Mount Vernon Music presents “From Sorrow to Joy: Musical Messages” on Saturday, May 24, at Daphne Prairie in Mount Vernon. Guests are invited to enjoy the smell and touch of clean prairie breezes on 900 never-plowed acres of an ecosystem that once covered the Great Plains. Far from traffic and stress, enjoy a meal of barbecue with all the trimmings, and experience Mount Vernon Music’s final program of their 19th season.
“From Sorrow to Joy: Musical Messages” takes the audience from Dmitri Shostakovich’s eighth string quartet, dedicated “to the victims of fascism and war,” to a virtuoso duo about testing one’s limits on the ski slope, to musical portraits of some of America’s most beautiful shoreline.
Performing are Ivan Petruzziello, clarinet; Mark Miller and Andres Bravo, violins; Ute Miller, viola; and Laura Ospina, cello.
The “Messages” come from a variety of composers.
Swedish cellist and composer Svante Henryson’s Off Pist is a cool virtuoso duo for clarinet and cello, all about testing limits, the way one might use up all of the allowed slope and more in Alpine skiing.
Sally Beamish’s Opus California is a musical journal of impressions from this English violist and composer’s time in Santa Cruz County, California at the Cabrillo Festival.
Samuel Coleridge-Taylor’ Clarinet Quintet is rightly considered a masterpiece from this young English composer with an incredible legacy.
Dmitri Shostakovich’s String Quartet No. 8 was written in just three days. The music is the composer’s powerfully personal response to the terror of life in Stalinist Russia.
Jesse Montgomery’s Strum is an exuberant celebration of American folk and dance idioms from this violinist and composer whom Performance Today named its 2025 Classical Woman of the Year.
Daphne Prairie is located at 4020 FM 1896. Early arrivers to the evening can take part in a prairie excursion hayride from the barn at 5 p.m. A barbecue meal starts at 6 p.m. and the concert begins at 6:30 p.m. The hayride, full meal, and concert are all included in the ticket price and Mount Vernon Music is grateful for donations in any amount to support their mission to provide and develop the appreciation for high-quality performance of live music in East Texas. Discount tickets are available for members, college students, and children. Get TICKETS and more information on www.mountvernonmusic.com,
