Festival I: Homecoming

English composer Arnold Bax had an intense love of Ireland, and his otherworldly Elegiac Trio is a tribute to the tragic aftermath of the 1916 Easter Uprising. Disco-Toccata is a musical “adrenaline pill” by one of today’s most acclaimed French composers, and a dazzling lead-in to a set of works for solo guitar, the mellifluous Nadiya (“rivers” in Hindi), and Saint-Saëns’ charming Fantaisie. The program closes with the festive humor and colorful pyrotechnics of Weber’s beloved Clarinet Quintet.