“Everything is for the best in this best of all possible worlds,” asserts Dr. Pangloss in Leonard Bernstein’s Candide. You can hear how that turns out for his young charges when the Northern Lights Music Festival stages this delightful and wacky operetta in Aurora and Chisholm this weekend.
Minnesota is among the best of all possible worlds to be in for summer music festivals, with several other highlights this week. On Thursday, the Minnesota Beethoven Festival continues with piano favorite Awadagin Pratt performing a little Ludwig van Beethoven and a lot of Franz Liszt — including the Hungarian composer’s massive Piano Sonata in B minor — alongside Russian romantics and American innovators such as Philip Glass and Fred Hersch.
And when it comes to American innovators, few are more inventive and engaging than the Brooklyn Rider string quartet, performing a beautiful and eclectic program Saturday at Madeline Island Chamber Music.
As Dr. Pangloss once said:
“Once one dismisses
The rest of all possible worlds
One finds that this is
The best of all possible worlds!”
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This activity is made possible in part by the Minnesota Legacy Amendment‘s Arts & Cultural Heritage Fund.