Students Offered Free Concert Tickets

Westchester parents who want to introduce their children to the pleasures of live classical music can now do so for free. Friends of Music Concerts, Inc., a non-profit organization that has been bringing the best in chamber music to Westchester County for 60 years, now offers free tickets for students under the age of 18. Young artists are often part of the Friends of Music lineup, a fact that should be especially appealing to students.

Friends of Music will present three concerts in the fall and three in the spring of 2015. The fall schedule includes:

The Brentano String Quartet, making a welcome return to the Friends of Music stage on Saturday, September 27, 2014 with a program that includes Mozart's Quintet for Strings in B-flat Major; and Mendelssohn's Quintet for Strings in B-flat Major. In 2012 the Quartet's recording of Beethoven's late quartet, Op. 131, was the basis of the soundtrack for the movie "The Late Quartet," starring Phillip Seymour Hoffman, Christopher Walken, and Catherine Keener.

Violinist Aleksey Semenenko performing on Saturday, October 18. The young Ukranian musician, a first prize winner of the 2012 Young Concert Artists International Auditions in New York and recipient of Friends' fifth Performance Award, will perform with piano collaborator Ina Firsoza. By the end of 2014, Semenenko will have made debuts in New York, Washington, and Boston. As a member of the Stolyansky Quartet, which he founded, he has performed in Russia, Ukraine, France, Malta, and Switzerland.

On Saturday, November 1, 2014, French pianist, Lise de la Salle performing works by Brahms, Debussy, and Ravel. In just a few years, through concerts and recordings, de la Salle has established a reputation as one of today's most exciting young artists. Her 2005 Bach/Liszt recording was selected as Recording of the Month by Grammaphone Magazine; her 2008 recording of Liszt's, Prokoviev's and Shostakovich's final concertos was similarly honored.

All three performances will be held at the Kusel Auditorium at Sleepy Hollow High School, 210 North Broadway (Route 9) in Sleepy Hollow beginning at 8pm. Parking is free.

For adults, subscriptions for the six-concert series are $120 each; single tickets to individual concerts are $30 each. Ticket order forms may be downloaded from www.friendsofmusicconcerts.org and then mailed with a check to Friends of Music Concerts, P.O. Box 675, Millwood, NY 10546. More information about Friends of Music Concerts may be obtained from the web site or by calling 914-861-5080.