Beethoven Cycle

Oskar Espina-Ruiz, Music Mountain artistic director, will give two more lectures/presentations in the tristate region in preparation for this summer’s staging of the Beethoven Cycle—six concerts featuring the 16 Beethoven quartets performed by the world-renowned Shanghai String Quartet.

The Beethoven cycle is widely considered to be the ultimate challenge for the string quartet and has not been performed in this region for decades.

Espina-Ruiz has created a free preview lecture/presentation about the cycle that will be presented at the Hotchkiss Library, 10 Upper Main Street, Sharon, on Saturday, March 24th at 4PM and the Pine Plains Free Library, 7775 South Main Street in Pine Plains on Friday, April 20th at 7PM.

The presentations are intended for all levels of music enthusiasts and will include short audio samples to describe how Beethoven’s 16 string quartets cover a groundbreaking transformation in music, both within the style of the composer himself, as well as within the process that paved the way from the Classical to the Romantic era in music.

Oskar Espina-Ruiz, Doctor of Musical Arts, has served as artistic director of Music Mountain since Fall 2016. He is an international concert clarinetist, teaches at the University of North Carolina School of the Arts and is artistic director of the Treetops Chamber Music Society while maintaining a busy concert schedule.

Tickets are free and seating is general admission.