Stillwater Music Festival: Pickin' on Beethoven

The sixth annual Stillwater Music Festival will be going back to its roots—focusing on the diverse, intimate world of the string quartet.

With transcendent works by Beethoven and Philip Glass as program pillars, the Stillwater Music Festival also will be premiering excerpts of a new Brooklyn Rider group composition and fresh arrangements of traditional tunes ranging from Brazil to Rajasthan.

This year’s festival is starts Friday, Aug. 28 and runs through Sept. 1—featuring two main concerts and outreach activities.

The festival opener on Aug. 28 is a co-presentation between the Stillwater Music Festival and Kate Nordstrum Projects at the Cedar Cultural Center in Minneapolis where the Brooklyn Rider group plans to explore the luminescent world of Philip Glass in depth.

The annual free family concert will happen at the on Aug. 30 on the roof of the library at sunset.

The Festival finale will go down Sept. 1 at the . This concert will present a different facet of the string quartet, centered in the emotionally complex world of late Beethoven.

“We've been wanting to play a late Beethoven quartet for years, and can't wait to share one of our first performances of this incredible music with you,” the Brooklyn Rider group touts on the festival website.

Alongside Beethoven will be the premiere of a new group composition by Brooklyn Rider—an early string quartet by Mozart, plus new arrangements of a Joao Gilberto tune and music of the Roma.