It is always a good day when Jon Deak shows up on your doorstep. This concert marks his triumphant return (indeed, his third visit!) to Newburyport and the first appearance at NCMF of his friend and collaborator, legendary Metropolitan opera soprano Lucy Shelton. The concert begins with Lucy performing Cathy Berberian’s tour-de-force for solo soprano with a score written not in musical notation but as a cartoon (the score will be projected so the audience can follow along). Also featured on the program is Haydn’s B Minor quartet. Papa Haydn was famous for his sunny disposition but this is an unusually dark and enigmatic work. As long as we are flipping traditional roles, Shostakovich, known a bit as the king of despair, has, with his first quartet in C Major, a work that is warm and even sunny at times.

We’ve also got four classic folk songs (including Simple Gifts) from the father of American music, Aaron Copland. Lastly, there’s a reprise of Deak’s The Jury, an NCMF commission that brought the house down in 2023, based on a biting poem by Rhina P. Espaillat. This piece couldn’t be anything other than the main course of this concert, and the magic and respect between Jon and Rhina is something that can’t be faked.