The 2019 Tucson Winter Chamber Music Festival wraps up on Sunday, March 10, with a program that includes Kevin Putsβ Oboe Concerto arranged for saxophone.
Across the plaza from Leo Rich Theatre downtown, Arizona Opera is also focusing on Puts, mounting his Pulitzer Prize-winning opera βSilent Nightβ at Tucson Music Hall.
Apparently Tucson canβt get enough of the Missouri-born, Michigan-raised composer, whose βAir for Cello and Pianoβ is on the program for the festivalβs concert Friday, March 8.
The 26th annual winter festival, which kicked off last weekend, wraps up on Sunday with saxophonist Amy Dickson doing the heavy lifting on the Puts work. This was Dicksonβs first Tucson festival.
Each year for the past 26, Arizona Friends of Chamber Music has hosted the festival, which brings together nearly a dozen chamber musicians and ensembles from around the globe for five concerts and master classes over eight days. The festival has a national reputation driven largely by its programming and its audience-supported commissioning campaign that has produced nearly 70 new works since the first in 1997.
The Escher Quartet will perform the world premiere of the latest commission, Chris Rogersonβs String Quartet No. 4 written for the Escher, on Sunday.