RAY CHEN, above, and Paul Neubauer, at top, are two of the featured performers this week as the Bowdoin International Music Festival kicks off its 48th year.
Renowned performing artists and aspiring virtuosos will explore the music of two very different composers — Bach and Debussy — and the composers they influenced, in more than 80 concerts. From solo recitals and masterclasses to chamber concerts and orchestral performances, music lovers will be able to enjoy a wealth of traditional and contemporary classical music offerings.
The festival season kicks off in earnest on Tuesday with the fifth annual Dine On gala dinner and live auction, with all proceeds benefiting the festival’s scholarship fund.
Auction items include dinner for 12 prepared in your home by chef Sam Hayward of Fore Street; behind-the-scenes events at Maine Public Radio, the New York Philharmonic, and the Metropolitan Opera; fine dining and wine-tasting events, and many other one-of-a-kind items. The event begins at 5:30 p.m. in Bowdoin College’s Moulton Union.
For tickets ($125), call Amy Waterman at 373-1440.
Wednesday Upbeat!
The festival’s regular concert season opens with the Wednesday Upbeat! concert at 7:30 p.m. Wednesday. Larry Combs, recently retired as the principal clarinetist of the Chicago Symphony Orchestra, performs Debussy’s Premiere Rhapsodie with pianist Peter Basquin.
Violist Paul Neubauer of the Chamber Music Society of Lincoln Center will team up with Ayano Ninomiya, the Ying Quartet’s first violinist, and Laura Lutzke, a long- time festival student and one of this year’s Bowdoin Virtuosi, to present Zoltan Kodály’s Serenade for Two Violins and Viola, Op. 12.
Ray Chen, the winner of the 2010 Queen Elisabeth International Violin Competition, the violin world’s highest award, will play several Schubert works for violin and piano with his collaborator, Julio Elizalde.
Wednesday Upbeat! concerts are held at 7:30 p.m. in Studzinski Recital Hall on the Bowdoin College campus. Tickets are $30.
Festival Fridays
The Bowdoin Festival’s premier Festival Fridays concert series opens on June 29 with chamber works by Bach and Debussy followed by Tchaikovsky’s Violin Concerto.
The program begins with violist Paul Neubauer of the Chamber Music Society of Lincoln Center leading a faculty ensemble of stellar musicians in Brandenburg Concerto No. 6, which features the viola as the instrument with the highest pitch.
The Grammy Award-winning Ying Quartet, in its 10th year in residence at the festival, follows with Debussy’s String Quartet in G Minor.
In the finale, Ray Chen performs Tchaikovsky’s Violin Concerto. Lewis Kaplan conducts the orchestra.
Festival Fridays concerts are held at 7:30 p.m. in Brunswick High School’s Crooker Theater. Tickets cost $40. Artists of Tomorrow In a new feature for 2012, the Artists of Tomorrow concert series will open this Monday afternoon with an all-solo piano recital at 2:30 p.m. Artists of Tomorrow concerts feature the festival’s extraordinary students.
The first evening concert in the series starts at 7:30 p.m. Thursday in Studzinski Recital Hall. Suggested donation is $10.
Student concert programs are announced the day of the concert. To receive email announcements of student concert programs, visit www.bowdoinfestival.org.
Lectures and demonstrations
The Bowdoin Festival’s educational series, Bowdoin Festival Extra, will open with four events in the first week.
At 3 p.m. Tuesday, Larry Combs will demonstrate clarinet techniques in Gibson Hall on the Bowdoin College campus. The festival’s instrumental technique classes are held for the instruction of the festival’s composition and instrumental students, but are also open to the public.
At 4 p.m. Tuesday, pianist Sharon Mann, a renowned Bach interpreter, will present a lecture-demonstration, “Bach for the Modern Keyboard,” in Studzinski Recital Hall.
Pianist Emma Tahmiziàn will give a demonstration on the piano at 2 p.m. Thursday in Gibson Hall.
Lewis Kaplan will lecture on “The Six Sonatas and Partitas for Solo Violin by J.S. Bach” in Studzinski Recital Hall at 4 p.m. Thursday. Kaplan is renowned for his analysis and discussion of the “Chaconne,” the final movement of Bach’s Partita No. 2. These works are to be performed by the renowned violinist Midori in a special two-concert performance on July 1 and 2.
All Bowdoin Festival Extra events are free and open to the public.
Performances take place daily from June 27 through Aug. 3. Festival Fridays concerts and the special Midori two-concert series are held in Crooker Theater at Brunswick High School. All other concerts, with the exception of community concerts and most Bowdoin Festival Extra events, are held in Studzinski Recital Hall. Ticketed concerts cost $30 to $40 for adults; many concerts, masterclasses, and other events throughout the season are free of charge.
For a complete listing of all festival events and ticket information, visit bowdoinfestival.org. For more information, call 725-3895.
BIMF THIS WEEK
Bowdoin International Music Festival public performances and classes this week include:
June 26
• Larry Combs: clarinet demonstration
Bowdoin Festival Extra, 3 p.m.; Room
101, Gibson Hall, Bowdoin College.
Free.
• Sharon Mann:
Bach for the Modern Keyboard
Bowdoin Festival Extra, 4 p.m.; Studzinski Recital Hall, Bowdoin College.
Free.
• Dine On, gala dinner and auction
5:30 p.m., Moulton Union, Bowdoin
College. Tickets: $125.
June 27
• Debussy, Kodály, Schubert
Wednesday Upbeat! concert, 7:30
p.m.; Studzinski Recital Hall, Bowdoin
College. Tickets: $30.
June 28
• Emma Tahmiziàn:
Piano demonstration
Bowdoin Festival Extra, 2 p.m.; Room
101, Gibson Hall, Bowdoin College.
Free.
• Lewis Kaplan: The Six Sonatas and
Partitas for Solo Violin by J. S. Bach
Bowdoin Festival Extra, 4 p.m.; Studzinski Recital Hall, Bowdoin College.
Free.
• Artists of Tomorrow concert
7:30 p.m.; Studzinski Recital Hall, Bowdoin College. Suggested: $10.
June 29
• Bach Brandenburg 6, Debussy
String Quartet, Tchaikovsky Violin
Concerto
Festival Fridays concert, 7:30 p.m.;
Crooker Theater, Brunswick High
School. Tickets: $40.
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