the Afro-flamenco artist Buika, Chucho Valdés and the Afro-Cuban Messengers; the gypsy jazz group Hot Club of San Francisco; and the salsa ensemble La Excelensia.
The coming Modlin season also will feature modern-dance performances by Pilobolus, River North Dance Chicago, the Moscow Festival Ballet in “Swan Lake,” Cirque Mechanics in “Boom Town,” Celtic Nights in “Journey of Hope,” Jump Rhythm Jazz Project and the Doug Varone Dance Company and Shen Wei Dance Arts; the flamenco dance troupe Compañia Flamenca José Porcel; comedy by Paula Poundstone; puppetry by Basil Twist; and theatrical performances by the Indian Ink Theatre Company, National Acrobats of the People’s Republic of China, Compagnia T.P.O. in “Farfalle (Butterflies)” and the Aquila Theatre Company in Oscar Wilde’s “The Importance of Being Earnest.”
Subscription-ticket packages for four or more events are available at discount prices through July 8. Single tickets will go on sale about six weeks before performance dates.
For details, call the Modlin Center box office at (804) 289-8980 or visit http://www.modlin.richmond.edu/
Modlin Arts 2011-12 artists and programs, with adult single-ticket prices:
Sept. 7 (7:30 p.m., Camp Concert Hall) – La Excelencia in “Salsa Dura” ($20).
Sept. 13-15 (7:30 p.m., Jepson Theatre) – “Rappahannock County” ($45).
Sept. 19 (7:30 p.m., Camp Concert Hall) – Carolina Chocolate Drops ($32).
Sept. 20-21 (7:30 p.m., Jepson Theatre) – Indian Ink Theatre Company in “The Guru of Chai” ($32).
Sept. 27-28 (7:30 p.m., Jepson Theatre) – Pilobolus ($40).
Oct. 1 (11 a.m. and 2 p.m., Camp Concert Hall) – Justin Roberts and the Not Ready for Naptime Players in Family Arts Day performances and activities from 12:30 to 4 p.m. ($20).
Oct. 3 (7:30 p.m., Camp Concert Hall) – Christopher O’Riley, piano, and Matt Haimovitz, cello. “Shuffle.Play.Listen,” works by Bach, Gabrieli, Chopin, Stravinsky, Piazzolla, Radiohead, others ($36).
Oct. 5 (7:30 p.m., Camp Concert Hall) – eighth blackbird in “Sounds of a New Century.” Fabian Svensson: “Two Sides” for sextet; Timo Andres: “Crashing through Fences” for flute and percussion; Dan Visconti: “Fractured Jams” for clarinet, violin, cello and piano; Mayke Nas: “digital#2” for piano four-hands; Amy Kirsten: “Pirouette” for solo flute (premiere); Bruno Montovani: Chamber Concerto No. 2 for sextet (U.S. premiere) ($20).
Oct. 12 (7:30 p.m., Jepson Theatre) – Esperanza Spalding in “Chamber Music Society” ($45).
Oct. 14 (7:30 p.m., Jepson Theatre) – Doug Varone Dance Company in “Chapters from a Broken Novel” ($36).
Oct. 20 (7:30 p.m., Jepson Theatre) – Compañia Flamenca José Porcel in “Gypsy Fire” ($38).
Oct. 26 (7:30 p.m., Camp Concert Hall) – Red Clay Ramblers ($32).
Nov. 2-3 (7:30 p.m., Cousins Studio Theatre) – Basil Twist ($20).
Nov. 12 (7:30 p.m., Camp Concert Hall) – Josh Ritter ($34).
Nov. 14 (7:30 p.m., Camp Concert Hall) – Takács Quartet. Janáček: Quartet No. 1 (“Kreutzer Sonata”); Britten: Quartet No. 1; Ravel: Quartet in F major ($38).
Nov. 15 (7:30 p.m., Carpenter Theatre, Richmond CenterStage) – National Acrobats of the People’s Republic of China ($28-$36).
