Cymerman and Edberg open summer music festival Wednesday

Pianist Claude Cymerman and cellist Eric Edberg (both DePauw music professors) open the ninth season of the Greencastle Summer Music Festival at 7:30 p.m. Wednesday, May 29 in the sanctuary of Gobin Memorial United Methodist Church.

Admission is free. The concerts are funded by donations.

"The Greencastle Summer Music Festival is not just about music," said Edberg, the festival organizer. "It's also about community and friendship. Our motto is 'friends making music for friends.' The concerts are a time to be with our friends and meet new people. We keep the format informal, and talk with the audience about why we love the music we are playing."

Wednesday's concert celebrates Cymerman and Edberg's 25 years of musical friendship, the friendship between the great Russian composer Igor Stravinsky and the cellist Gregor Piatigorsky, and the 100th anniversary of Stravinsky's masterpiece "The Rite of Spring."

"Claude has been developing his extraordinary solo-piano transcription of the 'Rite of Spring' for 30 years," Edberg explains. "When he pointed out that May 29 is the 100th anniversary of the controversial premier of one of the most popular works of 20th-century music we agreed he had to perform it on our opening concert."

Edberg and Cymerman will also play Stravinsky's "Suite Italienne," a cello-piano arrangement of movements from Stravinsky's ballet "Pulcinella," in which he rewrote music by a variety of Baroque-era composers. The great Russian cellist Gregor Piatigorsky loved the music and convinced his friend Stravinsky to work with him on arranging a version for cello and piano.

The concert opens with a three-movement Divertimento by Haydn, which Piatigorsky transcribed for cello and piano. "I thought it would be fun to do a piece arranged by Piatigorsky, a piece by Stravinsky, and then a piece Piatigorsky and Stravinsky created together," Edberg says.

Upcoming concerts include:

June 5: Composed and Not Compositions and improvisations performed by Eric Edberg (cello), Heather Sloan (percussion) Jaclyn Wappel (harp), and George Wolfe (saxophone)

June 12: Deep and Simple Folk singers Joe Peters and Linda Hicks are joined by Allison Edberg (violin) and Eric Edberg (cello) to explore connections between classical and folk music.

June 19: Winter in the Summer Bass-baritone Cody Medina and pianist Tony Weinstein perform Schubert's great song cycle Die Winterreise (The Winter's Journey)

June 26: Pianist Taka Kigawa Called an "extraordinary pianist" by the New York Times and "stylish and fearless" by The New Yorker, he regularly sells out venues in New York, and brings his dynamic artistry to Greencastle.

July 3: Amazing Teenagers Young virtuoso cellists Braden McConnell and Gabriel Martens, students at the IU String Academy, share a recital.

July 10: Composer-pianist Ezra Donner and soprano Claire DiVizio perform a concert of French and American songs and arias from the 19th, 20th, and 21st Centuries. Featuring works by Debussy, Poulenc, Chausson, Messiaen, Satie, Massenet, Copland, Barber, Ives, Bolcom, and more.

July 17: Pianist Eugenio Urrutia-Borlando performs the Bach Goldberg Variations

July 24: Soprano Amy Elaine Hayes, tenor Steven Linville, and pianist Amanda Hopson

July 31: Bad Boys of the Baroque Ensemble Voltaire violinist Allison Edberg, cellist/gambist Christine Kyprianides, and harpsichordist Thomas Gerber perfom a lighthearted spin through the music of Baroque composers whose lives were touched by anything from questionable to illegal activity.

August 7: TBA

August 14: Pianist May Phang

August 21: Flutist Akal Dev Sharonne and cellist Eric Edberg Akal Dev started a chamber music series in New York that inspired Eric to start the festival here. We end the season by sharing this musical friendship.