VIOLINIST Midori will perform Sunday and Monday in Brunswick.
The Bowdoin International Music Festival’s Festival Fridays concert series opens this evening with a star-studded roster of musicians performing Bach’s Brandenburg Concerto No. 6, Debussy’s String Quartet in G Minor, and Tchaikovsky’s Violin Concerto.
The program begins with violist Paul Neubauer of the Chamber Music Society of Lincoln Center leading a faculty ensemble in Johann Sebastian Bach’s Brandenburg Concerto No. 6. Each of this season’s Festival Fridays concert will present one of Bach’s six Brandenburg concertos.
The Grammy Award-winning Ying Quartet, now in its 10th year in residence at the festival, follows with Debussy’s String Quartet in G Minor. Debussy’s quartet is considered a watershed in the history of chamber music in its impressionism and its cyclic nature, a remarkable departure from the rules of classical harmony.
In this evening’s finale, Ray Chen, the winner of the 2010 Queen Elisabeth International
Violin Competition, performs Tchaikovsky’s Violin Concerto in D Major, Op. 35. Lewis Kaplan conducts the orchestra.
The July 6 Festival Fridays concert will include Bach’s Brandenburg Concerto No. 1, featuring Liang Wang, oboe; Schubert’s Death and the Maiden string quartet, performed by the Ying Quartet; and Brahms’ String Sextet No. 1, led by David Coucheron, the principal violin of the Atlanta Symphony.
Festival Fridays concerts start at 7:30 p.m. in Brunswick High School’s Crooker Theater. Tickets cost $40.
Midori
The famed virtuoso violinist Midori visits the Bowdoin Festival for the first time on Sunday and Monday, performing a two-concert program of all of Bach’s Sonatas and Partitas for Solo Violin.
Midori, born in Osaka, Japan, in 1971, began studying the violin at a very early age. In 1982, Zubin Mehta invited her to be a guest soloist for the New York Philharmonic’s New Year’s Eve concert, on which occasion she received a standing ovation and the impetus to begin a major career.
In addition to annual recital tours around the world, Midori teaches at the University of Southern California and works with several foundations she established to support instrumental education, chamber music in rural communities, and youth orchestras.
The Midori concerts are at 4 p.m. Sunday and 7:30 p.m. Monday at Crooker Theater at Br unsw i ck High School. Tickets cost $40 for single performances or $60 for both concerts.
Wednesday Upbeat!
The Bowdoin Festival’s Wednesday Upbeat! concert on the Fourth of July features a number of virtuoso artists who are sure to bring their own personal fireworks to the stage. Liang Wang, the principal oboist of the New York Philharmonic, will open the show with Poulenc’s Trio for Oboe, Bassoon, and Piano, accompanied by Elinor Freer, piano, and one of the festival’s woodwind fellows on bassoon.
The teacher-student duo of Boris Slutsky and Eric Zuber — two virtuoso pianists — will follow with Rachmaninoff
’s Suite No. 2 for Two Pianos. Zuber is a 2012 member of the Bowdoin Virtuosi, a select group of prize-winning young artists invited to study and perform at the festival each summer.
After intermission, the stage belongs to composer-in- residence Derek Bermel, who is currently artist-in-residence at the Institute for Advanced Study, composer-inresidence with the Los Angeles Chamber Orchestra and creative adviser to the American Composers Orchestra at Carnegie Hall. His awards include the Rome Prize and Guggenheim and Fulbright Fellowships. Three of his works will be played — SchiZm (Emma Tahmiziàn, piano with the composer on clarinet); Four Etudes for Solo Violin (four student virtuosi); and Mulatash Stomp (Maria Schleuning, violin; Bermel, clarinet; and Tahmiziàn, piano).
Wednesday Upbeat! concerts kick off at 7:30 p.m. in Studzinski Recital Hall on the Bowdoin College campus. Tickets are $30.
Artists of Tomorrow
The Artists of Tomorrow concert series, featuring the festival’s top students, offers concerts on Sunday, Tuesday and Thursday at 7:30 p.m. 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.
Instrumental demonstrations
The Bowdoin Festival’s educational series, Bowdoin Festival Extra, continues this week with two instrumental demonstrations.
At 4 p.m. on Tuesday, Liang Wang will demonstrate oboe techniques in Gibson Hall, Room 101, on the Bowdoin College campus.
Luke Rinderknecht, the festival’s percussion teacher, will give a demonstration at 4 p.m. on Friday, July 6, in Gibson Hall, Room 10. The festival’s instrumental technique classes are held for the instruction of the festival’s composition and instrumental students, but are also open to public observers.
All Bowdoin Festival Extra events are free and open to the public.
For a complete listing of all festival events and ticket information, visit bowdoinfestival.org. For more information, call 725-3895.
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