Extraordinarily Beautiful

Joseph Summer's
Shakespeare
Concerts Series -
heard by HOWARD SMITH

'... immediately expressive.'

Joseph Summer's The Shakespeare Concert Series - 1 Shakespeare's Memory

Joseph Summer's series of Oxford Songs began in 2003 with concerts in Massachusetts and the U S Virgin Islands. The Shakespeare Concerts has presented recitals of music inspired by the immortal Bard — from original English text settings by many British composers and settings in other translations, to purely instrumental pieces by Britten, Beethoven, Prokofiev and Korngold.

The mainstay of this series has been the music of Joseph Summer, with premieres of two dozen of his sixty-odd Oxford Songs for one or more voices and various ensembles, as well as non-vocal pieces such as the ballet Dance of the Mechanics for string quintet. A comparable disc, Shall I Compare Thee to a Summer's Day, presents works premiered during the third and fourth seasons, including several in collaboration with Boston-based string quartet QX...