Aston Magna Festival

Aston Magna Festival

Five weekend evenings from early July to early August

The Aston Magna Festival has been held since the 1970s, continuing its tradition of bringing music of the baroque period and beyond to today's audiences using historically accurate instruments and performance practices. The oldest festival of its kind, this annual event in the Berkshires of Massachusetts is an outgrowth of the Aston Magna Foundation for Music and the Humanities, which was founded in 1972 by Lee Elman and harpsichordist Albert Fuller to study all aspects of music composed in the 17th and 18th centuries. Today the mission of the foundation is "to enrich the appreciation of music of the past and the understanding of the cultural, political, and social contexts in which it was composed and experienced."
For five consecutive weekends in July and August, a 21st-century audience can enjoy a musical experience closely resembling that of an earlier era as the works of Mozart, Monteverdi, the Bach family, Schubert, Beethoven, Corelli, Purcell, Haydn, and other composers are performed on period instruments. Concerts are held on Fridays at Bard College, with the same program presented on Saturdays at St. James Church in Great Barrington, Massachusetts. Programs have featured vocal and instrumental works ranging from Elizabethan and Italian madrigals and cantatas to piano sonatas, concertos, and symphonies.

CONTACTS:
Aston Magna Foundation for Music and the Humanities
323 Main St.
P.O. Box 28
Great Barrington, MA 01230
800-875-7156 or 416-528-3595
www.astonmagna.org

SOURCES:
MusFestAmer-1990, p. 73