MYSTIC — The Mystic Chamber Music Series returns this weekend with two concerts at two different churches and a collaboration with members of the famed American String Quartet.
On Friday, May 17, the musicians — Thomas Readett, cello; Sila Senturk, piano; Ramón Carrero-Martínez, viola; and Rubén Rengel, violin — will perform “Finding a Mentor,” a concert at Noank Baptist Church designed to mark the culmination of the chamber music group’s journey with their mentors, quartet members Laurie Carney and Peter Winograd, violin; Daniel Daniel Avshalomov, viola; and Wolfram Koessel, cello.
The concert, according to a release from the music series, invites audiences to immerse themselves in enchanting melodies performed by world-class musicians.
On Saturday, a concert titled “Generations” and again featuring members of the chamber music group and the American String Quartet, will take place at the Union Baptist Church and will feature “an evening filled with beautiful chamber music that shows how music can bridge generations and act as the universal language.”
The concert “will transport you to another world,” organizers say.
The concerts are being described as “once-in-a-lifetime concerts” as Avshalomov, the principal violist of the string quartet, plans to retire after the performances. Avshalomov plays a viola made by Andrea Amati in Cremona, Italy, in 1568.
“This will be his final concert and his viola is going to the Metropolitan Museum of Art, if the rumors are true! We are so lucky to have this in our own backyard,” one organizer said.
The Mystic Chamber Music Series was founded by Readett, a Mystic native who serves as artistic director of the organization.
In an interview earlier this year, Readett, a Mystic native who began playing cello at age 8 and grew up playing in the Thames Valley Youth Symphony in New London, said he has always dreamed about “bringing talented New York musicians home to Mystic to share their gift of music.”
The mission of the series is to “make the highest caliber of classical chamber music artists accessible to a wide variety of audiences in southeastern Connecticut,” he said.
