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ROCKPORT, Mass. — Shall we begin a rousing summer festival with some Brahms lullabies? Why not? There’s a brand-new Hamburg Steinway concert grand that needs a test drive, and more opportunities to come given a concert endowment for other artists to try it.
In the meantime, this summer’s Rockport Chamber Music Festival did start with Jon Kimura Parker playing three gentle Brahms Op. 117 piano intermezzos. But there is nothing sleepy about the annual festival’s 2026 edition, the 45th on the North Shore of Boston’s coast, and Barry Shiffman’s ninth season as artistic director.
After Parker performed the Brahms, Shiffman (viola), cellists Mira Kardan and Colin Carr, and violinist Chee-Yun Kim offered Arensky’s String Quartet in A minor, composed for either two violins or two cellos, here in the double cello version. The dominance of the lower voices in this remarkable setting — two cellos, viola and violin — made this densely orchestrated work both recognizable as, but slightly adjacent to, the typical string quartet sound-world.
Parker then returned with Carr, Shiffman and Kim for Brahms’ Piano Quartet in C minor, standard instrumentation for a piano quartet but inventive in its own ways, performed with “let’s get this festival started” energy. The June 12 opening concert presented a snapshot of Rockport’s strengths: younger musicians mixing with established performers, programming the standard chamber repertory, but actively exploring its unusual corners. Plus we got to hear the new Steinway.
The weekend also included a glowing performance by pianist Simone Dinnerstein; a major, non-lullaby program of Schubert trios with David Finckel, Wu Han and Benjamin Beilman; and a host of other presentations, kicking off five weeks of music.
The festival nestles itself seasonally into Rockport Music’s eclectic year-round programming. But it’s chamber music that created it all, which still serves as a linchpin for fund-raising and brings sure-fire sell-outs to the Shalin Liu Performance Center.
Shiffman doesn’t have to work too hard to convince anyone to come. Decades of music-making have built an enthusiastic audience, which fills the hall for morning programs, afternoon masterclasses, and evening concerts alike. The performance center, built for chamber music, draws praise from performers of all instruments. There’s a tradition of bringing marquee artists — Yo-Yo Ma, Joshua Bell, Jeremy Denk, Garrick Ohlsson, and for this year’s summer gala, Yuja Wang — to the stage. And there is the new Steinway, which moves the American Steinway to an upstairs performance space. It can seem an embarrassment of chamber music riches.
The festival began in the early 1980s, conceived by soprano Lila Deis and pianist David Alpher. First performances were in an art association’s converted barn, with the lack of comfort that implies. After a few decades of great music and perspiring audiences, the festival built its own home in 2010, the 330-seat Shalin Liu Performance Center, designed not only with air conditioning but also with outstanding acoustics and a backstage window looking over the harbor. Pianist David Deveau spearheaded that initiative as artistic director, and Shiffman replaced Deveau upon his retirement in 2018.
With the new hall came year-round programming and a jolt of new genres — not an easy transition. Rockport Music survived that, as well as the pandemic, and now offers more than 150 programs annually. Maintaining the festival as the centerpiece, but also bringing new audiences and alternating genres, has become the primary focus for president and CEO Suzanne Wilson.
“The foundation of the entire organization is the festival,” she said, “and we’re cultivating from that what Barry has built up.” About 30 percent of the programming is classical, the remainder distributed among some 15 other genres (jazz, pop, blues, film among them), she said, adding that every performance taps into “our iconic hall, personal experience that resonates with everyone, artists in different stages of their careers.”
Dinnerstein’s June 13 program was a calling card of the pianist’s own interests, including Bach, Philip Lasser, and, for a stunningly long encore, Philip Glass. She played sequences: Lasser’s variations on a Bach chorale; Bach’s three-voice Sinfonias; Rameau’s Gavotte with six doubles. “Theme and variations seem like a family to me,” she said from the stage, “sharing the same DNA.” It was family with variety: Lasser’s angular extrapolations on “Nimm von uns, Herr, du treuer Gott”; Bach’s intertwined figures; Glass’ gradually developing revelations.
Finckel and Han returned to Rockport with violinist Beilman, programming the two late Schubert trios, D. 898 and D. 929. The music was enriched by experienced collaboration, reflecting equally Han’s Romantic flair, Finckel’s almost stately energy, and Beilman’s facile virtuosity.
A pair of Saturday morning sonata recitals began with a survey of cello duos, cellist Mira Kardan and pianist Micah Yui shifting from introspective (Beethoven No. 3) to lyrical (Dvořák’s shadowy Silent Woods), and then switching to comically virtuosic (Castelnuovo-Tedesco’s Figaro arrangement).
Democracy thrives with the conductor-free string ensemble A Far Cry, frequent festival guests who performed on June 19. The Criers’ concert repertoire gets curated and then led by rotating members; violinist Jesse Irons anchored this lean version of Mozart’s Clarinet Concerto. Two dozen Criers surrounded soloist Anthony McGill as he performed — impressive stage management.
Conductorless does not mean rudderless. With no baton to follow, McGill’s eyes never left Irons, who stood and led the ensemble in countless distinct gestures. With McGill enveloped by his concerto mates, the typical soloist-ensemble opposition mostly disappeared. Balances went loony, but the idiosyncrasies brought familiar music alive with unexpected sparkle.
Festival musicians commonly explore unusual repertoire. When permanent ensembles come to explore their core repertoire, as the Brentano Quartet did with early Haydn and early Beethoven on June 18, performances seem more sensitively informed and shaped.
Haydn Op. 20, No. 4, and Beethoven Op. 18, No. 1, have similarities that mean little. Both quartets wrap themselves around Affettuoso second movements: in Haydn’s case, equality presides, each voice calmly distinct and each player listening attentively.
But Beethoven’s “Affettuoso” is tragically ironic: His second movement strives for symphonic drama, depicting one of the starkest moments in literature or music — the tomb scene, when Juliet finds Romeo’s body. The Brentano read the movement with intensity; the shocking beginning of the following scherzo sounded like an affront.
Such appreciations only come from expert and confident playing. It was more of the same when pianist Jonathan Biss joined the Brentano for Dvořák’s Quintet in A minor, and when Biss teamed for another engaging sonata recital (all-Mozart) with Brentano violinist Mark Steinberg, on June 20.
The Rockport Chamber Music Festival runs officially through July 12. Violinist Augustin Hadelich performs June 28. Joshua Bell joins soprano Larisa Martínez July 2, then plays Schumann with cellist Steven Isserlis and pianist Jeremy Denk July 5. Poiesis Quartet, winner of the 2025’s Banff competition, performs June 27, and previous competitor quartets Terra and Balourdet return July 9. Four additional programs in August serve as festival encores, including recitals by unrelated Hamelins (four-hands, with Marc-André Hamelin and Charles Richard-Hamelin) and Jean-Yves Thibaudet. For further information, go here.
