With first year done, Philip Dukes is gaining your trust at the 2023 Savannah Music Festival

After a festival that brought people back together, Philip Dukes is ready for them to settle in with his program at the 2023 Savannah Music Festival.

Last year’s festival was Dukes’ first as the associate artistic director for the festival and he said he wanted to bring that continuity from what fans expected from his predecessor, Daniel Hope. So after bringing them together in 2022, Dukes wants to build off of that and provide a program that contains some of the “heavyweights of chamber music.”

“I wanted to really build solidly on that first year so that was a really strong foundation going forward,” he said. “And then, again, factor in some new artists (with) one or two pieces that perhaps either we haven't heard for a while, or we haven't heard before.”

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Familiar names like Mozart, Beethoven, Brahms and Mahler stand out to even casual classical music fans, but Dukes says others like Ernő Dohnányi and Rebecca Clarke should catch people checking their Spotify for new chamber pieces to enjoy.

A piece by Dohnányi will appear in the third program, titled “Dohnányi’s Delight,” where a piano quartet by Mahler followed by a quintet by Brahms will lead into his Sextet in C Major, which Dukes refers to as a “musical romp.”

“Yeah, it's possibly one of the most outrageous pieces of music that I've played in that particular era,” he said. “There are no boundaries as to what he does in terms of outrageous harmonies. It's just unrestricted romance. It's a very clever piece. It's not always the case. When you have a piece which is great to play (and) it's good to listen to. Sometimes there’s a piece that is great to listen to, but not actually that much fun to play. I'm sure this one you'll see the joy (and) the passion that the players have.”

Dukes mentions that he’s most excited to see how the audience reacts to the ending, which he says is the composer (and the chamber group) playing with audience expectations as the piece goes along.

“Even if the audience doesn't know it previously, they are absolutely swept along by that piece.”

Joining the finale line-up is a piece by composer Rebecca Clarke, who’s piece “Dumka” will lead the final program followed by Clarinet Quintet in A Major, K.581, by Mozart and Piano Quartet No. 1 in G Minor by Brahms. Born in the U.K., Clarke emigrated to the U.S., only working as a composer part-time while being a widely-lauded violinist for her time. “It’s a pity she didn’t write more,” Dukes said.

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“She wrote an excellent viola sonata, an excellent piano trio and a load of smaller pieces, quite a few of which feature the viola and this (piece) is for solo violin.”

Overall, Dukes hopes the four programs for “Philip Dukes & Friends” gets people back in the spirit of attending concerts and taking in the wide variety of classical music on display at this year’s festival.

“We can really bask in some fabulous music-making without restriction or worry. And that's kind of what I wanted this year to be, I want people to go, ‘wow, we really are back.’ There’s no restriction.” he said.

“ I want people to trust me. They had 16 years with Daniel Hope. They trusted him when he perhaps program something a little bit more left field because he'd given them such a fantastic diet of amazing experiences over so many years and could afford to… This year is about consolidating on last year but also in the bigger picture allowing me to be there and hopefully they say, ‘Okay, we really trust this guy.’”

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Dukes’ programs start on Sunday, March 26 with “Philip Dukes & Friends I: Schubertiade” at Trinity United Methodist Church. Tickets cost $52.

The following concerts are at the same location and cost the same on Wednesday, March 29; Saturday, April 1; and Tuesday, April 4. Find more information at savannahmusicfestival.org.

This article originally appeared on Savannah Morning News: 2023 Savannah Music Festival: Philip Dukes & Friends chamber series