Concert & Event Schedule

Program and artist roster for all concerts and events are subject to change.

Winter

Burns Night

Saturday, January 25, 6pm

Bass Hall ~ Peterborough, NH

Sonja Tengblad, soprano
Esther Ning Yau, piano

A "Burns Night" inspired evening of music and revelry!

Join us for passed hors devours, a seated concert, poetry and performance, and scotch tasting.

Our program features songs of devotion, nostalgia, and fiery passion, with texts by Robert Burns in colorful and diverse settings by Robert Schumann, and Maurice Ravel, as well as a rarely heard song by Arthur Sullivan (of Gilbert and Sullivan fame) and iconic New Hampshire composers Amy Beach and Edward MacDowell. The program also includes settings of Burns' poetry by Roger Quilter and Edna Rosalind Park.

Celebrated soprano Sonja Tengblad, our featured singer, has been hailed as "radiant" by Opera Magazine and praised for her "crystalline tone and graceful musicality" by the Boston Globe. Sonja is a member of the Grammy-winning choir Conspirare and performs with many of Boston's most illustrious ensembles, including Blue Heron and the Lorelei Ensemble. She is joined by pianist and consummate chamber musician Esther Ning Yau, who is on faculty at the Longy School of Music and New England Conservatory, and is described as "one of our premier local collaborative pianists" by the Boston Musical Intelligencer.

Schedule:

6:00pm - Arrival, Champagne & Charcuterie
6:30pm - Greeting, Blessing, Passed Appetizers, First Scotch Tasting
7:00pm - Poetry Reading & Musical Performance
7:30pm - Second Scotch Tasting, Parade of Haggis
7:40pm - Third Scotch Tasting & Toasts
7:45pm - Desserts
8:00pm - Departure

General and Members tickets include performances, food, and wine.

General $75

Members $65

Scotch Tasting $50

Sonja Tengblad, soprano

Described as “radiant” by Opera Magazine, recent highlights for soprano Sonja DuToit Tengblad include Shostakovich Symphony No. 14 with A Far Cry, Mahler’s 2nd Symphony with the Boston Philharmonic, Barber’s Knoxville: Summer of 1915 with the Boston Landmarks Orchestra; Monteverdi’s L’incoronazione di Poppea (Drusilla, Fortuna) and Il ritorno d’Ulisse in patria (La Fortuna, Giunone; Grammy-nominated recording with Linn Records), Vivaldi’s Juditha triumphans (Abra and Ozias), and Mozart’s Die Zauberflöte (First Lady) with Boston Baroque; Bach’s St. John Passion and Purcell’s Fairy Queen (2nd Fairy, Juno) and Dido and Aeneas (2nd Woman)with the Handel and Haydn Society; Francesca Caccini's La liberazione di Ruggiero with the Boston Early Music Festival; guest appearances with the Boston Gay Men’s Chorus and Minnesota’s Bach Roots Festival; and her Carnegie Hall and Lincoln Center debuts, both with the New York City Chamber Orchestra. She was awarded 2nd place in the 2014 American Prize competition’s art song and oratorio division.

A champion of new music, Ms. Tengblad co-curated Modern Dickinson, a touring program featuring all 21st century settings of Emily Dickinson’s poetry that was named the #3 Best Arts Event in Austin, Texas 2015 and nominated for four Austin Critics Table Awards. She has premiered and recorded two works with the Boston Modern Orchestra Project, and in 2015 premiered Shirish Korde’s Questions for the Moon with members of the Silk Road Ensemble. A highlight for Ms. Tengblad was appearing in a concert celebrating the 80th birthday of composer Dominic Argento (in attendance) for which the Minnesota Star Tribune reported her to have given “the most affective performance of the evening”. In 2017 she co-founded the soprano/percussion duo Beat Song who will be featured in April 2023 with Celebrity Series.

Ms. Tengblad performs with the Lorelei Ensemble, Blue Heron, and the Grammy-winning ensemble Conspirare and their national tours of Craig Johnson’s Considering Matthew Shepard. Upcoming highlights include a national tour of Julia Wolfe’s Her Storywith the Lorelei Ensemble (co-commissioned by Nashville Symphony, Chicago Symphony, San Francisco Symphony, Boston Symphony, and National Symphony orchestras), as well as co-curated climate-focused programs with Calliope’s Call, Boston’s premiere art song organization, and the Metropolitan Chorale.

In 2019, Ms. Tengblad founded Beyond Artists, a coalition of artists that pledge a portion of their concert fees to organizations they care about. With every performance she supports the Eden Reforestation Project, Singers Of This Age, and Braver Angels, an institution that cultivates effective bipartisan conversation. She is the founder and coordinator of Mothers Out Front East Boston and the producer of Marc Hoffeditz’ “Mr. Twister and the Tale of Tornado Alley”, a touring children’s opera project promoting STEM concepts and climate change solutions to communities. She teaches at Wellesley College and Harvard University through the Holden Voice Program.

Esther Ning Yau, piano

Esther Ning Yau is an active and versatile pianist based in the New England region. Known for her work in chamber music, Esther’s expertise extends to the realms of solo piano, orchestral piano and even other keyboard instruments such as harpsichord and celesta. Esther has been featured in concerts at Jordan Hall, Emmanuel Music Chamber Series, Harvard Musical Association Concert Series, Harvard-Epworth Concert Series, Isabella Stewart Gardner Museum Concert Series, Longy SeptemberFest, WCRB Live at Copley, Newport Music Festival and Bar Harbor Music Festival.

Esther has also appeared in numerous concert venues further afield, including Merkin Concert Hall in New York, Museum of Arts in Puerto Rico, Giovanni Arvedi Auditorium in Cremona, Esplanade Recital Studio in Singapore, National Concert Hall in Taipei and Government House in her hometown Hong Kong.

An adventurous musician, Esther has performed many young composers’ works (such as Garrett Byrnes’ Concerto for Piano and Chamber Orchestra and Derek Bermel’s Tied Shifts for Flute, Clarinet, Violin, Cello, Piano and Percussion), in addition to the standard repertoire. In recent years, Esther has been programming complete cycles of works. To date, she has successfully performed cycles of Beethoven’s piano trios, violin sonatas and cello sonatas. The upcoming season will feature cycles of Schumann’s piano trios, violin sonatas and cello-piano works and Brahms' complete sonatas for piano and violin.

Esther is a faculty member of Longy School of Music of Bard College and was faculty member at New England Conservatory's Preparatory and Continuing Education departments and member of the New England Conservatory Alumni Council. She is the chair of the Bay State Piano Contest in Massachusetts and on the Board of the Massachusetts Music Teachers' Association. In the summer, she also teaches at the Cremona International Music Academy in Italy. She holds a double Master’s Degree in Piano Performance and Collaborative Piano from New England Conservatory, where she studied with Patricia Zander and Irma Vallecillo. Honors received include fellowships from International Institute of Vocal Arts in Italy, UCLA Song Festival, Aspen Music Festival, Music Academy of the West and Yellow Barn Music Festival.