Editor's picK: Chamber music

A feast for all the senses

Saturday, June 17, 6:00 p.m. Private country home in Bethel, NY; directions available upon registration. $60 per person; $15 for students under 18. 845/932-8527.

BETHEL, NY — Every year for the past 10 years, a private country home in Bethel has provided the backdrop for a highly select event: “Music in the Barn,” the Weekend of Chamber Music’s (WCM) annual June benefit. Billed as a chamber music concert, the evening in fact combines pleasures for a variety of senses: not only the audio delights of classical music played by world-class professionals, but the bucolic visual beauty of the rural setting and the sumptuous tastes of an al fresco banquet.

To protect the privacy of the patrons who host the event, the exact location of the concert is disclosed only to those who call to make advance reservations. But Linda Sokolowski, who has attended the event in previous years, describes a venue amidst “bountiful gardens” of “beautiful proportions, open on one side to the landscape and fresh air.”

The evening begins with an open-air banquet buffet served with wine and candlelight. The international cuisine includes gravlachs, a Finnish salmon dish, French cheeses, home-baked German bread, salads with fresh greens from the garden, and a special German cognac cake. The chamber music performance is served up with the dessert, against the backdrop of the setting sun.

Works by Mozart, Vivaldi, Scarlatti and Lourié are on the program, and the performers include WCM audience favorites harpsichordist Kenneth Hamrick and violinist Sunghae Anna Lim, as well as WCM’s founder flutist Judith Pearce. A special treat this year will be celebrated bassoonist Leonard Hindell, a 30-year veteran of the New York Philharmonic, who will join the WCM artists for this benefit performance.

Lois Burrill, another attendee of previous performances, describes the event as “a wonderful opportunity to see, up close, world-class musicians playing world-class music, and clearly having a ball doing it.” It even helps a good cause: proceeds support WCM’s coaching work with Sullivan County high school chamber music and band programs.