Three out of four ain’t bad. In fact, it looks pretty good.
The Raritan River Music festival will continue this weekend, with its third concert (of four) held in historic venues in West-Central New Jersey. The Mohawk Trail Piano Trio will present “Musical Monuments: Masterpieces by Anton Arensky and Florence Price.”
Price, whose music is only now being revived in a big way, was the first Black woman to have a symphony played by a major orchestra (the Chicago Symphony in 1933). Arensky studied with Rimsky-Korsakov and taught Rachmaninoff, but his primary influence as a composer was Tchaikovsky.
Trios by these two composers should make for a lovely program. Chamber music by Arensky and Price will be performed by resident artists of western Massachusetts’ Mohawk Trail Concerts, at Old Greenwich Presbyterian Church in Stewartsville this Saturday at 7:30 p.m.
Next week, the series will conclude, with flutist Clare Hofmann and harmonica virtuoso Robert Bonfiglio of the Grand Canyon Music Festival. They’ll be joined by electric violist/composer Martha Mooke. Among the featured works will be “Serenade for the Grand Canyon” by Philadelphia-born Arnold Black, whose centennial it is this year.
The program will also include “Fairy Fantasy,” a new piece commissioned by Raritan River Music from venerable Cuban composer Leo Brouwer, performed by the Newman & Oltman Guitar Duo ; and a new work by Diné-American composer Raven Chacon, recipient of the 2022 Pulitzer Prize for Music.
That concert will take place on May 27 at 7:30 p.m. at Bethlehem Presbyterian Church in Pittstown.
For further details about either program, directions to the venues, and information about online streaming, visit raritanrivermusic.org.

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