Welcome to the New "Market Square Concerts Blog"

Greetings, friends of Market Square Concerts and friends of chamber music in general! Or friends of the Arts Scene in Harrisburg! Or maybe someone who's new to "all-of-the-above" and just checking things out!

This is something new. So let me give you an introduction.

I'm Dick Strawser, Market Square Concerts' kammerblogger, and you might be familiar with me (or at least my voice) from my 18-years' on-air involvement with classical music at WITF 89.5, the area's public radio station, or from my other blogs like my old station blog, Dr. Dick's Blog, or my personal blog, Thoughts on a Train.

I'll be posting about the up-coming concerts and related events for Market Square Concerts here, including a presentation I'll be making to the students at Harrisburg's Capital Area School of the Arts next week, preparing them for Matthew Bengtson's piano recital at Whitaker Center at 4pm on Sunday, January 25th. The students will also get to attend a special session with Matthew in which he'll talk about and play some of the music on that program. The major work he'll be playing is one of The Major Works -- the "Goldberg Variations" of Johann Sebastian Bach -- but there will also be several new works including a short piece by Elliott Carter written as a tribute to a friend of his who was turning 90 and a work written by Harrisburg-born composer Jeremy Gill as a tribute to Elliott Carter who turned 100 a month ago.

I'll be telling you more about that concert in a few days.

And looking ahead to February, Truman Bullard will be doing a presentation at CASA before the recital by violinist Maria Bachman, joined by pianist John Klibonoff, who'll be playing among other things the world premiere of a brand new violin sonata by Philip Glass, one of the major composers in the world today, a tribute to Lucy Miller Murray, Market Square Concert's founder and former director for the past 27 years.

We'll also be posting comments and reactions to the concerts here -- plus any late breaking news whether it's program changes or those dreaded winter-weather updates or whatever other current stuff we can bring you. Maybe I can even cajole Ellen Hughes into writing a little about her experience as MSC's new director, getting ready to prepare Summermusic 2009, looking ahead to the next season or hearing new artists she'd like to bring to Harrisburg.

So I hope you'll stop back and check it out -- better yet, put it on an RSS feed-of-choice or your Google Reader so you can be alerted when things are posted.

And I certainly hope you'll be attending the concerts!

There's nothing like a live performance to help connect you with music, whether its familiar or new to you, with the performers and the other people who are listening and experiencing it along with you, but also to all those years of heritage and experience behind the music, whether it was composed just last year or almost 300 years ago.

-- Dr. Dick