Yellow Barn

2019-20 Artist Residencies

In 2008, Yellow Barn instituted its Artist Residencies, the first retreat program in the United States created specifically for professional, performing musicians of any kind. The purpose of the Artist Residencies is to further the art of the performance of classical music by providing an environment conducive to undistracted study, an exchange of ideas and opportunities for performance. Their content is defined by artists’ proposals and Yellow Barn’s artistic vision, and musicians have come to Yellow Barn to create new repertoire, to prepare for major performances, to explore new interpretations of important works, and to stage theatrical events.

Past Artist Residency projects

Artist Residency musicians and ensembles

Apply for an Artist Residency

Past event (2019)

The WholeHearted Musician

In this artist residency, career consultant, psychotherapist, and former concert cellist Dana Fonteneau will work with the Argus and Omer Quartets, facilitating a week-long intensive to explore all aspects of what is required for a fulfilling, successful, and sustainable career. The residency will be bookended by two performances showing how these “off stage” elements, when addressed effectively, make a difference in performance “on stage”. More

Residency Concert I

Monday, September 23 | 7:30pm
Next Stage, Putney, VT
Works by Bach, Beethoven, Brahms, Seo, and Webern

Residency Concert II

Monday, September 30 | 7:30pm
Next Stage, Putney, VT
Works by Bach, Beethoven, Brahms, Seo, and Webern
Past event (2019)

Lassus Quartett

Composer Morton Feldman writes,“Art is a crucial, dangerous operation we perform on ourselves. Unless we take a chance, we die in art.” That there is no in-between for the artist who wants to be “alive in art,” finds a contrapuntal lament in this reflection of Feldman’s, spoken in phrases punctuated by long pauses: "There’s an aspect of my attitude about being a composer that is like mourning. Say, for example, the death of art . . . something that has to do with, say, Schubert leaving me.” Morton Feldman’s String Quartet No.2, a work lasting six hours, and Schubert’s G Major string quartet will be the focus of the Lassus Quartet while at Yellow Barn. More

Residency Discussion

Monday, November 4 | 7:00pm
Antidote Books

Residency Concert

Tuesday, November 12 | 4:00pm
Michael S. Currier Center, The Putney School

Three Enigmas: Kern

Cellist Jay Campbell and pianist Conor Hanick return to Yellow Barn to explore the first “chapter” of a new work by composer Marcos Balter: Kern, my new 20-minute work for cello and prepared piano, is inspired by the graphic designing term “kerning”. It will be built around the concepts of clarification and obscurantism, and how they relate to the temporal and spatial organization of musical material. Eventually, Kern will become part of Three Enigmas, an hour-long tableaux comprised of three interconnected works. Incorporating hidden music quotations and systems, as well as extra-musical elements hidden within the fabric of the tableaux, the three sections point toward a single, larger-scale enigma. More

The Music Alliance Project

Pianist Chase Morrin and vocalist Cordelia Tapping, a duo whose lives are both rooted in jazz-based improvisation, and also deeply tied to classical music communities, have established an ensemble of ever-shifting membership that crosses the perceived boundaries that often separate jazz and classical idioms. Together with two Yellow Barn musicians, flutist Rosie Gallagher and cellist John Myerscough, this iteration of the Music Alliance Project will explore ways of embracing the commonalities between improvised, free-form music, and music that has been notated for performance. More

Residency Concert

Thursday, February 20 | 7:30pm

Duo-ING: Refractions

Violinist Ying Xue and pianist Qing Jiang return “home” to Yellow Barn to complete the work that they began during an artist residency last season, ultimately giving the premiere performance of a new program. They will again focus on sonatas of Bach and Ravel, juxtaposed with works written over the past decade by Tonia Ko, Eric Nathan, Sean Shepherd, and Daniel Temkin. More

Residency Concert

Sunday, February 23 | 7:30pm
Next Stage, Putney, VT

River Spirits: An abstract fable

In August of 2018, sopranos Mary Bonhag, Susan Botti, and Lucy Shelton gathered in Yellow Barn’s artist studios and began developing River Spirits, a new work and abstract fable by Ms. Botti. They now return with an ensemble of players from the Folger and 21st Century Consorts, and from Yellow Barn, to focus on the work’s musical foundation, and to begin conversations with set designer Leslie Taylor, as they consider its intended multi-media environment. More

Residency Concert

Sunday, April 19 | 7:30pm

Ultrafizz: Since 1500

Ultrafizz (Lucy Dhegrae, mezzo-soprano, and Nathaniel LaNasa, piano) comes to Yellow Barn to develop and premiere Since 1500, a musical program that connects the Medieval period to our own time through sonic, textural, and thematic elements. A cornerstone of this program will be a new work by Esin Gündüz that transforms Medieval alchemy into sound. It will receive its premiere in this artist residency performance. More

Residency Concert

Saturday, May 16 | 7:30pm
Next Stage, Putney, VT

Lydian String Quartet: “Versuch uber die Fuge”

To celebrate their 40th Anniversary season, the Lydian String Quartet is embarking on a project they call Beethoven 2020, eight programs that present Beethoven’s complete cycle of string quartets, contextualized with contemporary repertoire. They have chosen to focus on one of these programs during their Yellow Barn artist residency, juxtaposing Beethoven’s String Quartet in B-flat Major, Opus 130, with its original final movement, the Große Fuge, and Jörg Widmann’s Versuch über die Fuge (Attempt at the Fugue), Fifth String Quartet with Soprano. Joining the Lydian String Quartet for this residency will be soprano Tony Arnold. More