At first glance, this year's Carolina Summer Music Festival would seem to be all over the map, enabling no discernible theme to emerge.
The festival, which will begin Saturday, will offer many options in terms of programming. Listeners can hear a cello sonata by Chopin along with the solo-piano fare for which he is best known. They can sample works for voice, piano and winds. And at Bernardin's Restaurant at the Zevely House, they can dine to American music arranged for Giannini Brass (renamed Festival Brass for the festival).
The festival's jazz musicians will pay tribute to Johnny Mercer, backing vocalist Martha Bassett in the process. There will be a showcase of the contemporary, genre-bending fare of JacobTV, a Dutch composer. A program called "Mozart and Merriment" will bring the festival to a close on Aug. 28, offering largely joke-filled music by Mozart, Haydn and Peter Schickele.
At second glance, there just might a theme.
"If I think of an overriding theme for this year, it's that we're inserting new things that have not been done in Winston-Salem," said Jacqui Carrasco, a violinist who serves as one of the festival's three artistic directors. The other directors are Joe Mount, a horn player, and Elizabeth Ransom, a flutist.
Carrasco and Mount explained recently that these new things will become evident on Saturday, when the jazz concert is performed in Gray Auditorium of the Old Salem Visitor Center, and on Aug. 20, when "Grab It!: the avant-pop of JacobTV" is presented at Krankies Coffee on Third Street.
The festival has featured a jazz concert every year since its founding in 2008. But this year, "Moon River: A Tribute to Johnny Mercer" will actually be the evening finale to something that the festival has not offered before, namely a jazz day. The day will begin with "Family Concert: Jazz 4 Kidz" in the morning and continue with an afternoon screening of a documentary called Johnny Mercer: The Dream's on Me.
Carrasco, who also teaches at Wake Forest University, said that she and others involved in the festival are very excited about the jazz concert, which will be narrated by her husband, David Ford, who is also an announcer on WFDD (88.5-FM).
"There are a lot of great classical concerts for kids in this area," Carrasco said. "I don't know that there's been a jazz concert for kids, outside of what might happen in the school system."
She said that "Jazz 4 Kidz" is designed to be an informative, entertaining and interactive introduction to jazz. Audience members can expect to scat, snap their fingers, and discover how even a popular children's song can take on a distinctly jazz flavor. They'll learn about such fundamental jazz concepts as improvisation, a walking bass and the role of a rhythm section.
As for the concert featuring music of JacobTV (short for Jacob Ter Veldhuis), this is designed to "introduce Winston-Salem to something new, something edgy in a really exciting way," Carrasco said.
JacobTV's music has been described as a lyrical and driving mix of jazz, rock and classical elements. And as some music at Krankies will reveal, JacobTV favors intertwining taped spoken words with musical gestures and phrases.
In presenting "Grab It!" at Krankies, the festival is hoping to fulfill two goals.
The first is to take better advantage of new-music specialists in our backyard, including Carrasco, saxophonist Taimur Sullivan, violinist Marjorie Bagley, violist Scott Rawls and cellist Alexander Ezerman.
"I have long felt there are so many good musicians in this area that have national and international careers specializing in this stuff," Carrasco said. "And yet they're not doing it here. They're going other places."
The second goal is to emulate a trend in larger cities, which are relying increasingly on clubs to introduce new chamber music, as opposed to more conventional concert halls.
"This could be one of the coolest concerts done in Winston-Salem all year," Mount said.
kkeuffel@wsjournal.com.
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