Vermont

Vermont is one of my favorite states, maybe partly because that's where my Mom grew up and so I have happy memories of visiting my grandfather there. It's also just so beautiful, especially in the fall!

Recently, we were able to go up and play a concert in my mom's hometown, Northfield, VT, and also perform for the students at her old high school. This was all organized by Tad Dana, a good friend who now runs the library at the high school. In fact that library was started by my grandmother, who was the librarian there for a number of years.

During our visit, we stayed with my Mom's best friend from childhood, Kati Dana. The night before our concert, we lived like real Vermonters, picking up fresh vegetables for dinner at the farm share across the street and cooking up a storm.

Here are the friendly goats who live on her property. I hope we can go back to Vermont soon!

Rubbing shoulders with movie stars!

Last week we played a benefit concert for Young Concert Artists, the wonderful organization that helped us launch our touring career when we were first starting out. The benefit was very graciously hosted by Luciana and Robert Duvall at their beautiful property in Virginia.

We played works by Mendelssohn, Paul Schoenfield, and Astor Piazzola - a Tango to honor Luciana who's from Argentina and is an expert at dancing the tango.

The concert took place in their "barn", a totally gorgeous building that certainly never housed any livestock (or not since a major renovation):

And we stayed overnight in their awesome guest house:

Talking with the Duvalls over lunch (we got to sit at their table!) we discovered that they met in Buenos Aires where they went tango dancing together at a local dance venue and later starred together in the movie, Assassination Tango. Robert's favorite restaurant in Vancouver is Kirin Mandarin where Donna had her wedding banquet! We also discovered that his food of choice is a good burger and that he has a great sense of humor. Luciana is very thoughtful and generous and threw a gorgeous party, overseeing all the decorations and arrangements herself. It was great to meet them and to celebrate YCA with such famous hosts!

Lake Effect

Even though Minnesota is the state that brags about having 10,000 lakes, I have to say that New York has a number of very beautiful lakes of its own. Our summer festival tour this year took us to some very beautiful examples including Lake Luzerne (near Saratoga) and Canandaigua Lake (in the Fingerlakes region). What could be better than waking up to the sound of water lapping at the shore or having the chance to take a quick swim before rehearsal? I'm sure that's why these festivals ended up in such picturesque summer destinations.

You can see we had many boating options and one evening in Canandaigua we fit in a short sailing trip on an impressive 27 foot sailboat with some friendly supporters of the festival. Thanks Steve, Gail and Eliana!

In Lake Luzerne our cell phone service got pretty spotty - it's the only place we've performed in since Emily got her iPhone where Verizon had service and AT&T didn't. And in order to catch the Verizon signal I had to walk out to the very end of the pier in this picture. That was fine during the day but at night with no streetlamps it felt a little precarious!

After our performance and masterclass in Lake Luzerne, we were asked for an unusual kind of autograph. One of the the faculty members asked us to sign the wall of his cabin! He'd started this tradition last year when George Crumb had been the festival's composer in residence.

Though we couldn't contribute anything nearly as cool as the "Mystic Chord", we did make our mark.

I hope that one day I can start a festival of my own in a beautiful summer spot. The Canandaigua LakeMusic Festival was started by Ed Klorman and Amy Barston, friends of ours from Juilliard, and they've built up a wonderful summer series in just five years, though it's clearly a lot of work!

Any ideas of a place that would be perfect for a new summer music festival?

Next Stop: Canandaigua, New York!

This weekend, we are headed for Canandaigua, NY. Canandaigua is a city located on the northern shore of the third largest Finger Lake in the state of New York. I hear it is pretty and charming, and I have no doubt this is true as my husband and I have spent time in recent summers at our friends' lake house in the area! This will be the trio's first appearance at the Canandaigua Lake Music Festival, currently celebrating its fifth anniversary season (as we celebrate our tenth!). The concert is on Sunday, August 23rd at 7:30pm with a pre-concert chat at 7:15pm. The program will be:

Mozart Trio in G Major, K. 564

Ravel Trio

Mendelssohn Trio in D Minor, Op. 49

In addition, we will be presenting a free family concert on Monday, August 24th at 10:30am. Bring your children!

Sunday, Aug. 23rd @ 7:30pm:

Zion Fellowship, 5188 Bristol Road, Canandaigua, NY

Monday, Aug. 24th @ 10:30am:

All Things Art, 65 S. Main Street, Canandaigua, NY

For more information and to purchase tickets, you can go here.

This is a great opportunity for a weekend getaway. See you there!

ORD

There's not much to like about Chicago's O'Hare airport, but I am a pretty big fan of this tunnel. Connect on United, and you're pretty much guaranteed to have to run through it.

Come Hear Us at Lake Luzerne!

Please join us for our next concert at Lake Luzerne, NY! We are in the process of updating our schedule on our website so please bear with us -- we promise we have upcoming concerts! In the meantime, let me invite you all to our next concert on Monday, July 13 at 8:00pm. We will be performing at the Performance Lodge at the Luzerne Chamber Music Festival in Lake Luzerne, NY, located in the beautiful Adirondack region of New York state. In addition, we will be conducting a master class for the young students of the Luzerne Music Center from 9am to 11am on Tuesday, July 14th.



Here are more details:

Monday, July 13th, 2009 at 8pm
Performance Lodge at Luzerne Music Center
203 Lake Tour Rd (1.4 miles off Route 9N)
Lake Luzerne, NY
1-800-874-3202

Mozart Trio in G Major, K. 564
Ravel Piano Trio
Dvorak Trio in f minor, Op. 65

Hope to see you there!

Town names

I suppose it was hard to come up with unique names for all the cities and towns in the United States. Probably that's why there are so many repeats of popular names - i.e. Manhattan, KS, Minneapolis, KS, Syracuse, KS, and El Dorado, KS. But we also discovered some creative town names in Kansas such as Liberal, KS, Ransom, KS, and my personal favorite: Peculiar, KS. I wonder what it's like there....?