By Patricia Roy

The Stone Park Music Festival returns on Sept. 9, at 3:30 p.m. with a program of classical music featuring superb professional musicians from the metropolitan Boston area who are also recognized nationally.

Pianist and festival founder Grace Soonjoo Moon was eager to serve communities in the area through music, starting up the free-admission festival just last year.

“As a musician, I have seen how music touches people’s hearts and improves their lives in various aspects. I hope people can become happy and heal through the SPMF,” Moon said.

She described the outdoor festival’s early days as “baby steps,” but expressed the hope that it will continue to grow “just like the Central Park music festival in New York and contribute to enriching the culture of the Boston Metrowest area.”

Moon herself will open the concert with Sonata no. 1 from Water Music featuring movements, Water Dance in e flat minor, Winter Storm Rain Drops in a minor, and Tranquil Waves in G Major.

She will also accompany clarinetist Robert Patterson in performing Mozart’s Clarinet Concerto in A Major, K. 622. 

Patterson is Assistant Professor of Clarinet at Boston University’s School of Music, founder of the online program The Clarinet Sessions and Acting Principal Clarinet of the Modesto Symphony Orchestra. He is also on the faculty for the Curtis Institute of Music’s Mentor Network and a coach with the Boston Youth Symphony Orchestra. He has been a guest instructor at the Curtis Institute and at Rice University’s Shepherd School of Music. Additionally, he has performed with the Baltimore and Louisville Orchestras and played internationally in North and South America, Europe and Asia.

In the second portion of the program, pianist Constantine Finehouse will present two works by Johannes Brahms – Acht Klavierstucke, Op. 76 (Capriccio in F sharp minor and Capriccio in C sharp minor) and Sechs Klavierstucke, Op. 118.

Finehouse has performed extensively in the United States and abroad, including Salzburg, Trieste, London, Ghent, Moscow, St. Petersburg and Odessa. His 2009 solo release, “Backwards Glance,” interweaves works by Brahms and Richard Beaudoin. “The Bolcom Project”, a collaborative work yielded a CD along with a national tour with concerts in Boston, New York, Denver, Santa Barbara, Spokane and at Yale University.

During recent concert seasons Finehouse has performed at the Mozarteum (Salzburg), Miaskovsky Hall (Moscow Conservatory), Merkin Recital Hall, Weill Recital Hall (Carnegie Hall) and Jordan Hall (Boston), as well as at Harvard, Yale, and Emory universities, and St. Vincent’s and Elmira colleges, among others. With degrees from Juilliard and Yale, Finehouse teaches at New England Conservatory, and serves as Visiting Artist/Faculty at Westmont College, CA.

Susanna Ogata on violin and Andrus Madsen on harpsichord will play Sonata Representativa by Heinrich I.F. Biber in the third portion of the program. This Baroque period piece will delight youngsters with its sections that imitate a nightingale, cuckoo, frog, cock and hen, quail and a cat, followed by the Musketeer’s March and finale.

The pair will also present Sonata no. 3 in d minor, Op. 3 by composer Antonio Vivaldi. 

Ogata has appeared as chamber musician and soloist with the Handel and Haydn Society, where she serves as Assistant Concertmaster, as well as with the Bach Ensemble, Sarasa, Boston Early Music Festival, Newton Baroque, Ashmont Bach Project, and Upper Valley Baroque. Solo appearances for this season include performances of Beethoven’s Violin Concerto with the Connecticut Early Music Festival and the Reading Symphony Orchestra and baroque concertos with the Ashmont Bach Project and Upper Valley Baroque. 

Madsen is an active performer on the organ, harpsichord clavichord and fortepiano.  He resides in Wayland, and is the Minister of Music at Second Church in Newton. He is the founding director of Newton Baroque and also plays with Exsultemus. He spearheaded a project combining the forces of Newton Baroque and Exsultemus to perform the entire Harmonischer Gottesdienst cantata cycle of Georg Phillip Telemann during the year of 2011.   

Madsen is also known for his eloquent Baroque style improvisation. 

The Stone Park Music Festival is sponsored by the Town of Ashland BAA grant, Centre Music House, Falcetti Pianos and Sc