Nov. 18 (7:30 p.m., Camp Concert Hall) – Joan Baez ($50).
Nov. 29 (7:30 p.m., Jepson Theatre) – Jump Rhythm Jazz Project ($34).
Dec. 1 (7:30 p.m., Camp Concert Hall) – Gretchen Parlato ($34).
Dec. 14 (7:30 p.m., Camp Concert Hall) – Stile Antico in “Puer natus est” ($38).
Jan. 13 (7:30 p.m., Camp Concert Hall) – The Grascals ($32).
Jan. 18 (7:30 p.m., Camp Concert Hall) – Garrick Ohlsson, piano. Bach-Liszt: Fantasy and Fugue in G minor; Liszt: Sonata in B minor; Liszt: “Jeux d’eaux à la villa d’este” ($40).
Jan. 20-21 (7:30 p.m., Jepson Theatre) – River North Dance Chicago ($40).
Jan. 26 (7:30 p.m., Jepson Theatre) – Aquila Theatre Company in “The Importance of Being Earnest” ($36).
Jan. 29 (3 p.m., Camp Concert Hall) – Hot Club of San Francisco in “Cinema Vivant” ($32).
Feb. 1 (7:30 p.m., Camp Concert Hall) – Chucho Valdés and the Afro-Cuban Messengers ($40).
Feb. 8 (7:30 p.m.) – René Marie in “Black Lace Freudian Slip Tour” ($34).
Feb. 12 (7:30 p.m., Camp Concert Hall) – Arlo Guthrie in “The Journey on Tour” ($40).
Feb. 15 (7:30 p.m., Camp Concert Hall) – Shanghai Quartet with Stephen Prutsman, piano. Mozart: Quartet in B flat major, K. 458 (“Hunt”); Prutsman: Piano Quintet (premiere); Brahms: Piano Quintet in F minor, Op. 34 ($34).
Feb. 22 (7:30 p.m., Carpenter Theatre, Richmond CenterStage) – “The All New Original Tribute to the Blues Brothers” ($30-$50).
Feb. 28-29 (7:30 p.m., Jepson Theatre) – Shen Wei Dance Arts ($40).
March 3 (2 and 7:30 p.m., Jepson Theatre) – Cirque Mechanics in “Boom Town” ($38).
March 11 (7:30 p.m., Jepson Theatre) – Moscow Festival Ballet in “Swan Lake” ($40).
March 14 (7:30 p.m., Camp Concert Hall) – eighth blackbird in “Less Is More.” David Lang: “these broken wings 3” for sextet; Alvin Lucier: “Fidelio Trio” for viola, cello and piano; Philippe Hurel: “…á mesure” for sextet; Morton Feldman: “Durations 1” for flute, violin, cello and piano; Matthias Pintscher: “Figura V/Assonanza” for solo cello; György Ligeti: “Etudes” for sextet ($20).
March 15 (7:30 p.m., Jepson Theatre) – Celtic Nights in “Journey of Hope” ($36).
March 21 (7:30 p.m., Camp Concert Hall) – Buika ($34).
March 24 (7:30 p.m., Camp Concert Hall) – Roger McGuinn ($36). Public workshop, 2 p.m. March 25.
April 17 (7:30 p.m., Carpenter Theatre, Richmond CenterStage) – Australian Chamber Orchestra with Dawn Upshaw, soprano. Shostakovich: “Polka and Elegy;” Grieg-Tognetti: String Quartet; Maria Schneider: “Winter Morning Walks;” other works TBA ($28-$36).
April 21 (7:30 p.m., Camp Concert Hall) – Paula Poundstone ($40).
April 22 (3 and 7:30 p.m., Camp Concert Hall) – Béla Fleck & The Original Flecktones ($36).
May 9 (7:30 p.m.), May 11 (7:30 p.m.), May 12 (11 a.m., 1 and 3 p.m., Cousins Studio Theatre) – Compagnia T.B.O. in “Farfalle (Butterflies”) ($20).
