Voice of the Arts

The Blairsville Chamber Music Festival

Episode Summary

For the 3rd year in a row, Blairsville is showcasing classical music in its own Chamber Music Festival! Co-organizer of the festival, Avital Mazor, cellist Gabriel Martins, and pianist Sunmi Han, talk about the festival's program. The musical festival started during the pandemic, when Avi and his wife started organizing concerts in their neighborhood in Blairsville. Since then, they have expanded it every year! This year, there are three concerts across the area. On June 26th at the St. Peter's Episcopal Church, Sunmi, Gabriel, and others will preform Ravel's "Piano Trio" and Dvorak's "Piano Quintet". Sunmi talks about meeting Avi at Stony Brook University, and being invited to perform for the first time in Blairsville. Gabriel highlights his career as a cellist, and talks about meeting Avi through a friend of a friend. On June 27th at the Veterans Memorial Park Amphitheater, they will perform Vivaldi's "Four Seasons". The last concert, the Grand Finale, will be June 29th at the United Presbyterian Church. The show stopper pieces, Brahms "String Sextet No. 1" and Tchaikovsky's "Serenade for Strings", will close the festival. Lastly, Sunmi and Gabriel perform three pieces in the WQED-FM studio. Gabriel performs the "Prelude" for Bach's Cello Suite. Gabriel and Sunmi together perform Dvorak's "Song's my Mother Taught Me" and "Slovanic Dance No. 8". You can see the Blairsville Chamber Music Festival from June 26th to the 29th. Visit https://www.blairsvillecmf.com/ to learn more and find tickets.