Emily Isaacson and musicians from the Portland Bach Experience.
Emily Isaacson senses a lot of pent-up excitement among her circle of peers. People are ready to start socializing again, safely.
As artistic director of the Portland Bach Experience, Isaacson is partnering with 20 area arts organizations and food and beverage providers to present “A Midsummer Night’s Dream,” an all-ages street carnival that will play out from 3-8 p.m. Friday along Anderson Street in Portland’s East Bayside neighborhood with classical music, a giant puppet parade, maker spaces for kids, a drag show and community dance.
The free community party is the largest event of the 10-day Portland Bach Experience festival, which includes five salon-style concerts, two traditional concerts, a musical happy hour, events for kids and families, the festival’s popular Bach and Beer party, which this year moves outdoors at Urban Farm Fermentory, and the Suite Ride through Portland, with musicians performing Bach’s cello suites outdoors through the city.
Emily Isaacson conducting during a prior performance. This year’s Portland Bach Experience includes several concerts in Portland and Brunswick. Portland Bach Experience
Isaacson hopes Friday’s block party feels like a welcome-back celebration. Founded in 2017, Portland Bach Experience was canceled last year because of the pandemic.
“The carnival concert and community celebration embodies what the Portland Bach Experience is all about, which is bringing classical music to unexpected places and pairing it with unexpected things,” she said. “We are using music to bring the community together again and to highlight what this community is all about.”
Friday’s festival will be held along Anderson Street, with performances throughout the afternoon by Ballet Bloom Project, Bunny Wonderland and Kitty Willow, 240 Strings, Horizon Voices and Stages Youth Theater.
Running with Scissors, Maine Home + Design Kids, A Company of Girls, Love Lab Studios, Portland Pottery, and Aikido of Maine are participating, and Blue Lobster Urban Winery, Goodfire Brewing Co., Eighteen Twenty Wines, Lone Pine Brewing and Urban Farm Fermentory will have their tasting rooms open.
The idea is to mingle and sample. There will be maker-spaces for kids, beer tents for adults. Music and performance will come in bite-sized vignettes, like appetizers or a big scoop of ice cream. Anderson Street will be open to traffic during the festival, and activities will occur along the sidewalks and parking lots between Urban Farm Fermentory and Running With Scissors.
The festival opens at 3 p.m. and music starts at 3:30 with musicians from the Portland Bach Experience distilling music and scenes from “The Fairy Queen,” an opera based on Shakespeare’s “A Midsummer Night’s Dream,” into small segments. Giant puppets from the Shoestring Theater will lead a parade of wood nymphs and fairies at 5:30, there’s a Fairy Queen drag show with orchestral accompaniment at 6, and the evening wraps up early with a dance party, starting at 7.
“I want people to come ready to celebrate,” Isaacson said. “Masks are encouraged. Costumes are encouraged. We have had one heck of a year, and we want people to come together and see each other maybe for the first time, to support one another, to cheer each other and marvel at great art.”
The Portland Bach Experience will include concerts for kids at 10 a.m. and 2:30 p.m. at Little Giant, 211 Danforth St., Portland. Portland Bach Experience
The festival continues mostly in Portland and Brunswick through June 20. It begins on Thursday, with the Handel Happy Hour from 5-6 p.m. at Little Giant on Danforth Street. “A Suite Ride Through Portland,” 9 a.m. to noon Saturday, presents Bach’s cello suites at locations across Portland: at 9 a.m. on the Western Prom, musicians will perform while serenading a yoga class; at 10 a.m. at Payson Park, they will play for the farmers market; and at 11 a.m., they will be at Fort Allen to provide music for guides meditation.
At 7 p.m. Saturday, musicians and dancers will livestream “The Fairy Queen” from the Sanford Performing Arts Center on YouTube, and the performance will be available to watch later on demand. The festival moves north to Brunswick for a Sunday brunch concert at 10 a.m. at the Brunswick Hotel, “The Golden Age of England,” with music by English composers performed by Sonja Tengblad and the Guts Baroque duo.
Cove Street Arts will host a salon concert with music from 18th-century France at 6 p.m. Wednesday, June 16, and Urban Farm Fermentory hosts “Bach and Beer” outdoors at 5 p.m. Thursday, June 17. Musicians will perform Bach’s Double Violin Concerto at 7 p.m. June 18 at Woodfords Congregational Church in Portland and 7 p.m. June 19 at St. John the Baptist Church in Brunswick. The Brunswick Hotel hosts the Handel Happy Hour at 5 p.m. June 19, as well as the festival’s concluding brunch at 10 a.m. June 20.
Copy the Story LinkComments are not available on this story.
Send questions/comments to the editors.
